Chapter 54 #3
He grumbles something I think is Irish and am positive is derogatory, then his voice gentles for his daughter.
“We love you, Laoise. We trust you…” He drags out the pause like it physically pains him not to say the rest. So he gives in, rushing out his warning, “But we’re visiting within the week, and if I don’t like this setup, I’m taking you back with me.”
Lucy opens her mouth to object, but I snort first.
“Over my dead body, McKennon,” I sing. “Now off you go. Ta-ta!”
I end the call and toss her phone into the far corner of the bed.
Lucy’s jaw drops. “Hatton! You cannot just hang up on my dad.”
I chuckle as I’m putting away the stencil pen on a shelf and the phone immediately starts vibrating again. “Trust me. It’s our thing.”
She groans. “You both are impossible.”
Then she flops back on the bed, flinging her free arm over her eyes. I peel it back and hold her wrist above her head as I put on my deepest, fakest Southern accent.
“Well, I do declare, Miss McKennon, did I hear you right before? Did you just proposition me with matrimony? Are you finally makin’ an honest man outta me?”
“What if I did?” She snorts, but there’s a shy little smile tugging at her mouth now. “We at least deserve the choice. Not an obligation one way or another.”
My lips quirk. “I’ll be your choice any damn day of the week, baby. You just say the fucking word.”
Her face softens, and her fingers slip from my hand and come up to my face instead, tracing along my jaw like she’s reminding us both that I’m here, that I’m hers to touch, hers to choose, and her eyes hold mine with a steadiness that makes my pulse start pounding.
“I love you.”
My lips part, all humor leaving my body.
My heart slams so hard against my ribs it actually hurts, and for one stupid second I just stare at her like I’ve forgotten how language works.
She smiles a little wider at whatever naked shock she sees on my face, and her thumb brushes once over the corner of my mouth.
“Those were the words, right?” she asks softly. “I. Love. You?”
I let out a breath that sounds wrecked, even to me. “Lucy…”
She shifts closer, her warmth flush against me now as she presses her hand to my chest. No hesitation, no panic, no running, no second-guessing. Lucy McKennon is choosing me with those three little words, and I will never, ever be the same.
“I know you said I didn’t have to say it back yet,” she murmurs. “That I could take a year or never if I wanted. But I don’t want never, Hatton. And I don’t want later just because later sounds safer.”
Her fingers flex over my thumping heart and I wonder if it feels to her as loud as it sounds to me.
“I love you. You. Not the idea of you. Not the man in the mask, or the one I thought I was supposed to run from. Just… you. The real you. The maddening, reckless, terrifying, loyal, hilarious, ridiculous you.”
My throat closes up.
She huffs a tiny laugh, making me realize I’ve just been soaking this moment in for maybe a little too long. Her eyes shine now, and that nearly does me in.
“You know,” she says, quieter, “for someone who always has something smart to say, this is not your strongest showing.”
That gets a broken laugh out of me. I drop my forehead to hers and close my eyes because I cannot look directly at her and feel how happy I am without risking full bodily collapse.
“I’m having a real hard time recovering from how fucking good those three words sound coming from your heart.”
Her fingers curl around the back of my neck.
“I mean all of it. Staying with you on Wander. Getting a Fury tattoo. Marrying you, eventually. You. I love you, Hatton Fury.”
That’s it. That’s the killing blow.
I kiss her like I’ve been starving for it, one hand sliding into her hair, the other braced beside her head to barely fight back that weak-at-the-whole-fucking-body sensation she’s given me.
She makes this soft little sound into my mouth that makes my chest ache, and I kiss her harder, slower, deeper, trying to tell her every word that’ll never be enough out loud.
That she just handed me a real future, the one thing I never thought I’d get to have.
That I’m wrecked by her. That if she wants to give us a choice, she’s mine too.
When I finally pull back, I cup her face properly and drink in every inch of her happiness.
“I love you, too, Lucy McKennon. You want choice? You’ve got it. And when I ask you for real, it’ll be because you get to say yes. Not because of some bargain. Not because fate or family or blood says so. Just because it’s me and you.”
She stares at me for a second, then she gifts me with a sweet little kiss to seal the promise.
“Deal.”
“Deal?”
“Deal.” Her smile turns soft again. “But I’m not marrying you without your mark on me.
My dad got my mom’s mark on him, and I want that too, so how long it will be before we get married is at least dependent on how long this design will take to finish.
” Her brow raises as she grins. “It’s your move, Fury. ”
I bark out another laugh and kiss her again, slower this time, savoring the feel of her smiling into it. Then I lean back and grin.
“Deal.”