Brutal Game (Flynn and Laurel #2)(43)

Well, how did she propose, then?

In the rain, in an alley next to a dive bar. I said yes.

He smiled to himself, thinking that was just about perfect, somehow.



* * *



Laurel turned at the sound of the deadbolt, a smile cracking her face wide open, too broad and goofy to possibly hide.

“Hello,” she called. She was busy at the counter, wearing pajama pants while her jeans tumbled dry five flights below in one of the building’s coin-op machines.

Flynn stepped inside, looking soaked to the bone. “Smells amazing.”

“I stole your idea—we’re having rotisserie chicken. And risotto and veggies. You look like you swam here.”

“Feels like I did.” He unlaced his boots, rain dripping from his hood when he leaned over. “But you won’t catch me complaining—if it ain’t snow, it’s fine by me.” He stripped to his shorts right there, leaving his clothes in a pile—or perhaps a puddle—by the door. And giving any neighbors across the street a free thrill, as the blinds were up.

He stopped by the counter on his way to the bathroom, kissing Laurel’s cheek with icy lips and eyeing the cutting board.

“Carrots.”

“And broccoli and zucchini.” She ran her palm over his wet hair and his cheek. “Good God, you’re freezing. Get in the shower.”

“You want your ring?”

“I can wait.” She wondered if he could guess that she’d spent a good ten minutes poking fruitlessly around in his drawers and filing cabinet, trying to find it. “Go get warmed up.”

“You make a bossy fiancée.”

She started. “Oh my God, I hadn’t even thought of that. Fiancée.”

“How about that? Earned yourself two fancy-ass new titles in one day.”

“I guess so.”

He headed for the bathroom and Laurel’s shit-eating grin bloomed anew. He’d find more than the relief of a steaming shower in there—she’d slung the old red towel over the rod. The note on the mirror read, simply, Whatever you want.

She’d better hold off on starting the risotto. It’d only wind up a gluey mess if Flynn decided to take her up on that invitation the second he stepped out of the bathroom. She finished chopping the veggies, lowered the blinds and got comfy on the bed, studying the apartment. She bet she could convince the landlord to let her paint the walls. Heather’s place was painted. It might take the edge off the starkness of the space— The bathroom door swung in and the fan and light flipped off. “Whatever I want?” Flynn asked as he appeared. The red towel was knotted around his waist.

She nodded. “Whatever you want.”

He walked to the closet. “What I want,” he said, opening the door and reaching up to the top shelf, “is for you to wear something very special, tonight.”

Her eyebrows rose. Flynn wasn’t the lingerie type. Then the surprise changed to confusion when he turned, holding a gray box as big as a milk crate—a safe.

“What— Oh.” The ring, duh. “I’ll have you know I looked all over for that, while you were out.”

He set the box on the bed and crossed the room to unhook his keys from his abandoned pants. “That rock’s worth more than everything else in this apartment put together,” he said, opening the safe. “This shoulda been the first place you looked.”

And there it was—from the big gray box came the tiny, gleaming wooden one. He sat at her side and popped it open. Just one glance at the diamond and her breath was gone, sucked clean out of her lungs.

“Wow.”

“You finally gonna put it on?”

She nodded, mesmerized.

He slid it free and held it out. Laurel accepted it with a surprisingly calm hand, studying it by the light of the reading lamp. “I have a job and a diamond ring,” she whispered.

“That you do. Put it on.”

“Aren’t you supposed to do it?”

“Am I?”

She shrugged. “That’s what they do in movies.” She was stalling, feeling tears brewing, emotion rising like a tide.

“As you wish.” He took it and Laurel offered her ring finger, unable to hold back a sloppy, quavering smile as he slid it on. It couldn’t have been a better fit.

Laurel had never been the type to lie around daydreaming about proposals or rings or weddings or babies, but it was undeniably powerful, this moment. Like stumbling across a threshold into a new stage of womanhood.

“Nice work, Anne,” Flynn said.

“Ha, indeed. I’ll have to take her out for a seriously overpriced dinner when my first engineering paycheck clears.” She angled her hand this way and that, watched the light dancing in the stone. “Jesus, it’s so beautiful.”

“Glad you like it.”

She paused her ogling long enough to pull him in for a kiss. Then another, another, probably a dozen before she finally let him go. “Wow. Thank you.”

“Thanks for proposing. Saved me a lot of anxiety.”

“I was a little worried you’d be all old school about it. About the dude doing the asking, I mean.”

He shook his head. “Long as I still wear the pants in bed, I’m easy.”

She laughed, then looked to his bare torso. “You’re currently wearing nothing but a highly contentious towel. What comes first—dinner or depravity?”