Chapter 33 #2
“I love when you punish me.” The only way he did that was by withholding orgasms until she was begging him for relief.
“I don’t want his money. I want him out of your lives forever.”
“That money would come in handy if Jax wants to go to college.”
“We’ll pay for his college.”
“Duke…”
“McKenzie…”
“I don’t expect you to pay for my son’s college.”
“Why not? I thought I was going to help you raise him. Why can’t I help to educate him, too?”
“You’re serious about this.”
“I’m as serious about you and Jax as I’ve ever been about anything in my whole damned life.”
She placed her free hand over her heart. “What did I ever do to get so lucky to find you?”
“I’m the lucky one, babe.”
“We both are, and we’re smart enough to know it.”
“That’s right, and we don’t need that deadbeat or his money.”
“I agree, and I appreciate what you’re saying. It’s just that after what he did to me, the way he lied to me and deceived me and tried to make me think he couldn’t have fathered Jax… I want him to pay for that. I want him to have to step up for our son, even if it’s only this one time.”
Duke listened to her and thought about what she’d said.
“Can you understand that at all?” she asked.
“I can, and I suppose you could invest that hundred grand and let it pay for college for all our kids.”
Her brows lifted. “All our kids?”
“Yeah, we’re gonna have a bunch of them.”
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh. My future wife is young and has lots of time left to have babies.”
The minute he said the words future wife, her whole body went rigid, and not in a good way.
“Did I go too far?”
“One step too far. I meant it when I said I don’t want to get married.”
“Even to me?”
“You’re the only one who could make me consider it.”
“But?”
“I want us to be together every day because we want to be. Not because we’re legally bound to each other.”
“Can’t we do both?”
“It’s just so freaking awful for everyone involved if it doesn’t work out.”
“This is gonna work out, sweetheart.”
“Everyone thinks that when they’re newly in love and planning a future. But then life happens, and things go sideways. The tearing apart is brutal.”
“When life happens, and things go sideways, I’ll be right there with you through it all.
I’ll go sideways, hell, I’ll go upside down if I have to, if that’s what it takes.
But one thing I’ll never do is leave you to figure it out on your own.
We’d be in this together every step of the way, because we want to be, not because the law says we gotta. ”
He tipped up her chin to receive his kiss.
“I’ve waited my whole life for you and Jax.
Every minute of every day and every month and every year was leading me to you and him and this family.
I want us to stand up in front of our people and take vows and make a life together with Jax and that bunch of other kids we’re going to have.
And I want us to be ridiculously happy for the rest of our lives. ”
“Are you, like… um… proposing to me?”
“What if I am?”
“I, uh… Well… Wow.” She huffed out a laugh. “I’ve never been proposed to before.”
With her in his arms, he stood and returned her to the sofa.
Then he knelt on one knee and reached for her hand, kissing the back of it.
“McKenzie Martin, love of my life, owner of my heart and soul, would you please do me the massive—and probably undeserved honor—of being my wife, my soul mate, my life partner, my everything? If you say yes, in exchange I’ll give you and Jax everything I have, everything I’ll ever have and do everything in my power to make you happier than you ever thought you could be.
I’ll do that every day for the rest of my life, which will no doubt end long before yours does because I’m so much older than you, and then you can live in sin with some other rando, but you cannot be as happy with him as you were with me. That’s where I draw the line.”
She was laughing and crying all at once. “You’re out of your mind planning my widowhood while you’re asking me to marry you.”
“I like to see to all the contingencies, especially since you’d be taking on a senior citizen compared to you.
” He bent his head over her hand, peppering the inside of her wrist with soft kisses.
“I heard you when you said you don’t want to get married, and I completely understand why after everything you’ve seen and been through with your parents and that jackass Eric and others.
But here’s the thing…” He looked up at her now with tears in his own eyes.
“I want us to be a family. I want you and Jax to be the first real family that’s truly mine.
I want us all to be Sullivans, if that’s okay with you.
I have the best friends in the whole world, and I love them.
But they all have their own families to go home to.
I want that, too. I know we could achieve that without the legal shit, but call me old-fashioned…
I want the big white wedding day and the vows and the party and the happily ever after.
And just for the record, I never pictured that for myself until I pictured it with you. ”
She stared at him for a long time, long enough that a million thoughts passed through his mind—not all of them good ones.
What would he ever do if she said no to him?
Would he be satisfied to live with her and their kids without the vows?
If that’s what she really wanted, he’d do it for her. He’d do anything for her.
“First of all, it is not an undeserved honor.”
He had to think about that for a second before he tied those words back to what he’d said earlier. “I’m batting way out of my league here, babe. Just want you to know I get that.”
“Stop talking, Duke.”
He swallowed a laugh and forced his expression to be serious. “Yes, ma’am.” God, he loved when she was bossy with him.
“You deserve my love and Jax’s more than anyone ever has.
From the minute you showed up at Tiffany’s with as many of our things as you could find in our destroyed home, you’ve been showing me who you are and what you’re about.
So I don’t ever want to hear again that you don’t deserve me or that I’m way out of your league. Is that understood?”
“I’ll keep the thought to myself going forward.”
“You do that.”
“What’s the second of all?”
“I meant it when I said I never wanted to get married.”
He felt like a balloon that’d been stuck with a pin as he deflated.
“However… I understand you wanting a family that’s all yours, and it seems I want to give you that more than I want to avoid being married.”
Just that quickly, he was back in the game, breathless as he waited to hear what else she might say.
“It gives me tremendous comfort to know how much my grandmother loved you. There could be no greater endorsement for me than that, but over these last few weeks, I’ve also witnessed how much everyone else on this island loves you.
I can’t say your name without someone telling me what a great guy you are or how you helped them out with this or that or how you showed up for them time and again.
And during that same time, you’ve shown up for me time and again, giving me a place to live and basically turning your truck over to me and helping with Jax and bringing me coffee in bed every morning and trying—not so patiently—to teach me to cross-stitch and sticking with me even though I totally suck at it. ”
A grunt of laughter burst out of him. “You’re coming along very nicely.”
“No, I’m not, but you don’t give up on me.”
“I never will.”
“And I know that, so…”
Duke held his breath as his whole life came down to whatever she said next.
She looked him dead in the eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Duke.”
The burst of pure joy was unlike anything he’d ever felt. It filled his heart to overflowing as he drew her into the sweetest kiss of his life.
“One other thing…”
“What’s that?”
“When Kendall tells Jackass you’re taking the settlement, have her ask him to sign away his paternal rights to Jax so I can adopt him. If that’s okay with you.”
McKenzie blinked back tears. “Of course it is.”
“I’ll get you a ring. Any ring you want.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“I care about it, and it’s gonna happen.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so. I love you, McKenzie. I love you so damned much.”
“I love you just as much.”
“Thank you for having the courage to take a chance on me.”
“A very wise friend recently told me that when you’re with the right guy, there’s no courage needed.”