Page 74 of The Inevitable Us

It’safterlunchbythe time I’m finally done with my interview. Rosalie is sullen and quiet for the rest of the night, not quite meeting my gaze. She goes over to help Taylee with the dogs, but comes back reporting that Taylee was caring for the dogs perfectly fine on her own, but that one of the cushions on the sofa in the guest house would never be the same.

“It’s not a madhouse?”

“Nope, ran as well as it is when the caretakers are there. She can’t walk all of them of course right now, so she’s going into the yard and throwing tennis balls with them.”

“Huh.”

“I know, Jay said he’s barely done any of the work either.”

Those are the last words I’ve gotten out of her.

Dinner had been sedate and quiet, with Rory popping in with Nevaeh for a quick bite. It was the only time since the interview I’ve seen Rosalie smile. What the fuck did they say to her in that room? I’ll fucking kill them if they upset her somehow.

After they interview Rosalie and me, they execute a search warrant on the ranch, Keaton’s home, and after finding new evidence, Jackson’s apartment. The pictures are eventually located, as well as a third note. The paper and pen used to write the notes are found inside Jackson’s home, the stolen pictures of us in Keaton’s. They’re still going through their computers, but it looks as if there’s more than enough to convict both of them. They’re arrested our second morning in Nashville, and we decide to leave early to drive back to Knoxville.

The trip takes slightly less time than the drive to Nashville since we only stop once.

Halfway there, I call Rosalie on her shit. “What is going on with you?”

Her face crumples “I feel like it’s my fault,” she says. “All of it.”

“All of what?” I ask, confused.

“The disruption to so many lives, two men in jail, all because I threw myself at you over and over and over again.”

“Wait, you blame yourself for all of this? Rosalie, you didn’t make them steal those pictures, or write those notes.”

“I know, but…” she says. “NobutsRosalie. I won’t let you blame yourself for this.”

She keeps working her lip, thinking.

“Rosalie, we were always, always going to end up together one way or another. Those men? They just chose to take advantage of it. I won’t let you blame yourself for something you can’t help. This? Us? It was inevitable.”

Her eyes welled up with tears. “You really do feel that way?”

“Yes, yes I do,” I say, kissing her hand.

After dropping Taylee and the dogs off at the ranch, we finally spend our first night together in our new home.

Wrappeduptogetherinour pajamas our second night in our new home, I propose under the twinkle lights of the Christmas tree Rosalie had insisted on putting up that day. “Marry me?” I ask as we sit together on the den carpet looking up at the tree we’d just finished putting up. She smiles at me, looking down at the black velvet box.

“You’re insane,” she says with wide eyes. “It’s only been four and a half months.”

“Marry me,” I demand, my lips going to hers.

“Still insane,” she laughs.

My nose trails down her neck as I breathe in her scent.

“Say yes,” I demand again before pulling her top over her head.

“Absolutely certifiable,” she answers back. When my lips go to her nipple, circling with my tongue, she gasps in pleasure. I cup the other breast in my hand and rub the nipple with my thumb. She’s already growing damp, squirming under my touch.

I kiss down her stomach, pulling down her pajama pants before I start to lick her up and down slowly, tantalizing. My hands go to her hips, and I grip firmly as I lick and suck until she starts to tense and moan with her orgasm.

Pulling down the elastic of my pajama pants, I rub her clit as I gently glide my way into her.

I thrust in and out slowly waiting to feel the familiar tightening of her pussy around my cock when she orgasms. She moans out my name, coming on my dick before I come too with one hard deep thrust deep inside of her.

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