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His laugh was rough, a surprise to them both that delighted her more than any other sound. “What will you write about now?”

“I think we have a few more adventures left in us.”

One eyebrow lifted. “You want to go on adventures with me, Luna?”

She blushed and glanced away, loosening her grip on his shirt. “If you want to.”

Using his grip on her hips, he pulled her closer in a move that was sure to leave a line of perfect fingertip-shaped bruises on her ass. “I want to know what it’s like to stand still with you for a while. Wake up in the same place more than a few nights in a row. Find a regular coffee shop where they know our order. Cook you dinner every night.”

“Since when can you cook?” she asked, biting back her smile.

He brushed his lips over the tip of her nose. “I’ll learn. You can write your books and I’ll play my guitar. We could have a garden and shit.”

“You’re gardening now, too?”

A wicked grin flashed across his face as his fingers found the sensitive spot at the dip of her waist. The tickling was so unexpected she shrieked, falling over as he tumbled her to the bed, her surprise turning to laughter as he settled beside her, their legs intertwined.

“Okay, okay,” she laughed, trying to catch her breath. “You’ll be a great gardener. You’ll have prize-winning marigolds.”

He kissed her throat, the curve of her clavicle. “And when you need inspiration, we’ll go away for the weekend.”

Those big hands were on her again, heavy and warm as they slid under the hem of her camisole, circling her ribcage beneath the curve of her breast. She arched into his touch, draping her arms over his shoulders. “Where will we go?”

“Anywhere you want,” he murmured against her skin as he dragged his lips from one shoulder to the next. He twined his fingers through her left hand, pulling it between them and pressing a kiss to her knuckles just above her engagement ring. “As long as you come home with me in the end.”

The lump in her throat was unexpected, his tenderness catching her off guard. “Beckett.”

“I’m going to propose to you properly one day,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.

She blinked away the tears forming at the back of her eyes. “In your garden?”

He brushed away the moisture at the corner of her eye with his thumb. “Our garden. Surrounded by our prize-winning daffodils.”

“Marigolds,” she corrected.

He smiled against her lips. “Those, too.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Kat’s fingers flew over the keys of her laptop. She should have been prepping for the evening’s show, but this scene had been shouting in the back of her mind for hours. If she didn’t get it down on paper, at least in its barest form, she’d never be able to focus on Gideon’s security briefing, and if there was a surefire way to make the even-tempered security guard angry, it was to be distracted during a security briefing. Which was also why she was writing this particular scene sitting on the floor under the stage where no one would think to look for her. She just needed five more minutes, ten tops. On the stage, John and his effects team refilled the confetti blowers, adjusted the lights, their heavy boots providing a rhythmic clomping above her head that seemed to urge her to write faster.

Her phone vibrated across the floor and she quickly silenced it. “Almost there,” she muttered to herself. It wasn’t like her to ignore a call—ever, really, but especially on a show day. But whoever it was could wait seven and a half minutes for her to finish this scene.

Or not.

Her phone vibrated again, the sound almost angry as the phone clattered against the flooring. She answered, tucking the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she kept typing. “Hold on, Jo. Just give me two seconds to finish this sentence.”

If she hadn’t been so distracted by the romantic declarations spilling out onto the page through her frantic typing she might have clocked that Jo didn’t greet her with the usual erroneous middle name. No shouted exclamations, no launching right into whatever scheme she’d come up with this time to put Midnight Storm—or, lately, Kat’s books—at the top of the algorithm.

“There. Sorry about that.” Kat hit save on the file and closed her laptop. “What’s up?”

“Kat, have you been online today?” Jo asked.

“No. We slept in and then—wait, why?”

Jo’s hesitation through the phone was a tangible thing, an ever-growing balloon of anxiety slowly sucking up all the air. Kat scrambled to her feet and grabbed her laptop, marching out of her hidey-hole and towards her office backstage. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“There’s a video going around.”