Read Online Last Call (Cocktail #5) by Alice Clayton - Free Book Online

wetting his lips and making them irresistible to mine. But before I could bring my mouth to his, he spoke.
    “Marry me.”
    A statement. Not a question. It came again.
    “Marry. Me.” His eyes burned into mine.
    I breathed in, my ears ringing. My pulse sped up, my heart raced, I was trying to remember exactly what breathing meant. I was wet, and I was gasping.
    “I want you. I want that, what they had today. I want it all, and I want it with you. I want you, want you to be my wife. I’ve got a ring, I’ll give it to you right now if you’ll say yes.” With every word, his hands tightened on my hips, desperate, crazy, longing. “I had this all planned out, so much smoother and romantic and everything you deserve. But my head’s been spinning since yesterday, when I saw my best friend steal a van to go meet his new family. And all I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is exactly that. Exactly you. And when I walked up those stairs, and heard the shower go on, and knew you were in hereall naked and wet and waiting for me, I knew I couldn’t wait another day, another hour, another minute, without asking you to be my wife. So. Marry. Me.”
    He knelt. Christ on a crutch, he knelt on the shower floor, where he had knelt countless times before . . . ahem . . . took my hand, and repeated those words again. Finally, with a question mark at the end.
    “Marry me?”
    And in that moment, I realized all the worrying, all the hand wringing and wonder ponder, all the thoughts about who says what’s right for a couple, and when is it too soon, and when is it the right time, and if it ain’t broke don’t blah blah blah. Fuck all that noise. It wasn’t about what was right for other couples, it was about what was right for us. Simon and me. Because when Wallbanger kneels down and asks you to be his wife, it’s not really something you need to think too long on.
    Funny thing about getting proposed to in a shower. You can’t tell which is water and which is tears.
    I said yes, and then he kissed me. I said yes, and then he touched me. I said yes, and then he slipped inside me. I said yes, yes, yes, and then he loved me.
    Sometime later, he carried me to our bed, took a ring from his bedside table, and slid it onto the fourth finger of my left hand. It was shiny and sparkly and perfect and beautiful and looked amazing when I was clutching his backside as he pressed into me again.
    “I can’t believe . . . you asked me . . . to marry you . . .” I panted as he thrust hard.
    “Believe it, babe,” he murmured, rolling us both so that I was perched on top of him.
    “I can’t believe . . . how lucky . . . I am . . .” I panted once more, getting into my rhythm.
    “Wrong.” He sat up underneath me, driving deeper into my body. “I’m the lucky one.” I gasped, he groaned, and my hips went wild.
    “I can’t believe . . . you’re going to be . . . Simon . . . Reynolds . . .”
    Yeah, I got rolled over for that one.
    I made my fiancé scrambled eggs for breakfast. Can you believe that? Not the scrambled eggs part, although they were pretty unbelievable. Old Barefoot Contessa trick. Beat the eggs with a few tablespoons of cream, then gently pour into a buttered pan, stirring lightly over low heat. Perfect eggs, every time. À la Ina. À la sparkly ring. À la 2.5 carat cushion cut on a platinum band. I couldn’t stop looking at it. I added some kosher salt to the eggs. I marveled at my ring in front of the salt box, noting how nice it looked next to the Morton’s girl. I added a twist or two of freshly ground cracked pepper. I gazed at how my ring caught the light and made tiny rainbows on the countertop.
    I opened every single cabinet and every single drawer in that kitchen, just to see how my ring looked against each panel. This was normal behavior, I mean, right?
    “I can’t stop looking at my ring,” I confided to Simonas I set a plate in front of him along with a glass of freshly