This was it.
I didn’t know what I’d do if she wasn’t on the same page as me, but she deserved to know exactly how I felt.
“You know it was six months ago today that you pulled your pepper spray on me in the kitchen?” I said.
She laughed. “The day I learned about your naked coffee ritual.”
I nudged her with my elbow. “You’ve had no issue stripping me in that kitchen since then.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“Hey,” I said, my heart starting to thud harder, “since it’s our sort of anniversary, would you wear somethingspecial for me tonight?”
Her eyebrows slowly rose. “I’m trying to picture you in a lingerie store and failing.”
I laughed, though it came out higher than usual.
Damn it, I really was nervous.
“Not lingerie. You know I barely have the patience for undoing your regular bra hooks, let alone all that lacy, strappy stuff.”
“Then what did you have in mind?”
I shoved my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the metal band. I pulled it out and opened my hand to reveal the small ring lying in my palm.
She had told me once that Chad had given her a big, flashy gold ring, something she’d secretly hated for being too much. Because of that, I’d chosen silver. Simple and uncomplicated with one small addition.
Her hands flew to her mouth as her eyes darted between the ring and me. “Grant…”
“Hang on,” I blurted. “Let me do this right.”
I shifted until I was down on one knee, my joints loudly reminding me that I was over forty and had spent the day before hiking through the bush.
For her, I didn’t care.
“I spent a long time thinking I was better off alone,” I said. “Turns out I was just waiting for you. This—us—feels like exactly where I’m supposed to be. When we found out Walt might’ve set this up, we worried that what we felt wasn’t real. But being with you feels too right, and the idea of losing you feels too wrong for this to be anything but forever. I want to marry you, Kara. I want you and Tuck to be my family, not because Walt wanted it, but because we choose each other every damned day.”
She dropped to the floor in front of me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “That was romantic as hell, Grant. Of course I’ll marry you.”
I slid the ring onto her finger and then pushed her gently onto her back.
We were laughing and kissing, then our hands started to roam. “Now,” I murmured against her lips, “I want to see you wearing only the ring.”
Heat sparked in her eyes as she reached for the zipper of her hoodie and tugged it down. My heart rate spiked. There wasn’t a single thing about her that I could ever get tired of. Piece by piece, we stripped until there was nothing left between her bare skin and mine.
“Tell me what you want,” I said, peppering kisses along her bare skin.
“I want you to make me come,” she said, rocking her hips up into me, “but I also want to make you come.”
I grabbed her arms and rolled us so I was on my back and she lay across my chest. “Turn around.”
She cocked an eyebrow.
“Straddle my face, babe. Facing my feet.”
Understanding flashed in her eyes as she shifted until we were aligned in sixty-nine. The view was something else. I could see the perfect globes of her ass cheeks, smell her excitement, the weight of her breasts was pillowed against my lower stomach. I was fully hard already and we’d barely gotten started.
“We’ve never done this before,” she said, then I felt the heat of her tongue lick me from base to tip, before sucking lightly on the head.
