Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
I pull away and blink at her, lost until she bursts out laughing.
Between kisses, we laugh, dragging my mouth along her temple.
“I would’ve deserved it. Glad you held off on melting my skin.”
“Me too!” Her hands tighten in my hair as she rocks against me again. “…are you that hard?”
“Weeks without you, Hattie. It’s practically a state of being.”
She laughs brightly, and goddamn, do I savor it.
I never thought I’d win that laugh back.
“So will you?” I whisper. “Will you marry me?”
“Ethan.” Her voice breaks around my name. “Yes! You know I will.”
“Thank fuck,” I breathe, pulling her back in for another sweltering kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she says, sniffing back tears. “I thought for sure you didn’t. Or if you did, I never thought you’d say it.”
I smooth the hair back from her face.
“I did my idiot best not to. But I was lying to myself. I was scared what loving you would mean. Not anymore. This life with you—that’s all I’ll ever need.”
She looks at me with her chin tilted down, green eyes shining from under those long lashes.
“Then let’s do it. Let’s do everything!”
I kiss her giddy little soul out again until a loud whistle from behind us snaps me out of my trance.
Margot holds up four coffees in a cardboard carrier.
“Holy smokes. Good thing I went with iced coffee when I made the caffeine run.”
Hattie stiffens on my lap.
I tighten my hold on her.
Partly to hide my raging hard-on, partly because I don’t want her going anywhere. Not when she’s found her way back to me.
“Since you’re interrupting like usual, we have an announcement,” I say.
Margot isn’t listening. She sets the coffee down on the empty space next to us and pulls out two. She turns and hands one to Julia. I blink in surprise.
“Oh, right. Mom was with us when we drove down,” Hattie explains, her hands still laced around my neck. “She was just finding somewhere to park. Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetie,” Julia says.
She’s not as brash as usual, hanging back and accepting the coffee. Her eyes, the same forest green as Hattie’s, flit to me and away again.
I clear my throat awkwardly, wondering if I owe her an apology too. But Pages shoots first.
“Mom, we’re engaged again! For real this time,” she squeals and I smile. There’s raw amusement in her eyes as she looks at me. “He apologized and asked me to marry him and I said yes.”
Margot’s eyes light up. She gulps her coffee, probably to avoid spraying it out her nose.
“Holy crap. You made him grovel, right?” She wrinkles her nose. “Also, this coffee tastes burned.”
“Could’ve warned you,” I say.
“He was on his hands and knees. So unbelievably sweet,” Hattie gushes.
My face heats.
It might be mortifying, but if this is what it takes to have my woman back, I’d pay the price ten thousandfold.
I slide a possessive hand along her hip. “The only woman who could ever reduce me to begging.”
“That’s beautiful,” Margot says dryly, but she can’t stop the incoming smile. “It’s about time. Both of you. Especially you, Ethan.”
Julia sniffs, and it’s her turn for the tears to come in hot.
“Are you sure, though? It’s so sudden,” she asks Hattie.
And even though she’s already said yes, I still feel myself tensing as I watch Hattie’s face. But her smile could make the sun jealous.
“Mom, yes!” She strokes my hair, trailing her finger down along the stubble dusting my jaw. “I’m more sure about this than the first time I opened Harry Potter. And that’s really really sure. Like so certain you could—”
I don’t let her finish.
I just kiss her again, in front of her mom and my sister and the entire universe.
I kiss her to show our minds are made up, and my days of self-inflicted catastrophes are over.
27
ALL JUST WHISPERS (HATTIE)
“You’re sure you want to do this?” I whisper into the darkness.
“Positive.
“Like this isn’t just the lack of sleep talking?” I stare at him in awe, still a little dazed from the best two days of makeup sex humanly possible.
“Hattie.” He growls my name, pinning me under him, giving me that blue-eyed stare that says he’s never been more sure.
I inhale sharply as he kisses me again.
“If we’re going to bury the past, then I’m sticking a damn fork in it. How could I ever leave myself open to another asshole like Daley coming in for the blackmail kill? How could I do that to us?”
I’m frowning, even though having him over me, sexy and sheltering, makes me the happiest woman alive.
“Does it have to be today? Can’t you take a few more days off to rest? Maybe regroup and talk to a lawyer first?”
“One nap. Then I’m getting my ass out of this bed and heading to the police station.”
Oh, boy.
My heart thuds in my chest, drumming with fear.