“Never.”
He flattened his palms on her knees, keeping her spread as he slowly pumped in and out. Her nipples were so hard they could have cut through diamonds, her belly so hot with need she wasn’t sure she would ever be satisfied again, but he just kept pumping. The hardness and the need grew stronger, until the pleasure poised at the brink of agony.
She reached back, curled her fingers around a pillow, arching her hips to propel him into a faster rhythm. He resisted, even...slowed down...until she could only writhe and beg incoherently.
“Please, Jase. Oh, please. Jase, Jase. Please.”
He slammed forward with all of his considerable strength. Yes! Yes! But he only slowed down again, his gaze once again capturing hers. Sweat trickled from his temples, and tension tightened his skin, but the adoration he projected at her...the tenderness...the hope and the gratitude...
“Please.”
Another hard slam.
It was too much, finally pushing her over the edge. She shouted with her pleasure—a burn that might have started slowly but one that exploded just as savagely as the other, no, more so, breaking her down into a quivering pulse of sensation.
Jase launched into the hard-and-fast ride she’d begged for, thrusting, thrusting inside her, rattling the entire bed, somehow prolonging her orgasm, keeping her suspended on clouds of unending carnality.
Like an out-of-body experience, she thought, dazed. Slowly she floated back, finding Jase collapsed over her, little shudders still rocking him.
He lifted his head and smoothed damp locks of hair from her face. “If I’ve got my hooks in you, it’s only right you bear my name. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you...asking me to marry you?”
He laughed. “Asking? Oh, no, angel. It’s too late for that. I’m telling.”
Had those words come from any other man, she would have balked. From Jase...
With a squeal, she used what little strength she had left to wrap herself around him. “I’m going to make you the happiest man in the world, Jase Hollister.”
“Angel,” he said, kissing her. “You already do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I’M ENGAGED.
Me. Miss Brook Lynn Elizabeth Dillon. To Mr. Jason...what was his middle name?...Hollister.
When she told Jessie Kay the next day, the two of them danced around their house. When she told Kenna while they lunched at Two Farms, they squealed so loudly, Mr. Calbert stomped from his office to shush them.
Through it all, Jase never left her side. And he’d smiled more than once.
Even Daphne seemed genuinely happy for her.
“Hope and I are going to have to move here, aren’t we?” she said and sighed. “I just can’t pull Jase away from all of this. He needs it. And I think...maybe we do, too.”
Life was better than ever. The only damper on her happiness came when Jase failed to learn anything new about Stan. He still didn’t know who the guy really was, or what his connection was to Jase, or why he wanted revenge on him so badly. But he did suspect the guy was responsible for the vandalism of his shed and his car, and had talked to Sheriff Lintz about a possible restraining order.
But Brook Lynn wasn’t going to think about Stan right now. If she did, she’d just sink into a pit of nervousness, wondering what would happen if—when—Jase confronted the guy. Nothing good, that much she could guess. He could be hurt. He could do some hurting of his own.
Worst-case scenario: he could be sent back to prison.
It was a fear he shared. Yesterday he’d said, “If this guy approaches you again, I don’t know what I’ll do, how I’ll react, but even the thought of it is enough to work me into a black, black rage. Does that scare you?”