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"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!"

I stopped and pulled her hard against me. "I hope that's your warmup to saying it while bouncing on my dick."

She gasped, all tipsy and excited and turned on. "Jackson, I just love your mouth. Never change."

"Never, my love." Then I swatted her ass. "Get down there."

She took off down the path while I took in her wild joy.This.This was why I went overzealous; this was why I could breathe again.

"OHMYGOD! Jackson!"She whirled around, her mouth hanging open, eyes bugging out of her face. "Wh-what is this? This isn't real. It's not."

Pride, relief, excitement, all of it flooded me. "It is."

"No." She shook her head. "I'm dreaming. I'm asleep. That's the only explanation for this."

I wrapped my arms around her from behind and rested my chin on her shoulder. If I had to lift her up and walk her inside I would. "You're awake and this is real. This is what I built for you to show you how much I love you. In case you didn't notice, I love you a fucking lot."

Her head kept shaking. Up and away it was then. I lifted her straight up and marched for the slightly ajar door. I walked us inside and set her down in the middle of the rug.

"Oh my god. The bookshelves!" She finally moved, plastering herself to the freshly painted shelves, running her hand along the smooth surfaces. "I can keep books here." She spun and I simply watched as she darted back and forth across the room. She sat at the desk and stared out at the trees, she opened drawers and pretended to type. She sat in the armchair, asked about the shelves I intended for plants, and then, "Oh my god, there's afireplacein here!"

"Need to keep you warm in the winter." I tested the sofa and sat. There was a good amount of cushion and bounce. I could nap here while she wrote.

Marley plowed into me, launching herself off the ground and onto my lap. Her knees landed on either side of my hips and her hands cupped my face. Her lips were on mine and my hands were up the back of her shirt before I fully grasped what was happening.

"Thank you, Jackson. Thank you so much."

"You don't have to thank me. Just marry me tomorrow." There was probably a part of me that still worried a tiny little bit that she might change her mind. That if I made this cottage dreamy enough she'd fall into a spell and marry me no matter what.

"This-I-how?" She wove her fingers into my hair and my mind went blank. "The windows and the, theeverything. I thought you were slapping some wood together for a fancy shack. Or maybe a tiny house. But this ismagical."

"You're magical." My eyes rolled back in my head when her nails scraped my scalp. I could spend forever just like this. Marley in my lap and fingers in my hair. Done. The constant praise wasn't hurting either.

"Will all these windows survive a bad storm? The wind likes to howl up here."

"Babe. Give me some credit." The remote was too far away so I dug my phone out of my pocket and pulled up the app. With a press of my thumb the shutters started coming down.

Her mouth fell open again. "It's a fortress."

"If we forget to close them and a storm pops up, we can close them with the app. Or if you want to open them up before you leave the house so it's all open and ready for you, you can do that too."

She squeezed her legs and arms and squealed all over again. "Did you reach into my brain and dig around in my secret fantasies?"

I dug my fingers into her hips, my phone lost somewhere in the cushions. "You're my secret fantasy. And my not-so-secret fantasy. You're all my fantasies." All this squeezing and rubbing was turning my brain to sex mush.

"I appreciate that Jackson, but seriously. How?"

I squeezed again and lifted my hips. Oh yeah, that was better. "I'm not on social media much, but I do know how it works, Lee. I scrolled through stuff you have saved and there was a definite theme. So yeah, I guess in a way I did dig around in your mind." And now I wanted her to dig around in mine because it was absolutely filthy.

"Want to break this place in?"

I blinked because I wasn't sure if I imagined what I wanted to hear or if she actually said it. "What was that?"

Her eyes danced as she pulled her lip between her teeth. "Want to break this place in?" Then she ground her hips and there was no question this was real.

I had her on her back real fast. "Shades open or closed, Marley? There are a lot of people here." And none of them knew the way to the cottage yet.

Her hands ran down my chest and then under my shirt. "Open.Please."