needed? His strong arms around her, his love filling her up?
“Just tomorrow?” She pouted as he nibbled on her neck.
He pulled her against him, his hard length pressing eagerly, temptingly, against her belly. His chest hair tickled her skin as she said, “I was kind of hoping you’d love me into at least next week.”
“Fuck next week, babe. I want forever.” He lifted her onto the bed, coming down over her. “I’m thinking about putting my house on the market.”
In his eyes she saw more than the pulsing heat between them, and his words finally registered. “You’re moving?”
“There’s that y-word again.” He kissed her smiling lips and said, “You need to be near the shop, and Bea and I need to be near you.”
“You want to move in over the shop? For good?”
“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of for better or for worse.”
Her heart leapt. “Ben . . . ? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Aurelia, baby, I have loved you my whole life, and I will love you long after my last days on this earth. I don’t have a ring, and I’ve never claimed to have good timing, but my love for you is endless. Marry me, Relsy, and I promise I’ll give you the world. And I’ll try to work on my timing.”
“Oh, Ben! It’s our timing, and it’s perfect.” She hugged him tighter, clinging to him like a monkey to a tree as she kissed his lips, his cheeks, and his lips again.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes!” She couldn’t suppress her smile, or the urge to tease him, as she said, “If you make me come once before our baby girl gets up, it’s a yes. Twice, and it’s a hell yes.”
“Oh, babe,” he said, pressing the head of his cock to her entrance. “Don’t underestimate your man.”
He pushed into her slowly, and she felt every inch of his thick length filling her body with the same intensity with which his love filled her heart, and with a glimmer of promise in his eyes, he asked, “What’ll four times get me?”
“Eternity . . .”
EPILOGUE
“I CAN’T BELIEVE it’s finally happening,” Aurelia said as she looked in the mirror for the hundredth time in the last half hour, fidgeting with the ribbons in her hair, which was pinned up, with a few sexy tendrils framing her face.
“You’ve worked hard for this, babe, and it’s going to be magnificent.”
Ben hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her all morning as she rushed around their apartment, dressing and preparing for the grand opening of Chapter One. She was adorable, and beautiful, and she was his. It had been a month since Ben had proposed, and three weeks since he’d moved into the apartment above the bookstore. Thinking of visits with Flossie, holidays with Ben’s big family, and adding to their own family in the future, they decided to hold on to Ben’s house in Sweetwater. They’d had to delay the grand opening of the bookstore because of a broken water pipe and then had delayed it again when Caroline passed away. But his beautiful, bighearted fiancée hadn’t complained. She’d said if she’d learned one thing over the last several weeks, it was that life was full of unexpected obstacles and celebrations, and their plans needed to be fluid.
Aurelia twirled in her Empire-waist dress.
“You’re stunning,” he said, stepping behind her. His arms circled her waist, and he pressed a kiss to her shoulder. The charms on the necklace he’d given her shimmered in the lights. “Are you sure you don’t want to wear a necklace that’s more appropriate for the era?”
She smiled at him in the mirror, touching the silver charms. “I’ve never taken this off, and I never plan to.” She turned in his arms and looked at his frilly shirt and black tailcoat. “Mr. Darcy has nothing on you. Thank you for dressing up.”
She’d decided to do a reading from Pride and Prejudice for the opening. Everly, Lazarus, and Hollis were also dressing up as their favorite literary characters. Ben and Aurelia had bought the cutest Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland dress for Bea, who had blessed them with an extra-long nap this morning. She kept them on their toes, making them late in the mornings with dirty diapers or puke on their clothes, but neither of them minded. Jane Bea Dalton was legally his, which meant she was theirs, and they adored everything about her.
“Anything for you, Relsy.” He ran his hands down her