Noah followed her. “Guess I’d better do the same. Except for the body spray since it smells girly.”
“Aw, come on, Noah. It’s just your standard cherry blossom scent. You don’t want to smell like cherry blossoms?”
He bumped hips with her at the vanity, liking that she was comfortable enough to tease him. “Nope, gonna pass.”
“Your loss.”
She put toothpaste on her toothbrush, which she’d moved from the hall bath earlier, and he did the same. It was domestic as hell standing in his bathroom together while they brushed their teeth and took turns with the mouthwash. He didn’t mind it, though. It felt kind of nice. More than kind of.
It felt right. For the first time in his life, he actually cared if someone stayed with him or left. He’d worked hard not to care when he’d been passed from foster home to foster home. And then he’d worked hard not to care for anyone but Sally when the Parkers were abusing them all.
These days he cared for his team and their women. He cared for the people he helped when he deployed to war zones and other places where terrorists or drug lords held innocent people and threatened them. That was a different sort of caring, but he still cared—about justice and right, and good triumphing over evil.
He cared a lot about a great many things, in fact. But he cared most of all for the tiny little girl in the next room, and for the woman standing beside him at the sink right now. They were wound together in his head as a package, and he couldn’t separate them any longer.
Jenna spit out the mouthwash and grinned at him. Then she reached up to smooth his hair. “You’ve got a cowlick or something.”
He took her hand and kissed her fingers. “I got it. Thanks.”
“Sure thing, baby,” she said before sashaying from the room and leaving him staring into the mirror, wondering how the hell it’d happened. How had he fallen head over heels for a woman he’d only known a short while? How had he fallen when they’d been having sex for precisely two days? How had she scaled the walls around his heart so quickly?
“Fucking hell, dude,” he muttered to his reflection. “You’re a pretty bad warrior when it comes to protecting your own heart.” He cocked a finger gun and fired it. “Boom, dead.”
He wasn’t telling Jenna. She had enough shit going on, plus her aunt would be here any second. He also wasn’t sure how she’d take it, and the last thing he wanted was to freak her out with a declaration of fresh new feelings that he still wasn’t sure how to handle. It would sound desperate and weird if he said it now—plus, he wasn’t sure he could say the words. He thought it was what he felt inside, but what if he was wrong?
Shit, he needed to ask Mal. Or Wolf, Hacker, or Saint, though Mal was the latest of their number to fall for a woman. How did you know? What did it feel like? How certain were you?
Good pussy was good pussy, and it’d been a while since he’d had any. Maybe he was just hard up and horny, and Jenna was the right woman at the right time.
Except that’s not how it felt. He thought of her climbing into Lola and disappearing in the night, and his gut twisted into a knot. Then he thought of her aunt arriving any moment, and he hurried to wet his hair and smooth it down. The last thing he wanted was to make a bad impression on Jenna’s aunt. Though maybe taking Jenna to his bedroom every night would be enough to make her suspicious of him anyway.
He should have thought this out better. Dragged the Army cot from the attic and set it up in Alice’s room or simply parked his ass on the couch like he’d said he would.
“I’m going to fix some coffee,” Jenna called out.
“It’s after eleven at night, babe.”
“I know—but someone might want some. Plus, I need something to do or I’m going to crap a brick.”
Noah snorted as he left the bathroom and found her standing by the bedroom door, hand on the knob. “Crap a brick, huh? I thought you said your aunt was progressive in her attitudes toward sex.”
“I said I thought she was. In truth I’m not sure.”
“You could always agree to marry me. Then we’d be engaged, and that wouldn’t be nearly as bad, would it?”
“Noah, be serious.”
“I am. We never really finished that conversation, did we? I asked you to marry me and help me raise Alice, and you said we didn’t know each other. Well, we’re getting there, right? We know that we’re great in bed, and we know that Alice adores you. I’m growing fond of you myself. I think maybe you’re fond of me too.”
“I am,” she said, dropping her lashes. “But you can’t make a life decision based on having sex a few times, or the fact your niece is attached to her caregiver. It could all change in six months or a year.”
“Everything can change at any time, Jenna. You know that as well as I do. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of what you have right now. Can’t be happy right now.” He joined her at the door and ran a finger down her cheek. “Say yes and tell your aunt we’re engaged. That’s not married, and there’s still time to change our minds if it doesn’t work out. But right now, it works. I like being with you. I like the way you put your heart into caring for a child that isn’t yours and the way you treat her as if she’s precious. Which she is, no doubt, but some people would see it as just a job and not show her the understanding and care that you do. She loves you and she needs you.”
He drew in a deep breath and huffed it out. “I thought I could find a family for her. I thought it was the right thing—but I can’t do that now. She’s Sally’s daughter, and I love her. I’m her uncle and I’m keeping her. You helped me realize I couldn’t give her up. That I shouldn’t give her up. And no, I’m not saying that you have to stay because of that. But I want you to stay. With us. If it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. I think it will, though. I’m willing to bet my future on it.”
Her eyes were shiny with tears. “Damn you, Noah Cross. I was just going to make some coffee, for heaven’s sake. And now you’re making me cry with all these pretty words. It’s not the most romantic proposal I’ve ever heard—not that I’ve been proposed to before, just that I’ve watched movies and read books.” She hesitated a moment, as if gathering her thoughts. “But even if it’s not quite how I thought it would go back when I dreamed up a future with someone, I’ve lived long enough in Las Vegas to know that sometimes you have to take the gamble—”
He caught her to him before she could finish and kissed her thoroughly. “Is that a yes?” he asked. “Tell me it’s a yes.”
She gripped his arms and laughed. “If you’d have let me finish what I was saying, you’d know, wouldn’t you? Yes, it was a yes—but only to being engaged, okay?”
Maybe he was crazy, but hell if he wasn’t deliriously happy with the idea of making Jenna his wife. “Yes. And damn it, now I want to eat your pussy again to make you realize why it’s a good idea to marry me—but there’s no time.”
“Not fair, Noah. Don’t say shit like that to me when there’s no time. Rotten man.”