Five months later, on a Wednesday evening, I left work and walked down the block to a familiar hotel.

I hadn’t stepped through those doors into the lobby for months now, but Sean had texted me at lunchtime and asked if I’d come over after work.

I knew why.

I might pretend not to be sentimental, but I am.

Today was exactly one year from that first evening we spent together.

On a Wednesday night.

In this hotel.

It was very sweet that he’d remembered.

The elevator smelled exactly as it always had—that faint combination of expensive aftershave and cleaning products. If the scent had been strong, it would have been unpleasant, but it was just barely there.

I kind of liked it.

It evoked all kinds of powerful memories.

I leaned against the wall of the elevator as it ascended, closing my eyes as I waited. I was actually quite tired this evening. For the past three weeks, I’d been working on a big project. It was a good thing—a definite step up for my career—but I’d had to put in long hours and had stayed awake at night thinking about it.

I hoped Sean didn’t have plans for some sort of sex marathon tonight.

I wasn’t sure I was up for it.

When the elevator made it to the twelfth floor, I stepped off and walked down the hall, pausing in front of the mirror. Today, I wore a dark green skirt suit and a new pair of heels. My hair was as straight and un-tousle-able as ever.

Love unfortunately didn’t cause one’s hair to turn miraculously sexy.

Shaking my head at my reflection, I continued to the door for room 1212.

I knocked.

After a few seconds, the door swung open, and Sean looked at me over the threshold with an arch of one eyebrow and a little twitch of his mouth. He wore nothing but a pair of soft black sleep pants, and his hair was a bit damp at the edges. He’d obviously just gotten out of the shower.

“Are you trying to be sexy?” I asked him.

He frowned. “Trying?”

I laughed and stepped forward to kiss him as he pushed the door closed.

He smelled clean and delicious, and his body was warm and hard. He walked me backward into the room as his mouth moved against mine, pulling the strap of my bag off my shoulder and dropping it on the floor as we went.

“I guess you were anticipating in the shower,” I mumbled as he eased me down onto the bed and moved over me. I was vaguely conscious of the bottle of red wine with two glasses on the table and a white bakery box on a side table, but the only thing I could focus on was Sean.

“I’ve been anticipating all afternoon.” His shoulders and biceps were tense, but his smile was almost tender as he gazed down on me. His eyebrows drew together slightly. “You look tired.”

“Thanks a lot.” I pulled him down into another kiss so we wouldn’t lose any momentum. “I’ve been anticipating too.”

My kiss must have convinced him that I was sufficiently in the mood for sex because he immediately got going. He took off my clothes piece by piece, kissing and caressing the skin he revealed.

Tired or not, good sex is good sex. By the time he’d stripped me naked, I was very turned on. As he kissed his way down my bare belly, I was squirming beneath him and tugging eagerly at his hair.

His mouth continued its descent until he was nuzzling between my legs. I gasped and parted my thighs to make room for him. He pleasured me with his mouth until I couldn’t hold still. My back was arching up off the bed, and I was clutching at my knees to hold my legs apart.

I bit my bottom lip in an attempt to quiet myself down, but it didn’t really work.

Sean was way too good at this, and he was clearly stretching it out on purpose to extend my pleasure, to make me come even harder.

He was smiling when my orgasm finally broke and I completely lost control. He always liked it when I was loud.

As I sprawled out on the bed, flushed and wheezing, he was still smiling as he moved up my body.

“There’s no reason for you to be smirking that way,” I told him breathlessly.

“Really?” His green eyes caressed my damp face and naked body with such obvious fondness that my heart melted. Just a little. “You seemed to like what I did to you.”

“I did,” I told him, hooking my hands around his neck. “But that’s irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant?”

“Yes. Smirking will always be obnoxious.”

He chuckled and kissed me. As he did, he rocked his hips against my middle. He was fully erect, and I loved how he felt pressed up against me—palpable proof of his desire, his need for me.

I knew from the tension in his body that he wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer, so I wasn’t surprised when less than a minute had passed and he was pulling his erection out of his waistband and positioning himself at my entrance.

He bent my knees up toward my chest as he entered me, and then he started to thrust.

I was tight after my first orgasm, and the penetration was full and pleasurable. I gave a little whimper each time he pushed into me, and it matched the rough grunts he was making.

