Melanie didn’t know how Gabe could sleep at a time like this. Had he really just asked her to marry him? Not moving in together or how she felt about marriage, but a genuine proposal? And had she really said yes? She felt no regret over her hasty decision. Not even a trace of regret. But how could he cement their lives together and then casually roll over and take a nap? Must be a man thing.

Practically vibrating with excited energy, Melanie kissed Gabe’s bare shoulder and allowed herself the pleasure of running her hand down his perfectly defined chest, pausing to toy with the sexy barbell piercing his nipple before continuing over the eight perfect bumps that defined his abs. As she copped her feel, she dwelled on the reality that this magnificent, albeit sleeping, man was all hers, and then, unable to keep that reality to herself for a single second longer, she hopped out of bed. She found her shorts, fished her cellphone from the pocket and then quietly shut the bathroom door so she didn’t wake her sleeping fiancé. Fiancé? Holy shit, she was engaged!

“Mental Health Services,” a receptionist answered her call. “How can I help you?”

“I need to speak to Nicole Swanson, please. She’s a patient.”

“Oh yes, we’re all very familiar with Nikki,” the woman said.

What, exactly, was that supposed to mean? “Can I talk to her?”

“Let me see if she’s available.”

While Melanie was on hold, she stared at herself in the enormous mirror over the sink. She didn’t look any different from the way she’d looked that morning, but she felt like an entirely new woman. An obscenely happy one. Perhaps Nikki wasn’t the best person to share this news with first. She might not take it well. Maybe Melanie should have called her mom first. Her mom would be happy about her exciting news until she learned it meant her only daughter would likely be moving to Texas. Melanie normally saw her parents a couple of times a week. Her leaving Topeka would be an adjustment for all of them. And if she and Gabe had babies—her heart thudded with a mix of excitement and dread at the idea—she figured her parents just might find a way to move south to spoil those future grandchildren. But Melanie was getting ahead of herself. She and Gabe had talked about having babies only once, and it had been in regard to that pregnant groupie, Lindsey. Melanie wasn’t sure if she could handle the idea of another woman carrying Gabe’s baby. “Please don’t let it be his,” she murmured to herself.

“Please don’t let it be his what?” Nikki asked in her ear.

“Guess what?”

“You’ll be here in a couple of hours to bust me out of this hellhole.”

“Uh . . .” That had been the original plan. “We won’t be there until tomorrow, sweetie. Something came up.”

“Let me guess. Gabe’s dick came up, so you had to stop at a hotel and take care of that for him.”

Melanie laughed. “Lucky guess.”

“More like inevitable situation. You two are on fire for each other. Putting you into a car alone together could only lead to one thing.”

“Two things, actually.”

“You stopped at two different hotels? You are insatiable. Meow.”

“No, just the one. The other thing is . . .  Can you keep a secret?” Melanie wasn’t sure if Gabe wanted her to keep their spur-of-the-moment engagement a secret or not, but just in case . . . 

“You know I can’t keep a secret, Mel.”

“Well, try. I can’t keep this to myself. It’s too wonderful.”

“I’m locking my lips. Throwing away the key.”

Knowing Nikki, Melanie pictured her pantomiming the actions as she said them.

“Okay.” Melanie took a deep breath, her belly fluttering with butterflies. She was half-convinced she was dreaming, but telling Nikki made it more real. “Gabe wants to get married.”

“To who?”

Melanie rolled her eyes at herself in the bathroom mirror. “To me, silly.”

“You’re going to marry Gabe?”

“I know it’s a little fast—okay, it’s a lot fast—but I also know he’s the one. Is it possible? To just know? I never believed falling in love could really happen this way. I always thought love had to develop over time to be strong enough to withstand marriage, but with Gabe—”

“You’re going to marry Gabe?” Nikki interrupted.

“Yeah.” Melanie smiled at her reflection with complete confidence. “I’m going to marry Gabe.”

“Oh my God! You, Melanie from Kansas Anderson, are going to marry Gabe Force Banner, the motherfucking drummer of Sole Regret!” And so now the entire top floor of the hospital knew Melanie’s secret.

“Way to keep your mouth shut, Nik.”

“This is so freaking great! I get to be your maid of honor, right?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“Right?”

“Of course.” She couldn’t deny Nikki that central role at her side on the most important day of Melanie’s life. Nikki was her best friend. Melanie’s parents had never liked Nikki—she’s a bad influence on you, sweetheart—but that didn’t matter. If they thought Nikki was a bad influence, she couldn’t imagine how they’d react when they met Gabe. Conservative wasn’t just her parents’ middle names, it was their first and last names too. But she’d worry about their reaction to her fiancé later.

