back, he stepped back, then brushed the dress from her shoulders. It fell to the floor in a heap around her feet. Ellie groaned in protest, but stepped out of it.
“I thought the dress was nice,” he murmured, his gaze raking her body, “but that underwear should be outlawed.”
Ellie giggled, then turned him around. She helped him out of his jacket and carefully folded it on a nearby chair. “Fifteen minutes,” she said. “Then we have to go.” She slipped his suspenders over his shoulders and tugged his shirt out of his trousers. They undressed each other, playing at a mutual striptease, anticipating what they were about to share. And when they’d removed the last item of clothing, Liam growled playfully and dragged her down on the bed.
“You’re beautiful in that dress,” he murmured, kissing her neck. “But you’re even more beautiful out of it.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Ellie said.
He rolled on top of her, nestling into her hips, his desire hot against her belly. Then he reached down and fingered her pearls. “They look nice,” he said. “Better without the dress. But don’t you think they’re a little plain?”
“No!” Ellie said, running the pearls between her fingers. “I think they’re beautiful.”
“There’re probably a lot of different things that you would have liked better—a new sofa, a blender, maybe a new vacuum cleaner.”
“Never. I love these pearls. They’re all I could ever want.”
Liam shoved his hand under the pillow and pulled out a small velvet box. “Then I probably shouldn’t give you this.”
Ellie stared at the box for a long time, stunned by the sudden turn of events. She reached out to take the box from his palm, but before she could, he closed his hand. “I should really do this properly,” Liam said. He rolled off the bed, and knelt beside it, completely naked. He braced his arms on the mattress and set the box in front of him.
Ellie lay on her stomach, facing him. Her gaze took in his handsome face, his rumpled hair and his gorgeous eyes. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to ask you to marry me, Ellie. I was going to save this for later, but when we walk into that church today, I want you to know that it’s going to be our turn soon. I know it’s fast, but I love you, and that’s never going to change.” He opened up the box and removed the ring. “Will you, Ellie? Will you marry me?”
He took her hand and held the ring at the end of her finger, waiting for her answer. She stared at the diamond and it twinkled back at her, as if urging her to say yes.
She’d known they were headed in this direction, but after all that had happened in her past, she wouldn’t let herself believe that it really could happen, that she’d find a man who wanted to spend his life with her.
And now she had and he was the most wonderful man in the world, the answer to all her dreams and the hero who’d stolen her heart. Ellie bit her bottom lip, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I will marry you, Liam,” she murmured.
He slipped the ring on her finger, then jumped up on the bed, pulling her into his embrace and giving her a long and very passionate kiss. “I guess the Quinn curse is still alive and well,” Liam said, nuzzling her neck.
“The Quinn curse?”
“It’s a long story,” he said. “And we have years for you to hear all the Mighty Quinn tales. I’ll tell them all to you, I promise. But right now, all I really want to do is kiss you.”
Ellie wrapped her arms around his neck and touched her lips to his. And as she lost herself in the taste of him, in the warmth of his body lying across hers, and in the sound of his voice, Ellie knew that there was nothing more that she needed in life. She had her hero. She had her white knight.
She had her Mighty Quinn.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6341-7
THE MIGHTY QUINNS: LIAM
Copyright © 2003 by Peggy A. Hoffmann.
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