Page 83 of The Intimacy of Control

We lay there, my arm thrown around his middle, and him facing me. Looking at me. Seeing me. Fucking choosing me over the fear trapped beneath his heart.

He curled into me, whispering against my chest. “I’m really glad you came to Driftwood.”

“Me too, sweetie.”

“My piece of magic.”

“Always, baby.”

He pulled away, peering up at me. “Even though I’m old?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Sometimes, I worried he’d never get over that small fact. “Your age never meant anything to me. All I have ever seen is you, Jackson.”

He smiled, cupping my face. “I see you, too, Forrest.”

I knew that. “You chose me.”

“And I’ll keep choosing you.”

I knew that, too. I had no fucking doubt about it, but I still had to ask. I still wanted to hear it from him. “Even if it means giving up control?”

The gentle kiss he gave me was all the answer I really needed, but he made sure to tell me anyway. “I choose you, and I choose to give you control. There’s nothing more intimate and heartfelt than that.”

“Hmm, I could think of a few things…” I’d been teasing him for weeks about one particular thing. One thing that definitely freaked him out more than anything else we’d had going on.

“Don’t even start. You can’t ask me to marry you yet. That’s too many big steps in such a short amount of time.”

“Aw,” I pouted. “Party pooper. When will it have been long enough, then?”

He thought about it for a second. “Mm, ask me in a year or so.”

“Will you say yes, then?”

He laughed—a sound so fucking pure and sincere. “I guess you’ll have to find out in a year.”

Oh, I planned to. If there was anything about me, it was that I was determined. My determination had brought us where we were now, and I had no doubts about our long, happy future together.

No matter how we’d started, we knew how we’d end up. A hopeless romantic and a man once afraid of romance, joined together by three things.

Breath, life, and the give and take of control.

epilogue

Two Years Later

The grass was a little damp beneath me, soaking the bottom of my dress pants. I didn’t mind all that much, though. Forrest sat beside me, groaning as he got situated, obviously not minding it much, either.

I turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “Your knees aren’t old enough to make you groan like that.”

“What can I say? Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

Rolling my eyes, I sighed and brushed an errant piece of dirt off the gravestone before us. “Well, we did it, Grandma. I wish you could’ve been there. I’m still mad this little shit didn’t wait a full year to propose to me like I said to do. Hence why it took us so long to actually get married.”

Forrest laughed. “You still said yes, didn’t you?”

“That’s not the point, and you know it.”

“Whatever. You still love me.”