Melt for You (Slow Burn #2)(104)
I exhale a shaky breath, gather myself, and do as he commands.
“I love you the way I love the smell of old books. I love you the way I love a hot bath on a cold day. I love you the way I love sonnets and ice cream and a swimsuit that doesn’t make me look like I’m made of burrata. I love you the way I love the sun on my face in winter. The way I love a favorite song playing on the radio when I’m driving home from the beach on a summer day.”
He swallows, his eyes shining with emotion. I go up on my toes and press a soft kiss to his lips.
Against his mouth, I murmur, “I love you like I love starry nights, and really crunchy pickles, and discovering an amazing new author, and Sunday mornings in bed with the paper and chocolate croissants. Like I love the way the air smells after it rains. Like I love to laugh.”
He drops his face to my neck and presses it there, tightening his arms around me, so I whisper the last part right into his ear.
“But actually I love you more than all those things combined, Cameron McGregor. I love you like I never knew I could love anything. You’re more important to me than air itself, and I don’t ever want to spend a day without you. Because you believed in me, this little ugly duckling finally became a swan.”
A delicate shudder runs through his chest. He inhales deeply, squeezing me so tight I feel every single wild beat of his heart.
“You were always a swan, you bloody idiot,” he says in a strangled voice.
I tilt my head back and laugh, though my eyes are filled with tears. They’re happy tears, however. Happy-ever-after tears. “Whatever I am, prancer, I’m yours. Now kiss me before you say something stupid and ruin the moment.”
“God, you’re bossy,” he grumbles, but when he lifts his head, he’s grinning from ear to ear. His eyes are filled with happy tears, too. He bends his head toward mine but then stops. “Wait.”
I crinkle my brow. “What?”
“You haven’t said you’ll marry me.”
“Well . . . technically, you haven’t asked.”
He pretends to think about it. “You’re right. I haven’t.”
When he doesn’t say anything else, I prompt, “So?”
“So I think I should wait until after lunch. I’m pretty hungry.”
“Cam!” Outraged, I smack his arm.
He laughs, delighted by my reaction, which is obviously exactly what he was hoping for. “All right, hold your horses, Miss Snufflebottom, gimme a minute to compose myself before I pop the question!”
I stare at him with pursed lips as he clears his throat and adopts a serious expression. When he looks at me, I realize I’m holding my breath.
He declares, “We’re gettin’ married.”
“Ugh! That wasn’t a question!”
He presses his lips together to keep from laughing. “Are we getting married?”
I growl like a bear, ready to rip his head off. This is the first marriage proposal I’ve ever received, and the man is making jokes! I look at his smug, smirking face and decide I need to take matters into my own hands.
“Fine. I can see I’m going to have to take control of this situation.” I straighten my shoulders, lift my chin, and look him right in the eye. “Cameron McGregor, will you marry me?”
His expression goes all melty, as if he’s fighting tears. He takes my face in his hands, whispers vehemently, “I thought you’d never ask,” and kisses me like he’s starving.
When the kettle starts to whistle, neither one of us pays it any mind.
Once upon a time, in a land not so far away,
A duckling born to a family of swans
Was mistakenly led astray.
It took a prince of beauty and brawn
With a brogue like rich brown sugar
To show the duckling the way back home
So she could grow bigger, better, surer
Of herself so she no longer had to roam
Through the dark forest of lost hearts.
But along the way she fell under his spell
From the prince she never wanted to part,
In the circle of his arms she longed to dwell.
So the duckling said to her princely valentine
“For all time I’ll be yours, and forever you’ll be mine.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is the fun part of the book, after all the cursing and crying is done and the bleeding has almost completely stopped. Writing a novel has several things in common with childbirth, not the least of which is the overwhelming relief at a successful delivery after many months of uncomfortable gestation. (I don’t have kids, but the comparison was irresistible.)
Before I get to the thank-yous, I want to tell you about a close friend I had when I was a teenager. We’ll call her Eva (not her real name). Eva was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, even to this day, some thirty years later. She was of Irish descent, with long, dark hair, enormous crystal-blue eyes, and skin so perfect it glowed. Tall, graceful, and always the most popular girl throughout junior high and high school, she was universally loved.
She was also filled with intense self-loathing.
Convinced her perfect body was fat, she dieted rigorously, eating only saltines, rice cakes, and celery, until she grew so thin her period stopped. She worked out like a machine, running miles every day before school. She was obsessed with how she looked, down to the tiniest detail, and would spend hours in front of the mirror, trying on new outfits, picking at imaginary blemishes, learning new makeup techniques to contour already-hollow cheeks.