Clash(72)

“But I want you, Lucy Larson. Bad. I want you forever. The kind of bad I have for you isn’t the kind that goes away.” His forehead lined, his eyes washing silver. “Ease my suffering. Make me the happiest, most tortured man in the world. Marry me?”

If this was hanging from a rope after the ground had fallen from beneath you, I’d become the best damn rope climber in the history of ropes.

Jude Ryder. The man I loved. The man I couldn’t live without. My husband.

Yeah, that worked.

“Why the hell not,” I answered, never feeling more sure about anything.

His face smoothed with relief. And pure, unbridled, joy.

“Was that a yes?” he asked, already sliding the ring onto my finger. I hadn’t looked at the ring once. I could feel it there, the metal band cool on my skin, but I didn’t need to see it to feel its promise. It could have been a hundred carets; it could have come from a quarter machine. I didn’t care. Because I had Jude. Forever.

“No,” I answered him, tugging on his hand, prying him up. “That was a what took you so long, Ryder. Now get up here and kiss me.” I winked down at him, grinning at me like a fool.

Popping up, his arms grabbed me, folding me tightly against him. “Yes, ma’am.”

Wrapping my legs around him, he lifted me higher, weaving his fingers through my hair. “The name’s Jude Ryder since you’re going to be my wife someday soon. And I didn’t used to do girlfriends, flowers, or dates. And then I met you, and that didn’t work for you. So I changed for you. And you changed for me too,” he said, taking me back in time and keeping me right here in the present, and, looking into his eyes and feeling my lips on his, I felt the future too. It was surreal. The real kind that few people rarely experienced. And here I was, living it. Lifting his lips from mine, he ran his knuckles down my face. “And we worked out something special.”