A Calculated Seduction(50)
“Dulcy—”
“No, Ethan, you’ll never learn.”
She turned away from him. Panic pumped through his blood. She was leaving. His life would be dull and lifeless without her.
“Dulcy.” His voice echoed through the lobby. “I’m sorry. I made a huge mistake. Really, woman, what do you want me to do? Cut off my left arm? I don’t think I need to suffer the rest of my life without the woman I love because I acted like a jackass.”
* * * *
Dulcy stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. Warmth stole through her. “What did you say?”
He sighed and rested his hands on his hips. “I said I acted like a jackass. ”
She waved that notion away. “I know that.” She stepped forward. “The other part.”
A completely unholy light lit his dark eyes. He stepped forward and shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants. “Oh, the part about cutting off my left arm?”
“No.” She took another step.
“The part about making a mistake?” He inched another step closer. They were about two steps apart and the scent of his spicy aftershave reached her.
“No, that one part about love.”
“Ah.” He stepped closer and she could feel the very heat of him. “I said I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life without the woman I love. You gotta know the only reason I did such a stupid thing was because I was in love with you. Otherwise, I never would have slept with someone I suspected.”
“Hmmm. ”
“You want me to go down on my knees, I will.”
She chewed on her lower lip. “Naw, the floor is kinda hard. But you have to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Foot rubs every night.”
For a second, he didn’t say anything. In fact, his face showed no expression, but there was a gleam of amusement hidden in the dark depths of his gaze. A smile curved his lips and then he laughed out loud. Before she had a chance to think, he grabbed her and was pressing his lips on hers, hard. Warmth spread through her. From the top of her head, past her weakened knees and all the way to her toes.
He pulled back and it was then she heard the applause. She glanced around and noticed their audience was now cheering.
“Foot rubs it is, Miss Menendez. As long as you make an honest man out of me. My uncle keeps reminding me he would like to have a few grand nieces and nephews.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “Are you proposing to me?”
“Yes, I am. What’cha say, Dulcy? Let’s get married and have a passel of rowdy children.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Rowdy.”
“Well, with a mother who flashes her boss then jumps in the limo, what kinda kids do you think we’d have?”
She laughed, love wrapping around her heart as he guided her out of the building and toward the rest of their lives.
About Melissa Schroeder
Born to an Air Force family at an Army hospital Melissa has always been a little bit screwy. She was further warped by her years of watching Monty Python and her strange family. Her love of romance novels developed after accidentally picking up a Linda Howard book. After becoming hooked, she read close to 300 novels in one year, deciding that romance was her true calling instead of the literary short stories and suspenses she had been writing. Since her first release in 2004, Melissa has had over 30 short stories, novellas and novels released with multiple publishers in a variety of genres and time periods. Those releases include the Harmless series, a best-selling erotic romance series set in Hawaii. A Little Harmless Sex, book 1, was one of the top 100 bestselling Nook Books of 2010.
Since she was a military brat, she vowed never to marry military. Alas, fate always has her way with mortals. Her husband is an Air Force major, and together they have their own military brats, two girls, and two adopted dog daughters, and they live wherever the military sticks them. Which she is sure, will always involve heat and bugs only seen on the Animal Discovery Channel. In her spare time, she reads, complains about bugs, travels, cooks, reads some more, watches her DVD collections of Arrested Development and Seinfeld, and tries to convince her family that she truly is a delicate genius. She has yet to achieve her last goal.