Page 113 of You, Me, and Forever

His six-pack abs were on full display, and then he pushed his shirt off his left shoulder, exposing dark ink.

You, Me, and Forever.

He’d tattooed those words over his heart.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

“Samuel is going to take on a larger role at the company, and I am going to spend a lot of time here. I can work remotely most of the time, and I’ll travel for meetings and to check on projects. We can have three homes. One here, one in Banff, and one in New York. You can’t be throwing weddings when it’s dark for twenty hours a day. So we’ll bein the city, together, when you aren’t working. And when you need to be here, I’ll be here beside you.” He placed his hand over his chest just beneath the ink. “You, me, and forever, baby.”

I lunged forward, throwing myself into his arms. Tears ran down my face as I hugged him.

“You, me, and forever, Moneybags,” I whispered against his ear.

He set me down on my feet and placed a hand on each side of my face. “I missed you, Honey Badger.”

“I’ve missed you too,” I croaked.

“I’ve actually missed you too,” Violet said with a laugh. “My girl has been a real sad sack, and I was about done with it.”

“She tried to put on a brave face,” Blakely said. “But some things you can’t hide.”

“Okay, I appreciate the commentating, but I’d like to take my man to my office and kiss him properly in private,” I said as I grabbed his coat and led him away.

“What fun is that?” Violet shouted from behind us.

Once we were inside my office, I closed the door and wrapped my hands around his neck.

Emotion was thick as I looked up at him. My bottom lip shook. “I can’t believe you’re here. And you really want to make this work.”

“It’s not an option,” he said as his thumb stroked my bottom lip. “I don’t want to live without you, Montana. I have never told a woman outside of my mother and grandmother that I loved them. But I fucking love you. I love you in a way I never knew I was capable of loving another person. I knew I loved you the day you told me how you felt, and I let fear stop me from saying it back to you. I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to give you what you deserve. But I’m over that bullshit. Because I will do whatever it takes to make this work. If that means I live in a small town with a moose with giant balls and a porcupine who camps out on my doorstep, so fucking be it. I. Love. You. All of you. Every inch of you.”

“I love you too.” Tears streamed down my face.

“No more tears, baby. It’s you and me now.”

“You and me forever, huh?” I sniffed.

“Yes. And forever starts right fucking now.”

“Where are you going to live?” I asked, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the man I loved was moving to Blushing, Alaska, so we could be together.

He tugged me close as his arms came around me, and his hands found my ass before lifting me off the ground. My legs wrapped around his waist as my fingers tangled in his hair.

“I don’t do anything half-assed; you should know that. So I’m coming here because I want to be with you. I want you by my side. I made a very generous offer on that Airbnb I was staying in, and they’ve already accepted verbally, and we’re just getting the paperwork filed.”

My head tipped back on a laugh. “You don’t mess around, Moneybags.”

“Buckle up, baby. I plan on convincing you to move in with me as soon as possible, but I figured it would take you a little time to process all of this.”

“You could have just moved in to my house, you know?”

“It’s the size of a postage stamp, and we can’t have Porky living alone, right? Plus, I want to have plenty of space for us each to have a home office, and lots of rooms to grow into.”

My eyes widened. “Wow. You had me at ‘porcupine.’”

“And you had me the minute I laid eyes on you, Montana Kingsley. I may not know what I’m doing, but I’m going to try like hell to show you that I can do this. Do you trust me?”

“I mean, I did go home with you the very first night we met. I’d never done that before. And that was before I even knew you. I just had this feeling about you,” I said, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip.

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