“Yes!” Nikki shrieked, her enthusiasm making Melanie smile. “I’m going to throw you the most amazing bridal shower and the bachelorette party of the century! When’s the big day?”

“We haven’t set one yet. Calm down a little. You’ll have plenty of time.”

“I’m going to start looking online for ideas. Oh, but I can’t do that here. I wish I had my phone. Then you could send me a pic of your engagement ring too.”

“Uh, well, I don’t have one of those.” And frankly a ring wasn’t that important to her. She wanted the man, not the diamond.

“Are you sure he proposed?”

“He asked and I said yes.”

Nikki cleared her throat. “Were you in bed at the time? Had he just had some crazy-hard orgasm right before he asked you?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Oh, Melanie, I’m so sorry. And you were so excited about it too.”

Melanie sat on the toilet because her knees were suddenly wobbly. “What are you saying?”

“Those after-sex proposals don’t count, hon. If I married every guy that proposed marriage to me after he blew a load, I’d have more husbands than Zsa Zsa Gábor and Elizabeth Taylor combined.”

“It wasn’t like that. We discussed it. He asked me. It was real.”

“Did he roll over and fall asleep afterwards?”

Melanie glared at her phone. Did Nikki have the place bugged? How could she know all that? Of course, Nikki had a lot more practice with men that Melanie ever would, but what Melanie had with Gabe wasn’t like anything Nikki had ever experienced.

“Yeah. He’s asleep.”

“If he doesn’t remember it when he wakes up, you have to give him an out. Sometimes good pussy makes guys say things they don’t mean.”

Melanie’s balloon of elation didn’t deflate, it burst. She swallowed the lump in her throat, glad she hadn’t been stupid enough to share the news with her mom before Nikki had set her straight.

“We’ll, uh, be there tomorrow,” Melanie said, blinking back the ridiculous tears in her eyes.

“Oh, please don’t cry, Mel. I didn’t mean to upset you. Maybe he really meant it.”

“I’m not crying.” And now she was a liar. She unrolled some toilet paper and dabbed at her eyes, fighting the urge to sniff, which would give away her deception.

“I’m sure he meant it, Mel. Who wouldn’t want to marry the sweetest, most caring and most generous, smartest, funniest, sexiest woman alive?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Mel,” Nikki whispered, “my heart is breaking for you.”

“I’m okay.”

She hung up and sat there trying to recall all that had been said and done when Gabe had asked her to be his wife. She’d believed his sincerity at that moment, so why was she doubting him now? She stared down at her bare left ring finger and jerked when a knock sounded on the door.

“Are you okay in there?” Gabe called.

“F-fine,” she said, wiping away a fresh batch of tears.

“I woke up to snuggle with my beautiful fiancée and found her missing.”

Fiancée? So he hadn’t forgotten? It hadn’t just been something he’d said because he’d blown his load—as Nikki had not-so-delicately put it.

“Can I come in?”

She stood from the toilet and checked herself in the mirror. Would he be able to tell she’d been crying? And all because she’d doubted him so easily. God, she felt absolutely wretched for her lack of confidence in his words. She looked almost as bad as she felt. Should she tell him? Or would her lapse of faith hurt him? The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. But she didn’t want to lie to him either.

“Do you really love me?” She felt stupid in her insecurity, but there it was staring her directly in the face through her own damned reflection.

“Yes, I love you.”

Her heart swelled. She closed her eyes and took a deep steadying breath, but she never felt steady when it came to Gabe, so wasn’t sure why she bothered. “Then you can come in.”

He opened the bathroom door, took one look at her, and stepped forward to drag her into his arms and hold her securely against his chest. “Why are you crying?”

He smoothed her hair with one hand, the other pressing her close against him, and kissed her head.

“Was,” she said. “I’m not crying anymore. Everything’s fine now.”

“Why were you crying?” he rephrased his question.

So she told him her entire conversation with Nikki. And it felt good to confide in him. To not have to hide her concerns, her insecurity.

“You know what your problem is?” Gabe said when she’d finished her spiel.

She leaned back and lifted an eyebrow at him. If he thought she’d let him use her insecurity against her, the man was mistaken. “My problem?”

“You don’t have a ring.” He scooped up her left hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the bare knuckle of her ring finger.

