She regarded him for several seconds before saying. “You’re right. I don’t like you as much now as when you had your sight.”
His grip around his waist slackened. “Oh,” he said, the expression on his face going from hopeful to devastated to resigned in the space of a few seconds.
But then she said, “I like you way better. Way, way better.” She smiled up at him. “Now you’re perfect. Yes, Beau, I’ll marry you.”
And he smiled back, before pressing his mouth into hers. For a moment, the staring Alabamans in the lobby faded away, and it was only them returned to the love-struck teenagers they’d once been, but then she remembered, “Oh my God, Colin! We were supposed to meet to talk about him giving Ruth’s House a donation.”
But his arms only curled tighter around her and he said, “However much you were planning to ask him for, I’ll match it.”
“But—”
“Double it.”
“Beau—”
“Hell, you’re going to be my wife. I’ll give you my checkbook and let you decide on the amount.”
And lest she think he was actually trying to buy her again, he capped this declaration with the sweetest, most sincere, and most grateful kiss she had ever known.
EPILOGUE
TO THEIR CREDIT, Josie and he did manage to make it out of the back of Mac’s car, before they consummated their reunion. But there was no way he was going to let them get all the way up the stairs, or even to a chair or couch. In fact, Beau considered himself a damn gentleman for closing the door all the way behind him, before he threw Josie down on the foyer’s floor.
She seemed desperate for him, too, because not only did she go down on her back without a word of protest, she unzipped his pants and pulled him out as she did so.
But despite his many changed ways, Beau still wasn’t the type to give his future wife what she wanted without making her work for it. “I don’t hear you narrating, darlin’,” he said, refusing to go along with her as she started to position his cock between her wet folds.
Below him, she went still. “Are you kidding me?” she asked.
“Not even a little bit,” he answered, pulling back slightly to make his point.
She let out a huff of air, but eventually said, “I’ve got your thing in my hand.”
“Josie…”
“I’ve got your dick in my hand—and wow! It just got harder as soon as I said that.”
“What’s your other hand doing?” he asked, trying to ignore the aching pain that came with wanting to be inside someone this much.
“It’s, um, on your butt, trying to get you to….”
He finally allowed himself to sink his cock into her, and savored the sound of her delighted moan when he was all the way inside and began moving. Now both her hands were on his ass. But soon after he started thrusting into her with long, hard jerks, he felt both of her hands thread themselves under his arms, before hooking around his shoulders from behind, as if she were trying to hold on.
“Tell me what you see,” he said.
“From this position, just my hands on your shoulders.”
“Describe them to me.”
And he could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “Well, the right one is just my plain old hand, but the left one has a big honking diamond on it.”
His diamond. The one he’d put on her in the back of Mac’s car when he realized he’d forgotten to propose to her with it.
He let out a strangled groan and pushed into her even harder, making sure he hit her clit with each stroke. More than anything, he wanted to please Josie, wanted to spend the rest of his life pleasing her.
His lips searched for and eventually found the thin scar at the top of her left breast. He promised himself that from then on, he’d kiss it every time they made love, for the rest of his life, as a reminder of what she had survived in order to make her way back to him.
And it felt like his heart would come out of his chest when she began bucking beneath him. She cried out his name, “Beau!” before she seized up and came with a happy sigh.
He was glad she was happy. He wanted that even more than he wanted his own orgasm, which came crashing over him a few minutes later. He released into her, already knowing after their upcoming wedding and the birth of their children, this moment would be forever seared in his mind as his most favorite.
But then it was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. “Yoo-hoo, Beau, darling!” came his mother’s voice. “I’m finally….”
The thud of what sounded like one of his mother’s expensive purses hitting the floor came next. “…home.” Then: “Josie Witherspoon, I do not believe this is the job I hired you for.”
“Oh. My. God,” Josie said underneath him, obviously mortified.
But Beau just laughed. Not even this latest interruption could diminish the joy of finally winning the heart of Josie Witherspoon. His dream girl. His favorite ally.
His one and only love.
THE END