Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4)(95)

“I think Max has a point about the Jacuzzi, don’t you think?” Elle said, standing on the porch of the cabin.

Jack came out and leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his chest. “You mean for fishing shrimp?”

Elle laughed. “Don’t know about that, but a hot, bubbly Jacuzzi out on the deck facing the forest and the lake, right there,” she said, pointing ahead, “would be so relaxing.”

“Since when are you into relaxing?”

“Since my boyfriend f*cks me blind every night and I get more cardio than the Duracell bunny.”

Jack barked out a laugh.

She’d made huge progress on her promise to slow down. He wouldn’t say she was Zen-like, but she was much better. Able to sit down and enjoy doing nothing, just watching nature, which was great news for the state’s reforestation. And she was talking more about her brother and father. Had taken him to visit their graves. Marlene’s too.

“Come here,” he ordered.

She turned to him, that sexy defiance on her gaze. So f*cking sexy. “Why?”

“Because I say so.”

“Mamma mia che pazenzia.” Rolling her eyes, Elle obeyed. “The things I put up with for you.”

She came to him and he lifted her chin. “And why is that? Stockholm Syndrome?”

“Nah, I can’t blame it on that. I just love you.”

“How unfortunate for you,” he murmured against her lips and kissed her while hauling her up.

Elle wrapped her legs around his waist. “You better be careful, Borg. Don’t you know women transform anything into something mighty? Haven’t you learned by now? You give a woman a spermatozoid, she gives you a baby. You give her a house, she’ll give you a home. You give her a caress, she’ll give you her heart. She multiplies and makes bigger anything that’s offered to her. So do not give me any shit or you’ll find yourself neck-deep in it. Give me problems and prepare yourself because I’ll make your life impossible.”

He took her to the sofa—a brand-new sofa that Elle had bought from IKEA and had managed to transport to the cabin with Ronnie’s complicity—and sat on it. “Is that your subtle way of telling me you want my kid?”

Elle snorted. “Is that all that you got from what I just said?”

He ignored her. “You start having my babies, we might as well get hitched.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Shitty marriage proposal, Borg. Even for someone speech-impaired. Besides, we’re in the middle of an argument. You can’t propose to me now. There are rules for that kind of thing.”

“Says who?” He cupped her face, his thumb caressing her sweet mouth. His voice was low. “You want me on my knees? Because you already have me there. Had me on my knees for a long time. They are scraped bloody, pet. I’m an embarrassment to manhood.”

Elle’s soft body moved with laughter. “I doubt it very much. I can attest to your excellence.”

“This formality is for you. As far as I am concerned, we are already married. This is it, for better or for worse, until death do us part. You want the party and the ceremony, you’ll have them, but I don’t need them. You’re my woman.”

“I might want the party and the ceremony,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “But you know what I totally and definitely need? A bachelorette party.”

“You’ll have that too.” He might trail them and shoot at every guy who glanced at her but she’ll have her bachelorette party.

“I’m thinking coed,” she continued, smirking. “At a paintball range, with me in an old wedding dress and the girls wearing bridesmaids’ ones.”

“Do the guys have to wear the dresses too? Because that’s not going to go down well.”

She laughed. “No, you can go in your badass regular outfits. So, you game?”

He nodded. He was game for any-f*cking-thing she wanted. Now and forever.

“You haven’t properly answered, pet,” he whispered.

“You haven’t properly asked, Borg.”

Smart-ass.

He stared into those big, black, bottomless eyes. “Will you do me the immense honor of marrying me? I know you are way out of my league and that you could do much better, get some happy-go-lucky guy who would coordinate his wardrobe, would never snarl, and would have an extremely busy and fulfilling social life, but I love you, snarling hermit up in the mountains that I am.”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”

He reached into the pocket of his jacket and presented her the only valuable thing that had ever meant shit to him. “I didn’t get you a diamond engagement ring, pet.”

It was Celia’s family ring. “Take it, mijo,” she had said on her deathbed, forcing him to accept the ring. “For whenever you find the person you can’t breathe without.”

Jack had found her.

“Good, because I’m not the diamond-engagement-ring type.”

Jack slid it on her finger. Perfect.

“Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“I prefer the snarling hermit with the cabin up in the mountains. Hands down. He’s much more fun to tease. The happy-go-lucky guy who doesn’t snarl and has an extremely busy and fulfilling social life? He tends to be gay.”