Ever.
We walk down the corridor toward the source of the light, the glow getting warmer, fiercer, with each step we take.
Eventually, we walk through the door and I suck in a gasp, my eyes drinking in the scene.
Candles are laid all over the room, flickering warmly, each one on its own a tiny spot of light, but all of them joined together producing a swirling star of light. In the center of the room sits a bed covered in rose petals, the light making them shimmer like red metal.
“What—what is this?” I gasp.
“It’s our office,” he whispers, looping his arms around me from behind and laying his cheek against mine, skin on skin. “I haven’t furnished it yet, but I bought it yesterday. I was thinking it could be a place for us to write together. And it’s big enough that Gizmo and – later – our children can come and keep us company as we work.”
Something strange is happening to the candles.
They’re flickering in a surreal way, watery, and then I realize that tears are coursing down my cheeks.
Tanner lets go of me and I turn—
I gasp again, louder, a sob cracking at the back of my throat.
“Tess,” he says, looking up at me as he kneels on the floor, a velvet ring box in his hand. “I should have said this the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you. I love you more than I can put into words, which is a pretty big deal for me.”
I laugh through my tears, my chest soaring as tingles dance all over my body and soul.
“I love you too,” I whisper. “So much, Tanner. I was worried you didn’t feel the same way.”
His smirk twitches. “Of course I love you,” he growls passionately. “You’re everything I never knew I wanted … but which I knew I had to have the moment I saw you. You’re the only person who knows who I truly am. You’re my other half, already, and I can’t wait to grow and develop together, as one. I love you and I want – no, fuck that – I need to make that official. I need you to be my wife. So Tess White, will you make the happiest man in the world? Will you marry me?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I squeal, as he opens the ring box to reveal an elegant diamond, glittering in the candlelight, set within a majestic band.
His smile stretches wider as he lets the box drop and slides the ring onto my finger, the metal kissing my skin.
Then he leaps up and wraps his arms around me, crushing me in his protective embrace.
I squeal as he lifts me off my feet, carrying me over to the bed, our lips greedy and hungry in their desire to claim each other, again and again, to never stop claiming each other.
He falls over the top of me and then I place my hand on his chest, giving him the sort of sassy-as-hell look I never could’ve summoned before.
“Nah uh,” I say.
He smirks, head tilted. “It’s like that, is it?” he says, leaning back slightly.
“Yeah,” I grin, moving with him and then sliding atop him when he rolls onto his back, taking the lead, loving every second of it. “It’s like that.”
“Goddamn, I love you,” he whispers, his hands sliding up my thighs to brace my hips.
“I love you more.”
“Not possible, Tess,” he breathes, leaning up as I lean down, our kiss exploding somewhere in the middle.EpilogueTwo Weeks LaterTannerI sit at the desk in the office, the one that overlooks the city on the south facing wall, the sun shining down in ambient waves and causing a glittering sea to wink back up at me.
The world seems more beautiful from up here, but that feeling probably has something to do with Tess merrily tapping away at her keyboard from the other side of the room, the sound of her fingers on keys like chords struck in my chest, in my goddamned heart.
I never knew I had a heart until I met her.
I can’t stop smiling like a fool, even as I’m supposed to be editing some work for a creative writing exercise for the class.
I flip the pages, but then Gizmo comes running over, his little paws scraping at my chair leg.
“What is it, little man?” I grin, leaning down and picking him up, placing him on the desk.
Gizmo wanders up and down the desk like he does every time I place him up there, as though each time he’s expecting to encounter a new landscape and is always forgetting to be disappointed. Rather, he remains hopeful.
I fight the urge to turn and look at Tess, my body thrumming and growling with the thought of it.
Rule number one: no disturbing each other when we’re in the flow.