Sloth (Sinful Secrets #1) (62 page)

I TAKE HER HAND AND LEAD HER TO THE LIVING ROOM COUCH.
She sits on the edge of it, and I struggle not to kneel in front of her. I laugh again.

“I have something to show you.” I sit beside her on the couch and pull her up against me. My hands stroke her belly through her shirt. “The only catch is,” I whisper against her throat, “you read the instructions.”

She turns to look at me with wide eyes. “What is it?” She pets my short hair. I rub my palm over hers.

“Nice haircut by the way.” I kiss her jaw. “Trendy.”

“Kellan…” She pushes at me. “I don’t like suspense. Or surprises. Remember?”

I get a good laugh out of that before I open the trunk-style coffee table just in front of us and close my hand around it.

I turn to her and open my palm. “I found this blue sparrow. Recently. I didn’t unfold it…” I inhale, and try to still my racing pulse. “I didn’t want to touch something you did.” I grin, then laugh. So not fucking smooth. Cleo blinks. With her hair so short, her eyes look luminous.

I hold the sparrow out to her.

“Do you want to open it and read it to me?” I shift onto the floor, so I am looking up at her.

She curls her fingers loosely around the sparrow, and swallow hard and clamp my teeth together. I fake a smile. I wrap my arms around her legs and press my cheek against her shins.

I shut my eyes. I can feel her tense up as she sees the ring.

I’m not sure I can handle looking at her face, so I roll the words I wrote inside the sparrow back through my head. I read it many times before I folded it.

She pounces on me and I feel her arms lock down around me. “Kellan!” Her fist hits my shoulder. “That’s the worst proposal I have ever read!” I open my eyes in time to see her thrusts the ring at me. “What finger do you want to put it on, you crazy lunatic?!”

She holds her hand out, all the fingers shaking.

I blink as my heart pounds. I look into her eyes, so she can see the feeling in mine. “Any finger.”

She throws her arms around me, squealing as she bounces. “Please make me the crazy woman who waited in the hospital every day for almost a month for her husband!”

I smile down at her and blink fast as I take her left hand. My eyes meet hers again. “Any finger is okay,” I rasp. “Would be an honor.”

She lets out a sweet sob. “Kellan!”

I squeeze my eyes shut, then look into her face and slide the ring on the only finger she’s got held out.

“Will you marry me?” My voice trembles.

She’s already sobbing. “Yes!”

I carry her to the bedroom and make love to her as we look down over New York.

After that, we lie beside each other, face to face. Our hands roam each other gently. Cleo grins at her new ring.

“I’m hungry,” she murmurs.

I stroke her neck. “You need to eat. I feel your ribs. What do you want? I’ll go get you something.”

“That’s a risk. No risks. Delivery.”

I smile. “They don’t deliver here. Just grocery stores. Too high. Chinese? There’s a place on the sixth floor. Manning liked it when he came.”

“Mmmm. Chinese.”

I kiss her hair. “I’ll go.” Her mouth opens. I kiss it shut. “No worrying. I have my own mask and gloves.” I kiss her hair again. She smells so fucking good, I can’t help it. “You want a bath while I’m gone? Get in there and relax?”

She shuts her eyes and pulls me to her. “Kellan—I love you. And yes, I’d love a bath.”

I run her one, and take pleasure in the dance she does when she sees how huge the tub is here.

“I’m filling it up to my nose.”

I take her left hand. Kiss the ring. She sinks into the steaming water.

“I won’t be long,” I tell her. I slip into a CC t-shirt and then into my jeans.

“Mmm, mmm, those jeans are tight in all the right places. I might have to get out of this water and come check that out.”

I wink. “I put a text order in for the food, so let me go get it and then…” I stretch my arms out. “All yours. Always.”

She sighs. “Really?”

“Really.”

I leave Cleo beaming in the tub, moving her hand around so she can see the light glint on her ring.

I RIDE THE ELEVATOR NEAREST
to my flat—the one that gets the least traffic. With new gloves on my hands, I press the “6” button and step so my back touches the mirrored wall.

I can’t help the little smile I give myself in the mirror. For just a second, I swear I see dimples.

“Thank you, Ly,” I murmur.

I stand stone still, feeling…warm. Just really fucking warm and…glad. That things turned out this way. I inhale deeply. Goddamn, I’m so lucky. I love her so much.

I step out of the elevator on the sixth floor still grinning like a fool and get a little kick out of going into the restaurant. As always, people give me looks, but I don’t give a shit. I’ve got my fucking woman in the bath tub with a diamond on her finger.

God, it’s good. I close my eyes and fire a prayer off to somewhere. “Thank you.”

I get our little brown bag and hand my card to the woman at the counter. She hands me my receipt, which echoes my thoughts: THANK YOU. I walk to the elevator slowly…measuring my breaths because sometimes when I get overwhelmed, my lungs try to close up a little.

I press the up arrow and tap my foot as I hold the warm food against my thigh. I can’t fucking wait to get back up there to her. I laugh. Did that really happen?

Yeah. It fucking happened.

I ball my hand into a fist and press it to my chest. I step into the elevator hearing birds caw…smelling salt water. I’ll buy her a cottage by the sea. I want kids out there, playing on the grass. I think of Cleo at an easel, smiling as she paints. The feeling of my mother knots my chest up. My eyes blur a little.

I lean against the elevator wall and rub just under my throat. I grip the rail with my gloved hand.

The elevator’s door opens, and I walk out.

My chest feels... tight and heavy. Cleo. That’s my first thought. Needing her. My cheeks and chest flush. My arm aches. I blink down at the hardwood. I dropped Cleo’s food.

I can’t breathe. I grasp at the hall wall. Can’t see it. I stagger toward my door. Where’s Cleo?

My heart lights up like a fireball, spreading…all through me.

I can’t breathe without her.

Guess I really can’t…

The bedroom door pops open before I have a chance to swallow back my wrenching sobs. I see Olive’s small, blond head, then Mary Claire’s stunned face.