“I need you so much,” he whispered, his softly spoken words in juxtaposition with the hard, sharp movements of his hips and the press of his fingers.

Luke

I passed the jewelry store again on my Saturday morning run. Pausing a couple of stores down, I braced my hands on my knees and drew in a few long breaths that filled my lungs and had a near instant effect on my pulse. I’d not found myself in this part of the city by fluke; I’d planned my route deliberately. When I went anywhere close to this street, that ring was all I could think about. Was it still there? Would Ashleigh like it? How would she react when I showed it to her? I’d done a bit of research, and what the jeweler had said about its value and rarity seemed to stack up. Another reason not to buy it disappeared.

Living together, waking up every morning in each other’s arms, was just as great as I’d known it would be¸ and I was becoming impatient again. She seemed to have settled more quickly than I’d expected. I didn’t want to miss out on buying her the perfect ring for when the time was right to propose.

Before this visit, I’d transferred some of my savings, so I was prepared just in case.

I stood and looked toward the store. I couldn’t make out the individual items in the window, but I knew where Ashleigh’s ring should be. I took small steps toward my prize, not taking my eyes from the spot where I expected to find it. My heart thundered in my chest as the gems came into focus. Her ring wasn’t where I was used to seeing it. There wasn’t even a space for it. Shit, had I left it too long? That ring had been perfect—as if it were made for Ashleigh. It couldn’t belong to anyone else. I needed it for her. I scanned the rest of the section, hoping to see it, but nothing. I rubbed my sweaty palms down my shorts and pressed my hands against the glass, trying to find what I was looking for. The elderly owner appeared beside me again as if from nowhere.

“Hello, son, good to see you again,” she said, forcing me to look away from the window. My chest squeezed at her term of endearment. It was almost certainly a meaningless phrase for her, but to me it was a reminder of how no one referred to me as their son anymore. I wished my parents were here to see me about to buy a ring for the love of my life, for the woman I hoped would one day have our children. It gave me some comfort that they’d known her and loved her.

“Are you looking for your ring?” she asked, patting my arm. “Follow me. It’s inside.”

Had I heard her correctly? Did she say she still had it? My body tensed in anticipation.

I focused on the tinkling of the bell over the door as I followed her into the shop. “You have it?”

“Yes, I kept it back here for you. Figured you’d be back again. I’ve seen that look before. It’s the same one my husband had for me. He wanted to give me the world from the moment he met me. And he succeeded. If that’s how you feel about your girl, then you should have this ring.”

My muscles loosened. I was going home with the ring in my pocket.

“You want to give her the world?” the woman asked.

I nodded. “She always seems to give me more than I could ever give her.”

“I bet she says the same about you. That’s when you know it’s right. When it feels like a privilege to know them.”

Ashleigh made me feel like I’d been let into a secret club. A love club. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been in love before—at least, I thought I had. It was just that it hadn’t been close to what I felt for Ashleigh. With her, it felt permanent, fundamental to who I was. With Emma, I hadn’t envisioned things changing. With Ashleigh, I knew it was forever.

I ran home with the ring in my pocket, reaching for it every block or so, just to check it was there. Like everything good in my life, I wanted to share it with Ashleigh immediately. But I knew I had to be patient. I had to convince her how I felt wasn’t going to change. The switch that had awakened my feelings for Ashleigh was strictly one-way. There was no going back, but she wasn’t convinced, not yet.

“Hey, I’m back,” I shouted.

“I’m in here,” Ashleigh called from the bedroom.

Where was I going to hide the ring? I couldn’t risk her finding it and bolting. “I’m going for a shower.” I hadn’t expected her to be still in bed when I got home. I’d thought I’d stash the ring in the bedroom. “Are you okay?” I asked as I entered the bedroom.

“Just sleepy. I feel like I could sleep for days.” The urge to kneel beside her and ask her to marry me right then was huge. She filled up my heart. She looked so relaxed and sexy, lying there with her hair fanned across the pillow in the bed that we now shared, her eyes still heavy with sleep. I took a breath, trying to reason with myself. I couldn’t, not yet. I needed to give her a little more time. Convincing her to move in with me was one thing, but I wanted her to say yes without hesitation when I asked her to be my wife.

“How come you’re so sleepy? You pregnant?” I laughed, and Ashleigh rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be crazy. You kept me up most of the night, if you remember.”

I did remember. The sex had been unforgettable.

I sidled into the bathroom, trying to look as if I wasn’t concealing where the ring was stashed. When Ashleigh wasn’t around, I could carry the ring on me. It wasn’t the most security conscious of ideas but better that than her finding it and going into meltdown. When we were together, I needed to stash it somewhere.

I turned on the shower and stripped off my clothes, holding the box in my hand while looking around the bathroom for a hiding place. The door handle jangled. “Luke?”

Shit, I’d locked the door so she didn’t walk in on me while I was holding the ring. “Hang on.” I dove into the cupboard that held all the clean laundry and buried the box at the bottom of a pile of towels. I’d have to think of a better spot later. I quickly shut the cupboard, spun round and unlocked the door. “Hi.”

Ashleigh knitted her eyebrows together. “Er, hi. I was just wondering if you wanted company, but if you’d rather—”

“Of course I want company.” I pulled her inside, closed the door and started to undress her.

“You locked the door,” she said as she held her hands above her head as I stripped off her tee.

“Force of habit.” I buried my head in her neck and pushed her against the wall. It was part desire to distract her and part my reaction to her naked body.

“You’re sweaty,” she said.

“Hence the shower.” I pulled away from her and led her into the shower.

“I like it.”

“You do?”

She nodded.

“But you always smell so . . . like summer or home or—”

“You smell like you’re mine.”

“Well, that’s good, because I am.”

She wrapped her legs around me as I lifted her and walked under the spray.

Ashleigh

“That one, you can tell by the way he walks,” Haven said, gesturing at a guy on the other side of the Mexican restaurant. It was dark and loud, but not so much so that the people at the tables surrounding us hadn’t noticed Haven pointing.

“You can’t talk about another man’s cock when you’re carrying your husband’s baby.”

“Well, apparently I can because I just did. I’m just saying, you can tell. Everything about a man starts with the size of his penis. I’m thinking of writing an article about it.”

Part of me was pleased to be out with Haven, but the other part, the part I had a hard time allowing to come to the surface, wanted to spend all my time with Luke. But he was working late tonight, so I wasn’t technically giving up time with him. Jesus, when had I become that girl? “I’m going to the loo.”