The Fixed Trilogy: Forever With You(110)

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t even breathe.

“I realized something about the last time I asked this,” he said from his place on the floor in front of me. “I did it wrong. First, I didn’t have a ring, and second, I should have gotten on one knee. But more importantly, I didn’t give you the right thing. I offered you everything I had, thinking that was the way to win your heart. That wasn’t what you wanted at all. The only thing you ever asked for, the only thing I would never give you, was me.”

A sob escaped my throat, but for the first time in days, it wasn’t a sorrowful sob.

“But now I do.” Hudson threw his arms out to the side. “Here I am, precious. I give myself freely. All of me, Alayna. No more walls or secrets or games or lies. I give you all of me, honestly. For forever, if you’ll take it.”

He took the ring from my grasp. With hands that were so steady compared to my shaky one, he slipped it on my finger.

I stared at it, shining brilliantly on my hand like a beacon in the darkness I’d been living in. Was he really asking me to marry him? Not elope, but marriage? Was this really something I could actually consider?

My plan to let him back into my life had been much simpler and less drastic—like a dinner and a movie type of thing. Not a proposal.

But that had always been Hudson. He moved fast and furiously, but when he truly wanted something, he committed with everything he had. If I said no, if I turned him away, I knew without a doubt he’d ask again and again. And again.

That wasn’t a reason to accept a marriage proposal.

The reason to accept was because I loved Hudson Pierce with every fiber of my being. Even his flaws and imperfections attracted me to him. They made him who he was. And I wanted all of him. I wanted to give him all of me.

And he had a lot of making up to do to me. Forever might just be the only way he’d get it covered.

“Alayna, I love you.” He drew my gaze from the ring to his eyes—his wildly intense, passionate eyes that shown brighter than the diamond on my hand. “Will you marry me? Not today, and not in Vegas, but in a church if you like, or at Mabel Shores in the Hamptons—”

Somehow I found my voice. “Or the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens during the cherry blossom season?”

“Yes, there.” His eyes widened. “Is that a—”

“Yes,” I nodded. “It’s a yes.”

Hudson pulled me onto his knee and into his arms faster than I could blink. “Say it again.”

“Yes,” I whispered, placing my hand on his cheek. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

His lips found mine, and it was like a first kiss—soft and tentative. Then our mouths parted and our tongues met and the kiss gathered from a fragile breeze into a raging storm. One of his hands tangled in my hair, the other cupped my face, holding me as if he feared I wouldn’t stay, as if I might disappear.

And the way I held him was the same. I wrapped my arms around his neck, clutching onto him with all my strength. When our kiss began to metamorphosis into something bigger, something that required more of our body to be touching, and less of our clothing to be on, he grabbed his hand around my thigh, lifting it around his waist as he stood. I threw my other leg around him, hooking my ankles together at his backside and bucked my hips, rubbing against his crotch.

Damn, I’d missed this. Missed him—all of him. His touch was searing, his kiss burned me to my core. And the solidness of his body, his strong arms, his muscled chest—he was my foundation. Sturdy and fixed. Permanent.

Permanently mine.

We were halfway down the hall, our lips still locked when I realized I had no idea where he was taking me. If the house was empty, did it matter that we made it to the bedroom?

Asking, though, would require me to let go of his tongue, and the growl he made as I sucked on it made that not an option I wanted to consider.

I got my answer soon enough anyway. Hudson pushed into our bedroom and in my peripheral vision I saw on the floor, minus the bedframe, our mattress.

He toed his shoes off and then dropped with me onto the bed.

“You left the mattress?” I asked while he pulled my shirt over my head.

His shirt disappeared quickly after. “I picked it out myself. Besides, I couldn’t bear to part with it. It has too many memories.”

Yes, it does.

And more to be made. A lifetime of them, in fact. Oh my god, a lifetime with Hudson.

He bent down to nip my breast through my bra, bringing me sharply back to the present.

I moaned breathily. “Are you sure you weren’t simply—” I moaned again as he nipped my other breast. “—being prepared for me to say yes?”

His mouth returned to mine. “There may have been a little bit of that,” he said against my lips, his hands reaching behind me to undo the clasp of my bra.

“You know me so well, don’t you?”

He grinned and lowered his gaze to my breasts newly released from captivity. “I want to know you better.” He licked around one taut nipple. “I want to know you better right now. God, I’ve missed your gorgeous body.”

And god, how I’d missed the things he did to it. Was there a manual somewhere entitled How to Please Alayna? If so, Hudson had surely memorized the thing. More likely, he’d written it. He knew how to please me better than I knew how to please myself.