“Yes!” she yelled. “Yes, I would love to marry you!”
He grabbed her and picked her up again. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he kissed her. She moaned, but then froze when she realized they were in his family home and that his family all had enhanced hearing.
She pulled back, cheeks burning. “I’m going to need some alone time with you later.”
He traced his fingers over her face. “I’m counting on it.” He sat her down and picked up her hand. “I haven’t even given you the ring yet.”
She didn’t need a ring, but she’d happily wear it if it was from him. She lifted her hand up higher, and he slipped the ring on. “It fits perfectly.”
“Good. It was my grandmother’s. She wanted us to have it.”
Ava’s eyes stung. She had met his grandmother earlier in the day. That she had shared a precious heirloom with Ava meant the world to her. She swiped at her eyes, not wanting to cry. “I love it.”
He pulled it back off again and showed her the inside. “It says ‘partner.’” He described how he’d inscribed it himself.
She ran her finger over the inscription. “Because that’s what we are.”
“Always,” he said.
Then, he picked her up once more and carried her to his workshop. “I keep a bed in here for when I need to be alone.” He laid her down on the bed. “And right now, I need to be alone with you.”
“Will we live here?” she asked.
“We can do whatever you want.” His warm hands started unbuttoning her shirt, kissing her chest as each inch of her skin was revealed.
She arched her back, moaning as he kissed her. “I’d like to do what you do. Live in Portland and come here on the weekends.”
“Does this mean you’ll keep working at the lab?” he asked. He got to the last button and tugged her shirt off, tossing it behind him.
“If you’ll have me back,” she said. It was getting hard to concentrate on their conversation.
“If you haven’t formally quit, then we don’t have a problem.”
“Good. I only told you and Ashley, and I told her not to tell anyone.”
“Mmm. God, you smell so good.” He undid her bra and flung it away, too. “I can’t wait to be inside you—mate.”
Hearing that word did something to her. She grabbed him tighter. “And I want you inside me, too. Now that you’re my fiance and my mate, too.”
He growled at her again, kissing her firmly. He looked up. “I think I have a condom stored here somewhere.”
“We don’t have to use them anymore. Not now that we’re engaged.”
“Really?” he asked.
“If you want to, of course, that’s fine. But I haven’t been with anyone else since I was last tested, and Nora told me that you guys can’t catch diseases, anyway.”
“I’m not worried about disease. But, um.” He put his hand over her flat stomach. “Shifters are very fertile. We tend to create babies very easily, even if the timing doesn’t seem right.”
She leaned up a little closer to him. “I’m willing to take that chance. But I understand if you want to wait.”
She couldn’t describe the way she felt. Before she met Eli, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted children. She thought she’d be at least thirty-five before she even tried. But being with him had changed something inside her. She wasn’t desperate to have children yet, but she didn’t feel any urge to avoid them either. In fact, she’d already started imagining what Eli’s children would be like.
“That works for me.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re my mate. I have a very strong urge for us to start a family. I just didn’t want to put that on you.”
“I want that, too. You’re not pushing me into anything.”
“In that case, I can’t wait to feel you without any barriers.”
He laid her down on the bed and pushed her legs apart. “I can’t go another second without tasting you.”
She closed her eyes, savoring the moment when his tongue swiped over her clit.
“Eli!”
He pushed a finger into her body. “You’re so warm. So slick. So wet. I’m going to be able to slide right in.”
“Don’t tease!”
He pushed a second finger in, stretching her walls. His mouth covered her clit, sucking and flicking his tongue until she thought she’d explode.
“I can’t hold off any longer.”
“Then don’t,” he said. With two fingers in her pussy and his mouth on her clit, he reached up and pinched her nipple with a light squeeze.
She screamed as her climax charged through her body.
He let her ride it out as she came on his fingers over and over.
He crawled up and kissed her neck. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
She grabbed his firm biceps. “You’re pretty hot yourself. Don’t keep me waiting.”
“I don’t plan to.” He positioned his cock at her entrance and slid in bare.
She watched his beautiful face as his cock filled her pussy. “How does it feel?” she asked.
“Unbelievable,” he said, gritting his teeth. “There are no words.”
He kissed her again, and then he began to move inside her. It only took a few minutes of thrusting before he was on the knife’s edge as well.
She wrapped her legs around his waist. “I want to see you come, too,” she said.
“Ava!” he cried out. And then he came, pulsing inside her body.
Ava nearly drove her future mother-in-law crazy when she and Eli announced that they weren’t going to delay their wedding at all. The clan wanted time to plan, but Eli put his foot down and told them to leave her alone.
She didn’t want to upset them, but a big wedding wasn’t on her list of things she wanted to do. She wanted to