Our eyes met as we moved urgently together, and I couldn’t look away. There was so much more than lust in Sean’s eyes.

There was need and knowledge and affection and trust and memory and understanding.

It was love.

It was everything I’d ever known about love, and in all these months it had never wavered.

I knew it never would.

Sean wasn’t going to last very long, but I didn’t need him to. His fast, hard motion pushed me over the edge, and I came with a strangled sob just before he let go himself. We shook and gasped together until our bodies had relaxed.

Then we lay tangled up in a sated heap, enjoying the aftermath.

Sean occasionally pressed a little kiss into my neck.

After several minutes, he finally pushed himself up, which was good because his weight was starting to get uncomfortable. He held himself up above me on straightened arms and smiled. “You hungry?”

“God, yes.”

“You want a steak?”

“What else?”

Just for the record, I didn’t eat steak every night. But for our one-year anniversary of our first meeting here in the hotel, what else would I have ordered?

I went to the bathroom, took a quick shower, and changed into the pajamas I’d brought. Then we lay snuggled up on the bed until room service arrived with our food.

After we ate and split most of a bottle of wine, I felt perfectly sated, and I had no complaints in the world. I collapsed onto the bed and smiled up at the ceiling.

Sean was chuckling as he lowered himself beside me. “You look like you feel pretty good.”

“I do.” I turned my head to meet his gaze. “This was a really good idea. I can’t believe it’s only been a year since our first night together here. It feels like…”

“A lifetime.”

That was exactly how I felt too—like we’d always been together. I found the energy to lean over and press my lips against his mouth. “I love you, Sean Doyle.”

“And I love you too. More than anything.”

“But don’t think for a minute that this overflow of sappiness has made me fail to notice that box over on that table. You went to the bakery, didn’t you?”

He laughed softly and reached out to brush my hair back off my face. “Is that what you think?”

“Yes, that’s what I think. And I’m going to be digging into those cupcakes pretty soon, just so you know.”

His eyes looked oddly excited, but his face was perfectly composed, with only one corner of his mouth twitching up. “It’s not cupcakes.”

My lips parted slightly. The truth was, I might have been a little disappointed by this piece of news. “What did you get then?”

“You better go and find out.”

With a groan, I rolled off the bed. “This better be good since it required my standing up.”

I took a few steps over to the side table where the bakery box was sitting.

I reached down to open the lid.

I tucked my hair behind my ear since it was blocking my view.

I looked inside the box.

I froze.

“What—” I couldn’t get my voice to work any more than that.

Inside the box was a miniature wedding cake, beautifully iced and perfectly crafted in four tiny layers.

There was no other way to describe what I was seeing.

It was a wedding cake.

I stared for what felt like forever before I was finally able to blink.

Then I turned around to find Sean standing right behind me, holding out a beautifully engraved platinum ring with a diamond solitaire.

“Will you marry me, Ash?” he asked.

I was still frozen, surprise and joy and so much more crashing together inside me.

When I didn’t answer, didn’t even move, Sean’s expression changed slightly. His brows drew together. “No?”

“Yes!” I threw myself into his arms and almost knocked him over.

My answer much have reassured him because he started to smile again and didn’t really stop smiling for the rest of the evening.

I didn’t either.

We ate the little wedding cake, which was delicious. We took a lot of breaks to admire the engagement ring on my finger, and we made sure to save a little piece for Sean to give to his grandmother.

Then we ended up back in bed.

We didn’t make love again that night. I was too tired and giggly, and Sean was too happy to care.

It was the best night of my life. No contenders.

I’d had a lot of other really good nights with Sean over the past year. So many more that I would always remember. And so many more to come.

But that first night we met in the hotel, exactly a year ago, when Sean was still mostly a stranger to me. That night had opened up all the rest of them for us.

So that night was the second best.

***

I wrote this book serially, sending out chapter to my newsletter list as they were completed. Many thanks to all my followers who read along the way and sent me encouragement and feedback! I’m going to start a new serial novel in January. If you’d like to receive the chapters, be sure to sign up for my newsletter list .

If you enjoyed this book, you might also enjoy another of my books, Listed, which is also available in Kindle Unlimited temporarily. You can find the first scene of Listed on the following pages.