Page 53

Ares

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Eight months later

GREECE

"I don't like surprises," Serenity shouts, smiling, when I carry her out of the sea on my shoulders.

I spank her ass. "Liar."

"Okay, I love surprises, but I don't want to go in to eat yet. The sea is delicious."

I turn my head and bite her hip. " You are delicious."

"So that’s what you came to get me for?"

"For what ?" I ask when we arrive at the house, emphasizing the last word.

It doesn't matter that I currently know her body better than I know my own, Serenity still has a hint of a girl who is shy about saying dirty things inside her.

"You know what I mean." She rolls her eyes when I put her on her feet and hold her chin.

"No. Explain it to me. By ‘that,’ do you mean putting you on all fours on the edge of the bed and sticking my dick down your throat until you make me come?" She shifts her weight onto her other leg, and I know she's excited. "Or do you mean me lying down and making you ride me hard? Or maybe?—"

She doesn't let me finish, jumping into my arms.

When I catch her, she wraps her arms around my neck, her pupils dilated with excitement, licking her lips. "I can't choose just one option, so I'm going to take them all."

“You're shameless, Miss Lawrence,” I say, biting her lower lip.

As always happens when I use her mother's surname to refer to her, Serenity gives me the most beautiful smile in the fucking world. "What are we waiting for, then?"

"I told you I had a surprise."

"Isn't it sex?" she asks, but her cheeks turn red.

I shake my head. "Family meeting."

"At this time of day? But it's seven in the morning in New York," she says, quickly calculating the time difference.

"Yes. Come, it won't take long."

About a week ago, Serenity wrapped up her first season at the New York City Ballet. At first, when she told me she wanted to go back, I was tense, thinking it would be too much pressure, given all the shit we’d been through.

I was wrong. Diving into dance rescued her at a speed that I don't think even the therapy she continues to do would have been able to.

We arrive in the main sitting room of my house on the island, and I see the surprise on her face when she notices the eighty-five inch TV on, with our entire family, plus Debra, appearing in small frames.

"Hi, guys," my girl says. She waves shyly, like she always does when she's exposed to too many people at the same time. It's incredible the difference between Serenity's Prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet persona and her family girl behavior.

She only wears the professional persona in her role as a public figure. Inside the house, she's one hundred percent open to me, and like the selfish fucker that I am, this makes me feel ten feet tall.

Before she can ask what's going on, I turn her to face me, and in the same movement, I kneel at her feet. I vaguely hear the women in my family say something, but my concentration is one hundred percent on her.

"I don't care what your name is," I begin, repeating what I've been telling her since we found out about the identity change. "I don't care which world you come from, what your last name is, or that you have the ugliest toes I've ever seen . . . To me, you're completely perfect. From the beginning, what caught my attention was how true, passionate, and committed you are to every little thing you do in your life. I gave you the time I thought you needed, and my brothers can testify that it was a hell of a struggle for me to control the desire to make you mine. But I can't wait any longer. Marry me, Serenity. Be my wife and the mother of my children."

Even though I didn't rehearse what to say, I practiced a mini-script of what to do , so now would be the time to give her the ring, but nothing with Serenity is predictable. My love for her doesn't follow rules, so she doesn't give me time to even pick up the box. She throws her arms around my neck, still standing, and cries, holding on to me.

"I love you, Ares. Maybe there are some parts of me that will always be missing a piece, shards that got lost along the way. But what I feel for you is complete. You are my perfect fit. Yes, I want to be yours."