Page 118 of Rise of a Fallen Man

“Together, Salas...” she moaned, rolling her head on the table.

“Yes, sweetheart. Always together.” I slid inside her with a thrust that pressed my ridge to her clit.

She gripped my shirt as I thrust harder, making the table shake and shift. Tossing her head back, her thighs trapping me in a vise, she came around my cock so hard, her moans probably could be heard all the way at the bus stop, and I finally let it go too.

Pleasure burst through my veins as my release filled her. Sex with her was incomparable to anything I’d ever experienced. I could stay like this forever, with our bodies merged and our souls connected.

With her hair spread over the table, her top down to her waist and her cheeks blushing, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I flicked her nose with mine. “I could eat you, instead of the pie. All night long.”

She remained serious, however, gazing at me intently.

“Marry me, Salas,” she said, breathlessly.

Marry me.

Just a few months ago, I didn’t dare dream of ever hearing these words from her. Ari always treated me like an equal. Iknew we belonged together, but there was a world where I would never be accepted as her husband.

She stirred under me uneasily, probably concerned by my silence.

“I know you deserve a better proposal,” she said. “I was going to do it properly, in a nice place somewhere...”

“Ari,” I shifted off her, “I don’t care for grand gestures. But if you ever return to Rorrim... Your marriage with me would never be accepted there.”

“I’m not going back.” She sat up. “Even if there was a way, I’m not going back to the place where you can lose your life or your freedom. You proved to me that happiness is real. I refuse to live without it now. I refuse to live without you.” Taking my face between her hands, she ran her thumbs over my cheekbones. “Will you be my husband, Salas?”

A ripple of vulnerability ran through her expression as she waited for my reply. As if I would ever refuse her.

“I feared you’d never ask.” I smiled.

“Is that a yes?” Her eyes lit up with hope. “Please say yes.”

“Of course it’s a yes, sweetheart. How can it be anything else?”

She hugged my neck with a puff of relieved breath against my skin.

I reached over to the wooden jewelry box inlaid with mosaic from ironed straw. The beauty of having a small kitchen was that everything in it was within arm’s reach.

“I made something for us.” I took out a matching pair of rings from the box. “By this world’s tradition, both a man and a woman wear a wedding ring, right?”

“In thiscountry, yes, they both wear one, on their right ring fingers.”

I opened my hand, displaying the silver bands I’d made in my workshop between working on orders.

She gasped in delight. “You made them?”

“I did. For both of us.”

I was a blacksmith, not a jeweler, but I was proud of how the bands turned out. I even managed to etch a design in the silver. I kept it simple, borrowing the cross-stitch pattern from the shirt that Ari gave me as a gift back in Rorrim.

“It’s gorgeous.” She took the smaller ring and lifted it to her eyes, inspecting the design. “That’s the embroidery on your shirt, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “It seems like all life-altering events happened to me lately while I wore that shirt. And you’ve been with me for all of them. I figured it was fitting.”

“There is an engraving inside too.” She looked closely and read,“You are my happy place.”

“You said it to me, remember?” Of course she did. It was clear from her expression that she never forgot those words. “You have become my happy place, too, Ari.”

Her eyes glistened with tears behind her glasses. She sniffled softly and quickly buried her nose in the side of my neck.

My Ari was the strongest woman I knew. Her emotions were just as strong, too, powerful enough to transcend worlds.

I cradled her in my arms, kissing her hair.

“I can’t wait to marry you, sweetheart.”

“You are my happy place, Salas,” she murmured against my skin.

“And you are mine.”

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