Page 118 of Fall For Me
The door swings inward.
I scream.
A full-throated, glass-shattering shriek that bounces off the high ceilings. I stagger backward, catching myself against the wall.
Liam steps inside, rolling his overnight carry-on behind him, his formal coat open over a wrinkled Henley. He’s a little travel rumpled. Hair messy, faint stubble, his eyes shadowed with fatigue.
But he’s still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.
“You scared me!” I gasp, pressing a hand over my hammering heart.
“That’s why I rang the bell.” He pushes the suitcase to the side and shuts the door. “I didn’t want to startle you.”
I’m still panting, half from the fright, half from the excitement of seeing him. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow. What are you doing home?”
Liam closes the distance between us in two strides. His hands cup my face, tilting it up, and his gray eyes bore into mine with a sudden, heavy gravity that kicks up a frantic, muted pulse against the skin where his thumbs rest.
“This,” he says, and pushes me against the wall.
His mouth covers mine, and the kicking pulse spreads everywhere.
The kiss is not gentle. Liam is thorough and almost desperate. His body pins me flat against the plaster, hips pressing into mine.
But beneath the urgency, a tenderness bleeds through in the way his thumb brushes my jaw. The soft sound he makes when I open my mouth wider. The slight tremor in his fingers.
It’s the kiss of a man who flew a thousand miles because he couldn’t be a night without me.
When we break apart, my chest is heaving. His forehead drops against mine, and we stand in the dim foyer, chest to chest, sharing breaths.
“Hey,” I whisper. “What’s going on?”
“I found the toothpaste.”
I push him back to look at him. “You flew home early because of strawberry toothpaste?”
“No, for the woman who hid it in my bag.”
I smile. “If I’d known strawberry toothpaste had this effect on you, I’d have sent it sooner.”
His hands find my hips, and he drops to the floor in front of me on both knees.
His fingers curl into the fabric of his hoodie, and he looks up at me. “Marry me.”
I stare down at him. His gray eyes are steady, certain, raw with a vulnerability he rarely shows.
I drop my hands on his shoulders, still smiling. “Bit late for that. We’ve been married from day one.”
“I’m asking for real,” he insists. “If we’d never gotten fake-married, if I’d met you at a bar and we dated like normal people, I’d be on my knees right now, begging you to be my wife.”
His grip tightens on my hips. The muscles in his jaw work, and the first crack appears in his composure—a flicker of insecurity behind the steel of his eyes.
“I want you to be my wife,” he says. “In every way. Not because of a deal or a contract or a Zoom call.” His thumb traces a circle against my hip bone. “But because you’re the first person who made me feel like I was enough. Because I can’t sleep without you. Because you hide strawberry toothpaste in my bag and leave sarcastic notes on my fridge and fight my father for me when I’m not in the room.”
My vision blurs.
“Do you want to be my wife?” he pleads.
“Of course I want to be your wife.” The words crack in the middle, splintered by a chuckling sob. “Of course I do.”
