Donovan was on a knee in front of me. It was somewhat like I’d already asked of him, to be on a knee especially after I’d gotten the bullseye, I wasn’t going to let that go—but this was more than I imagined he’d ever give in to do. He was always incharge, and yet, I’d forced his hand. “I—I—” Heat rose up the sides of both cheeks. “Please don’t tell me this is a joke.”
He revealed a velvet black box and opened it up. Inside, there was a golden ring with small glittering opalescent stones. Blink in a certain angle of the light and you’d miss them. “Artemis Grey, will you marry me?”
“I—”
“You can sayno,” Donovan said with a smirk. “But if you did, I’d take that as a personal punishment. And I’d probably deserve it.”
I shook my head. “I will,” I said, through a gasp and a full body shiver. “I will marry you. I—I will.”
Donovan’s hand shook as he took the ring out and place it over my forefinger. “I was prepared for you to be a little sassy about it,” he whispered.
I tried to protest, but I wasn’t going to, I wanted this. His commitment was something my entire body had been craving, and now, he was giving it to me. “This means forever, you know that,” I told him.
“Of course,” he said. “I would’ve done this sooner, but I was far too worried about the world I’m in. Now, the world we’re both in.”
“So, you think I can handle myself?” I asked, giggling. “Because you know, I feel pretty sure I could’ve done that job today on my own.”
He pulled me back into his arms, holding me at the back and picking me up. He walked me to the wall and pressed my back against it, kissing my neck. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, baby,” I told him. “I love you, and that’s a dangerous thing to do. I’m gonna worry about you.”
“That’s why you were hard on me,” I said.
His slight laughter at the skin on my neck had my torso tensing up with my thighs pinching together around his waist.“I was hard on you because it’s what you needed,” he continued to whisper right against my neck and ear. “I did it because you desire to be tamed, and I know you’d only ever let me be your tamer.”
“Does that make you my owner?”
“Well, you’re already wearing a necklace I gave you, in some places, that’s considered a sign of ownership, so yeah, make of that what you will baby.” His scruffy facial hair tickled my neck to the point I was trying to give him those same tingles—my hands up his t-shirt, stroking over the remnants of lines I’d marked on his skin with my fingernails. I didn’t want to do that again, I just wanted to reminisce and hope they reminded him of what I could do. “You’ve been a good boy ever since,” he said, and now I was nail gripping his back, like he activated me with a simplegood boy. He knew what he was doing.
“You’re gonna make me do bad things,” I said.
“As long as you do them with my ring on your finger,” he whispered, now licking at my neck. “I want to get married as soon as possible. I want to really have you.”
“I want to have you more.”
He pulled his head away, his tongue out slightly from the way he’d been licking me. “You own me, I own you,” he said. “I like those terms.”
Pulling my knees in at his waist, he thrust forward. “Fuck me.”
“We’re only here to pack,” he said. “We have five minutes. Then we’ve gotta leave.”
I kissed him. “I can do five minutes.”
And we could, right there, against the wall. It didn’t take much, all the excitement from being newly engaged had my cock hard, to the point even a stiff breeze would’ve had my cumming a bucket. Although we didn’t have much time toshower afterwards, which was fine, we had a sink, some soap, and an timer going that ended with a knock at the door.
26. DONOVAN
Proposing wasn’t supposed to happen like that. I’d wanted it to happen on a rooftop somewhere, in fact, we’d talked about it before—a drunk night on bottles of champagne. We’d spoken about how he wanted people around to congratulate him, and free dessert. He’d always go on about free dessert, pretend it was his birthday constantly for those sparkle candles that made me feel like I was on a building site with welders.
We didn’t have much to pack. He didn’t arrive with much, and I never left much here. Mercy handed up two individual boxes before we left. They had new cell phones, which I knew they had bugged, so they were nice for scrap, and each one with passports, fake IDs, papers for off-shore banks, and debit cards to local banks. Included in one of them, was the deed to a house in Maine. It was off the beaten track, a cabin with acres of land around it. It wasn’t Vermont, but it was out there. Finally, my car, it was a nice SUV. I hadn’t been in it for a while, and again, probably bugged by Sanctum to know my every movement. I didn’t care, but I hated being followed and traced.
At the port gate, surrounded by other agents arriving and leaving. Our fairies stood behind Mercy. Jinksy and Finley. We’d see them again soon enough, I was sure of that, this was a temporary leave of absence, a honeymoon before the wedding, as Mercy put it.
“Invite me to the wedding,” Mercy said. “I don’t care where you’re at. I want to be there. And we’ll give this a year.” She nodded and smiled at us. Art wasn’t paying any attention at all, looking through the boxes with excitement. Mostly analyzing the area of land we now owned in Maine.
“We’ll make sure to invite you,” Donovan said. “I fear he’s going to be a bridezilla about the whole thing.”
She laughed. “Marzia was too. And since the two of you are together, I hope it grounds you both. I don’t want reports of any reckless behavior, Don. And no vigilante shit fromhim.” Art was out of it, the conversation didn’t apply to him since he was looking at all the paper with money amounts on them. “And no paper trail,” she said. “Get that shit locked away, memorized, and if possible, leave no hard copies.”
“I know protocol,” I told her. “I have one question though. What’s going to happen?”
