Promise Me This: a friends to lovers, slow burn romance (Wilder Family Book 3)

Chapter 33

“Did you know that the male duck has a corkscrew-shaped penis?”

My hands froze as I attached the drawer to a new nightstand for Sage’s bedroom. Slowly, I turned and glanced at Harlow, where she sat at the table, her blue-light-blocking glasses perched on her nose while she stared at her laptop.

“I did not,” I said slowly.

“And that the female duck has a corkscrew-shaped vagina.” She shook her head. “Crazy.”

Carefully, I set down my electric drill and pinned her with a look. “And this is for a book?”

“Uh-huh.” Her brows furrowed and she leaned closer to the screen. “Good Lord, their vaginas go in the opposite pattern of the dude duck’s thing, so he can’t go as far as he wants, and it keeps her from an unwanted pregnancy. That is insane,” she said. “Who needs a chastity belt?”

“What kind of research are you doing?”

Harlow laughed. “My heroine has an obsession with random animal facts.”

“Clearly,” I muttered.

Sage was at school, and I was getting some work done around the house while Harlow wrote a chapter.

Her editor loved her book idea, and she was trying to finish up her first draft in the next six weeks. That meant I had to keep my hands to myself while she was dialed in. Sometimes that was harder than others, and whether she believed it or not, spouting random animal sex facts while she wore those giant tortoiseshell frames made it very difficult for me not to sling her up over my shoulder and march her down the hallway to our bedroom.

We’d decided to turn the room that used to be Harlow’s into a reading room and office that both Sage and Harlow could use when they needed it. I’d already roped Cameron into helping me build a full wall of bookshelves with recessed lighting, and I was finalizing some sketches for a custom desk for Harlow.

For now, though, she insisted that the table in the kitchen was still her favorite place to work.

“That’s nice,” she said, eyeing the nightstand over the edge of her glasses. “Just think of how much crap she can shove in those drawers.”

“Where does it all come from?” I asked.

Harlow sighed. “That is a mystery of the universe. I swear, every time I turn around, that shit multiplies.”

Under my breath, I laughed.

“Oh, my mom texted earlier,” Harlow said.

My eyebrows rose briefly. “What’d she want?”

“She wanted to know if we can come over for dinner this weekend.”

I gave her another look. “We?”

Harlow’s smile was rueful, one of my very favorite ones. “Yes, you are invited. She knows that where I go, you go.”

Wedging the drill under my arm, I slowly stood off the ground and studied the nightstand with a succinct nod. As I made my way over to the table, Harlow watched with a gleam in her eyes.

Bracing my hands on the back of her chair, I leaned down to brush my lips over hers. “I’ll play nice if she can,” I promised.

Just as I started backing away, Harlow fisted her hand in my shirt and tugged me down for a deeper kiss. I let out a small groan when her cool tongue brushed mine, my eyes falling shut at the feel of her.

After only a couple weeks of being able to love her like this, I felt like I’d been doing it my whole life. “What time do we have to pick up Sage from school?” I whispered, sliding my hand under the neck of her shirt, sweeping my thumb along the edge of her bra. We’d gotten very good at making the most of our time when Sage was gone. Earlier that morning, I tugged her back into the bedroom after Sage got on the bus and had her on her hands and knees on the bed, her hair tight in my fist, another anchored on her hips.

My girl liked it like that. And I just liked her any way I could have her, but my favorite was when I was over her, moving slow between her legs until she begged for it faster, harder. Maybe we could do that. I licked into her mouth on a hot kiss, and she sighed softly, her hand curled tight around the back of my neck.

Against my mouth, Harlow smiled wide. “Unless you can be very quick, sir, I don’t think we have quite that much time. We should leave in about five minutes.” I growled, and Harlow laughed. “Don’t make that growly man sound with me, buddy. You’re the one who wanted to go out for lunch because she has a half-day.”

Quickly, I snatched another kiss, because the sound of her laugh was the best fucking sound I’d ever heard. Something was magical about each day now, something I hoped never went away.

Waking up with her in my arms made the mornings sweeter.

Even if she did hog the covers, going to sleep with her next to me made every night feel like an unexpected gift. Being able to hold her hand just because I wanted to was humbling, and as much as I tried, I couldn’t figure out what I’d done right in this life to have any of it.

But even if I didn’t understand, I wouldn’t take it for granted.

Harlow closed up her laptop, tossing the glasses onto the table with a sigh. She rolled her neck, and I moved behind her, digging my thumbs into the tense muscles there. The press of my hands had her melting back into my chest.

