Kami

Nick doesn’t let go of my hand once we’re both in the Jeep, and I’m starting to think he forgot where he’s going, because he’s making every wrong turn known to man on the way to my house.

We’re not going to his parents’ house either.

But now that the color’s coming back to his face, he’s quit looking at me like he’s making sure I’m still in one piece. I try to ask him questions about the game, but he ignores me to ask about Muffy’s cat.

Oddly, answering him is settling my own anxiety levels too.

There’s nothing as terrifying as a family member banging on the door with a limp cat shrieking about a button battery.

I didn’t think Rufus was going to make it.

But he pulled through surgery, probably because he’s just as stubborn as he is stupid, and any cat that eats a button battery is stupid, I don’t care how cute it is or how relieved I am that he’s going to be okay.

He’s also damn lucky Muffy realized so quickly what he’d eaten.

Her face—so pale. She was like a ghost.

Almost as pale as Nick was when he crashed through the clinic, actually. The major difference being that he looked like he was going to tear somebody apart.

And as soon as I realized that person wasn’t me for missing a hockey game, every last doubt and worry I’ve had the last few weeks evaporated into thin air.

He didn’t even stop to think I’d just flaked on the game. He came charging in ready to save me from whatever had kept me away, without regard to danger.

Because that’s how Nick operates for people he loves.

Head first. Without thinking of the consequences. Without assuming the worst. Even when he has to deal with the fallout.

I squeeze his hand as we lapse into an easy silence.

He squeezes mine back and I rest my head on his shoulder, suddenly acutely aware of how tired I am—emergency surgery tends to do that—until he turns us into a long driveway in the Heartwood Valley district.

“Nick?”

“I moved Sugarbear to her new home,” he tells me.

We follow a bend in the drive, and the headlights illuminate a three-story Victorian mansion with powder blue clapboard siding and the ornate white trim. My heart gives a pull of longing at the sight of the turret, and then happiness for the cow settles into my bones.

Anyone who owns a house this adorably charming will be good for her.

“I always wanted one of those,” I say wistfully, pointing up. “I could read in there curled up with my dogs for hours.”

“Yeah?”

I link my fingers with his and scoot closer to him. He smells like an overcooked sauna, but he’s so solid and warm and here and he loves me, and he could smell like fermented moldy bratwurst and I wouldn’t care.

Probably.

“Hours,” I repeat. “Right in the window, with big fluffy cushions and hot chocolate…”

“Good. Because you’re welcome anytime.”

My mouth opens, but my tongue won’t form words. Did he just—

“It’s on ten acres,” he says, his voice going husky, like he’s not entirely certain of himself. “The neighbors down that way have chickens. Neighbors down the other way have two horses. There’s plenty of room for Sugarbear and a companion cow-dog. It’s thirty minutes from the arena and twenty to your clinic. Even during rush hour. And there’s at least an acre fenced in for your dogs to run around in.”

I still can’t find words, but tears are stinging my eyes. “You—you—”

“You can’t be mad. I did it for our cow-dog.”

“You own this house?”

“Signed the paperwork yesterday.”

I goggle at him. “You bought a house.”

“People do it all the time,” he assures me.

I’m reminded why people like to slug him sometimes.

But more, I’m reminded why I like to kiss him.

“C’mon,” he says, tugging my hand and sliding out of the Cherokee before I can get a good angle on attacking him for another full-body kiss in his front seat. “I’ve been waiting to show you this for two weeks, but I wasn’t sure it was going to go through until I got it all finalized yesterday.”

I let him pull me over the console, and he lifts me out of the car. His entire mood seems to lift as he walks faster and faster the closer we get to the wood-paneled front door lined with stained glass on either side under the wraparound porch. The house isn’t new, but the lock is, and his key easily slides in.

“There’s a three-car garage around back,” he tells me. “So I can get a tractor for mowing the grass and you can’t say anything about it cluttering up the yard.”

“It’s your house,” I remind him.

“Only until you take over the closet,” he counters. “So, only until tomorrow.”

He flips the lights, and a modest chandelier sparkles in the wide foyer. Interior stained-glass windows featuring birds catch the light on both side walls, and while the house smells like fresh paint and the walls all gleam a soft ivory in contrast to the dark wood trim, the oak floor squeaks.

“Want the tour?” he asks.

“No.”

Worry lines crease his forehead. “You—”

“Tomorrow,” I add quickly, turning to wrap my arms around him. “Right now, all I want to see is the bedroom.”

I go up on my tiptoes to kiss him, but instead of meeting me halfway, he pulls back. His arms tighten around me though.

“Marry me,” he says.

I suck in a breath. “Nick, you don’t have to—”

“I want to. I want you. Fuck, Kami, I don’t deserve you, but I want you. Every minute of every hour of every day. I’m done waiting for the right moment to tell you. I love you. I fucking adore you. I want to spend my life with you. I want to—Christ, Kami. I wanted you to be pregnant. I want to have babies with you. And dogs and cats and chickens and cows and goats with you. And—”

This time, he’s not getting away, because I leap into his arms and silence him with a kiss. My eyes are leaking. My nose is burning. I’m cry-kissing him, and he’s cradling me so gently, like I’m a fragile china doll.

“I love you,” he says between kisses.

I don’t realize he’s moving until he turns onto the landing on the second floor.

“Yes,” I gasp.

He pauses, our faces nose-to-nose, and his eyes light up. “Yes?” he whispers.

“I want to marry you.”

“Christmas,” he declares, and we’re moving again. “Or Thanksgiving. I can’t wait until Christmas. Fuck, let’s do it tomorrow.”

I’m laughing and peppering his face with kisses and when he turns another corner, I’m expecting to see a bedroom, but instead, we start rising again.

