I’ve fallen so hard for you. I’ve been obsessed with you. I’m head over heels in love with you.”
My gut reaction—to balk at the possibility of his love—met a stone wall of resistance, and I remembered what Eden had told me about time not mattering. “I’m pretty sure I love you, too, Shane.”
And then we stopped talking. I needed more than words. I needed to possess him if only for a moment in time. And I needed to be possessed.
Epilogue
A cool breeze stirred against my exposed shoulder, waking me. I felt around on the floor for my T-shirt and threw it on, then stumbled over to shut the front window. The building across the street blushed pink and orange with reflected sunrise. The summer nights had been warm, and we’d sat out on the fire escape every night since Shane had gotten home from his west coast tour.
The light crept across the wooden floorboards, illuminating first his fingers and arm that hung over the side of the bed. Those arms had held me at our ballroom dance lessons. They’d hugged me when I’d signed up for computer classes. They’d wrapped around me in that very bed as we made love or as I slept.
I tiptoed over and touched the skin the morning sun revealed. His face, beautiful and sweet. His shoulders, broad and strong. His back, smooth and inviting. I slid the covers down and down, and he woke, turning toward me, exposing another impressive part of himself to the day.
“Morning,” he said, snatching my hand and pulling me to him. “You’re up early.”
My hand found him and brought him fully erect. “So are you.”
“I was dreaming about you.”
That made me smile. I straddled him, rubbing our sexes together just to watch his face melt into serene happiness. “What did you dream?”
“I planned an elaborate scheme with secret rooms and a hot air balloon, I think.” He pushed his hands up my torso, and my shirt bunched up. I lifted my arms and let him take it off.
“What kind of scheme was this?”
He groaned in response, but in his defense, I was soaking wet now and grinding against him. He was so massive, I loved to use him like a sex toy, and he’d let me. I leaned down to suck on his lips while I stroked myself with his anticipation.
He whispered, “It was a proposal.”
My head jerked up. He lifted my hips easily and let his erection defy gravity. I wanted him in me as desperately as he wanted it. The words hung there. “A proposal.”
“Yeah. I was asking you to marry me.”
“In your dream.”
“Right.”
“And what did I say?”
The tip of his penis breached my entry. I wanted to slide down. I wanted him to fill me up, but I waited.
“You said ‘yes.’ ” His blue eyes dilated, and he tilted his hips up, gaining some ground.
“So, we’re dream engaged?”
“I’d marry you right now. You can’t hold out forever.”
I didn’t know if he meant against engagement or against his cock now definitely in the zone. He was right on both counts. Despite my insistence that time didn’t matter, I’d discovered it did, on the four-week anniversary of the night we’d first hooked up, when Shane surprised me by proposing. He’d gone the traditional route: Dinner, nice suit, on his knees with the ring in the box.
We’d only been back together a few days.
I’d said, “Shane.”
That’s all it took for him to sigh and put the ring away. I thought we’d have a fight, but he understood. He said he’d try again.
He did. A whole month later, he took me out of town to a bed and breakfast. We rode horses. He planned a picnic. The ring was hidden, and I was supposed to find it, but then he’d misplaced it, and he had to expose his plan. We spent thirty minutes digging through the basket trying to find the missing ring.
I’d said, “You know I love you. But it’s way too soon.”
Now it was August, and he had me at a complete disadvantage. I loved him. I loved being in his bed with him under me. I never wanted to leave his side, and I mourned like a grieving widow when he left for weeks on tour. All that held me back was a traditionalist’s view of a proper timetable.
In his arms, time stood still. All that mattered was where our bodies met.
I bore down and relished his satisfied moan as our hips connected. With him deep