Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 147540 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147540 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
“Alexandra,” he whispered.
“You played left field on your fire crew’s softball team and batted clean up. At your party, your friend Drake told me they missed you in the lineup. You can run and you can hike and you can fuck me on your knees, but you can’t play softball?”
“Come here.”
“I have never in my life seen my father approve of anybody. Not without years and batteries of his tests. You introduce yourself to him by agreeing that I’m perfect, and he immediately accepts you. But it’s the man you are. You saw him with Chad today. He’s no dummy. He read who you were the minute he saw you.”
“Got my legs off, baby, come here.”
“Thanks for standing up for me today, repeatedly, and once, literally.”
“Baby.”
“I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Get your ass over here,” he growled.
She got over there, crawling right into his lap, where he liked her, but he fell back, twisted and rolled, so her head was to the pillows, and he was on top of her.
She had his face in her hands.
“You take care of me.”
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“I don’t ever want you to doubt it again. I don’t.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Quiet,” he ordered.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“The day you had, I’m supposed to be looking after you, and you’re all over seeing to me,” he grumbled.
“Rix, if you don’t think I know you’re looking after me. If you think I missed the trench coat and the grown-up sibling squabbling and the man huddle, whispering about how you’re all worried about me, you’re crazy.”
She hadn’t missed the trench coat.
“We’re right now in a glorified hotel room that’s in a home and you gave that to me tonight,” she continued. “I didn’t miss it, honey.”
“This is fucking with my head, not the drama, knowing you grew up in this mausoleum,” he admitted.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Not yours to be sorry for.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“You saw what Jamie and Rosalind gave Dru. You saw what I had.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what we’re giving our kids.”
Her eyes closed. Then they opened.
It wasn’t a blink. It was more like a surprise seizure.
He grinned.
And teased, “Gimme a break.”
“Give you a break?”
“Babe, you’re wearing my ring.”
“It’s fake.”
“It’s unofficial,” he corrected.
“Rix!” she snapped. “This is huge. What’s with you acting all blasé about it?”
“Because it is what it is. You’re giving it back when we get home so I can give it to you again when I ask you to marry me.”
“I’m not giving it back,” she retorted. “I love it. I’m keeping it. You can do the deed with the question whenever, but I’m not giving up this ring.”
He gave her more of his weight and replied, “No way in fuck, baby. You’re not wearing that ring after you put it on yourself which was after I tossed the box with it inside across a room to you. I’m gonna figure out something memorable and slide it on your finger my own fucking self when it’s official.”
“That’s totally a waste. We know what this is,” she bitched.
“Then why the surprise seizure when I start talking about our kids?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Surprise seizure?”
“Told my mom it isn’t what it is…yet, and you’re all big eyes and bullshit surprise.”
She shoved at him. “I am surprised.”
“Baby, we know what this is.”
She started bitching again. “This is maybe the least romantic proposal-non-proposal, future-children discussion in history.”
“I made no promises about romance. I promised sexual slavery and excellent grill skills.”
“Ohmigod! You’re the worst.”
He dipped his head, and against her neck, he murmured. “Now, time for the sexual slavery part.”
“Ugh!”
He slid a hand under her thermal at her belly.
“Two kids,” she snapped at the ceiling.
He lifted his head and looked down at her. “Three.”
“Okay, three,” she agreed grouchily.
“Better give me a Kinsley, baby,” he warned.
“We must have a boy with your caramel eyes or we’re going to keep going until I have one.”
“Caramel eyes?” he teased.
“Just shut up, Rix, and fuck me.”
He was him, so he had to take a beat to shoot her a cocky smile.
Alex lifted her head.
And kissed it off his mouth.
Chapter 24
The Conversation
Alex
I didn’t know what woke me.
I was not typically a sound sleeper. But when I was in bed beside Rix, my sleep had been the best I’d had in my life.
But I woke.
And when I did, I saw through the dark that Rix was sitting on the side of the bed.
This didn’t seem strange to me at first.
But then he didn’t move.
I got worried, and as it goes when that happens, a number of possibilities washed through my mind.
Such as, he needed to go to the bathroom, and we hadn’t put his chair close enough to the bed.
Or the chair was close enough, but he needed to go to the bathroom, and although we’d brought a portable bench for the shower, there were no handrails anywhere, and this made everything in the bathroom harder to maneuver from his chair.