A week later

April woke up and stretched and then pounced on the extraordinarily sexy, deliciously muscular, and absolutely gorgeous man stretched out on the bed next to her. He opened first his blue eye, and then his green eye, and then he put his hands on the sides of her face and pulled her to him for a long, luxurious kiss.

"Have I mentioned how much I love you?"

She laughed. "Several times a day, in fact."

Pine flipped her over in one quick, powerful movement so that her naked body was beneath his, which made all the tingling feelings she'd been having intensify. Then he took her breasts in his clever, clever hands, and she moaned.

"Again?"

He flashed that wickedly seductive smile. "I only made you come seven times last night. I can't have my woman be unsatisfied."

She gasped when those clever fingers reached down and parted her legs but then her body went boneless with surrender and liquid with need. "Only … seven … times? Now you're just boasting."

He kissed her hard and deep, and then he replaced his fingers with his cock and she wrapped her legs around his and pulled him to her. "Also, don't think we're not going to talk about that 'my woman' crack, even if you are the werewolf prince of Europe."

"We prefer wolf shifter," he said silkily, plunging deep inside her wet heat with so much power that she felt him inside her soul.

Again.

They'd reached the fabled Atlantean soul-meld on their first night together, when they'd connected on such an intensely deep level that they'd actually seen inside each other's souls. She'd seen his intense loneliness, his love for his family.

His love for her.

He'd seen her desperate, isolated childhood, her fierce need to prove herself as a warrior.

Her love for him.

Now, every time they made love, the connection only grew deeper and more powerful.

"I love you, too, you know," she told him, meeting him thrust for thrust, reveling in the music their bodies made together.

"And you always will," he said with an expression of such smug masculine triumph that she had to laugh.

"And I always will. Now shut up and kiss me."

And so he did, while claiming her body, her heart, and her future in the most primal way possible.

When they both lay panting, sated, but still unwilling to stop touching each other, Pine reached over her body and reached into the end table drawer. He rolled over to face her and kissed her again; slowly, deeply, gently.

Then he handed her a tiny blue velvet box.

She blinked. "What? Are we supposed to give each other gifts?" A panicked expression crossed her face. "I didn't know. You promised to tell me when I missed some human ritual. I--"

"April." He smiled at her, and everything in her world was suddenly okay.

"Yes, Pine? By the way, you still need to tell me your first name. I know from Nyn that Pine is your last name, but she won't tell me, either."

"I have dirt on her, too," he said, still grinning. "Now stop interrupting me. I need to ask you a question."

April rolled her eyes and sat up. "So ask, already. It's not like--"

"Will you marry me?"

She fell out of bed.

Pine leaned over the edge of the bed and looked down at her, laughing. "Is that an Atlantean ritual? You accept a proposal of marriage by falling off the bed?"

She could only stare at him. Words didn't work. "I—you—we—I--"

"Yes, honey, that's all the pronouns. How about we try other words now? Like yes?" He leapt out of bed, gloriously naked, and swept her up into his arms. "Marry me, April. Be my love and my soul-mate and my ambassador and my woman. Be my conscience and my challenge, be the mother to my children and the aunt to my niece and the joy of my life. Marry me, April, because you are my life, now and forever."

April's face felt hot and wet, and she realized she was crying. For the first time since she was six years old, she was crying.

"Yes," she told him. "Yes. For all of those reasons, but most of all, because I will love you until the oceans run dry. I will marry you, my werewolf prince."

He kissed her then; kissed her until they had no breath left in their lungs. "Now you'll be my werewolf princess." With that, he took the beautiful ring and slid it on her finger.

"No," she told him.

He froze. "No?"

"No. I will not be your werewolf princess." She held up their joined hands and admired her ring. "We prefer wolf shifter."

When they finally stopped laughing and kissing for a moment or two, April poked him in the chest. "Now that I’m going to marry you, you have to finally tell me your first name."

He sighed. "Fair is fair." Then he leaned over and whispered in her ear.

When he sat back up, she stared up at him in a mixture of horror and shock.

"No!"

"Sadly, yes."

"Really?"

"Really."

She thought about it for a minute and then nodded. "Okay. The wedding's off."