Page 109 of Seduce & Destroy

She squeezed my fingers back. Hard. When we were all done eating, she tugged on my hand and cocked her head violently to the side.

“Excuse us for a second,” I explained to her grandparents, who beamed at me in return.

In an apparent huff, Laney dragged me down the hallway and into a nicely presented bathroom. I got worried when she locked the door.

“What did you say to them in the kitchen?” she asked, her eyebrows deeply furrowed causing wrinkles across her forehead. I soothed them with the stroke of my thumb.

“Nothing bad, promise.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

I move my hand to run my fingers through the ends of her hair. “It’s a secret” I whispered into her ear, smiling. “Patience, princess.”

“Tell me.” She beamed up at me, folding her bottom lip over in the most adorable expression. I couldn’t deny her big pleading eyes. “Please.”

Without a word, I produced the box from my pocket and lifted the lid.

Tears sprang to her eyes in an instant. It was only right that the story that started in a bathroom should begin anew in one. “Will you–”

“Yes.” She flung herself at me and kissed me hard.

A faint cheering could be heard somewhere in the house, but my eyes were on one girl and one girl only wrapped around me like ivy clung to a home. She was home.

The End.