“Have I mentioned I love you?” she said on a groan.

“Not in the last few minutes.” I kissed the top of her head.

“I really, really do.” She turned and gave me a soft kiss, pulling away to go put on her shoes. “I can get Sage if you want to stay home. We could pick up take-out for lunch instead.”

“I’ll come with,” I told her.

Maybe it would fade with time, this consuming need to be with her as much as I could, but it wouldn’t be today. I watched her tug on her tennis shoes and wrap a tie around all her dark hair until it was in a sloppy bun on the top of her head.

She wore the same Miss Piggy shirt from one of their first days at the house, and as I stood there staring at her, my heart started racing behind my ribs. I rubbed at my chest, my throat suddenly dry.

If I started counting how many hours and days I’d spent with Harlow, it would make my head spin. It didn’t matter how much our lives we’d been apart, but this woman was embedded so deep inside me. Whatever I was made of, whatever made me me, she was a part of it. The best part.

There was something about realizing you’d found your person, that forever started the moment you met. I wanted all these forever moments, wanted to make them count and live a life that made the most of even the most insignificant day.

“Marry me,” I said in a rough voice.

Her head snapped up. “What?”

I went down onto one knee in front of her, where her hands were still holding the laces of her shoes. Slowly, she dropped them and sat up straighter, her trembling hands reaching for mine when I reached out.

“Marry me,” I said again. “Today.”

Harlow exhaled a short laugh. “Ian, are you being serious right now?”

It felt like I was wearing my heart outside my chest, and the violent way it beat was the loudest thing in the room. “I love you,” I told her. “And I don’t need some big fancy wedding to make this mean more. We’ve already made it pretty clear to our families that we’re never going to follow the expected path. If you want to keep it between us and we’ll have a party for everyone else later, I’ll do whatever you want. Or if it’s too fast and you want the fancy dress in a church, God, I’ll wait but I don’t want to wait long. You’re already my partner, my best friend,” I said fervently, “but I want to call you my wife.”

A tear spilled over her cheek, and she emitted a watery laugh. “I don’t need a big fancy wedding either,” she whispered. With her free hand, she cupped the side of my face. “You mean it?”

I pressed my forehead to hers and sighed when she wrapped her arms around my neck and tugged me closer. My arms banded around her as we held each other there. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”

She pulled back with a wide smile on her face. “Let’s do it,” she said.

“Think Sage will be bummed if we head to the courthouse before lunch?”

Harlow stood and tugged me to my feet, throwing herself in my arms. “Are you kidding? She’s going to freak.”

And she was right.

Sage stared at us with wide, unblinking eyes when we pulled up to the courthouse after leaving school. She had hair falling out of her double braids, and the arm of her shirt was coated in grass stains.

“What are we doing here?” she whispered.

Harlow and I glanced at each other, sharing a quick smile. Harlow had swapped the Miss Piggy shirt for a simple white sweater and her dark jeans. I was wearing a black shirt.

“How do you feel about courthouse weddings in the middle of the week?” Harlow asked.

Sage’s eyes moved from us to the building and then back again. Her chin wobbled. “Just us?” she whispered.

I held out my fist. “Just us.”

She burst into tears, dropping her face into her hands. Harlow was out of the front seat in an instant, sliding into the back seat with her daughter, who flung her arms around her mom the moment she could.

“You’re really getting married?” she said between sobs.

“We want to,” Harlow said. “I know it’s fast, honey, and if it feels too fast?—”

“No,” Sage said frantically, “it feels exactly perfect.”

The pressure on my chest eased, and I cupped the side of her head while Harlow brushed at the tears on her cheeks. Once she’d taken a few deep breaths, Harlow gave me another sweet smile.

“Should I fix my braids?” Sage asked.

I shook my head. “No way. You look exactly perfect.”

She smiled, and we got out of the car. Hand in hand with Harlow, and Sage tucked into my side with her arm around my waist, we looked up at the simple building.

“Ready to make it official, kid?” I asked.

Sage took a deep breath. “It already was official. Now we’re just making it legal.”

Harlow laughed, her hand squeezing mine. Happiness came in so many different ways, from different people and places and moments. I’d experienced it plenty in my life, a long list of good things that couldn’t be taken away, no matter what else balanced it out.

They had their own lists of happy too, things that brought us together, that we could share and talk about and experience together. And past that, we had an entire lifetime that we’d get to create together.

And as we walked inside the building together, I knew the best parts of that life were yet to come.