Chapter 28 Beau #2
We stayed like that, breathing each other in, still joined, still clinging.
The room was quiet except for the sound of our hearts slowing, the faint hum of her laptop still running on the desk.
I didn’t want to move. Could’ve stayed inside her forever.
My hands roamed her back, her hips, the dip of her waist like I had to re-learn her all over again, like I couldn’t quite believe she was real and mine and still here.
She made a soft noise, not quite a word, just a sigh of contentment.
“You okay?” I asked again, softer this time.
She nodded, and I felt her smile. “Think you scrambled my brain.”
“Good.”
I pressed a kiss to her spine and finally pulled back, wrapping my arms around her from behind. She turned, flushed and happy and laughing softly against my mouth.
“Hey,” she murmured. “I was thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
She smacked my chest. “I was thinking…maybe we stop pretending.”
I looked down at her.
She tapped the ring on her finger with a tiny smile. “Make it official.”
My throat went tight.
“Yeah?” I asked, voice rough.
“Yeah,” she said. “I mean…I think we already are. But maybe we say it out loud. Let the town know you’re stuck with me.”
I let out a breath, laughing low. “Was it when I licked your pussy under the desk? Or when I bent you over and ruined your upload schedule?”
She gave me a look, flushed and fond and just a little exasperated. “It was somewhere in there.”
I kissed her again, but she held back, her brow furrowed.
“You know it was never about that, right?” she said.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“About the sex,” she said. “Like…it started that way, maybe, but you’re…you’re good. That’s why I decided to stay, week after week. Not because of the sex.”
I cupped her cheek, brushing my thumb along the curve of it. “And there it is,” I said. “Why I love you.”
Her lips curled in a smirk. “Oh my God…you love me because of the sex? And here I thought it was my winning personality.”
“It’s the personality I was talkin’ about,” I grinned. “Just…never stop bein’ you, okay?”
She bit her lip. “Ditto.”
She leaned into me then, soft and certain, her head tucking against my chest like it belonged there.
I wrapped my arms around her and just held her, both of us still half-dressed, her hair messy from where I’d tugged it, my jeans barely buttoned, her laptop still humming on the desk and waiting for us to get back to work.
But we didn’t move.
Didn’t need to.
Because this—this was the work. This was the whole damn point.
“You sure this isn’t just an excuse to get Shane to come back for the wedding?” I asked.
She huffed a laugh into my chest. “I don’t think Shane’s getting away from Willow Grove that easily. Apparently he and Ash have been texting ever since he left…and they’re planning a meetup anyway.”
“So you’re just playing matchmaker.”
She pulled back just enough to look at me. “I don’t have to. Like I said…Willow Grove will take care of it for me.”
I laughed, low and warm, and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Well, then maybe Willow Grove wants me to put you in a dress and say ‘I do.’”
She narrowed her eyes, but her smile was unmistakable. “You think I’m gonna wear a dress?”
“God, I hope not,” I muttered, already picturing her in something wicked and dark—black lace or mossy green velvet, something she could wear barefoot, something she could hike her leg around my waist in and whisper dirty things right after the cake was cut.
She must’ve seen the shift in my expression, because she rolled her eyes. “You’re picturing it, aren’t you?”
“Resistin’ the urge to haul you off to bed right now.”
Noelle laughed and buried her face in my chest. “You’re filthy.”
“You love it.”
“I do,” she whispered, and just like that, the teasing edge melted into something softer. “I really do.”
We stood there a long moment, arms around each other in the quiet hum of her little shop. Outside, the wind stirred the chimes she’d hung from the eaves.
Somewhere in the background, her laptop dinged with a notification. But the world had narrowed again—just us, just this, just the way her hand traced idle circles on the small of my back like she was already designing our vows.
“So,” I said, voice quieter now, “what if we did it at the next Gloaming Festival?”
She blinked. “That’s like…three weeks away.”
“You said it yourself—this town moves fast. And it’s where we started, isn’t it? Bonfire, cryptid weirdos, a thousand fairy lights and your thighs around my shoulders.”
She laughed, leaning in until our foreheads touched. “We’re gonna need help.”
“Already got it,” I said. “We rope in Willow and Rhett for the flower arrangements—she’ll go feral with the wildflowers. Delilah can do the playlist, and Silas has plenty of folding chairs from the church.”
“And June?”
“Oh, she’s definitely officiating,” I said. “Barefoot in the moss, talkin’ about love spells and sacred sex.”
Noelle gave a quiet, breathy laugh, her smile going soft. “And Beau?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You,” she said. “What’s Beau gonna be doing?”
“Bein’ the luckiest bastard alive,” I murmured. “Swearin’ I’ll never leave your side. Cryin’ like a baby while you walk toward me with that witchy little smile.”
Her face crumpled just a little, emotions piling up in the corners of her eyes.
I kissed them before they could fall. “So…what do you say, baby? Three weeks? Gloaming Festival wedding?”
She sniffed, then nodded hard. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I want to marry you, Beau Ward. I want the lights and the music and Milo in a bowtie. I want the bonfire. I want our weird little town there. I want you.”
“You got me,” I said, kissing her deep. “Forever.”