Page 170 of Fire Fight

Aspen whined, chasing after me, managing to steal another kiss before I leaned away.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Because I need to ask you something.”

“If the question is do I want to have sex right here, the answer isyes.”

I chuckled. “Different question, but hold onto that response.”

Shifting so I could reach into my front pocket of my jeans, my fingers closed around the tiny piece of jewelry.

“You’ve had that in there this whole time?” she gasped when I presented the ring.

“You’re too sneaky for me to get away with carrying a ring box around,” I grinned.

Aspen damn near knocked me over and she threw herself at me. I caught her around the waist, settling her so she straddled my lap.

“Ask me then!”

“Hold your horses.”

“Technically, that’s your horse,” she said, pointing over my shoulder at Rascal.

“Aspen…” I warned.

“Sorry,” she murmured, though her ear-to-ear grin said she was anything but.

“I’ve known there was something between us from the very first time I laid eyes on you in the fire station. While every day since hasn’t always been easy, they’ve been wonderful and thrilling and so full of joy and love because ofyou. I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without you by my side. And maybe people will say we’re moving faster than a normal relationship should, but nothing about us or the hell we’ve walked together is normal. And I don’t want it to be, because then it wouldn’t be ours. I love you with every fiber of my being. Everything I have and everything that I am is yours. Until my lastbreath, you own me. Will you continue to make me the luckiest man alive and marry me?”

The air whooshed out of me as I landed on my back, Aspen’s smiling face hovering above me as she peppered my face with kisses, punctuating each one with a single word.

“Yes.”