Viktor(89)
“Yes, goddammit,” she growls.
“Yes to the waiting?” I cock my head.
“No, asshole.” She sighs. “Yes to the ring.”
“Oh …” I smile as I slide it onto her finger. “Well, you can have the ring, as long as …”
“And you,” she adds, laughing a little while looking down at the ring. “Yes … to both.”
I keep holding her hand as I look at her. “You sure?”
She nods. “I wouldn’t even say no if you smacked me in the face with it.”
I laugh. “Well, I guess that means you’re happy.”
“Fuck yes. It’s gorgeous.” Her eyes shimmer as she looks at the diamond. “I can’t believe it.”
“What?”
“This. I mean … Me? Marrying?”
“If it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing. I can understand.”
“Fuck no, I’m not letting you back out of this one,” she says, making me laugh again.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I muse.
“Good because I sure as hell am going to marry you now that you have asked. I’m just so surprised you’d actually … you know … ask. I didn’t think you were the type.”
“And you are?” I raise a brow at her.
“No … not really,” she mutters, still looking at the diamond. “But I could definitely get used to that.”
Smiling, I pull her onto my lap and kiss her again. “At least you’ll have something pretty to look at.”
“I have something pretty to look at every damn day of the week.” She taps my chest. “And it never gets old.”
I grab her fingers and kiss the tips. “Oh, I’ll get old all right, but at least, I won’t be alone.” I caress her cheeks. “I’ll have you.”
“Yeah, but I’m not exactly marriage material either.” She grabs her hair. “Black hair, tongue piercing, tattoos everywhere.”
“Just the way I like it.” I kiss her on the cheeks.
“There’s the age gap, though,” she murmurs.
“So? Who cares?”
“I don’t know … People?”
I shrug. “People can suck my dick. I only care what you think, and I like you, and you like me, hopefully.”
“Of course, I like you.” She shakes her head, smiling. “Why else would I say yes?”
“Because you’re addicted to me and can’t say no?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, you’re right about that one.” She bursts into laughter.
I grin. “Lexi Ki—no, Lexi Melikov … my badass wife.”
“Wife … I could get used to that. The Melikov part? Eh …” She makes a face.
“What about the Lexi part?” I muse.
She shrugs, sporting a playful smile. “I’ll add it to my list of shitty-things-I-love, one in which the first entry is you.”
A deep, rumbling laugh emanates from my chest. “You fell for the Grizzly, joke’s on you.”
“But I do love my fuzzy, cute grizzly,” she says, pouting as she squeezes my cheeks, making me growl.
“That is so not fucking badass; I’m almost tempted to take that ring back.”
“Fuck no.” She clenches her fingers like they’re precious treasures. “This is mine.”
My hand snakes around her, which makes her squirm. “And you’re mine too.”
She turns her face right when I kiss her, and her lips meet mine in surprise. We both smile, and then continue kissing. When she briefly takes her lips off mine, all I can think about are her kisses… and how I’ll be feeling them for the rest of my life. I can honestly say I’m a lucky man.
She licks her lips and murmurs, “Hmm … we are one weird-ass couple, you know that?”
“One weird-ass couple who’d kill and die for each other. Now, if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”
I grab her face and kiss her again and again until we’re out of breath and out of time. Because the tiny bell rings again, telling us that our life together continues. Just the way it should.