Page 109 of Wedlocked

He was quiet a moment, and then I heard him swallow thickly. Against my cheek, his chest expanded then deflated. Just as I was about to lift my head and ask him what was wrong, he palmed it, keeping it anchored against him.

“That’s what I want,” he said, voice quiet. “I want you and me in a world of our own. I want it more than anything.”

I smiled.

“I don’t want it just tonight, though, Landry,” he said, shifting around. His hand went under the blanket.

I lifted my face. “Jay?”

His fist was wrapped around something when he slid from beneath the blanket and off the bench…

And onto one knee right in front of me.

My heart soared and my stomach dropped, my organs flying off in completely different directions. My lungs just froze, forgetting the need to breathe.

The hope I’d felt and squashed earlier rose so fast and so defiantly that there was absolutely no hope of shoving it back down.

I sat there stunned, mind and body, trying desperately and failing for a logical explanation besides a proposal for this man, this man of my dreams, to be on one knee before me.

“Landry,” Jason said, opening his fist to produce a black velvet box.

All the oxygen my lungs had been hoarding rushed out of me, and I pressed my hand to my lips. My eyes were blurry, and I let loose a shaky breath.

Fuck logic.

“If this isn’t what I think it is right now…” I started, eyes straying to that black box.

“You lured me in, little siren.” His voice was soft but filled the entire gondola, mixing with the flickering candlelight and more lulling than the swaying lift. “Lured me away from the darkest time of my life with those life-saturated eyes and into a life I want to keep.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed with his swallow as he fumbled with the lid of the box. He glanced up, cheeks pink. “I’m a little nervous.”

A tear fell over my lash line and rolled right down my cheek.

The hinges on the box creaked, and my lips rolled in.

His arm extended, the box in his palm pushing closer to me. “I want this life with you. I don’t want anything else. Marry me,Landry. Asking for your life is a big deal, but I’m offering mine to you in return.”

I let out a sob and flung myself off the bench and into his arms. He fell back with a muffled oomph, and his low laughter vibrated his chest. I cried, clutching his shirt, bunching it in my fists.

“You really asked me to marry you,” I wailed.

It was not my finest moment, but how did a girl keep her wits about her when she was being offered forever?

“I told you I would.”

“I thought you’d drag it out to torture my father.”

He laughed. “This isn’t about Emmett. This is about you and me. I’d never torture you, baby. Besides, I’m far too impatient to make you permanently mine.”

I sniffled.

He wrapped his arms around me and didn’t even complain we were squished at weird angles on the floor of this gondola. Good thing he’d put down a rug.

“Your dad gave his blessing.”

I planted my palm in his chest and pushed up. “Really?”

“Those are my bones,” he said, grimacing.

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