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Her breath catches slightly, and she doesn’t say anything, waiting for whatever comes next.
“I’m not telling you this to excuse anything I did. What I did to you in those early weeks doesn’t have a clean justification, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise just because it’s convenient now.”
I reach for her hand, holding it steady in mine, needing the contact as much as I want to offer it to her. “I’m telling you because I want you to understand exactly what this is. Not obligation. Not danger forcing us together. A choice. Mine, from the very beginning, whether either of us was ready to call it that yet.”
She’s quiet for a moment, absorbing that, her thumb tracing slow circles against my knuckles the way it does when she’s working through something significant. “That’s a lot to hear on a random Tuesday.”
“It’s not random.” I reach into my jacket pocket, and her eyes track the movement, something shifting in her expression as understanding starts to dawn before I’ve said another word. “I’ve been carrying this for three weeks, waiting for the right moment. I don’t think there’s a perfect one. I think there’s just tonight, and I don’t want to wait any longer to ask you.”
I open the small box, and the ring inside catches the low library light, simple, deliberately chosen to match exactly who she is rather than any performance of wealth I could have offered instead.
I spent longer than I’d like to admit deciding on it, discarding three other options before landing on something that felt honest rather than merely expensive.
“Marry me,” I say it plainly, the same directness I’ve used with her since the very beginning, no elaborate speech prepared because elaborate has never been the language either of us speaks. “Not because you need protecting anymore. Not because this house or this life demands anything of either of us. Because I want you, permanently, in every sense the word means.”
She stares at the ring for a long moment, and I watch a dozen emotions cross her face too fast for me to fully catalog any single one of them, her breath coming quick and uneven in a way that tells me more than words could right now.
“Yes.” The word comes out immediately, with no hesitation at all. “Yes, obviously yes, you absolute disaster of a man, ask me a real question next time instead of just staring at me like you’re waiting for me to read your mind.”
“That was the question, obviously.”
“I know. I’m only teasing you.” She laughs, something bright and unguarded breaking through the emotion still visible on her face. “Yes, Artem. I’ll marry you.”
I slide the ring onto her finger, and she holds her hand up to examine it, turning it slightly to catch the light, something soft and disbelieving in the way she keeps looking between the ring and my face like she’s checking this is real, that she hasn’t imagined the whole exchange.
“I love you,” I say, the words coming easier than I expect them to after months of circling around the exact shape of what I felt for her. “I don’t think I’ve said that plainly enough, often enough. I love you. I have for longer than I let myself admit, even to myself, in the quiet hours when nobody else was there to hear it.”
“I love you, too.” She pulls me toward her, and I go willingly, closing the distance until there’s nothing left between us.
The kiss that follows is slow and deep, unhurried in a way none of our earlier ones have ever quite managed. My hands frame her face at first, then slide down to her waist, drawing her out of the chair and against me so I can feel the soft new curve of her body fully.
We move to the wide sofa near the fire without breaking contact for long. I sit and guide her to straddle my lap, the fabric of her dress pooling around her thighs. My hands travel up under the hem, mapping the warm skin of her legs, while she works the buttons of my shirt open one by one.
When the shirt falls open, she pushes it off my shoulders and runs her palms over my chest, slow and deliberate, as if she is memorizing the feel of me all over again.
“I want to take my time with you tonight,” I tell her, voice low. “No rushing. No holding anything back.”
“Then don’t.”
I lift the dress over her head and set it aside. She is bare underneath except for simple underwear. The swell of her belly sits between us, and I rest both hands against it for a long moment, feeling the quiet proof of everything we have already made together.
Then I lean in and kiss her again while my fingers find the waistband of her underwear and ease it down. She shifts to help me, and soon there is nothing left between us but skin.
I lay her back along the sofa and settle between her thighs. For a while I only look at her, taking in the flush already climbing her chest, the way her breathing has deepened, the ring still catching the firelight on her finger.
Then I lower my mouth to her breast and suck the nipple slowly, drawing a soft sound from her throat. My hand slides between her legs at the same time, two fingers stroking through the slick heat I find there.
She’s already wet. I ease one finger inside her, then a second, curling them while my thumb circles her clit in steady, unhurried passes. Her hips lift to meet the motion. I switch to the other breast, taking my time, listening to every quiet moan she gives me.
When her breathing turns sharper, I move lower, kissing a path down the soft curve of her stomach until I can replace my fingers with my mouth.
I lick her slowly, thoroughly, spreading her open with my thumbs so I can taste every part of her. She threads her fingers into my hair and holds on, her thighs trembling on either side of my head. I slide two fingers back inside her while I suck gently at her clit, curling them in the same rhythm as my tongue.
The wet sounds of it fill the quiet room along with her increasingly open moans.
“Artem—don’t stop—”
I have no intention of stopping. I keep the pace steady and deep until her whole body tightens and she comes against my mouth with a broken cry, pulsing hard around my fingers. I work her through every wave, slower now, drawing it out until she is shaking and trying to close her thighs.
