Page 349 of A Matter of Time

“Sam, what if being with me is hard on you? On your career?”

“J, I’m not expecting it to be any other way.”

“Yeah, but⁠—”

“I don’t give a shit. I want everyone to know you belong to me. That’s the most important thing.”

A knock on the door drew our attention. Aja poked her head into the room.

“You guys need to come back out here.”

“Be right there,” Sam assured her.

She smiled at us both before she closed the door.

I turned to leave, but Sam caught my shoulder and stepped around in front of me.

“What?”

“So will you have me? Will you marry me?”

Such a simply spoken question that I had never thought to hear. Being gay, I’d figured marriage wasn’t an option for me. All my friends thought it was something stupid that never worked out, that only straight people did. It was a heterosexual, not a homosexual agenda. I had never had an opinion past it not affecting me one way or another. But into my life had come a very traditional man who’d never once not thought of marriage as a milestone in his life. Even with our many talks about how his life wouldn’t be like he had imagined, he still held fast to the idea that he would be a husband.

“Jory?”

I stared up into his eyes.

“You want me down on one knee?”

I shook my head.

“At the hospital, the doctors were explaining to Dane what they were doing with you. If you’d been really hurt, they would’ve asked him to make decisions about you. I hated that. Just standing there like I was invisible… I want to be the person that decides. I want to be the only one they let in if you’re ever hurt. I want to be your husband.”

My eyes blurred, and I felt tears on my cheeks.

“So whaddya say?”

I assumed it was a given. Of course I would marry him. I would do anything with him he ever wanted.

“J?”

I was completely overwhelmed; any words were out of the question.

“Aww, babe,” he said, hands on my face before he bent and kissed me.

My arms wrapped around his neck, and I kissed him back with everything I felt but couldn’t say.

He clutched me tight, breaking the kiss to smile against my mouth. “So what’s your answer?”

“Yes, Sam.”

“Yes, Sam, what?”

I took a deep breath as I stared up into his eyes. “Yes, Sam Kage, I will marry you.”

His scowl was instant. “Jesus, that was, like, the longest goddamn minute of my life.”

I laughed at him as he grabbed me and kissed me breathless.