Chapter 21
Iwatched him watch me as I let the dizzying day and months barrel through my mind. And Gray was content to lie there, waiting for me to sort through my thoughts.
“I think this doesn’t feel real,” I finally admitted, my voice so much softer than I intended it to be.
I could’ve blamed it on my exhaustion. I could’ve blamed it on the effect Gray’s soft, rumbling voice had on me in the dark.
I could’ve blamed it on the comfort and safety I felt in that moment, in his arms, when I hadn’t known I’d been searching for either of those feelings.
But I knew it was those vulnerabilities sneaking back in.
“Any of it—from that morning we woke up, to this entire weekend, to now.”
He nodded subtly, the action causing the tip of his nose to brush against mine and forcing me to draw in a shaky breath. “Ditto,” he muttered, tossing my earlier word back at me. But when he continued, a whisper of worry edged his words. “Does it bother you that the guys know?”
“No,” I answered honestly. “But, again, it feels like they know something that isn’t real.”
“Right,” he said, as if in agreement. “And if we made it real?”
One of my brows ticked up. “Is . . . wait, are we—” I pushed up onto my elbow and stared down at Gray’s handsome features, my exhaustion momentarily forgotten. “Are we not actually married?”
“We are.” The flash of his dimples let me know I hadn’t been able to conceal my worry. “But I didn’t get to give you a ring.”
My eyes widened when I realized what he’d originally been implying. “I have a ring,” I said on a breath as my heart raced.
One side of his face scrunched up. “Yeah, I didn’t pick that out, Peach. And I didn’t ask your dad, even though he really is the worst.”
“Please don’t,” I softly begged.
I hadn’t had a relationship with my dad since I’d become a SEAL. Even if his words were a constant, toxic torment that, regrettably, fueled my insecurities and decisions, he wasn’t allowed to have any kind of say on my life.
“I didn’t get down on one knee,” Gray continued without acknowledging my plea.
“I probably would’ve punched you if you had.”
A sharp laugh burst from him, his head bobbing as he fought a smile. “Noted.” Finally loosing that smile—my smile—on me, he lowered his voice and said, “But I don’t remember asking you. I don’t remember you saying yes. And, more than anything, I don’t remember getting to marry you.”
“Oh.” It was all I seemed to be able to force out as his words at once thrilled me and made my heart wrench.
Because what he was saying, what he wanted, wasn’t me. It never had been.
I hadn’t been the little girl who’d grown up dreaming about her wedding or who she might marry.
I’d been the little girl who’d dreamed of fighting for my country.
I’d dreamed of showing my dad and brothers that I was strong enough.
I’d dreamed of shutting up every person who’d told me I couldn’t . . . that I wasn’t.
And I had.
Honestly, thinking about it now, a drunken elopement was kind of perfect for me. But knowing Gray? He would’ve wanted the big wedding, with our crew and his massive family in attendance. He would’ve wanted the white dress and suit and cake.
He would’ve wanted everything.
My stomach dropped when I realized that wasn’t the only thing Gray and I differed on.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Gray softly pleaded, forcing my attention to his furrowed brow and analyzing stare.
I struggled to swallow around the cold fingers curling around my throat, because I had a feeling I knew exactly how this conversation was about to go. “What if I don’t want a wedding? What if I’ve never wanted the dress or the people, or any of that?”
Gray seemed to search my features, as if he knew that wasn’t what had my words dipping and twisting, before he easily but carefully said, “Then we won’t. But I’m still getting you a different ring, and I’m still asking you, sober.”
A hollow formed in my chest when his answer was exactly as I’d expected.
And it had me struggling to breathe because I’d only had a short few hours where he’d felt like mine. But I couldn’t do this to him.
He shifted to sitting when I did, apprehension swirling from him and curling around me when he mumbled, “Mallory . . .”
“You want kids, don’t you?”
Longing stole across Gray’s expression before he could mask it. “You know I do,” he responded in a tone that let me know his mind was racing, putting together the pieces of this conversation so he could figure out where I was going with it. “Just as I know you hate kids.”
I worried my bottom lip before asking, “How does that work?”
I didn’t have to say for us. From the way his eyes narrowed just slightly, he knew what I was asking. He’d put all those pieces together.
“Easily. We won’t have kids.”
Something that should’ve been a relief to me had that hollow expanding, threatening to consume me as I thought about the way Gray had run around with his cousins’ kids the day before, and all the times he’d come back to Dallas, covered in glitter and nail polish, courtesy of his nieces.
He was great with kids. He adored kids.
I wouldn’t ask him to give that dream up.
“Gray—”
His hushed laugh cut me off as he leaned closer, his voice low and earnest. “I would give my life for you, Mallory. This? It’s nothing in comparison.”
“You can’t say that.”
One of those smiles flashed across his face that showed exactly how ready he was to disprove that. But before he could argue, I continued.
“You’ll resent me one day.”
“Not likely,” he said on an amused breath. “I’ve known what a life with you would look like. That’s never stopped me from knowing I would choose you again and again if you so much as gave me a chance.”
I ignored the way my entire being reacted to the claim and focused instead on that pit of unease. “What if Briggs is right? What if we don’t last?”
