Chapter 57
Fifty-Seven
Jaclyn
Present
I wake up before Hayden.
He is still sleeping with his arms around my waist and his head cuddling into my chest. I've just been staring down at him while tracing the features on his face.
I can’t stop smiling down at him and my heart is beating uncontrollably fast.
Being with him always feels so unreal. It feels like everything is a dream, like one of those really good ones that you never want to wake up from.
Then adding Junior to the mix makes everything better.
But when I wake up, I’m back to the reality of us and what it’s really like.
I’m still terrified of everything ending up in a disaster and going terribly wrong.
Because good things never last forever, I’ve learned that the hard way.
“What are you thinking about?” I hear Hayden say, making me look down at him. He’s awake and looking up at me with concern. My heart warms over how he knows without me telling him. “You’re stuck in your head?”
I lean against pillows behind me and Hayden moves up so that his face is close to mine. “I’m just thinking about what’s next,” I answer honestly. I look down at Hayden and he looks like he’s thinking, but about what? I run my hands through his hair and he closes his eyes for a good second, enjoying the feel of my hands in his hair. I know Hayden always loved when I touched his hair, so much to the point where he got hard off it. “What are you thinking?”
Hayden leans in and his mouth ghosts over mine. “Right now I’m just thinking of how I want to make you cum so many times you’ll see stars, princess.” My hands freeze in his hair and Hayden chuckles. “So if you want to wait on that for later tonight then I would stop touching my hair.”
I smirk and take my hands out of his hair and instead hold his jaw in my hands. “So what is next, Hayden?” Hayden licks his lips and looks at the table next to me before looking at me again. “What?”
Hayden leans up on his knees, straddling my hips and he reaches towards the side table next to me. I slide down and lay completely down on the bed instead of resting against the pillows. Hayden opens and closes the drawer and I see him bring a red box labeled Cartier in front of my face.
He lays back on top of me and opens the box showing me a ring with two huge diamonds on the band that’s filled with more diamonds. One of the diamonds is light pink in an oval shape and the one next to it is a regular clear diamond that is a little bigger.
I let Hayden take my hand and I watch as he takes the ring out of the box and slides it on my ring finger. I stare in awe, not knowing what to say or do.
“Hayden-”
“We don’t have to get married anytime soon. I know we still have a lot of things we need to work on together but I want to marry you. If I don’t marry you, I won't marry anyone. It’s you. You’re it for me, Jaclyn. You’ll be the only girl I want to be with and love for an eternity. There is no one else and will never be anyone else. I’m giving you this now to show you how serious I am about you. I’m not leaving you, not unless you really really want me to. I’m not going to leave you like you left me last time because I want to be there for you. I want to be there for you when you’re going through shit, I want to be there when you get pregnant with my kid again, and I want to be there for all of your accomplishments because you will have so many,” Hayden says while I try not to cry. I try my best to contain my tears and just ease my mind and calm my heart down from beating so much. “I love you. More than I love myself and anyone else in this fucked up world. If I don’t have you then I might as well just die because you and Junior are the only thing worth living and dying for. I told you many times before, my heartbeats are dedicated to you and that is still true even after so many years,” Hayden says and he rests his forehead on mine. “So please, I’ll literally go on my knees if you want me to, but please accept the ring and promise to marry me.”
I hold Hayden’s jaw in my hands. He looks at me with pleading eyes, as if he is desperate for me to say yes to him. A tear finally falls from my eyes after holding it in for so long. Hayden wipes the tear away and he leans in and presses his lips to where the tear fell.
He trails the kisses all over my cheeks and face before going to my lips.
I’ve always hated how my cheeks were so full and made my face look round but Hayden has always loved them. He loved all my insecurities enough for me to learn to love myself.
Hayden grabs my hand, the one with the ring, and he holds it while kissing me, going lower. His lips are on my neck now instead of my lips. I part my lips, wanting to tell him ‘yes’. I want to scream it and then tell him to show me how much he loves me because I love the way Hayden loves.
Hayden sucks on my skin and whispers. “Please say yes, baby. God, I’ll do anything.”
“Yes,” I moan and then grab his face to pull him up to meet my lips. “Yes, Hayden.”
Hayden smiles into the kiss then grabs my hips before pushing inside me and making me see stars like he promised.