He was wet-eyed, groaning a masculine version of overwhelmed sobs as he clutched me, pulling me down to kiss me, his thrusts taking over now, surging up into me, filling me and shattering me, smashing me into a climax that shook me to pieces, making me scream out loud with the fracturing intensity of it, my sobs of emotion coalescing with my screams of orgasm.
“Mine,” Titus was growling, yanking my hips down to meet his crashing thrusts. “Mine. Mine.”
“Yours,” I whispered back. “Yours, yours.”
He rolled, then, pressed me to the mattress and chased his own climax, then moving hard and fast, taking his release in me, whispering I love you as a liturgical chant as a counterpoint against my sobs of his name, my own I love you song on my lips. One hand fisted into the pillow beside my face, and the other reached over, to the nightstand drawer. Yanked it open, fumbled for something—found it.
Came back with a black velvet box. “You beat me to it,” he murmured, opening the box one-handed, setting it down to pluck out the ring within. “I don’t have a hundred-year-old family heirloom, just a plain old four-karat one that I had custom designed.”
Still moving. Still thrusting.
I laughed and caught at his ass with both hands, pulling him against me. “Shut up and come first, you dork.”
He shook his head, nearly making a lie of it as he shook, lingering at the ragged edge of climax. “Not until you’re wearing my ring.”
I reached my right hand between us, circled my fingers around him and squeezed, stroked. My left, I held up to him. “Put it on me, then.”
He slid the ring onto my finger and kissed my palm, the underside of the gold band. “Now you’re mine and I’m yours. We belong together forever, now, my love.
“Forever ever?” I whispered, lips on his, plunging my touch around him to hasten his crash into orgasm.
He laughed at the reference. “Forever ever.” His movements went frantic, then, smashing against me with a long low groan. “Laurel, Laurel, god…god…god, my love, my love, my love…”
I let go and wrapped my thighs around him and clung to his neck and bit his earlobe and met him with my own frantic wild thrashing thrusts. “Titus, Titus, yes, my love, yes—give it to me, give it all to me.”
He exploded, then, bursting apart within me and filling me with a flood, with wet heat and crashing love, his voice wordless with furious detonation in my ear, love whispered, love made, love joined, love tangled.
We sagged together, rolling to cling side by side, gasping in unison, his hands scouring my back and butt and hair, mine in his beard and trailing down his chest and scratching between his shoulder blades.
“You asked me to marry you,” he murmured.
“I did.” I found the underside of his chin with my lips. “I had to. I had to…I woke up and I just…I had to know you’d be mine, that we could wake up like this together forever. I just…I had to.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“You’re not mad I preempted your proposal?”
“Hell no. It’s hot that you proposed first, while riding me.” He held the ring on the necklace in two fingers, kissed the diamond. “I was going to propose over breakfast. I was gonna bring it to you in bed and ply you with a mimosa.”
I giggled and wriggled against him. “Hey, just because the proposal’s out of the way doesn’t mean you can’t still do that.”
He huffed a laugh. “I guess I have to put on pants for that, huh?”
“Maybe.”
“You should stay naked. In case there’s time for round two after we eat.”
“There’s time for round two right now…”
He hummed thoughtfully. “You might be right.”
“Assuming you’re able to rise to the occasion this soon.”
He groaned as I found him indeed rising to occasion. “You, Laurel McGillis, can get me to rise faster than I’ve ever thought could be possible.”
“I have two requests.”
He rolled over me. “And those would be what?”
“I don’t want to be Laurel McGillis anymore. From this day forward, I want to be Laurel Bright. I want to get married as soon as possible and take your name and be your wife.”
“Is that one? That feels like more than one.”
“That’s one. Take me to the county and make me your wife, and then we can have a party for our friends later. That’s one.”
He filled me. “Okay. And number two?”
I pulled away from him. “Take me to the shower and bend me over the tub while the water gets hot, and then we take a shower together, and then you feed me.”
“Again, that feels like more than one.”
“Work with me here. It’s one thing, three parts: part one, bend me over the tub. I want you from behind, and I want it hard and fast. Part two, get me a long hot shower. Part three, feed me.”
He stood up and brought me with him, and took me to into the bathroom and set me on my feet next to the soaking tub. Turned me around and pushed me forward. I spread my feet apart and braced my hands on the cold porcelain as he filled me from behind.
“Wait!” I said. “Water on first.”
He laughed, but pulled away, angling for the shower, twisting the water on, not taking his eyes off me—I stayed as I was, bent forward with my hands on the rim of the tub, breasts swaying heavily under me, ass rounded for him. He resumed his place behind me, feathering a touch over my sex.
“Now, where was I?” He circled his touch over me, soft and quick, bringing me to the shaking edge within seconds before filling me one more time, before driving into me with a slap of hips meeting ass cheeks.
“You were right there,” I gasped. “You were about to fuck me really, really good.”
“Really really good?” A hard thrust. “Like this?”
“Fuck yes,” I gasped. “Just like that.”
He ground into me, again and again. “Would it be weird if I asked you to marry me every time we were together?”
I laughed, or tried to around the shaking whimper of orgasm. “I don’t know. Would it?”
He wanted to laugh too, but couldn’t, too caught up in his own pursuit of climax, pounding into me faster and faster, his grunts wordless and wild.
“Laurel, Laurel, oh god—my love,” he snarled. “I’m there already.”
“Good,” I gasped. “Give it to me. Don’t hold out. Just fuck me until you can’t fuck anymore.”
He surged into me and filled me and exploded into me yet again and I came around him, my climax triggered by his, and we came together, crying out as we shattered together—as we were made whole together, each mended by the other.
“Marry me, Laurel,” he whispered, thrusting slowly and gently as our climaxes subsided. “Marry me. Please, please marry me.”
“Right now,” I answered. “Today. I’m your wife, Titus. I’m your everything, always.”
“You mean it? Today. Justice of the peace, today?”
“You, me, and Isabela. Today.”
I felt something wet drop onto my back—his tears. I pulled forward, stood up, turned in his arms and kissed his chest, his cheeks, his tears. “What is it, Titus?”