57. Chapter 57
My arms curl around Sadie’s warm body where it is curled into me on the couch, right where she belongs. Our limbs tangled in the aftermath of us doing highly inappropriate things in an office space.
None of which I regret.
I don’t move, but I’ve learned that moments like this fracture if handled wrong.
I drape my arms along the back of the couch, my fingers resting at the curve of her shoulder blade, tracing absentminded lines that don’t demand anything from her.
My office smells like coffee and her, a scent I’d drown this place in if I could get away with it.
The lamps low and the city outside muted behind thick glass.
Sadie shifts, pressing her face closer to my throat and the instinct hits hard and fast—violent in its intensity. The urge to cage this moment and to lock the doors, to make decisions she doesn’t have to make anymore.
I clamp down on it, not because I want to, but because I have to.
“You’re thinking very loudly,” she murmurs, voice soft but amused. Like she knows exactly how dangerous that sentence is.
I huff a quiet breath through my nose. “Occupational hazard.”
Her fingers tap off my chest as I look to the ceiling, watching shadows from passing headlights crawl across the plaster. I catalog everything; the rhythm of her breath, the way her weight anchors me, the ache in my chest that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with permanence.
I don’t plan what happens next.
I really fucking don’t, but the words leave my mouth before strategy can catch them.
“Marry me.”
Sadie yanks up so damn hard I have to catch her before she spills onto the floor.
“Christ, Alex. One extreme to the next.” She hisses.
“I know, just—”
“Alex, seriously this is—”
“Yes, I know but I’m serious.” I sigh, cutting her off.
“You just—” she gestures vaguely between us, like the air itself is complicit. “You can’t just say that like you’re ordering coffee.”
“I can and I did,” I reply calmly.
“This is insane.”
“I’m aware.”
“You don’t believe in doing things halfway, do you?” She rasps, amused.
“No.”
I watch as her lips part, then press back together. I can see the gears turning and the way she’s already plotting three steps ahead.
“This isn’t romantic,” she mutters.
“I’m not romantic.”
She snorts. “Yeah, well that I’m aware of. It’s not normal either.”
“We aren’t normal.”
She laughs incredulously, scrubbing a hand down her face. “You’re asking me to marry you like you’re asking me to stay over for dinner.”
I reach up, brushing my knuckles along her jaw. “I’m asking because I don’t intend on ever losing you. And because I won’t lie to you about what I want.”
“And what if I say no?” She sighs. A question she asks quite often I am finding. Each time giving me greater and greater amusement.
I don’t hesitate, tugging on a lock of her golden hair. “Then you’ll still leave this room alive and unrestrained.”
She levels her eyes at me, clearly not overly enthused with my try at humor.
“But, I will still love you and I will still wait.”
She chuckles and smacks my chest. “Insanity.”
“I think the word honest we toss around quite a bit is more fitting,” I tease.
She studies me for a long moment, then exhales before collapsing back against my chest. Groaning as she presses her forehead into my shoulder.
“You are a lot.”
“That I am aware of,” I murmur softly.
Her fingers wrap around the back of my neck, toying with the strands of hair that she’d already mussed with her fingers.
“I’m not answering that right now,” she decides softly.
I hum, smiling as I tighten my arms around her and pull her to me. “Take your time.”
And I mean it, because whatever comes next?
She’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.