CHAPTER 16
Rose almost fell off the bed. “I what? You could teach Alaric lessons in arrogance. Just because we had the hottest sex I’ve ever had in my life--”
“Or ever will, at least until the next time, which might be soon if you keep causing your lovely breasts to bounce like that,” he said, matching action to words and bending down to suck her nipple into his mouth.
She gasped and her head fell back. The man was a sex god. There was just no other way to put it. “You—you have to stop that. Oh, wow. Okay, maybe not just yet.”
He slid his clever fingers between her legs, and she surrendered completely. “Never mind. Don’t stop. Don’t—oh, goddess—don’t stop.”
He didn’t.
***
By the next time they were able to catch their breath, it was almost six o’clock in the evening, and Rose freaked out when she caught sight of the clock.
“My mother—Mac—oh, no,” she moaned. “They’ll think I’ve turned into a crazed sex fiend.”
“Have you?” Alejandro asked, extremely interested in the answer. “Because I think I could go one more round, if we--”
“No!” She jumped out of bed. “We have to, I need to, if we--”
“I love you,” he said simply, interrupting her wild babbling, and she froze.
“You what?”
“I love you. I’ve never met anyone like you, and I never will.” He stood up and crossed the room until he stood only a few inches away from her. “You’re brave and smart, and funny and loyal. You love your crazy grandmother and your lunatic sister, and you even care about the fate of lizard-chickens.”
The look on her face was one of pure astonishment, but he didn’t see any hint of rejection, so he took a deep breath, gathered what was left of his courage, and pushed ahead.
“I don’t know if it’s because of our magic, like Alaric said--”
“He’s never wrong,” she said wryly.
“Or because some part of your soul is perfectly matched to mine, but I love you and I need you. Marry me, my witch, my enchantress, my sorceress. Be mine. I will be faithful to you forever, and I will love you for all eternity.”
The absolute rightness of every word he was saying rang out, loud and clear, and Alejandro had never been so certain of anything in his life.
He knelt down, still stark naked, and smiled up at the woman who’d stolen his heart. “Marry me.”
Rose’s eyes widened, and an expression of pure wonder crossed her face. “I finally know,” she said, almost reverently. “Your deepest desire. It’s me.”
Relief flooded through him. “Of course.”
“But how . . .”
“Maybe all we needed was love.”
Rose opened her mouth and then shut it again, and then she blinked and looked around the room and back down at him.
“You can’t propose to me when we’re naked,” she said firmly. “Go take a shower and get dressed, and then we will go out to the garden and do this again.”
Her meaning took a minute to penetrate his brain, and then he leapt up and pulled her into his arms. “You love me,” he said triumphantly, and she smiled a secret, deliciously feminine smile.
“Maybe. Now, shower.”
“Only if you come with me.”
It turned out that she would. So it was actually another hour later when Alejandro Vasquez, fully dressed, stood in the middle of her beautiful garden and asked Rose Cardinal to marry him.
This time she said yes.