Page 184 of Wildest Dreams

“That’s a lot of money,” she breathes out.

I press a rough kiss against her lips. “I would have paid triple that for you. I’ll do anything to make you happy.”

She wheezes out a laugh, looking all loved-up and lightheaded as I hold her more firmly against my abdomen.

“Is this okay?” I ask, jerking my chin at her. “Us living here? Us living in the lake house?”

“Yeah,” she breathes out. Then she gives me a naughty smile and says, “Ourlake house.”

I grin down at her, laughing as she lunges up to kiss me.

“I love you so much,” she whispers, arms around my neck as I nudge our foreheads together.

“I love you so much, too,” I rumble, kissing at her cheeks as she starts squeezing at my biceps. They flex and swell under her touch, making her giggle as I tug my shirt off over my head.

“Never believed I could be this lucky in my life – this blessed,” I rasp, ducking down to kiss her again, and smirking when sheoooohs over how big all of my muscles are.

She clutches herself tighter against me, all signs of her tears officially gone.

She’s beaming. My happy, sparkling, beautiful girl.

“Is it everything that you ever imagined?” she whispers, smiling contentedly up at me.

I grin back down at her and cup her perfect face in the palms of my hands.

“It’s better, baby,” I murmur back to her. “It’s better than my wildest dreams.”

Epilogue

Tanner

Four months later

I keep my eyes on the off-road path that leads from the trees’ canopy to the head of the lake, waiting in the quiet winter afternoon for Aisling’s car to appear. My knee bounces up and down, navy suit pants stretching tight over my quads, as my fingers clutch the wrapper around the base of the bouquet.

I glance down at the pretty arrangement – the flowers all silver, white, and a soft shade of lilac – and my knee bounces a little harder when I see the label tucked in between the stems.

“Winter Dream”.

As soon as the florist told me the name, I knew that I had to get them for Aisling.

Because Aisling is my dream girl, in every season.

We’ve had just over two weeks away from each other, with Aisling finishing up her second official house-flip and me playing a bunch of away games that were too far for Aisling to get to while she was on the home-stretch of her project. So I’m more than a little excited to finally get her home again and wrapped up in my arms.

There was also something that I’d been meaning to do for Aisling since we first got together this summer, but I had to wait a little longer than I wanted to. I couldn’t do it once I’d startedtraining, let alone when I started actually playing official games, but now I have a decent number of days off over the Christmas to New Year’s stretch so it’s the perfect time to do that thing that I’d been secretly planning in the summer.

The sound of tires crunching over snow makes my head snap straight to the clearing, and then I’m shooting up to my feet, chest swelling as my heart pumps wildly.

I can only just see her through her windshield as she rounds the head of the lake, but even that hint of her through the glass is enough to make the air whoosh out of my lungs.

Mine.

Finally mine.

Aisling and I both decided to head back to our Larch Peak lake house today, so that we could spend a few days as just the two of us before heading over to see my family and then hers for the holidays.

And yeah, I can’t deny it – we turned our drives home into a race. I mean, I was way closer so she didn’t stand a chance, and I also set off way before she did, specifically so that I could get everything perfect for when she arrived. I got dinner prepared and cooked, set some romantic candles on the table, and even managed to wrap up all of her Christmas gifts without fear of her peeking.

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