Her brown eyes twinkled. “Does it matter?”
“Not in the least. There’s only one woman whose opinion matters to me.”
“She’s a lucky woman.”
“I hope she thinks so. Because, you see, I’ve fallen deeply and irrevocably in love with her.”
Aidan cupped her face in his hands and placed a tender, gentle kiss on her lips. “And I’m hoping she decides she loves me, too. Otherwise, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this.”
Aidan reached into his pocket and extracted a beautiful diamond ring. It wasn’t overly large, but it was exquisite in every way.
“Mary, you don’t have to answer me now, but I want you to know just how certain I am about this. You are my heart, Mary, and I’m going to do everything in my power to convince you that we belong together.”
Mary stared at the ring in his hand, willing her heart to start beating again. “Aidan? Are you...asking me to marry you?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
He grinned. “I already told you, I don’t accept failure. If I were to ask you right now and you weren’t quite ready to say yes, I’d have to count it as a loss. I am a very poor loser, Mary. So I’m willing to wait. I realize you’ve had a lot thrown at you in a short amount of time, and I want you to have all the time you need to fully come to terms with the idea of becoming Mrs. Aidan Harrison.”
“So... if I were to tell you I was ready...”
“Then I would go down on bended knee and ask in a heartbeat.”
The thought of Aidan on his knees before her was almost tempting enough to let the words flow past her lips, but Mary pushed desire, want, and need aside and forced herself to remain in control. Marriage was serious enough as it was, but when it involved a man like Aidan, it wasn’t as simple as an ‘I do’ and a ride off into the sunset.
“And if I’m not?”
He nuzzled her neck. “Then I would just have to devote every waking minute into making you ready.”
Mary tilted her head back to give him better access to the sensitive spot beneath her ear.
“Well, Mary?” he murmured against her skin. “Do you think you’re ready?”
“Ssshhh, I’m thinking. Less talking. More kissing.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Where are we going?” Mary asked several days later as she put a fresh bowl of water down for Max and scratched behind his ears.
Aidan leaned back against the counter, his smile widening under the heat of her gaze. “Stop looking at me like that, baby, or we won’t be going anywhere for a while.”
Mary dropped her eyes, but not before he could see the flare of hunger in them. It was a wholly submissive gesture, not done intentionally or based in the sexual role play he so enjoyed, but from her very nature. His cock twitched in response, his innate dominant stirring.
She could do that to him so easily, he mused, able to push his buttons as no one else ever had. He doubted she was even aware of it. God help him if she ever realized the power she had over him and learned to wield it at will. He didn’t stand a chance.
“Would that be so bad?” she challenged quietly, lifting her eyes to him from where she kneeled on the floor next to Max, unaware that he was about five seconds away from taking her right there on the floor.
He almost groaned. It would be so easy to scoop her up and spend the rest of the day making love to her, just like he had yesterday and the day before, but Mary needed to face a few demons. He already knew that she loved him. She told him often enough and showed him in hundreds of sweet, tender, and erotic ways. But as long as they remained safely secluded in Mary’s home, she didn’t have to think about who he was and what he did out in the real world.
He’d seen the worry and uncertainty in her face a few times when he’d been videoconferencing with people at the Goddess over the last two weeks. Such things were blatant reminders that however right things felt between them, they were from two very different worlds.
Mary had whispered her fears when she thought he was sleeping. She doubted that the simplicity and sheer ordinariness of her life would sustain his interest for long, while at the same time was convinced that she would fit into his about as well as a square peg in a round hole.