“What if we do?” he challenged in a tone that said he would fight to ensure we did.
“Then you won’t get the life you deserve.”
Gray’s head slanted in disagreement. “I’ll get everything.”
My chest caved with my next exhale because he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t know that. But just as my lips parted, he curled a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me close, so his forehead was pressed to mine as he spoke.
“Everything,” he repeated earnestly. “If you’re mine?
Mallory, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Wedding or no wedding, I don’t care. As for kids?
” Something like a laugh wrenched from his throat.
“Even if you did want kids, what if we couldn’t have any?
What if I couldn’t? Would you resent me? ”
I kept my jaw firmly clenched to keep from responding. But he knew, as well as I did, that I wouldn’t.
“Exactly,” he muttered without needing me to answer. His hand gently flexed around my neck as if trying to relay the gravity of what he was saying. “I’ll still have you. I’ll have everything.” He tipped his head slightly closer so our lips brushed when he asked, “Do you understand?”
Just as I began nodding, his mouth pressed to mine, stilling the movement and the rest of my body as shock stole through me. And I wondered—albeit, briefly—how long it was going to take for me to get used to this.
But as my head cleared of all thoughts and my body melted against his as he slowly but confidently took control of the kiss, I kind of hoped I never would.
I never wanted to get used to the current that lit me up from the inside, like I was grabbing a live wire.
I never wanted to get used to any of the ways he kissed me—soft and sure, hard and desperate, playful and teasing.
I never wanted to get used to the way he held me, like I was precious, and he was afraid I’d disappear if he let go.
I never wanted to get used to the ridiculous feeling like my heart just might escape the confines of my chest.
A stuttered inhale tore down my throat when his thumb skated along the side of my neck.
That. I never wanted to get used to that. The way he could shake my very soul with a feather-soft brush against my skin.
I felt the twitch of his lips against my own before he was kissing me again. Stealing my breath and more of my heart with his lazy yet purposeful movements and adoring yet teasing nips. Everything so perfectly Hudson Gray.
Even after he laid us back down and curled me close against his chest, he never let it go further or let the kiss build. And after the exhausting day we were coming off, here, in the dark, it felt perfect.
“Marry me,” he breathed against my lips, startling me.
I shifted back enough to search his earnest gaze, a slightly stunned laugh leaving me. “I already did.”
Gray’s head dipped slightly. “I know. But I’m asking you now, sober, not on my knee—” A hushed laugh wheezed from him when I jammed a fist into his stomach, and he hurriedly curled one of his hands around mine. When he continued, his smile softened. “I’m asking you now if you’ll marry me.”
I thought for the span of one fluttering heartbeat before asking, “Do I have to wear a dress?”
His smile briefly widened. “No ceremony, Peach. Just need to know the answer.”
With a slow exhale, I forced myself to ignore every instinct and once again bared my soul to this man. “I would marry you, sober, every day, for the rest of my life,” I answered, repeating his own words back to him.
Our next kiss could’ve set fire to the world.
I’m not sure I would’ve noticed.
Fierce and tender. Demanding and yielding. Dizzying me up until it felt like I was at once floating and falling deeper into him. Until I was his air, and he was mine.
But the ruthless pounding of my heart was nothing compared to the beautifully uneven rhythm when Gray began speaking. The rough, whispered words dancing across my lips like the sweetest vow.
“Mallory, I promise to take care of you just as fiercely as I fight with you.” My eyes flashed open to find him already staring at me.
The passion in his gaze and conviction fueling each word were enough to make my own traitorous emotions flare.
“I promise to stand by your side on missions and at festivals you secretly love.” The corner of his mouth tipped up when a breathless, shaky laugh tumbled past my lips.
Cradling my neck in his large hand, he swept his thumb along my bottom lip as he continued.
“And I promise to love you, even after this world tears me from you.”
I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to his when unbidden tears blurred my vision. But when I opened my mouth, the words caught in my throat, and only a strained sound left me instead.
“Still not sure what to do with this Mallory,” Gray murmured as he continued making lazy passes with his thumb. “But I’ll take your tears, just as I take your anger. I’ll take your shields, just as I take your laughter.”
My chest heaved with a muted sob. How was I supposed to follow any of the beautiful things he was saying?
“I don’t have pretty words,” I finally managed to say, my voice strained.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he assured me as his mouth brushed across mine, as if he’d never intended for me to respond.
But just as a glimmer of relief began settling over me, every trapped thought tumbled free.
“I promise to let you past my shields, no matter how much I want to cling to them, because I know you see me anyway. You’ve always understood me in a way I’m not sure I even understand myself.
” I swallowed thickly and squeezed my eyelids tighter, even as the corner of my mouth ticked up.
“I promise to forever infuriate you and get infuriated by you before storming off, because the next time you find me, I have no doubt we’ll fight.
And I really do love fighting with you.”
I felt Gray’s next laugh, and when I opened my eyes again, his were dancing with amusement and joy and love.
“And I promise to love you—with every closed-off, hardened part of me—for the rest of time.”
Pressing his thumb against my jaw to tip my head up, Gray whispered, “Those were some pretty words, Mrs. Gray,” before sealing our vows with a kiss.