Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Chapter
Twenty-Five
My ears were failing me. They had to be.
The lunatic with his palm molded to my hip just looked at me. He rubbed his thumb along the bone there, his face straight. His head dipped so close I could count his eyelashes if I tried. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Yes, Henri.’”
What was this voice he was using? Where was it coming from? Did he have recessive mermaid genes in him I didn’t know about?
I…. “What?” I snarled… or squeaked, it could have been either considering I didn’t know how I felt. Not when we’d been arguing two minutes ago, and I’d thought we’d been on the verge of drawing a final line in the sand once and for all.
Now? I wasn’t even sure there was sand.
“‘Yes, Henri’ was the response I was looking for,” Henri said, his expression so serious. More serious than I might have ever seen him before. “I’d take you giving me a hug too.”
I tilted my head even further back, taking in all his features, thinking about what in the universe had just come out of his mouth… and then I dropped my forehead forward so hard and fast, it practically bounced off the layers of skin and bone of his sternum. It hurt.
But I was in too much shock to feel pain. And for some reason, my forehead didn’t want to go anywhere. It stayed right where it was, on his chest. “You want me to… marry you? Is that what you just said?” I asked the spot on his body between his pectoral muscles.
“Almost word for word,” he confirmed.
“What the…?” I blew out a breath before sucking another one back in. My mind spinning. “Why are you suddenly offering?” I reared back. “Why are you telling me this now?”
His eyebrow went up his signature millimeter. “Which question do you want me to answer first?” Apparently Teasing Henri was making an appearance from his tone and the glint in his orangey-brown eyes.
“I don’t know!”
He laughed so softly I felt it more than I heard it. Thumbs rubbed circles on my hip bones, the skin callused, and I had no business enjoying his touch so much. “Well, you made it really clear several times. You need someone to marry you, and I’m sure as hell not letting you marry somebody else,” Henri had the nerve to murmur.
This was not, not how I could have, or would have, ever pictured this day, much less this moment happening. Even my ears didn’t know what to do with themselves because they started ringing. I might have even lost my balance there for a second. Maybe they were more than a little in shock at what they’d just stood witness to. My forehead went back to that spot between his pecs. “You… want to marry… me?” I asked his chest, not trusting myself to have this conversation with his face. “Why? Why now?”
We’d already had the conversation that I didn’t need to rush into anything. That I should wait until my three months were up to start figuring things out. That was what he’d suggested. Strongly suggested, damn it. And we were close to the three months, but we weren’t there yet.
Warm, solid pressure landed on the back of my head, and I shivered, but that time it was at the smell of him, the feel and strength he emanated. Part of me expected him to give me a reason or two why he was offering to tie himself to me for the rest of his life. Because he thought I was brave or loyal or… something nice.
But instead, Henri’s finger tipped my chin up, and he looked me dead in the eye, to say, “Why wouldn’t I want to?”
My pride was the only reason my knees didn’t buckle.
The same hand that had touched the skin beneath my chin seconds ago went to my shoulder, and he palmed that body part too. “Is that a ‘yes’?”
“You brushed me off every time I’ve brought this up before,” I reminded him, thinking of the roller coaster—a children’s roller coaster to be fair—he’d put me on. “And now you’re asking me to mate with you? I don’t even… I don’t even know who your parents are! Or where they are! Or anything about your family. Really, every single one of you is so guarded talking about it. You said you grieved someone once, and I don’t know who that was. I don’t even know who raised you, or how Matti’s dad and everyone else could have just… left you here to deal with all this by yourself.”
That was something that had been on my mind from time to time the longer I was here. How they could have all just left him with his huge burden without looking back. I knew Matti inside and out, and in my heart, I knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t have abandoned Henri just like that. But that didn’t feel like a conversation my best friend and I could have over the phone.