Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
When I wake up this morning and find him with his leg tossed over me, keeping me in place, I smile. He never sleeps in, but it’s past ten already, and here he is, still out like a light. I roll into him and graze his throat with my lips.
He groans and then his sleepy brown eyes flutter open. He’s still barely coherent, but already he’s kissing me back, grinding his hips into me. Ronan always takes me in the morning. And often when he gets home at night too, regardless of how tired he is. Sometimes, we even find each other in the middle of the night, in a dead sleep. Our bodies are bringing us together before our minds ever catch up to it.
This morning though, there’s another change in him as he flips me over and moves inside of me. He’s no longer rushed or out of control, but slow and gentle. His eyes are on mine, soft and filled with possession.
When I convulse around him, he ceases all movement. His breath is halted, his biceps and neck corded and taut. He’s nervous for some reason. Which he hasn’t been for a while now. But one thing I’ve learned with Ronan is that he usually takes a while to process things, and then they come up later unexpectedly.
“What is it?” I reach up and touch his face. He leans into my hand and closes his eyes.
“Sasha…” his voice cracks.
And then he’s fucking me again. It’s hard and fast now. His face is buried in my neck, and I’m cupping the back of his head, holding him against me. I don’t know what’s going on with him, but I also know not to push him. He’ll tell me when he’s ready.
And as it turns out, that’s right after he releases himself on a long, painful groan inside of me. I’m still filled with him, kissing his neck when he blurts out what’s on his mind.
“Would ye have me as your husband?”
My hands stop moving, my breath sputters, and I stare up at him in shock.
“Are you…” I croak. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“Aye,” he says carefully.
His brows are scrunched together, and he isn’t blinking. At all. He’s so worried I’m going to say no that he keeps looking for tells. He doesn’t need them because I put him out of his misery quickly and without hesitation.
“Yes, Ronan.”
“Yes?” he questions. “You will?”
I nod. But he still doesn’t look convinced, so I kiss him to seal the deal. He gets so into it that he seems to forget his disbelief, which is exactly what I intended. And that’s that.
He collapses beside me and pulls me into the crook of his arm. I nuzzle into him and breathe in his scent, my eyes fluttering shut in the safe haven he provides.
“Sasha?”
“Hmm?” I murmur sleepily against him.
“I don’t know how I ever had the good fortune to find you.”
***
When I wake up again, Ronan is gone. I suspect he probably had business in the city since that’s usually where he goes. But then I hear a noise coming from down the hall. I swear I might be going crazy because it sounds like a baby.
I pad down the hall, following the sound of gibberish that’s coming through a cracked door. And when I open it, I find the last thing I ever thought I’d see in my entire life.
Ronan and Lachlan are both hunched over a table, staring at the baby on top of it like they’re trying to work out a puzzle of some sort. Alexei is supervising from the side as is Daisy from down below.
“No, see these little flips go like so,” Ronan says as he points at the diaper on the table.
“I don’t think they do, Fitz,” Crow argues. “They don’t stay like that.”
“Maybe you could tape them,” Alexei offers.
I clear my throat from the door, and all three of them look at me like deer in the headlights. Ronan’s cheeks flush, and so do Lachlan’s. Something I never in a million years thought he was capable of. I just caught the boss and the underboss of the Irish mob blushing over a baby.
“Um, guys…” I point at the half naked little boy laying on the center of the table. “You might want to do something about that before…”
A stream of pee flies up into the air and hits Lachlan on the arm. He stares down at it with a bewildered expression and then him and Ronan are scrambling to put the diaper on.
“Get me the tape,” Ronan yells out to Alexei like it’s a state of emergency.
“Do you want some help?” I ask them.
“No,” both of them say together. And then Ronan adds, “we need to sort this out on our own.”
I stifle a smile and slip quietly out the door. Although I’d very much like to stay and witness the rest of the stooges in all their glory, I have a feeling Ronan is attempting to take this very seriously. He’s nervous about being a father. And the fact that he’s practicing with Lachlan is pretty much testament to that.