Chapter 42 Sloane #2
He makes a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat just before he brings his lips down on mine.
I moan into his mouth, arching into him desperately while my hands run over his chest. Kissing him again feels like finally coming up for air after a lifetime of being underwater.
Every breath I pull in is full of him, and I relish it, hating every second I’ve had to go without it.
I never want to be without him again, and I try to convey it with every glide of my lips over his.
“Okay. I need to stop now.” Dom pulls back with a groan. “I have something to show you. Will you take a ride with me?”
I’m almost afraid to move, to do anything that takes us out of this moment. Things with us are so precarious, so fragile, it feels like moving an inch will send us spiraling into madness again. Dom senses my hesitancy, and he rubs small circles over my jaw with his thumbs.
“It’s all out there now, angel. Every truth I’ve hidden from you, everything I’ve wished I could tell you for as long as I’ve known you. You know it. There’s nothing left that can break us. Tell me you believe it.”
I place my hands over his. “I believe it.”
His answering smile is enough to quell every doubt I’ve ever had about us. He leads me to the car with his hand on my back, and it’s the only thing keeping the rapid flutter of the butterfly wings in my stomach from carrying me away.
Once we’re in the car, I don’t bother asking where we’re going, because I know he won’t tell me, but I can’t help but notice how nervous he is as he maneuvers the car through the streets.
I tap my fingers on my knee and study him.
I’ve missed him so much, and it’s good to see him, especially in a tux that somehow matches my dress despite Mal having just bought it for me…
Wait a minute. I knew there was something weird about how Mal showed up out of nowhere with a sexy dress for me. She knew Dom was going to be waiting outside the door for me, so it’s not crazy at all to think she might have helped him plan our coordinated outfits.
I narrow my eyes at him. “You look nice tonight. I can’t help but notice your tux matches the dress Mal bought for me.”
“She went to the store and picked it up.” A smirk plays on his lips as he glances at me. “But I ordered it for you weeks ago.”
My heart does a little flip. “She’s such a little liar. I should have never believed her whole speech about wanting me to feel beautiful tonight.”
“Don’t be mad at her. She was just helping me out, and you do look beautiful tonight, angel.”
I blush. “Thank you. For the compliment, the dress, and everything else.”
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s the least I could do.” He glances over at me, eyes lingering on the swell of my breast. “I was probably being a little selfish when I chose the dress though.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s our color. I wanted you to see it and remember you belong to me.”
Liquid heat rushes down my spine, and I shift in my seat, unable to speak past the lust clogging my throat.
It’s been weeks since we’ve been together, and the hungry possession coating his words is making it hard to focus.
I turn my attention back to the road. I thought we were heading toward my house, but Dom bypassed the turn for my neighborhood a while back.
Moonlight bathes the winding road in front of us, illuminating a sign for Medford Hills—a quiet area that became popular when the family that’s owned it for over a hundred years decided to section it off and sell the lots to the highest bidder.
Most of the land has been bought up by developers looking to build luxury homes and sell them for a nice price tag, or homeowners looking to cut out the middleman and have their dream homes built themselves.
There’s been tons of competition for the lots that are left, huge plots with plenty of trees and space to build.
Dom’s leg starts bouncing, his jaw going tight when he turns down a freshly paved driveway lined with trees.
I try to hide my smirk, but I think it’s cute how nervous he is about me seeing whatever it is he has to show me.
He stops the car before we reach the end of the drive and hops out, coming around to open my door.
“Close your eyes, angel.” I look at him, surprised by the soft rasp in his command. He reaches over and cups my jaw, keeping my gaze trained on him. Whatever is at the end of the road, he doesn’t want me to see it just yet.
“Fine, but this better not be the part of the night where you murder me and bury my body in the woods.”
He rolls his eyes, and I can’t help but laugh as my eyes fall shut.
He grabs my hands, helping me slide out of the car and fixing my skirt when it gets tangled around my legs.
I suck in a breath when his fingers sneak under the tulle and brush the skin bared by the split in the fabric.
Dom laughs softly and the sound soaks into my skin.
“We’ve got a short walk, but it’s a relatively easy path.
It shouldn’t take long, even in your heels. ”
“Okay.”
He closes the car door behind me then places one of his hands on the small of my back while the other stays in mine.
I squeeze his fingers as we walk. There’s a gentle breeze blowing, and I can hear the leaves on the trees around us rustling.
I wish I could open my eyes and see where we are because I’m sure it’s beautiful.
“Right here is good,” Dom says, slowing his steps. “Don’t open your eyes yet though.” He lets go of me, and it’s a struggle to obey his command when I don’t know where I am or what’s going on around me. I can feel that he’s still close though, so I keep them shut.
“Look at me.”
When I open my eyes, my jaw drops. Dom is a few feet away from me—dashing as ever in his tuxedo and giving me a wolfish smile—but it’s the scene behind him that steals my breath.
There’s a grove of trees with lights wrapped around their trunks and branches surrounding an expansive clearing.
And in the middle of the clearing, right in front of where Dom and I are standing, is a foundation for what’s going to be a huge house.
The sun has already gone down, and there isn’t much light coming from the trees, but every inch of it is visible thanks to the lit candles outlining it.
Oh God. My heart stutters to a stop when I realize what he’s done.
It’s the house of candles from my favorite episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
Dom and I watched it one night while we were cuddling on my couch.
I told him how romantic I thought it was, and the glow in his eyes as I gushed over Derek’s reaction to Meredith’s vulnerability was so intense I jumped his bones before the scene was over.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dom moving toward me and reluctantly drag my eyes from the amazing sight in front of me to him.
