Rescuing Jenna - Anna Blakely Page 0,98

voice bellowed. He stepped closer, his voice rising with every syllable. “I have enemies, Jenna. Real ones with real power. Enemies with more money than God and countless ways to get to you. I almost lost you once because of something in my past, and I’ll be damned if I let anything like that ever happen to you again.”

“Then why bother coming back?” She yelled, throwing her arms to the sides and let them slap against her legs. “If all you wanted to do was say you’re sorry, you could’ve done that over the fucking phone.”

“I wanted to see you!”

“Why?”

“Because I want to fucking marry you!”

The room went silent. The world stopped spinning, and Jenna almost certainly stopped breathing.

“You what?” she whispered softly.

The oh fuck look on Adrian’s face was priceless. “I…uh…” His Adams apple bobbed as he worked his throat “Shit. I didn’t mean to just blurt it out like that.”

“But you meant it?” She held her breath and waited.

“Yeah.” His shoulders shook with a silent huff. “Yeah, I fucking meant it.”

Oh. My. God.

Adrian closed the gap between them and cupped her face with his hands. “I love you, Jenna. I love you so much I thought I needed to let you go. I thought it was the only way to protect you. But the thing is, I don’t want to live without you. I tried. I really did. But I gotta tell you…it fucking sucked.”

Jenna chuckled as his image blurred from her unshed tears. She wrapped a hand around one of his thick wrists. “I love you, too, Adrian. But if this is going to work you have to accept the fact that you can’t protect me from every single threat the world has to offer.”

“Sorry, baby. I’m not really wired that way.” He stared down into her eyes with purpose. “But I promise I’ll try to get there. Might take a while, though. Say…fifty years.”

Her chest swelled and her heart soared. “Fifty years, huh?”

“Give or take.”

Jenna blinked, sending silver streaks down her flushed cheeks. “You really serious about this whole marriage thing?”

Adrian smiled. Pulling a hand from her face, he slid it into one of his front pockets. When he pulled it back out, he was holding the most beautiful diamond ring she’d ever laid eyes on.

A free-fall of tears poured down her face. “Oh, Adrian.”

“This serious enough for you?” His lips curled into the same smartass smirk she’d grown to love.

Jenna gave him a watery smile. “I think we could make that work.”

“Let’s make sure, shall we?” Adrian lifted her trembling hand and slid the simple platinum solitaire onto her left ring finger.

It fit perfectly. As if it had been created just for her.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful.” He cupped her face again and pressed his lips to hers. “So what do you say? You wanna marry a former traitor-turned-government assassin?”

“No.” Jenna shook her head. “I want to marry a former Marine who’s spent the last several years risking everything, including his own happiness, to help keep our country safe.” She rose to her tiptoes and kissed him again. “I want to marry the man who’s risked his life to save mine.” Another kiss. “Twice.” And yet another. “I want to wake up every single day next to the man I’ve been praying would come back to me ever since I woke up in that damn hospital.”

Guilt filtered into his eyes again. “I’m sorry I left you.”

“Kiss me and we’ll call it even.”

With a smile that took years off his face, Adrian put his hands at her waist and hoisted her into his arms. He did kiss her, then. And she kissed him back…all the way to the bedroom.

Hours later, they were still lying in her bed. Content and perfectly sated.

Before, after Adrian had left, she’d felt empty. Like she only had half of herself. But after making love to her—twice—Jenna realized she was finally whole again.

“Shit.” Adrian propped himself up on one elbow.

“What?”

“Your trip. I never asked where you were going. Do you need to call someone? Let them know you’re going to be late?”

Ah, yes. That.

“Nope.”

“You sure? If it was important…”

“Oh, it was very important.” She told the truth. “The most important trip I’ve ever planned, actually.”

His expression fell a little, and Jenna could tell he felt guilty. She should probably feel bad about stringing him along the way she was.

But she didn’t.

“Jenna, I don’t want to stand in your way. If you need to go to…wherever you were headed, I’ll wait. As long as it