“I don’t need a ring, Gabe. I just want you.”

“You do need a ring. One that says my man loves me so much he emptied his bank account to buy a shiny lump of carbon atoms organized by nearly unbreakable tetrahedron covalent bonds.”

“You mean a diamond,” she said, giggling because his inner nerd was showing.

He nodded with a grin. “A great big one.”

“How about a tiny one?” She pinched her fingers together and held them up. Only a sliver of light shone between their tips.

“How about I surprise you? When I propose for real.”

“For real?”

He winked at her.

“Gabe? You aren’t planning on embarrassing me, are you?”

“Delighting you.”

“Just promise not to empty out your bank account.”

He scowled. “You’re not worried that I’m broke, are you?”

She was an accountant, so it had crossed her mind. He’d mentioned the possibility that the band would be sued for canceling their tour and not fulfilling their record contract. She didn’t care if he didn’t have two dimes to rub together—she’d love him regardless of the number of digits in his bank balance—but she didn’t want to contribute to his financial worries because he thought she needed a ridiculously expensive ring.

“Just be practical about it. I don’t need a ring at all, but if you insist, I’d be happier with something small.”

“I’m getting married to my one,” he said, and his delighted smile made her heart fill to bursting. “Practical will not be a variable in this equation.”

“Obviously.” Their relationship was progressing at the speed of light. Neither of them was being practical about being together, though both of them were typically practical people. “We haven’t even talked about the important things.”

He lifted a brow. “Like what?”

“Living arrangements, dates . . .” She felt her face flush before the next word even escaped her lips. “Babies.”

He blinked and licked his lips. She got the feeling he wanted to bolt, but instead he took a step back, tugging her forward by the hand he still held. “I think we should discuss this in bed.”

“Bed?” Though she doubted anything requiring reasoning skills could ever be accomplished when the two of them were in bed, she followed him out of the bathroom. “I don’t think I can make important decisions in bed.”

“Then I’ll state my case, you state yours, and we’ll compromise.”

She did love that he was as levelheaded as she was. Well, he was levelheaded except when he was angry. And in love.

He sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed her ass to pull her to stand between his open legs. She stared down into his dreamy green eyes.

“Would you rather go first, or should I?” he asked.

She traced his lower lip with a fingertip, still trying to wrap her head around the idea that this man was hers. Not for one night—as had been her original plan when they’d met—but always. “You go first.”

“Okay. I want you to live with me in Texas. We should get married as soon as possible. I have no preference on the where or the how, but soon.” He swallowed and glanced away for a second before meeting her eyes again. “I do want children, but I’d rather wait four or five years. Mostly so we can have an extended honeymoon.”

The grin he offered made her toes curl into the low-pile carpet.

“But also because my career is a little rocky and I’d want to be settled before we expand our family.”

“What if Lindsey’s baby is yours?” There, she’d asked.

“Not likely,” he said, “but . . .”

He rubbed his lips together, and she could practically see the cogs turning in his head. She hoped he wouldn’t say what he thought she wanted him to say just to please her. This relationship would be built on trust, and that had to start with being truthful even if the truth hurt.

“I’d still want things the way I just described, but I’d have to be a dad too. I couldn’t ignore any child I fathered. Now, what do you want?”

To be the first woman to mother your children. And to create those children out of love not lust. “A real wedding, surrounded by family and friends. It doesn’t have to be huge. Actually, I prefer something small. But I don’t want to elope. I want to share the celebration with everyone I love.”

“When?”

“As soon as possible.”

He grinned. “Glad we agree on that. Are you okay with moving to Texas? I know all your family lives in Kansas. Are you close?”

She nodded. “I see them a couple of times a week, but I would love to move into your house in Texas. I’m not overly attached to my job or my apartment.” And then she remembered someone she was attached to. “I can’t leave Nikki there by herself.”

Gabe squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m probably going to regret saying this, but we have plenty of room at my place. She could . . .” His lids squeezed even tighter. “. . . stay with us.”

“You mean it?” Melanie grabbed him around the head and pressed his face against her chest.

“Trial basis,” he said, his voice muffled by the boob against his lips.

“Of course. She’ll be on her best behavior.” Why did it make her love him more when he was good to Nikki? She supposed it was because in her eyes, his tolerance of Nikki made him a good person. And given time, maybe Nikki and Gabe could become close friends. Assuming Nikki didn’t try to seduce him or something. That would end her trial-basis living arrangements right there.

Melanie released his head and kissed his forehead. “I do love you.”