And thank God I do, because otherwise, I would have missed my chance to see him sink down on one knee in front of me with a ring box he must have pulled out of thin air open in his hands.
“Dom…” I don’t even know what to say, because I don’t know what it means yet. I know what I think it means, but I want him to say it. “What is all of this? What are you doing?”
“Making it up to you.”
“With a house?” I can’t even mention the ring, haven’t even been able to bring myself to look at it yet.
He laughs. “Yes. One I hope you’ll share with me for the rest of our lives. I want you in my bed every night, Sloane. In my arms, in my home. You said we couldn’t be us in my place, so I thought maybe we should have our own place. Something we built together, something that belongs to us.”
A tear falls from my eye without my permission as I take in the glowing lot again. “This is the secret project you’ve been working on. The one you wouldn’t give me any details about. You were never going to California.”
“I was never leaving you, and I told you I would need your help with it.” He seems content to let me drive the conversation even though I know he has a lot of things he wants to say. “And I will need it. I can build the house, but you’ll have to tell me what to put in it. Sloane, look at me.”
Following his command is easy even though my frayed nerves have me moving in slow motion.
I lose my breath again at the sight of him on one knee.
By what it means. A life with Dom. Not just a few weeks together.
Stolen nights, hidden desires, lingering touches—all the hallmarks of forbidden love reversed by a question I already know the answer to.
“You’re really doing this.”
“Every moment in my life has led me to this moment, angel. Of course I’m doing this.
Now, are you going to let me?” And there it is again, the inevitability that’s defined us from the moment we first laid eyes on each other.
That invisible needle and thread linking my heart to his.
For so long I’ve thought that thread, and the way it moved, was just a result of our connection.
A by-product of the electricity racing between us, but now I know it wasn’t just acting of its own volition. There was a hand holding the needle.
The same one that’s steadied me with firm pressure at my back countless times, wiped my tears when I cried over things I couldn’t change, and spelled love in my skin with gentle strokes of fingertips.
Dom was the one holding the needle that stitched my heart back together.
And he’d done it quietly, carefully, and at great cost to himself because he knew there was no hope in finding the piece of my heart I’d lost four years ago when Eric died, so he gave me pieces of his instead.
Using them to put mine back together again, to make me whole. To restore me.
I put my hand on his cheek, letting my fingers sink into the soft hair of his beard. “Yes. Sorry. Please go ahead before I start crying.”
“Sloane Elise Kent, I’ve loved you for a lifetime, pretended to hate you for over a decade, and spent more than my fair share of time thinking the only thing I was destined to do in this life was want you.
I used to look at it as a bad thing, but now I know it’s not.
Because wanting you is the only thing that’s gotten me through living without you.
It’s gotten me to this moment right here, where I can look you in the eyes and tell you that I love you and I can’t live without you.
That I want your messy hair, your bare feet, your anger and heartache, your smiles and cuddles, your kisses and your moans.
I want everything, including the honor of calling you my wife. Can I have that, angel?”
My throat is tight, constricting around a ball of emotions I can’t even begin to name, but I manage to push past it, because this answer is too important not to put into words.
“Oh my God, Dom.” I laugh through the tears.
“Yes.” I don’t even let him stand all the way up before I’m launching myself at him and showering his face with kisses.
He catches me with a grunt and kisses me back, both of his hands going to my waist to steady me.
The ring box digs into my skin, and panic grips me as I finally think about what saying yes to Dom means for the rings Eric gave me: taking them off, setting aside the symbol of my love for one man to make space for the claim of another.
Dom sets me on the ground and straightens his tux as I start to fidget with my wedding bands. I don’t want him to be the one to pull them off to place his ring on my finger. I’ve just started to slide my engagement ring off when his hands cover mine. “What are you doing?”
My brows fall together. “I have to take these off, so I can wear the ring you got me.” The one I haven’t even bothered to look at.
“No, you don’t.” He opens the box back up. “Did you even look at the ring, angel?” I shake my head, which makes him laugh even harder as he puts the box in the interior pocket of his jacket. “What kind of woman doesn’t look at the ring before she says yes?”
“One who’s more excited about the man she’s saying yes to than the ring itself.”
My comment wins me a tender smile that sends liquid heat through my veins. Dom reaches for me, pulling my left hand into his and fixing my rings. Liquid pools of obsidian swallow me whole as he strokes his thumb over the stone in my engagement ring.
“Did you know Eric and I picked these out together?”
I blink, trying to remember if that was information I’d ever been made privy to. Not likely, since Eric went out of his way not to mention Dom to me when it wasn’t necessary. “No. He never told me. Probably because he knew I would have chucked the ring at his head if I had known.”
“Probably.” Dom smirks. “Anyway, since I was with him when he bought these, and I know how much they mean to you—how much he means to you—I was able to contact the jeweler and have this made.”
The metal is cold as he slips it onto my finger, but it’s the band that stops my heart. It’s silver, like the other two rings I’ve worn every day for the last six years, with alternating diamonds that sparkle brilliantly in their individual settings.
He pushes the band all the way down until it’s flush with the tip of the pear-shaped diamond of my engagement ring. It slides into place perfectly, enhancing the already impressive set and making a gorgeous stacked trio.
My chest swells with the tenderest love for him, and I stare at it in disbelief for long seconds before throwing my arms around him.
He holds me while I cry the happiest tears I’ve ever shed in my entire life.
Only he could find a way to honor what Eric and I had while doing something as life changing as asking me to marry him.
“It’s perfect. It’s so perfect. I love it, Dom.” I pull back and look at him. “And I love you.”
He leans down and brushes his nose over mine three times.
Like he’s always done.
Like he’ll do for the rest of our lives.
“I love you too, angel.”