The stairs squeak, and the air is getting cooler. We emerge at the top of the stairwell, Nick turns, and I gasp.

The entire top floor is a bedroom with dormers and vaulted ceilings, except for the turret room in the corner. “Is that a hot tub?” I whisper.

“Oh, fuck yeah, baby,” he replies.

“Your bedroom has a hot tub in the turret.”

“Our bedroom. And we can change anything. I’ll paint it. Toss the furniture.”

“I love the furniture!” In addition to the four-poster king-size bed topped with a buttery yellow comforter, the solid clawfoot dresser and chest of drawers, and the matching nightstands, two wingback chairs are positioned at the far dormer with an adorable tea table between them and a crystal lamp atop it. “It’s all so—so—”

Perfect.

But I can’t talk because I’m kissing him again.

He turns another corner, and I realize we’re in a bathroom.

With a huge walk-in shower.

Nick sets me down and reaches in to flip the water on.

“Yes, please.” I’m already tearing my clothes off before moving to help him with his. And somehow I get tangled up in his body with kissing and stroking and squeezing until the room starts to fog up, and he guides me into the shower.

“I love you,” he tells my cheek. My shoulder. My breasts. My belly.

“Nick,” I whisper as his kisses dip lower and the hot water streams around us.

“I love you,” he says against my pussy, and then he’s between my legs, his tongue teasing me oh so perfectly while I grip his shoulders and lean against the cool tile wall for support. “Love you so much.”

He sucks my clit between his teeth and slips two fingers inside me, and my orgasm bursts out of me without warning.

My thighs tremble, my knees buckle, and he licks his way back up my body while the aftershocks roll through me. “Every day,” he murmurs. “I’m going to making you happy every single day.”

“You already do.” My arms are overcooked spaghetti, but I fling them around his shoulders, and I smile back when his eyes crinkle in that huge smile for me.

“Trouble moving?” he asks.

“I have that problem a lot when you’re naked.”

He’s grinning bigger. “I can make it better,” he tells me while he angles between my thighs, which he might be holding, because I’m in serious danger of just sliding right down the wall. “I might make it worse first though.”

Considering the hot steel pipe poking my belly, yeah, he definitely might.

In the best way.

“You should definitely make it worse,” I tell him. “Way, way worse. Until I have to call in to work tomorrow with a terrible case of jelly body.”

“Jell-O body sounds like something I’d need to treat with full body massages and warm chocolate chip cookies.” He’s lifting me, lining us until the ridge of his thick erection is nestled between my legs.

I skim my fingers over the short hairs at the base of his hairline, and he leans in to kiss me.

It’s a slow, easy, thorough kiss, accompanied by him reaching for the shower gel and rubbing it all over my thighs, my breasts, my arms, and under my legs, his kiss and his touch leaving me breathless with molten sugar spinning through my veins and a desperate need to have him inside me.

“Want you,” I gasp.

“Protection?” he asks.

“No, I want you.”

“Thank fuck.” In one swift motion, he fills me completely, and oh my god, I’m home.

Home.

With Nick.

Loved.

Adored.

Worshipped.

I pull his mouth back to mine while he rocks into me, igniting my already overstimulated flesh, drawing me higher and tighter and hotter with every thrust, driving deeper and deeper with the cold wall behind me and the hot water streaming over us, our bodies gliding together with bubbles between us until he’s driving me over the edge again, and I’m falling in a waterfall with this god of the rain holding me and crying my name as he releases inside me.

I clench my legs tight around him, because I never want to let go, and I want to hold every bit of him inside me forever.

“I love you,” I gasp into his kiss, and I realize my tears are mixing with the mist on my face, because I can’t physically contain all of my joy. “I love you.”

We stay in the shower, kissing, whispering, making promises, until the water runs cold, and then he wraps me in a thick towel and insists on carrying me to bed.

But the bed’s already occupied.

“Oh my god,” I whisper.

The little black kitten meows indignantly when Nick sets me beside her—him?—on the velvety soft comforter.

“Kami, meet Jennifur Purrphy. Yes, with a fur and a purr. Jen, say hi to Kami.”

The kitten eyeballs me with milky blue eyes, and if I wasn’t already in love, I would be now. “You brought the kitten home.”

“Mrrrroow mowww mowww mrrrrrrrooooooooww?” Jen says.

“Oh, you got a talker,” I say with a laugh.

He slides onto the bed behind me, still wet and very naked, and presses his lips to my shoulder. “Are you talking to her or me?”

“Both of you. Does she pull pranks too?”

“I’m missing a sock.”

Jen bounces down the bed and attacks a speck of dust floating in the air, and Nick pulls the covers down and beckons me into the warm cocoon before sliding in next to me. “I love you,” he whispers while he pulls me to his chest.

His heart thumps under my ear, steady and strong. I squeeze him tight. “I love you too.”

“I want to marry you.”

“No take-backs,” I warn him.

He chuckles. “I should be saying that to you, because I’m definitely getting the better end of the bargain here.”

“I don’t know. Considering how much you love to give gifts, and how you’re always topping yourself, I’m sure I’ll be ahead within a year or two.” I stifle a yawn and snuggle closer, wanting to hold his whole heart in my hands while it thumps that steady, comforting rhythm. “There are so many better gifts than marriage and dream houses with room for cow-dogs.”

“I want to raise babies with you,” he tells me softly.

His pulse stays steady, no terrified leaps, and there I go, getting the sniffles again.

Because I was kidding about topping himself, but there he goes.

Of course he does.

It’s Nick.

That’s what he does.

“Kami?” he murmurs while my eyelids get heavy and that soothing rhythm of his heart pulls me deeper and deeper into bliss. “Thank you for dumping me.”

“Thank you for fighting for me,” I murmur back.

“Always,” he whispers. “Always and forever.”