She turns when she feels me watching.
“You’re staring,” she says softly.
“I waited a long time to,” I answer.
She smiles at that—small, real—and crosses the room. When she reaches me, she slips her hands into the front of my shirt, palms warm, grounding.
Only then do I let myself breathe.
I pull her close and kiss her slowly, deliberately, like there’s nowhere else I need to be. Her body curves into mine without hesitation, familiar and still somehow new. The world narrows to heat, breath, the quiet sounds we make when no one is listening.
When we move to the bed, it’s unhurried. Open. Honest. Hands exploring what they already know, mouths tracing promises that don’t need words.
This isn’t escape.
It’s arrival.
Afterward, we lie tangled together, her head on my chest, my fingers tracing idle patterns along her spine. The ocean breathes in and out beyond the balcony like it’s keeping time for us.
She shifts slightly. “You’re thinking.”
“I always am.”
“Dangerous,” she murmurs.
“Only when I don’t say it.”
I reach the bedside table and pick up the small velvet box I’ve been carrying for three years. Since I knew this was the only woman for me.
Her breath catches when she sees it.
“Ronan…”
I prop myself up on one elbow, so I can see her face. Really see it.
“I don’t do maybes,” I tell her quietly. “I don’t do someday. I spent too long watching people I love get taken away.”
I open the box.
The ring is simple. Strong. Exactly her.
“I’m not waiting anymore,” I continue. “I love you. I want you beside me—in the quiet, in the storms, in every fight life throws at us.”
Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t cry.
She never does.
“You’re asking,” she says softly.
“I’m telling,” I correct, a smile tugging at my mouth. “We’re getting married. Say yes anyway.”
She laughs then—soft, breathless—and leans up to kiss me before she answers.
“Yes,” she whispers. “A thousand times yes.”
I slide the ring onto her finger, my hand steady, my heart full in a way it’s never been.
She looks at it. Then at me.
