He opens the ring box, showing an elegant sizable diamond, glinting in the shimmering leaf filtered sunlight.
“I need to stand by you as you bring our children into this world, as you develop into a wonderful, caring mother. I need to be there for you as your art career takes off and you shock the world with your undeniable talent. I need to be the shield that protects you from the assholes of this world, never letting jerks get away with disrespecting you. I need you, Sophia, all the things, all the little pieces that make you who you are.”
My hand covers my mouth, my face hot and flushed, every part of me feeling as though the sun is trying to break through my skin. Happiness flies around my body and my womb lets out a carnal scream of pure joy, the scream coiling through me, capturing every part of me.
I’ve dreamed about this moment a thousand times.
I always imagined what it would be like to have Solomon Sky propose to me, but I never thought it could happen anywhere but my imagination.
Now it’s real, and it’s so much sweeter than I ever could’ve imagined.
“Sophia Clarkson,” Solomon says. “Will you marry me?”
I leap down at him, my arms outstretched, hardly even in control of what I’m doing anymore.
He laughs and catches me, softening my fall by leaning back and cradling me in his arms. I end up on top of him, both of us intertwined, our bodies crushed close as though any moment we could melt into each other.
I kiss him harder than I ever have before, moaning through the release, savoring the taste of him, the roughness of his lips.
I’ll never get tired of kissing this man.
“Is that a yes?” he chuckles, breaking off the kiss and holding my face in his hands so that the heat of his palms flickers against my cheeks.
“Of course it’s a yes,” I sing. “It’s a hell yes. It’s a fuck yes. It’s a yes and now put the ring on my finger, you handsome man.”
He grins and takes the ring box from the leaf-laden ground, takes out the ring, and slips the cool comforting metal onto my finger.
I hold my finger up to the sunlight, admiring how it glints and shimmers.
“How did you know my ring size?” I ask.
“I measured you in your sleep,” he smirks.
“Oh, sir,” I say, giggling, my voice brimming with sarcasm. “I am absolutely violated.”
He chuckles and squeezes me close to him, our noses tickling each other as we stare into each other’s eyes, into each other’s souls, consuming each other with everything we have.
“Do you like it?” he asks.
“I love it,” I whisper, my voice shaking with love. “I love everything you’ve done. I love it all, Solomon. And I love you most of all.”
“I love you, my little dreamer,” Solomon growls passionately. “And that’s never going to change.”
EPILOGUE
THREE WEEKS LATER
Solomon
“Oh, Solomon, you didn’t have to,” Jackie says, pulling the phone from the birthday wrapping paper.
I grin at her across the counter of her kitchen and then gesture down at my plate of scrambled eggs.
“Ma’am, after tasting eggs these good, you deserve a whole lot more. Believe me.”
She laughs and rolls her eyes. It brings true happiness to my soul to make my woman’s mother light up like this.
Sophia stands off to the side, leaning against the counter, her eyes shimmering as she drinks in the sun-painted scene.
Her eyes have been shimmering a lot lately, flooding with happiness every chance they get. She tells me they’re tears of joy, and I believe her, but part of me thinks something else is going on, too.
Is it too early for pregnancy hormones?
Jackie laughs and shakes her head at me, looking almost identical to Sophia for a moment.
“You don’t have to call me ma’am,” she says.
“A man should be polite to his future mother-in-law,” I say. “But if it means that much to you, I’ll you Jackie.”
She laughs again, looking over at her daughter.
I devour the sight of her as well, standing there in her flowing spring dress, the same sort she was wearing the morning I proposed to her. She has her arms folded over her breasts, squashing them alluringly, and the mist-like fabric falls like smoke across the curvaceous beauty of her body.
Her engagement ring couldn’t look more perfect on her finger, winking at me with sunlight.
“You’ve picked a good one here, Sophia,” Jackie says. “And I’m not just saying that because of the phone.”
Sophia smiles and then steps forward.
There’s something official about the way she does it, rehearsed, as though she’s been building up to this moment ever since we started breakfast. It’s strange enough that she seemed too amped-up to sit down, and now my mind is going into overdrive, spinning around and around the possibility of what she’s about to say.
“I have something to tell you,” she murmurs. “I’ve already told Caitlin. But …”
She sighs, trailing off.
My heart stampedes in my chest. I almost blurt the words out, roar what I think it is, but there’s no way I’d steal the glory of this moment from her.
Caitlin is currently on a writer’s retreat in Europe, but she and Sophia seem closer than ever, talking on Skype almost every night.
Every time I walk into our bedroom and find my woman propped up with her laptop on her knees, talking with my daughter, I have to double-take to make sure I’m not seeing things.
I have to check that things truly have worked out so incredibly.
I’ll never take any of this for granted.
“What is it?” Jackie murmurs.
“It’s good news,” Sophia says, perhaps sensing some unease in the
