Page 109 of Breaking the Rules
She kissed him first, lightly, sweetly. “I love you, Xavier Saint. Even more now. And even more every damn day. You’re my protector, my partner, my heart.”
His breath came out on a ragged sigh, and his eyes flew open. He cupped her face. “We’re getting married.”
“You’re insane,” she laughed.
“Say it. Say you’ll marry me.”
“When this is all over, if you still want to, yes. I’ll marry you.” She felt tears prickle behind her eyes. But of all the tears she’d cried over him, these were joyful.
He took a half step back and shoved his hand in the pocket of his jeans.
“I imagined doing this in much different circumstances, but this feels right. This feels like us.”
“You’re not going to shoot me or something, are you?” Waverly asked.
“Maybe later, Angel.” His long fingers slid out of the pocket holding a diamond ring between them.
“Oh, my God.”
“We’re making this official, Waverly. You’re not backing out of this, and I’m not waiting any more. I bought this the day before I flew to Belize.” He slid it onto her finger and kissed it and then her. She was crying now, and he took his time kissing each tear on her cheeks.
“You are my heart and my center. Nothing means what it should without you. I want to build a life with you. I want to wake up holding you every damn day of my forever. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted. Normal, kids, maybe a couple of sloppy dogs. I want to spend the rest of my life making love to you every chance I get because I will never have enough of you.”
She couldn’t answer him through the tears that clogged her throat.
He squeezed her again. “Angel, baby, I need you to say it. I need to hear the words.”
She nodded again, sucked in a breath. “I must be insane, but yes. Hell yes, I’ll marry you.”
Xavier crushed her to him. “It’s about damn time,” he said before his mouth met hers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“You have the worst possible timing,” Waverly laughed breathlessly against him as she held up her hand to admire the ring.
The laugh died on her lips when Xavier hitched her legs higher over his hips and she felt how rigid his shaft was. The light in his warm brown eyes turned to fire as she rolled her hips to grind against him.
“Now who has bad timing,” he asked, nipping her lower lip. He stroked a rough palm up her thigh, his fingers slipping under the hem of the shorts she wore. She watched those brown eyes go molten when he realized she wasn’t wearing underwear. He used the pads of his fingers to stroke over her delicate folds once then twice before gripping the waistband from the inside and tugging the shorts down.
He was gorgeous, she thought, lifting her hips so he could ease the shorts all the way off. That straight nose, high, patrician cheekbones, his solid jaw hidden under the days of scruff he’d stopped trying to tame. But his appeal went deeper than those beautifully carved features and those impossibly deep eyes. There was power that radiated from him. It was in the way he moved, the way he spoke, the way he zeroed in on her and looked inside her.
That connection they’d had years ago, the one she sensed from their first handshake, had only deepened.
A handshake hadn’t been nearly enough then and Waverly felt a desperation for something much more rise up in her now. She reached for his jeans, freeing the button, but he caught her fingers when she touched his zipper.
He scooted her to the very edge of the vanity so she had to lean back. Xavier curled her fingers over the lip of the counter.
“I want you wearing nothing but my ring,” he said, his voice a ragged whisper. “I’m going to take you now, and every move you make today, you’re going to be thinking about me inside you until we’re back together.”
His busy hands changed their course, running back up her shins, her thighs, over her hips, and sliding under her sweater. She wanted to say yes, to promise him that she already thought of him perpetually, constantly. Xavier had once told her he was obsessed with her. He’d compared himself to Ganim, the man who had stalked her, hurt her, tried to destroy her.
But this? This heaven that she found in his arms? It was nothing like that darkness.This was beautiful, consuming, soul shaking. It had always been love between them, and now that the words had been spoken, promises made, it would grow even stronger.
He worked her sweater up, and she saw his breath catch when he bared her breasts. Only after he’d tugged it over her head and let it fall to the floor did he release his zipper. He was already rigidly hard, that thick column of flesh fought against the thin cotton of his briefs, straining toward her.
Waverly couldn’t wait any longer. She used her toes to dig into the waistband of the last barrier between them, shoving his black briefs and jeans down to free his erection. He was beyond ready for her, she noted, wetting her lips as she studied the slickness at the head with fascination.
The ache that built at her core, simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, intensified.
