“Youhave to prepare for a war.”
His head slanted. “You’ll still be right by my side, Peach. Just in a different way this time.” Before I could voice my protest at that, he pushed up higher on his arm to lean closer. His lips a teasing breath from mine when he added, “Thistime. The only place I want you, when you’re ready, is fighting by my side.”
I drew in a breath and held it for a few seconds before exhaling with a nod. Reaching up, I lightly touched his jaw, knowing he’d close the rest of the distance between us, and was rewarded with his lips against mine.
Like every other kiss we’d shared since I’d fully woken in the hospital, there was an intoxicating level of desperation that made my heart race, yet somehow, there was a slowness to it that was tender and pure. As if Gray had found the delicate balance between experiencing the rush of a life that was about to be cut short, and enjoying the unhurried, quiet moments of a life that was expected to stretch on forever.
Gently nipping my bottom lip, he placed another kiss to the same place before reaching for where I’d secured my hand in his hair at some point. “How do you feel about your last name?”
“What?” I asked, still embarrassingly in a daze from the kiss.
Curling his fingers around mine, he pulled them away and pressed his mouth to my palm before letting my hand fall to my chest. “Your name. How do you feel about it? As much as you got a kick out of everyone calling me by your last name, you and I both know I only let that slide because I was afraid they wouldn’t let me stay in your room. Then it was just too late to start correcting them.”
I didn’t bother fighting my smile at that memory—the amusement that had grown closer to irritation every time one of the doctors or nurses had called himMr. Monroe. But I still found myself asking, “What is it you’re asking me, Gray?”
“That,” he rumbled. “What do you think of the last nameGray? Of taking it?”
I pretended to actually consider that and watched as a smile slowly stole across his face, because he already seemed to know what I would say. “Work would get confusing.”
“I have no doubt they’d still call you Monroe.”
“And you’d be okay with that?”
“Wouldn’t change that you’re mine,” he said without hesitation.
“And would I be, even if I said I liked my name?” I gently challenged, because I couldn’t help myself.
“Mallory, you’ve always been mine,” he claimed roughly. “If everything we did to keep us apart couldn’t change that, then a name won’t either.”
My head slowly dipped at the words as warmth spread through my veins. “And what do you think about the nameHudson?”
From the way his pale eyes flared and darkened, I had a feeling he liked it when I called him by his first name. Given the way my heart had tripped over itself far too many times when he’d started using my first name, I understood the reaction well.
But he just swallowed, the action slow and seeming to take effort before he lied, “I could get used to it.”
“You do that,” I muttered seriously, playing his game, “because I have no attachment to the nameMonroe. ButGray?” I let a small smile slip through. “You could say I’m strongly attached to that name.”
“Noted.” That soft smile greeting me, his dimples just barely whispering a hello. “And what about diamonds?” I must’ve made a face because Gray—Hudsonbarked out a laugh.
“You’ve been bragging about knowing me, and you just asked what I thought about diamonds?” I asked, my eyebrows drawing together in something close to disbelief and repulsion. “They’re impractical and useless and?—”
“And your dad’s the worst,” he said over me, his smile never once fading. “And Idoknow you.”
Just as I was about to argue that he really didn’t if he was bringing up diamonds, he lifted his hand, stealing my words and my breath as he produced a ring that was an endless circle of large, rectangular diamonds.
As if he’d known I’d only want a band and yet, he’d somehow known I might likemore,when even I hadn’t known that.
“If you hate it?—”
“I don’t,” I breathed as tears blurred my vision.
“Really, who knew you got emotional at all, let alone over diamonds?”
A breathless laugh left me. “Shut up.”
Lifting my left hand from where he’d let it fall to my chest earlier, he once again passed his mouth over my palm before sliding the ring onto my third finger, speaking as he did. “No second ceremony. No people. No second dress. But you did promise me the rest of time, Mrs. Gray, and I’m holding you to that.”
Blinking away the tears, I pulled my hand from his to curl it around his neck. The foreign object on my finger seeming to shine, even in the dull glow of the room, as I urged him closer. Just before his mouth met mine, I offered back the words he’d once said to me, “The world would need to tear me from you now.”
