“Lilah,” he murmured as he slid into place against her body, poised to claim her in a very-much-needed round two. “I’m glad you got on that plane.”
“Me too.” She gasped as he buried himself in her slick passage, widening her thighs to take him deeper, and it was glorious.
This was another first. Making love to a woman he wanted to keep around. Somehow. There was no protocol or regulation for this, for what had happened on that island with her. But it was something he desperately wanted to figure out.
Together, they moved in tandem, and he sucked in a breath at the perfection of how she felt. Her eyes never drifted from his, never broke their locked gazes, and the connection between them grew, twining with the pleasure until it was hard to separate one from the other.
“I have to tell you something really important,” he murmured. Another first. He’d never said this to another woman in his life, but he wanted to honor the bone-deep intuition that she was someone he could trust with the truth. “My name is Theodore.”
One month later
Since she could live anywhere, Lilah moved into Fitz’s apartment in Coronado, and instantly it became theirs simply by virtue of the fact that she was there. He liked that. He did not like the fact that he constantly dreaded the next deployment, but she had a strict policy of two orgasms a night each in anticipation of going without, so it was pretty much a win-win for him. Especially when she gleefully set about figuring out new ways to get him to that second one.
And then he slept all night long tangled in her arms. Best sleep of his life.
Her photographs of the men and women on base made enough rounds that some bigwigs got ahold of them and gave her a long-term gig as a photographer for the navy’s promotional recruiting campaigns. Everyone stayed dressed. That part was nonnegotiable.
He’d finally gotten his mitts on the full-frontal photograph, and holy crap. His girl had talent in the make-a-guy-look-like-a-porn-star category. He should totally burn that, plus her camera, and probably his eyes too, but she loved the picture and kept it in a secret place that she wouldn’t tell him about. Except he knew it was in her lingerie drawer because he’d looked for it. He wasn’t about to let his mom find it by accident the next time she visited.
Which he hoped would be soon. There might be a reason to invite her, plus his dad and about fifty of Fitz and Lilah’s closest friends, to visit, assuming she accepted the ring he’d had burning a hole in his pocket for nearly a week now.
There hadn’t been a right time yet.
He wished he could spring to take her to a romantic place like the top of the Eiffel Tower, but his XO had been a slave driver lately and he flat couldn’t get away. But this was his life, and he wanted her to be a part of it, even though some of it was crappy and definitely wasn’t what she deserved.
Except he wasn’t an idiot, and he was not letting Lilah Houston get away a second time. She kept his body in tune with his heart, and when he had her near, all of his senses worked with laser-sharp precision.
“Hey,” he murmured later that night as she snuggled up next to him in bed as they came down from a simultaneous climax that had put him on the ceiling. “You weren’t scared to move cross-country to be with me even though we haven’t been together all that long?”
“Of course I was.” She rolled to face him, her arm draping over his waist to toy with his back. “But I can’t let fear drive the bus. Plus I wanted to be with you no matter what. You’re worth it.”
That’s exactly what his instincts had been telling him she’d say. When it came to her, they were always dead-on, and he could see everything he’d ever wanted in her eyes.
So he returned the sentiment. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She didn’t even have the grace to sound surprised, even though it was the first time he’d said it. “I was mostly there even before you rescued me from that island.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he countered and kissed her on the nose.
Now it was the right time. He fished around until he found the ring he’d hidden in his pillow and pulled it out to reveal the plain silver band encrusted with diamonds. “You rescued me. And I want to spend the rest of my life indulging in taste tests, taking dirty pictures, and carrying you places. Marry me?”
Without her, nothing in his life worked right, and he needed her to keep him in tip-top shape.
A couple of tears slipped down her face, and she smiled. “If I take your name, can I be Fitz too?”
He laughed. “If you want. I’d rather call you my wife.”