Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(101)
“I hate to say it, but you suck at this game,” he said. “Everything I love is right here. You’re getting it all wrong.”
She dropped one hand to the elastic waistband of his pajama bottoms and eyed him solemnly. “Okay, what about this? It is true that you’ll be proud of me still if I resign my office, refuse the ministry appointment, ask you to marry me, and tell you the only place I want to go is exactly where you are so I can hold you any goddamn time I want and make a bunch of babies with you for the whole rest of my life.”
In her entire political career, that was, hands down, the scariest speech she’d ever made. She held the floor, waiting for the blowback. Would he laugh it off? Would he reply with a different speech, telling her she needed to think about…fuck if she knew. Her career, her life, her government, her world? Her role in the future disintegration of the consortium and all their as-yet-unknown evil plans for humanity?
Which part of her guess would he find most objectionable?
He covered her hand with his, low over that ligament she’d ogled on a cold November night. She could feel the push of his blood below his skin, the breath in his body.
And a rumble of…oh yes, laughter. What the actual fuck?
“That ain’t a game, princess. That’s a candy counter, and I want all of it.” He wrapped her hand in his, dragging it from the warm spot below the elastic. “But I’m a selfish shit at heart, and I got to have more than that. I got to have all of you, and you’re so damn much, honey. So you go ahead and grab all that, and also the rest. Come with me to Isla Luz for a little while and help me walk them out of the dark. And if you want to take that post and go toe-to-toe with the consortium, I’ll be right there, too, backing you up. It’s all open from here, all those possibilities. Just let me live them with you. Don’t make me go away.”
She leaned down, walking her hands up his body, till she crushed him. Just crushed. She hovered her mouth above his. “So that is a yes?”
“What are you asking in specific?”
“Marry me. Stay with me. Have children with me.”
“And help you take over the world?”
“Well, that’s a given.”
He raised his head off the pillow and kissed her, hot and hard, and she could not breathe, and that was absolutely fine.
“Yes, little queen,” he said before the next kiss incoming. “Fuckin’ hell yes. Now, if we’re gonna mess up all the clean laundry in private, we’d best be quick before that cat unlocks the door.”
She can do that? Angela thought, but only for a second. Because words stopped being as important as touches, and it all sort of went downhill from there. Because love. Because kisses. Because joy and faith and connection and hope and life and infinite possibility. She owned all these parts of herself now, and they were all fucking awesome.
Which was exactly how the game was played.