“Does that mean you want to have my babies?”

“I want to be the first and only woman to have your children.”

“Two or three?”

“If they’re like their father, I’d have a dozen.” When his face went ashen, she laughed. “I think three is a good compromise.”

“Let’s see how the first one goes before we add to the brood.”

“Good plan.”

“And you’re okay with waiting?”

“I’d start tomorrow if I could,” she admitted. She couldn’t wait to hold a little one that she and Gabe had created together.

“This will require some compromise,” he said. “How about three years? I should be able to figure my future out by then.”

“I thought I was your future.”

“You are,” he said. “But I thought you might like to have a roof over your head and food in your belly.”

She nodded, understanding his need to provide. “I can help with that, you know. How about we wait a year?”

“I’m okay with that if the band is back together and stable.”

“And if it’s not?”

“I don’t know if that will give me enough time to finish my degree and find a good job. I don’t know if I’ll be as stable as I’d like.”

She stroked the soft fuzz that was already starting to grow on the sides of his scalp. “There’s no way to predict that, and if we wait too long, it might never happen. I can easily get a good job. My skills are in high demand. I can work as either an accountant or a business manager. I have plenty of experience in both.”

“We could always play it by ear,” he said.

Their eyes met, and they both laughed. They were a pair of planners, that much was clear. Playing anything by ear was highly unlikely.

“When will you know if Lindsey’s baby is yours? That will likely throw a few more wrenches into our plans.”

“Owen said something about her getting a blood test to determine paternity. We could know within a week.”

“That soon?” Would that give her time to mentally prepare for the possibility that Gabe was going to be a father outside of their proposed timeline? But it was probably best to know as soon as possible so they could plan for a baby’s arrival, even if it wasn’t hers. Could she love a child that Gabe had fathered with another woman? Her heart froze over in ice at the very thought, but if confronted by a perfect tiny human that was half Gabe, she figured it would thaw instantly.

“Do you think I’d feel some sort of attachment to Lindsey if she’s carrying my child?” Gabe asked, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on her lower back. “I feel nothing for her. No affection. No animosity. Not even pity. Just a big hazy void of nothing. Maybe a touch of concern, but on her behalf, not mine. I don’t feel like it’s mine. There’s no connection.”

“But you’d feel a connection with the baby if it’s yours, wouldn’t you?” Melanie asked. “Once it’s born, I mean.”

He shrugged. “I assume so. It’s not something I have any experience with.”

“Let’s worry about that bridge when we come to it.” Their eyes met, and they both laughed again. Being planners also made them both worriers. “Let’s try not to worry about it too much in any case.”

“I’ll do my best.”

His hands slid from her lower back to cup her ass. He gave both cheeks a tight squeeze that made her ache for him.

“So now can we use this bed for something other than important discussions of our future?”

“What did you have in mind?” As if she didn’t already know.

“We need to practice our baby-making skills.”

She nipped his lip and straddled his lap. The tip of his cock pressed against her lower belly near the small diamond that dangled from her pierced belly button, and her breath caught as a knot of lust uncoiled within her. Would she ever be able to be in this man’s presence without wanting him buried balls deep inside her? She hoped not.

“I do think I need a refresher course.” She giggled when he tumbled her onto the bed.

“At some point tonight we’ll need to get our luggage out of the car. All of my hardware is in there.”

“I think you’ll manage to get the job done without it.” She wrapped both arms around his neck and pulled him down for a toe-curling kiss. His mouth moved along her jaw toward her ear.

“How do you feel about sex swings?” he asked, his voice low and at almost a whisper.

“Never been in one.”

“With anal attachments. For him and her.”

She laughed. “Only you would come up with something like that.”

“You can’t hold it against me. You inspired the idea.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to try it.”

“We’re going to have to put something in our wedding vows about prototypes.”

She snorted, wondering how she could be turned on and amused at the same time. “About you inventing them or me using them?”

“Both.”

“If we do, I’m not inviting my parents to the ceremony.”

He nipped her earlobe, which sent a spike of pleasure down the back of her neck. “I wanted to elope anyway.”

“I want a real wedding, Gabriel,” she said, not willing to compromise on that particular point.

“Oh no,” he said, grimacing. “She already knows how to get her way by using my full name.”

It was that easy, was it? In that case . . .

“Oh Gabriel.”

“Yes, Melanie?”

“My clit has a date with your tongue.”

He grinned crookedly. “Well, my tongue sure doesn’t want to be late for that.”