CHAPTER NINETEEN
SCARLET
It’s been one glorious week since that fateful night at Atlas. I wake up sore, but in a blissful, too-much-time-between-the-sheets kind of way. Jensen’s gone, but he told me that last night. He’ll be back into training now with the last game of the season coming up.
Won Ton’s wrestling a dirty pair of Jensen’s jocks across the room. “I wouldn’t if I were you.” He stops, gives me a quizzical expression before getting right back into it. I actually found Jensen asleep on the sofa the other day, Won Ton curled up in his arm snoring away. I couldn’t get my phone out quick enough, had to capture the moment to make sure I wasn’t caught in a dream.
And there’s no other way to describe it, what we have. For so long I’ve dreamt of a relationship like this. At the end, living with Josh was purgatory, eggshells wherever I walked, but with Jensen, I’m free. I’m more than free. I’m out of control and it feels so damn good.
I stretch out, the tender ache between my legs casting my mind back to my most recent orgasm. I don’t think Jensen’s monster of a dick ever hibernates, always hard and at the ready for me. I’m doing things even the Kama Sutra would blush at, things I never even knew my body was capable of. “Wait ’til I show you my red room,” Jensen joked last night. When he pulled out the ropes I almost started to believe him.
It took me a while to work out why I’m willing to go there with Jensen, when I clearly wasn’t with Josh. It’s more than his cut body and infinite stamina. It’s the way he makes me want to live on the edge a little, to let go. It’s new, real new.
I take a quick shower, toweling off my hair when there’s a knock at the door. I consider opening it in the nude until I find it’s the postman on the other side of the peephole. I tie my dressing gown, Won Ton yapping around my feet as I open the door.
“Miss Matthews?”
It’s eye-scorchingly sunny out there. I retract back inside, squinting. “Yes.”
“Package for you, ma’am. Sign here, please.”
I sign the postman’s tablet thingy and take the parcel. I close the door and open a blind, looking to find a return address, but there’s nothing. The handwriting looks kind of familiar, but that’s about it.
“What have we got here, Won Ton? New scrubs? A hot read? Box of chocolates?”
‘Woof, woof!’ comes the reply.
I open the end and reach in. I pull out a local newspaper folded in half. It’s not exactly what I was expecting. We’ve had a couple of shots run this week, no longer worried about hiding our relationship or keeping our PDAs in check. We’re flaunting it now. The paper’s nothing special… until I flip to the front page.
I suck in a sharp breath, unable to release it.
A picture of Jensen takes up the entire front page, but that’s nothing new. He’s graced the front pages of many publications before—some a little more risqué than others. But this picture is different. He’s smiling, but slightly out of focus. What is in focus is the diamond ring he’s holding—simple band, pear-shaped solitaire. It’s like he’s thrusting it through the page to me. The headline reads ‘Will she say yes?’
Will who say yes? I think stupidly before reading the first couple of lines and working out it’s me, of course.
Holy holy hell balls. PDAs don’t come much bigger. Jensen Jetstream Collins is asking me to marry him.
I finally breathe, the paper trembling in my hands. “Whoa.”
“So?”
I almost fall over I spin around so fast. I’m half-collapsed, back against the door. He’s standing before me with the same ring extended.
“I thought you’d left for training?” I stammer.
He shrugs, still smiling. “Hid in the laundry a while. I folded some towels while I was waiting. Hope you don’t mind.”
“I, ah...”
He gets down on one knee. “Scarlet Sexy-Time Collins,” he starts.
I drop the paper and place my hands against the door to stop myself from sliding to the floor unconscious. “Are you sure?” I cut in.
He laughs, still pinching the ring between two fingers. “Am I sure? Of course I’m sure. I don’t get down on one knee for just anyone, you know.”
“But…” I actually cannot think of a reason he shouldn’t continue.
“Scarlet Sweet-Jesus-I’m-In-Love Collins,” he goes on, speaking over the top of me, “you have come into my life and turned it upside down. You’re the most beautiful person I know, inside and out, generous, kind and smarter than I could ever hope to be. You’ve always been there for me and I will always be there for you, no matter what. Oh, and you have a killer ass. So, what do you say? Will you marry this handsome devil?”
I cannot help but smile back, easing off the door and lifting him to his feet. I push the ring away and cup his face in my hand, looking up into those russet eyes that have been mine ever since we met.
Oprah-Walters sits on my shoulder, but she’s quiet. Is it ideal? Probably not. Too soon? Definitely, but who fucking cares?
I breathe in, brace myself for the fallout. “Yes.”
He picks me up and spins me around the room, Won Ton barking away like mad. We kiss, deep and tender, his arms strong around my back and I’m weightless, free and light.
He places me down, thumbing the bottom of his chin. “You kind of had me nervous there.”
I reach up and lock my hands around the back of his neck, standing on tippy toes to look into his eyes. “I thought Jetstream Jensen never got nervous?”
“You make me feel a lot of new things.”
“Ditto.”
I drop and pick up the paper. “What about this? I take it you know someone at the paper?”
“I do. Our good friend Angela Barnet.”
I look at the paper again, Angela’s name in the byline. I’m suddenly worried. “Should I read through for the hating?”
Jensen shakes his head. “No hating. We came to an arrangement.”
“An arrangement?”
“I agreed to give her the exclusive of a lifetime if she and her press pals backed off on the smear campaign.”
“And she actually said yes?”
“She did. Seems it’s the in thing with women in my life at the moment.”
I place my hand on his chest. “How could anyone say no?”