Jensen followed me over a second later, burying his face in my neck and emptying himself inside me on a long raspy groan. We held each other close as we came down, our breathing slowly going from erratic to calm.
“Was that a yes, you’ll marry me?” he asked into my hair minutes later.
“I . . .” I had no idea how to answer that.
Sensing my confusion, he lifted his head and stared down at me, those gorgeous gray eyes shining with a light I’d never seen before. “You and Brant are already movin’ in here tomorrow. Engagement and marriage are the next logical steps.”
He was right . . . sort of. With the help of his friends, Laeth and Gage, as well as Stone and Scooter, they were packing up my tiny house tomorrow and moving me and my boy under this roof for good. But still . . .
“That’s true,” I said gently, “But usually, the next logical step doesn’t come right on the tail end of the first one.”
“I’m never leaving you again, sunshine. There isn’t anything in this world that could take me away from you and Brant, if that’s what you’re afraid of. Knew you were the one since I was eighteen years old, and if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of our lives making you the happiest you’ve ever been. We lost five years. I don’t want to lose any more time with you. I want you and Brantley with me always. I want you to have my ring and my name. I want to have more babies with you.
“My life’s been on pause since the day I walked away from you. I’m ready to start living again.”
My heart swelled so big I wasn’t sure there was enough room in my chest to contain it. A warmth bloomed right in the center and spread out through my whole body. When he put it like that, who was I to deny him—or myself for that matter?
“I love you, Jensen,” I breathed. He didn’t say a word, almost like he was waiting for me to add a ‘but’ at the end of that. “So that was a yes, I’ll marry you.”
His whole body locked tight, and for a second I could have sworn he’d stopped breathing. “You will?”
“I will,” I giggled. “But I want a big ring. I’m talking big. Like, the size of—” My words ended on a squeal when he shot up, bringing me with him so I was straddling his thighs as he sat back on his haunches, his length growing long and hard inside me.
“Need to fuck you again,” he said on a growl. “Spend the night burying myself so deep beneath your skin, you’ll never get me out. Then tomorrow, after you’re all moved in, I’ll get you a ring so goddamn big you won’t be able to hold your hand up.”
“Well, it doesn’t need to be that big,” I started to tease, only to have my sentence end on a breathy moan when he shifted his hips and rubbed something deep inside me. “But we can talk about that later. Right now you need to get to work burying yourself beneath my skin.”
He gave me that cocky smirk. “Challenge accepted, sunshine.”
Then he proceeded to do just that.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Shane
“Oh my God. What a fucking bitch!”
At Farah’s unexpected and out-of-character outburst, the sip of iced tea I’d just taken went down the wrong pipe and I proceeded to choke.
“Look what you did,” Wynn said in a scolding tone while beating on my back. “You’re such a priss that when you drop the F and the B bomb in one sentence, you make your friend asphyxiate.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Farah threw back, not sounding sorry at all. “But I felt the situation warranted it.”
I couldn’t say I disagreed with her. The past couple weeks had been chaotic with the move and engagement and everything, and I hadn’t made enough room for my friends. Now everything was settling down. Brantley, Jensen, and I were officially living under the same roof. I had my big ring—that was awesome. All of our stuff had been unpacked, and while I hadn’t had the time to go on a furniture shopping spree yet, Farah and I already had a trip to Nashville penciled in for the following week. My kid was at his Mother’s Day Out class, so I was having lunch with Poppy, Farah, and Wynn so we could all catch up.
They’d oohed and aahed over my ring and celebrated my engagement for the better part of a half hour. Then, with all the good covered, I’d filled them in on the not-so-plesant aspects of us having found our way back to other, including the shit with his parents, both past and present, and that was what set Farah off. Our sweet friend was so even-keeled and polite that hearing those words come out of her mouth was shocking.
“Bet this is Cannon’s doing,” Poppy teased, pointing at Farah. “This is what happens when a socialite marries a tattooed biker. Next thing you know, she’ll be getting tattoos just because he’s covered in them.”
“Oh! I almost forgot. I already got one! See?” She lifted the hem of her shirt and pulled the waistband of her shorts down an inch so we could see the whimsical, brightly-colored hummingbird she had inked into her hip. The tattoo made perfect sense since Cannon’s nickname for her was hummingbird. “Isn’t it pretty?” she asked with a beaming grin. “And it didn’t hurt at all!”
“I don’t even recognize you anymore,” Wynn joked, shooting a wink across the table to Farah.
“Well, I love it. And I kind of want to get another. But we aren’t here to talk about me and my badass, sexy-as-hell husband. We’re here to talk about Shane and Jensen’s Hallmark-movie-level romance.”
“I don’t know if I’d consider it Hallmark-movie level,” Poppy said. “With the drama and evil parents it seems more Lifetime-Movie-Network level.”
Farah cut her eyes to Poppy. “Anyway. As I was saying before we got completely off track, his dad’s a crooked bastard and his mom’s an evil bitch. They’re so bad they give my own parents a run for their money.”
That was really saying something since Farah’s parents were complete slime. Not only had they neglected Farah all her life, when she’d been attacked and nearly died, they’d insinuate it had been her fault. She moved here to escape them and that life, and not long after, her brother Jase followed. When he married and fell for Poppy—in that order—they’d reared their ugly heads once again and had Poppy kidnapped by a hitman, trying to force Jase into paying them the ransom.
When it came to who had the worse parents, Jase and Farah or Jensen, I wasn’t sure who’d come out the winner—or, more aptly, the loser—in that competition.
“I’ve hated that woman since the first time I met her,” I announced. “Jensen hadn’t given me the whole ugly story yet, but I knew from just seeing her that there was something seriously off. Then, when he told me how she used to just stand by when his dad would beat him, I wanted to track her down and scratch her eyes out.”
Farah looked at me with sadness in her eyes. “His dad used to beat him?”
“And worse,” I admitted, feeling my heart break all over again. I still remembered all the horror stories he’d shared with me to this day, in vivid detail. Just thinking about it turned my stomach. What my man had lived through and suffered at their hands, it was a wonder he came out of it at all. Whitman and Cordelia were the absolute worst kinds of people. I shared some of it with these women I was as close to as blood, including how he’d shown up on my doorstep when he’d been eighteen years old, beat to hell and hardly conscious, but kept the worst of it to myself. Still, it was enough for my friends to have the same heartbreaking reaction I had when I first heard the truth of it all.