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She moans in my ear, so low it’s almost undetectable. Her hands are on my head, fingers threading through my hair. Her breath brushes my neck, sweeping across my skin in short bursts that match the heaving of her breasts against my chest.

“Come for me, sweets. Come for me.”

Her grip tightens.

“Come,” I encourage her again. “And I’ll come with you.” I flip over on my back and position her on top of me. My hands grip her hips, moving her back and forth as I thrust upwards. She moans louder. Her hands are on my chest, propping herself up, but with each thrust her resolve weakens until finally she is pressed against me. Our bodies are sweating from the sex, and the heat of our desire, and the strength of our emotion.

My fingers find her asshole and her upper body awakens once more, shooting up. Her head falls back. her mouth open. Her soft moans turn to screams.

We come together.

I come inside her, my hot semen spilling out in waves as her pussy clamps against my cock, and I grab her hair and yank her back down on top of me so I can bite her shoulder. “Mine,” is all I can manage. It’s primitive, but I don’t give a fuck. This girl is mine.

“Yours,” she moans back. “Make me yours.”

Fuck. Fuck. I pull her hair harder, wrapping my hands around her head in a way that leaves no doubt that I want to possess her. Completely.

Our hearts race against each other and we stay this way. Still. Silent. Satiated.

I trace my fingertips up and down her spine and every time I get to the small of her back, she bucks. That makes me smile so big. It makes me happy in a way I’m not sure I can describe. “Do you like it like this, Grace?”

“Yes,” she whispers and then bites my neck. “Yes. Like that, please. More.”

“More, and more, and more.”

“Forever. Happily ever after.”

“Baby, don’t tease me. I’ll give you forever if want it.”

“I need forever so bad.”

“Then marry me—”

“Wait.” Grace stops me with a hand on my chest. “That’s it? You asked me post-coital and I just said yes?”

“Shhhh.” I hush her with a finger to her lips. “Just listen.”

“—Grace. I have never felt this sure of something in my whole life. Ever. You, baby. You are the secret to life. You are my reason for being. You are my soulmate. We are tethered by a string. Some mystical string that connects us and has connected us since our inception. And the day I saw your sandaled foot step out of that dingy airport shuttle, I knew. You were my other half. It’s the only explanation for how I feel about you. And I tried to deny it. Tried to prove to myself that this arrangement with you was… ordinary.”

I flip us over one more time so I can be on top again. I prop myself up on my forearms and let my hands fall gently along each of her cheeks. I stroke her softly, my thumb arcing back and forth across her soft skin. I devour her with my eyes. “What we have is so far from ordinary, Grace. It’s not a connection. It’s a reconnection. I need you to understand that and I really don’t have the words to describe what you mean to me right now. But even though my expression is inadequate, please believe me. You’re mine. That’s all there is to it. And if you need me to make that declaration permanent, then marry me.”

She stares up at me and her breath hitches like she might start crying at any moment.

“Just marry me.”

“And that makes it… forever?” Her brows knit together in confusion.

I can see her point. Why would marriage change things? “No, baby. That’s not what makes it forever. The forever between us? It just is.” I lean down and kiss her on the lips. Our tongues tangle for a second and then they do more than that. Her fingers push through my hair and she flattens her palm against my head in her own version of possessiveness. “There’s no paper or vow in this world that can surpass what the universe has declared to be true.”

She swallows hard and that makes me smile, because it proves that she’s taking me seriously. I’m spewing all this metaphysical bullshit about fate and souls and ties that bind.

And she’s in.

“We just are. And that’s the end of it. We don’t need a marriage to make that true. It’s the laws of physics, baby. It’s under God and there’s no death do us part in any of this, Grace. Because we defy—”

“Oh my God,” she laughs. “You did not say all that shit!”

“Shit? I’m offended.”

But we both laugh.

“It’s pretty good though, huh? I mean, most of that is true. I was just a little too drunk that night to gather all those words into the same speech. But that’s what I meant.”

Chapter Three

#NextStep

I HAVE this stupid grin on my face and no matter how hard I try, I can’t make it go away. Vaughn Asher is such a bullshitter. But it’s so fucking adorable I almost die. Fate and souls and ties that tether us through eternity. That’s what he meant. I giggle and he pokes me in the ribs, making me squirm. “Stop,” I laugh. “You’re so full of it.”

“I’m not,” he says. “I really mean all that shit. And even though I didn’t really say it that night, I’m saying it now.”

“OK, whatever. All I want to hear about is the dress. And did I at least eat cake?”

“Sweets, we were invited down to the Bellagio bakery. You got to taste everything. You dipped your newly wedded fingers into frosted cupcakes that were so pretty and perfect they looked fake.”