Carter was on top of her. He gazed down at her with naked devotion. “I love you, Ruth.”
“I love you too.”
“I want everything between us to be real.”
“I want that too.” She could barely breathe around the swell of joy. “We can take this as slow as you want. But can I please keep wearing this engagement ring? I want that proposal you gave me to be the real one.”
“It is the real one,” he murmured hoarsely. “All of what happened between us is real. I want to be engaged to you. And I’d be happy to marry you anytime you want. This love is real. And it’s forever.”
She shook again with emotion, but fortunately this time managed it without tears. In the back of her mind, she knew she should probably be careful. Guys, after all, didn’t like to be crowded or rushed or pressured. But she’d never been good at being careful, so what she was thinking spilled out into words. “So we can maybe get married on Christmas?”
He grew still, and she would have been worried had his eyes not shattered with joy. “Yes. If that’s what you want, then nothing could make me happier.”
He kissed her then. And they kept on kissing until they were making love on the couch in front of the fire. And they didn’t stop kissing even then. And not even after both of them were fully sated and relaxed in hot, blissful aftermath.
In fact, they didn’t stop kissing until they heard Mrs. Wilson at the front entrance of the house, announcing her presence with her typical scattered exuberance.
They jumped into action after that, pulling back on their clothes and recovering their equilibrium.
So they were ready when Mrs. Wilson made her appearance in the room. She didn’t seem to think anything was strange about their tousled condition or their giddiness.
In fact, she was almost as thrilled as they were when she heard the news about an impromptu wedding.
ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, Ruth woke up while it was still dark in the room. She’d slept in Carter’s bed that night, but they’d both gone to sleep early, and they hadn’t had sex. She woke up feeling mostly rested and as excited as she used to be on Christmas mornings.
Maybe more so. Because today was Christmas, and she was also getting married to Carter.
She giggled to herself in the dark.
“Seriously?” Carter mumbled from the other side of the bed. He’d turned over onto his stomach sometime during the night, and his head was facing away from her.
She laughed again and reached over to stroke his bare back.
He rolled to face her. It was too dark to see his expression clearly. “Is it entirely necessary for you to wake up before the crack of dawn?”
“Why are you asking me that? You’re the one who usually gets up at ungodly hours. I like to sleep in until at least seven.”
“And yet it’s just after five. And you’re wide awake and laughing about something.” He was putting on the pose of being grumpy, but she knew he wasn’t. She could always tell the difference.
“I’m laughing out of pure happiness,” she admitted. “It’s Christmas, and I get to marry you today.”
She could feel him smiling in the dark for a minute. Then with a quick, unexpected move, he rolled over on top of her.
“Wow!” She reached up to stroke his messy hair and stubbly jaw. “That’s pretty active for someone whining about it being the crack of dawn.”
“It’s before the crack of dawn,” he corrected her. He leaned down to nuzzle the crook of her neck, making her squeal when he nibbled a sensitive spot just under her ear. “And I never whine.”
“If you say so.” Her whole body was shaking with laughter, and she literally couldn’t stop smiling. “But if you’re hoping to get lucky this morning, your hopes are doomed to disappointment. We have to save it for our wedding night tonight.”
“Really? You don’t think we can manage both?”
“I don’t want to be sore today and have to limp down the aisle because you accidently got carried away. You are rather athletic in bed, you know.”
“I thought I was a nice guy, and nice guys aren’t very adventurous.”
“I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about when I said that. Nice guys are definitely where it’s at.”
He chuckled. He was still poised over her, but he wasn’t making any moves. If she indicated in any way that she wasn’t in the mood for sex, he’d never pressure or guilt her about it. Never make her feel bad in any way. “I’m glad you’ve finally come to that conclusion. I’ll be happy to prove it to you again.” He kissed her softly. “And I can be gentle whenever you need me to be.”
“I know you can.” Her voice broke slightly, which was absolutely ridiculous.
“I need to turn a light on,” he said in a different tone. “I can’t see your face very well, so I can’t read your expression.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because it sounded just now like you were about to cry, and I wanted to see if you were.”
“I wasn’t,” she assured him with more confidence than accuracy. “Just had a frog in my throat.”
He gave a breathy laugh and kissed her again, this time more slowly. “I’d still like to verify that for myself.”
“Well, too bad. It’s way too early to turn the light on. Plus we aren’t supposed to see each other before the wedding anyway.”
“How the hell is that supposed to work? It’s Christmas, and it’s ages until the wedding. I can’t be expected not to see you all day long. What kind of Christmas would that be?”
“Not a very good one,” she admitted. “I guess we’ll have to break with tradition then.”
“I think we’re breaking with tradition in a lot of ways. For instance, we got engaged before we said we loved each other.”
“That is kind of nontraditional. But at least we didn’t go Summer and Lincoln’s route and get married before we fell in love. Twice in one family would be way too much.”
“Definitely too much. Hey, Ruth, let me just say this.”
Ruth froze at his altered tone. Her heart started to race. “What?”
“I love you more than anything, and that’s never going to change. I thought I understood what love was before, but I’m not sure I ever did. I tried to love things by not letting them get away from me and then falling apart when they did. I did it with Lincoln. I did it with Summer.” He paused as he cleared his throat. “I did it with my dad. But that’s not love. That was trying to force the world into some vision of what I thought it should be and then resisting when people didn’t fit that narrow vision. I did it to myself too. I don’t think I’ve ever been as fully myself as I’ve been in the months since I met you.”
She wanted to say something. She wanted to tell him how deeply she understood. But he was still on a roll, so she didn’t interrupt.
“So I’ll marry you any time, any day, from now until the end of our lives. But I know this has happened kind of quickly. And I don’t want you to feel rushed or pressured because you might have blurted out something on the spur of the moment about getting married on Christmas and then I latched onto it and didn’t let it go. So if you’re nervous at all, if you’re not absolutely sure that you want to do this today, you can tell me. I’ll understand. We can wait. Until whenever you want. Or we can stay engaged for the rest of our lives and never tie the knot. I’m happy with anything as long as I can be with you. As long as I can be me... with you.”