He grinned up at me and I dropped to my knees in front of him, careful of his still casted leg.

“So, Allison Anne McCormick, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” he asked, the hope and love he felt shining so brightly in his face that it took my breath away.

I couldn’t help but glance at Brandon before I answered…and I smiled softly at him when he nodded and winked, his face showing just a hint of sadness, but it was overshadowed greatly by the happiness and yes, even love I saw there.

I turned back to Jackson and gave him the only answer there could ever possibly be. “Yes. YES!” I cried, laughing through my tears as the room erupted with cheers and applause. My hand shook as I held it out for him to slip the ring on my finger, and I gasped as I finally paid attention to what it looked like. It had a good size cushion cut center diamond surrounded by small round diamonds, with two smaller cushion cut diamonds on either side of that, and the whole band was set with a double row of small round diamonds. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Once the ring was on my finger, Jackson hauled me into his lap, settling me carefully before he kissed me deeply, pulling back only to whisper, “I love you, Allie.”

“I love you, too, Jackson,” I whispered back, claiming his lips with my own.

Later that night, after the welcome home party, Jacks and I were cuddling on my couch now situated in our new living room in front of the stone fireplace and I was holding my finger up, completely infatuated with staring at my ring.

Jackson chuckled and hugged me close to him, kissing the side of my head. “I’m glad you like it, baby.”

“I do! But how the hell did you pull all that off?” I asked him.

“Well, I said I wanted to talk to Chloe the other day…” he shrugged. “She helped me set it up. But, ah…Brandon picked out the ring and got it for me.”

My jaw dropped, literally, brows raised until they probably met my hairline (not really, but that’s how surprised I was). “What?” I gasped.

Jackson nodded. “I called him and talked to him about what I wanted to do. It didn’t feel right, you know, wanting to propose with everything that had just happened, but…I didn’t want to wait anymore. He and I had talked about what would happen in the future with the three of us and I had told him then I wanted to marry you. I…I know that him breaking things off was sudden and out of the blue, but I did talk to him about that, too. That’s what we were arguing about the day it happened. I didn’t want him to do it, because I know you love him. And I know it wasn’t easy to move so fast with all this, especially with him standing there but not being a part of it. I’m so sorry for that, baby.”

He sighed, and his tone was resigned when he continued. “He wasn’t going to change his mind, but he wanted to be there for when I asked you. He said he’d need to be there to show you that it was okay.”

“He was right. I don’t think I would have been able to do that without him there. It’s so weird, isn’t it? That he’s not here with us? I mean, we didn’t all spend all of our time together all the time anyway, but…it was just us. We were happy, right?” I asked cautiously.

I had been happy…was happy. Am happy. But I still wondered if maybe there was something I had missed that made Brandon walk away from me, something I had done.

“Yeah, baby, we were happy. He was happy, I promise. But now we’ll just have to concentrate on other things…” He waggled his eyebrows exaggeratedly, which made me laugh.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, still laughing. “And just what else are we supposed to be concentrating on?”

He shrugged and replied, “Oh, I don’t know…wedding bells, baby names…and hot monkey sex!”

Did he just? Yup, he did. I lost it, laughing so hard I snorted. “Hot monkey sex?” I cried. “Jesus, Jackson what a way to turn someone on!”

He narrowed his eyes at me and growled before his hands were on my sides, tickling me mercilessly. “Okay! Okay! Ohmigod! Stop!” I barked out between bouts of laughter. I could hardly catch my breath and my stomach hurt from laughing.

I ended up sprawled across his lap, trying to breath normally again as he looked down at me fondly. He softly traced his fingers across my forehead, pushing my hair out of my face as he smiled tenderly at me. And just like that, the mood changed…desire pooled between my thighs, and my body ached for his touch.

It had been so long since we’d been together like this and I wanted him more than I wanted my next breath. I carefully sat up, maneuvering around until I straddled his thighs, taking care not to put too much weight on the casted leg propped up on the ottoman in front of him. “You sure you’re up to this?” I asked him softly.

He nodded and I leaned in to trace his bottom lip with my tongue. He moaned as I nipped his lip with my teeth and the sound set me off. The kiss turned wild, tongues, teeth, and lips tangling as we ate at each other’s mouths. Hands flew in a frenzied rush to remove clothing until I was naked and straddling his lap again, although we compromised on Jackson’s basketball shorts and just shoved them down far enough to let his jutting hardness spring free.

I wrapped my hand around him, stroking him firmly before teasing him by rubbing the head of him over my slick folds, shivering at the feel of his silken, heated flesh against mine.

“Inside,” he gasped, the rock hard length of him throbbing in my hand.

I moved my hand, dragging the tip of him through my wetness and positioning him at my entrance, sinking down slightly. We both groaned as he breached me, and I pushed myself down to take him deep inside my body. When I was fully seated on him, I brought my hands up and braced them on the back of the couch, arching my back and grinding against him.

“Are you okay?” I gasped, wanting to make sure I wasn’t hurting him.

He nodded, his hands grasping my waist and grinding me even harder against him. When I let out a guttural cry, his fingers tightened, gripping my hips almost painfully as he began to move me up and down on his shaft. I let him move me for a minute before I took over, rolling my hips as I moved up and slamming myself back down, loving the gratifying sound of flesh slapping flesh, the feel of the heavy sac hanging between his thighs smacking against my ass.

I felt that familiar wave building, taking me higher and higher as I moved faster and faster over him; I knew this time wouldn’t last very long for either of us because we were wound so tightly with desire, and two thrusts later, Jackson was spilling himself inside me, triggering my own toe-curling orgasm.

I collapsed forward, leaning heavily into his chest and burying my face in the crook of his neck as I tried to catch my breath. He peppered the side of my neck and the curve of my shoulder with kisses and small love bites as his hands smoothed down the bare expanse of my back.

“Fuck, I missed that!” Jackson growled.

“Hey!” I cried, sitting back to look him in the eye. “Is that all you missed?”

He leaned in and kissed the tip of my nose. “No, baby. I missed all of you, but I especially missed the feel of your tight, hot, wet little-”

“Jackson!” I interrupted him, laughing at his words even as my face turned red.

He chuckled and kissed me again before asking me if I was okay, making sure I wasn’t uncomfortable or that we didn’t anything to hurt the baby. I assured him that we didn’t (trust me, I asked the doctor about sex during pregnancy) which made him kiss me again and before long, we’d started all over.