Chapter 29 #2
“Shhh,” I whisper, nudging him. “Just eat and pray she doesn’t bring out the color-coded breakup charts.”
“I heard that,” Maya calls from the kitchen, already queuing up the next track.
As we leave an hour later, Jake slides his hand into mine, his smile crooked and warm. “Okay, I take it back. I love her.”
I laugh. “Before or after the threats of car vandalism and unsolicited orgasm commentary?”
“After,” he says, completely sincere. “She’s your sword and shield. I’m just lucky she didn’t run me through with either.”
I squeeze his hand. “She didn’t have to. You passed.”
“I’m glad you’re saying that,” he murmurs.
“Why?”
He shrugs, but I can feel it, the shift… the tension simmering under his skin. It hums between us, quiet but electric, as we ride in silence back to my flat.
I don’t press. Somehow, I think I’m about to find out.
We step inside my flat, and I stop dead in the doorway.
The entire living room is glowing in late-afternoon light, and sitting right in the middle of it, on my coffee table, is the most breathtaking bouquet I’ve ever seen. Blue Himalayan poppies. Dozens of them, luminous and dreamlike.
Next to them, Pea is perched on the armrest like a suspicious chaperone, wearing his pirate eyepatch that now reads in sparkly silver script: “Say Yes.”
“Wh—”
I don’t finish the question because when I turn around, Jake is no longer standing behind me.
He’s on one knee.
My heart stutters.
He’s holding a small, dark-blue box in both hands. His fingers tremble just slightly.
“The thing is, Fangirl… I didn’t really ask. And you didn’t really say yes. I said it didn’t matter, but it does.”
My breath catches.
“I love you in ways that make me understand why poetry exists. Why wars were fought. Why madmen have chased dreams across oceans. And I want you to be my wife, not in a possessive, primal way that makes you frown”—his lips twitch, just barely—“but in a way that means you belong to me as completely as I belong to you.”
He clears his throat, and I see the emotion rising behind his steady voice.
“I’ve made a lot of choices in my life for the wrong reasons.
But not this. Not you. Whether it’s Jake or Eli, or whatever version of me shows up…
I love you. All of you. I’m convinced you were made for me in this life, the last, and the next.
And even if everything else falls apart, I’ll be okay. As long as you’re beside me.”
Then he opens the box.
The ring inside makes my knees go weak.
Platinum vines curl delicately around a center diamond and two sapphires. It’s not huge. Not flashy. It looks like it was plucked from the pages of a storybook and shaped by someone’s whole heart.
It looks like us.
I cover my mouth with my hand, and the tears come, happy, ridiculous, overwhelming tears.
Jake looks up at me with that uneven, vulnerable smile. “So what do you say, Amy Sinclair? Will you marry me?”
Penis, Penis, Penis.
“Yes, yes, I'll marry you! Penis.”
Jake blinks. “Did you just say—?”
“Penis,” I say again, half laughing, half sobbing. “I panicked!”
He bursts out laughing, full-on doubled over, still on one knee. “God, I love you so much.”
I nod, wiping my eyes. “I was going to say something profound, but then you had to go and pull out literal poetry and a fairy-tale ring, and my brain just short-circuited and went straight to dicks.”
Jake stands and pulls me into his arms, crushing me to his chest. “Best proposal acceptance in the history of mankind.”
“I’ll have it engraved on our wedding bands,” I mumble into his shirt. “Yes, yes, I’ll marry you. Penis.”
He kisses the top of my head, then tilts my chin up to meet his gaze. “I don’t need perfect. I just need you.”
“Lucky for you,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around his neck, “you’ve got me. Forever.”
Pea meows loudly like he's officiating the moment.
And I swear, just for a second, I see Jake glance at him and say, “You may now kiss the bride.”
The kiss turns from sweet to something far more passionate, slow and deep, like he’s trying to anchor himself to the moment as he walks us backward to my bedroom.
His fingers tangle in my hair, his other hand cupping my cheek as he murmurs, “Say it again.”
I press my lips to his. “Yes.”
He groans like the word undoes him all over again, and then I’m in his arms, my back against the wall, his mouth devouring mine with the kind of desperation that makes my toes curl.
“I want you,” he whispers against my throat, dragging kisses down the column of my neck. “But not fast. I want to savor you.”
“Then take your time,” I breathe out. “But I’m not letting you do all the work.”
That earns me a wicked grin. “Oh?”
“Mm-hmm.” I push at his chest. “Bed. Now. Clothes off.”
He obeys, but not without commentary. “Yes, ma’am. Look at this take-charge energy.”
“You like it.”
“Understatement.”
We peel off clothes between kisses, laughter breaking through the heat. I climb into his lap on the bed, completely bare, flushed from head to toe, and his breath catches.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says. “Every inch of you. You don’t even know what you do to me.”
I brace my knees on either side of his thighs, feeling the hard press of him between us, hot and thick. His hands slide reverently over my hips, my waist, then up to cup my breasts.
“I’m not going to last if you keep looking at me like that,” he says roughly.
“Good.” I reach between us to stroke him slowly, watching the way his lashes flutter and his breath hitches.
When I sink down onto him, his hands fly to my hips, fingers digging in like he’s barely holding on. I gasp, the stretch delicious and overwhelming, his body filling mine, inch by inch, until we’re fully connected.
“Fuck,” he growls, forehead pressed to my chest. “You feel like heaven.”
I rock slowly, letting myself adjust, and he watches me like he’s starved for every detail—my flushed skin, the way I move, the soft moans that slip past my lips.
His thumb finds my clit, circling with perfect pressure, and my head falls back, pleasure tightening low in my belly.
“Jake,” I whisper.
“I’ve got you,” he says, his voice fierce and reverent all at once. “Ride me, baby. Show me how you want it.”
And I do.
I move over him, slow and steady, then faster as need builds, riding that edge between control and surrender. His hands never stop moving, one gripping my ass, the other still circling.
The orgasm takes me by surprise, crashing through me in waves, and I cry out his name as my whole body trembles. He follows with a guttural groan, thrusting up into me as he comes, gripping me so tight it’s like he’s trying to fuse us together.
Afterward, we collapse in a tangled heap, our limbs entwined, hearts racing.
Jake kisses my forehead, my cheek, my shoulder, every inch of me he can reach.
“I love you,” he says into my skin. “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving it.”
I smile, my eyes fluttering closed, my body sore and sated and absolutely his.
“You already have.”