Page 337 of Under Her Skin
“You’ll just have to open it and find out.” He sets the box down right in front of me. “Here you go, ma’am. Havefun.”
“So, should I just rip into it or what? Is the thing inside breakable? Or alive? Should I be very careful?” I ask, as I have no idea how to go about getting to the contents of the largebox.
“Just start pulling the wrapping paper off and go from there, Delaney.” He stands there, watching me with a big, old smile on his handsomeface.
I shred one large piece of reindeer-covered paper at a time until I get to the box. Opening the top of it, I find another present inside. Pulling that one out, I give him a quizzical look and find that smile still plastered on his face. “Okay, Blaine, what are you doinghere?”
“Just keep unwrapping, baby. You’ll get theresoon.”
This box is wrapped a little better. It has nice snowflake-covered wrapping paper and a large, white bow on top. And when I get to the box top, I open that and find yet another wrapped box. “Blaine?”
“Just keep going,” he says, with what’s going into a goofysmile.
I unwrap the plain, red paper-covered box with a black bow on top and find a ton of black tissue paper inside of it. “Finally, the realgift.”
At the very bottom is another box. This one is small and expertly wrapped in black, velvety cloth and tied up with a pretty, silky, red ribbon. As I pull the ribbon to untie it, I catch Blaine biting his lip out of the corner of myeye.
Inside, I find a little, black box and notice Blaine going down on one knee in front of me. As I open the lid, he says, “Delaney Leeann Richards, I’d like to ask you an important question tonight. The ring inside of that box is a token to remind you that you are loved. You are loved more than you will ever know, and I am the one who is giving you that love. In return for the love I give you, I’m asking you to give yourself to me. I want to make you mine forever. I want to make you the part of me that’s been missing. Delaney, will you marryme?”
The word is stuck in my throat under a knot that’s grown there. The ring is exquisite. There’s a large diamond in what looks like a platinum setting. Small diamonds encircle the large one in the middle. It looks like it cost a fortune, and I’m overwhelmed by it and the fact this gorgeous man is actually asking me to marryhim.
I feel the tears falling down my face and then his hands are on my cheeks, wiping them away. “Well?”
I nod and choke out, “Yes. Yes, Blaine, I’ll marry you.” Sobs come out of my mouth for reasons I can’t comprehend. I’ve never been so happy that I’ve cried before. It’s an oddfeeling.
Blaine takes the box out of my shaking hand and takes the ring out of it. Steadying my left hand, he slides the ring onto my finger, and I feel the weight of it—a weight that will remind me that I am not an ‘I’ anymore. I am part of a ‘we.’
I’m pulled up and hugged and my heart is pounding. This isreal!
I’m going to marry abillionaire!
I am going to marry the man I never, in a million years, ever thought I’d even meet. He was our enemy, and now I will be hiswife!
Shock is moving through me, slowing my tears and my heart rate. “I love you,” I tell him, then kiss hisneck.
“And I love you, baby.” He takes my arms and holds me back to look at me. “And you and I will soon be a family. I have one more thing to askyou.”
Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I ask, “What would thatbe?”
“I want to forgo the condom and start trying to have a baby. I want to starttonight.”
“Wow! I mean, wow! Um, uh, that’s a lot to thinkabout.”
With a sexy smile, he says, “You just committed your entire life to me. I think a baby is small potatoes to that, don’tyou?”
“No,” I say as I shake my head. “Blaine, that really is a big step. I don’t know about that justyet.”
Taking my pajama shirt by the lapels, he pulls me close to him and starts to unbutton it. His knuckles graze my naked breasts as he pushes the shirt open, then off my shoulders. It lands on the floor with a soft sound, then he hooks his thumbs into the elastic waist of the pajama bottoms and pushes them down too, leaving me naked in front ofhim.
Taking my hand, he leads me back to the blanket on the floor in front of the fireplace and tosses a pillow off the sofa onto it. He moves me to lie down on the blanket and props my head up on the pillow. Then he stands back up and unbuttons his shirt, revealing a bit of his muscular torso a little at a time. The way the fire and Christmas lights bounce off his perfect body has me mesmerized. When his PJ bottoms hit the floor, my eyes are drawn to hiserection.
At this point, he’d usually be putting on a condom, somewhat discreetly. But he’s not doing that, and as a matter of fact, I did not hear the tell-tale sounds of one in the pocket of hispajamas.
My eyes must be telling him what I’m thinking as he says, “I threw them allout.”
“You were pretty sure of yourself,” I tell him as I give no hint of what I feel aboutthat.
“I want to see a version of us running around this house. I want to see your tummy swollen with that little version of us. Aren’t you curious at all about who we’ll createtogether?”
