It Must Be Your Love (The Sullivans #11)(78)

He kissed her, then, and she poured all of her love for him into it.

“I love you, too,” he whispered against her lips. “Stay backstage for the rest of the show. Right here where I can see you, where I can come and kiss you anytime I need to. Like now.” He traced her lips with his tongue. “And now.” The gentle bite of his teeth against her lower lip made her knees even weaker than they already were.

His band had already launched into the opening bars of the first song of his second set when she whispered, “I would do anything for you.”

And a few minutes later, as she listened to Ford thank the crowd for all the great years they’d given him on the road, knowing it was his way of saying goodbye to them even if the audience members didn’t understand that yet, Mia knew that she would truly do anything for the man she loved.

Even if it meant letting him go...instead of letting him give up everything for her.

* * *

The rain was pouring down hard by the time they got back to his house and ran toward the tower. There was no shower in the tower room, but the heavy downpour had taken care of washing him clean.

Through their linked hands, Ford could feel how hard Mia was shivering when they reached the top of the tower stairs. He’d purposely gotten her wet the other night when he’d thrown her into his pool, but tonight, though her silver dress stuck to her every curve like a sexy second skin, he only wanted her dry and warm and in his arms. Maybe it would have made sense to stop in the master bedroom and bathe first to warm up and dry off, but without even needing to discuss it, it had been clear that they would bypass the house for their special room, high up in the Seattle sky.

Seconds after closing the tower door behind them and turning on the lights, he had her dress off and was wrapping her in a thick blanket. Again and again he ran his hands over her until she stopped shaking quite so hard.

“I promise I’m going to warm you up all over in a minute.”

Stripping himself down as quickly as he’d stripped her, he picked up another blanket to wrap around his damp body, then pulled her down onto his lap. Tonight, knowing they were going to begin their new life together, he’d stashed a little blue box under one of the pillows.

“I need you closer,” she whispered as she shifted on his lap to burrow beneath his blanket so that they were skin to skin, her chest pressed to his, her arms around his back, her legs wrapped around his waist. “I never want to let you go, Ford.”

For once, he didn’t have any protection on him, but he knew how much she loved family, and he couldn’t wait to start making one with her as soon as possible. Little girls and boys who would fill up their home with laughter and love.

“I never want to let you go, either,” he said as he lifted her slightly over him so that she could wrap her legs fully around him and sink down over his erection on a sigh of pleasure that shook through both of them. It was the first time he’d ever been inside of her bare, with nothing between them but damp skin and heat, and he knew nothing in the world would ever feel this good. Only making love with Mia.

“You’re still shaking,” he murmured against the crook of her neck. He was no longer sure if it was because she was chilled from the rain. Just in case she still had any doubts, he desperately needed to put them to rest. “Don’t you know I’d do anything for you? Don’t you know that I’ll always put you first?”

“I love you so much,” she said in a raw voice that shook just as much as her body still was, even as their lovemaking heated up more and more with every stroke of his body inside her. “More than I ever knew it was possible to love.”

And as they took each other over the edge of pleasure that was both sweet and sinful, Ford knew it was finally time to ask her to be his.

Forever.

* * *

Ford was stroking his hands over her back and Mia was trying to get her synapses to start firing logically again when he said, “The first time I saw you here in the tower, I wanted to ask you to marry me.”

Drawing back from the crook of his neck where she’d been resting her head, Mia watched Ford reach beside them to pull a little blue box out from beneath a cushion.

Oh God, he couldn’t do this now. He couldn’t ask her to marry him when she’d finally accepted just how much she loved him...and that loving him meant setting him free. She opened her mouth to try to stop him before her heart broke any more than it already had, but the sheer force of emotion in his dark eyes stole her words away.

“I look around this house, I walk through this city, and you’re everywhere. You haven’t just made music matter again for me, you’ve made everything matter.” When he opened his hand, there was a ring in it with a large sparkling yellow diamond in the center. “Marry me, Mia, and make me the happiest man on the planet.”

She hadn’t cried over him since that night in Miami, when she’d believed nothing they’d felt for each other was real. Now that she knew just how real their love was, her tears finally fell again.

“You can’t stay in Seattle.”

He stared at her as if he couldn’t have heard her correctly. But disbelief quickly gave way to confusion. “Everything I want is here, Mia. Especially you.”

“That’s not true.” When she saw the hurt rise up in his eyes, she went down on her knees before him and took his face in her hands. “I know you love me and you want to be with me. But you also belong on stage, Ford. Not just at an occasional fundraiser, but playing stadiums in front of hundreds of thousands of people.”