Indigo Nights (Nights #3)(75)
“Dylan.” I wasn’t perfect and I didn’t like that that was how he saw me. I could only let him down. “You know that’s not true.”
He continued to rock in and out of me. “What I know is that you’re perfect for me.”
The beginning of my orgasm rumbled at the base of my spine. I got it now. Perfect for each other didn’t mean getting everything right, it just meant not giving up, trusting each other and being in it forever.
Dylan’s fingers changed direction and I squirmed against his touch, wanting to hold off my orgasm, wanting to stay like this for a while.
“You don’t need to save them,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Our future is just going to get better and better in every way.” He sped up his hip movements and bent toward me, licking a hot, damp line across my collarbone as I threaded my hands through his hair. “I’m going to spend the rest of our lives making you feel like this.”
I believed him. He loved me. I just had to let him, feel worthy and love him right back.
I molded into him and let my climax overtake me, flowing from my skin and across his as he jerked inside me, calling my name over and over.
He felt like mine.
He felt like forever.
Beth
“It makes more sense for you to be in Chicago,” I said as Dylan handed me the strawberries. We were having another conversation about where we were going to live.
I poured the cream into my mixer and started the machine. I was making strawberry and white chocolate hearts mille-feuille. Puff pastry was a killer, but the first batch I’d made this morning was the best I’d ever done. I was trying out recipes for a new cable cooking show launching in the UK in four months that had given me a dozen fifteen minute slots. Baking was no longer about my past. It was all about my future. Our future.
Dylan grabbed a strawberry from the bowl beside me. “You have this new show, so it makes more sense for me to be where you are.” In the weeks since we’d been back together, Dylan hadn’t been back to Chicago and I hadn’t questioned it, wanting everything to stay as it had been. Dylan had barely been back to his apartment. He certainly hadn’t slept there. We’d spent every night together, and I couldn’t imagine anything else. If that meant I had to move to Chicago, then so be it.
“But be practical, that’s where your business is.”
“But you’re here. You’re happy here and that’s what’s most important to me. And now that the Redux deal has gone through, Raf and I need to be on top of things. I can make London work.” He checked his messages, dropping the discussion as if it were a done deal.
“Well, maybe for six months or something.” I stopped the mixer and waited for Dylan to respond.
He looked up at me. “We’re not living in the fifties. I can do what I need to by video conference. People are used to it now. It’s not such a big deal. I want you to be happy, and I can always fly back when I need to. Raf’s cool about it.”
“You’ve spoken to him?”
He shrugged. “Of course.”
“Before you spoke to me?”
“Beth, I’ve seen you with your family. It’s important to you to be here with them. As much as I love Chicago, it’s just a city to me. This is your home. Anyway, I like the thought of our kids having British accents.” He pulled me to his chest. “Have I told you how much I like you in this apron?”
I ignored his perverted apron obsession. “Kids?”
“Yeah, I was thinking five or six, but maybe six is too many.”
“Oh yeah, but five is perfectly fine? You don’t have to push them out of your vagina.”
“We can start with one and see how we go.” Dylan threaded his fingers through mine and traced his thumb across my wrist.
“Okay then.” I rested against his chest. “But not yet. I’m young and . . .” I’d thought about having kids in the abstract. Spending time with Sophia and Maggie convinced me I wanted children but it wasn’t something that I saw happening to me in the near future. Life fundamentally changed when kids came along. Dylan and I would be together forever, but I just wasn’t ready to share him yet.
“I’d like a few years just you and me, if I’m honest,” Dylan said, echoing my own thoughts. “We can borrow Maggie or Sophia if we want to practice. But let’s spend a few years married on our own. I’ve not tasted everything you can bake yet.”
I laughed. “Did you just propose?”
Dylan shook his head. “Nope. You’ll know when I do. I haven’t bought a ring yet.”
“Okay then.” I frowned. “What if I want to propose to you?”
“Well, I guess we’ll see who gets there first.” He kissed me on the forehead.
“Okay then.” I looked up at him and stroked his jaw. “Dylan?”
“Yes, my sweet?” He dropped a small kiss on my lips.
“Will you marry me?”
He smiled and shook his head. “You a little impatient?”
I turned in his arms. “Always.”
“Me too, baby, me too. But I’m not answering that question, so you’re just going to have to wait until I have a ring. Anyway, though I hate to interrupt this moment, I smell something burning.”