Melt for You (Slow Burn #2)(103)

I watch as Cam ambles into the room, gorgeous in only a pair of white briefs. He strolls over to where I’m sitting, leans over the back of the sofa, sweeps aside my hair, and kisses my neck.

“I wouldn’t eat haggis if you paid me a billion dollars. Let’s get back to Beth Addison before this conversation completely goes off the rails.”

Against the back of my neck, Cam murmurs, “We should talk about marriage, though. Considerin’ I already talked to your parents about it.” He stands and casually walks into the kitchen, as if he hasn’t just dropped a grenade into my lap.

He’s already talked to my parents about marrying me? Am I having a heart attack? Is this what a heart attack feels like? Oh God, I can’t feel my face.

“. . . on track with the dev edit?”

“What? Huh? What’d you say?” I twist around on the sofa so I can look at Cam. He’s rummaging around in the cupboard for something, his back to me.

Portia’s sigh sounds aggrieved. “I’m glad I didn’t already patch the rest of the team in—you’re hopeless today.”

“Portia, I’m so sorry—can I call you back in five minutes? I’m having trouble with the connection. I’m going to get on a landline.” Without waiting for her to answer, I hang up. Then I sit staring at Cam’s broad back until he turns around and looks at me.

When he sees the expression on my face, he breaks into a grin. “Oh, no. She’s thinkin’. I can smell the smoke from all the way over here.”

In a small voice, I ask, “You talked to my parents about marrying me?”

“I know,” he says, becoming serious. “It’s a little ridiculous considerin’ your advanced age, but I when we tell our kids the story about how we fell in love, got married, and lived happily ever after, I wanna be able to say I asked your father for permission. Even though I really just told him I’d be marryin’ his daughter, not asked, but that can be our little secret.”

Kids. My heart races like a thoroughbred heading into the home stretch at Churchill Downs. I breathe loudly through my mouth, like I do when I have a cold. “But I’ve . . . I’ve only been here for six weeks.”

Holding two tea bags he got from the cupboard, he saunters over to the stove. “Yep. And how many times during those six weeks have you told me how much you love it here?”

When I don’t answer because I’m too busy hyperventilating through my mouth and wondering if instead of a heart attack I’m suffering a stroke, he continues the conversation without me.

“You love my flat. You love the city. You love workin’ from home. You love Nanny O’Shea. You love the food—except for haggis—and the people, and the weather, and my mates on the Devils, and sittin’ in the stands, watchin’ me play. You love that Mr. Bingley has a girlfriend.”

He gestures to the cat bed under the dining room table, where Mr. Bingley contentedly snoozes with a sleek black cat half his size named Cleo. Cam adopted her from a shelter when I first arrived because he thought it was time for Mr. Bingley to give up his bachelorhood. The two cats have been inseparable ever since. Even in sleep, they’re curled around each other, one dark and one light, yin and yang.

“In fact,” he pretends to think, tapping his chin with the tea bag, “I think the only thing you haven’t yet said you love . . . is me.”

He holds my gaze for a few beats, then turns the gas on under the kettle on the stove, gets two mugs from another cupboard, sets them on the counter, and drops the tea bags into them. Then he folds his arms over his chest, leans against the counter, and stares at me.

Me, sitting on the sofa, concentrating all my energy on staying upright. “I . . . I . . .”

Cam arches his brows. He cups a hand around one ear. “Sorry, what was that? Were you trying to say somethin’, lass?”

I stand unsteadily, feeling my pulse in my whole body. Then I slowly make my way over to where Cam is standing in the kitchen. It seems as if I’m floating toward him, my feet barely skimming the ground. When I reach him, he takes me in his arms and gazes down at me with a secret little smile, his eyes half-lidded and hot.

“Go ahead,” he prompts. “Tell me how you were in love with me from the start, only you mistook that funny feelin’ in your stomach for gas. Tell me how I knocked you off your feet from the first moment I opened my mouth and you heard my incredibly sexy voice. Tell me how no other man on earth looks as good in a kilt as I do or makes you laugh like I do.” His voice drops. “Or makes you scream like I do. Go on, lass. Tell me.”

I’m trembling all over, my heart fluttering frantically like a trapped hummingbird inside my chest. “Yes,” I whisper, gazing up into his eyes. “Yes to all that.”

His secret smile deepens. He threads his fingers into my hair and combs them through, watching the strands flow over his hand. Then he gently tugs on a lock to bring me closer. “Now tell me how happy I make you.”

“Stupidly happy. Amazingly happy. Yes.”

He leans in and brushes his lips against my cheek. “And how you want to spend the rest of your life just like this.” He gives me a quick, hard squeeze. “In my arms.”

My throat is closing in on itself. My voice breaks when I say, “Yes.”

Cam presses the softest of kisses on my neck, then looks deep into my eyes. In a husky whisper, he says, “Now tell me you love me, lass. And make it good, ’cause you’ve made me wait too long.”