you, too.” He fished in his other pocket and pulled out a small box, the sort that jewelry came in. A ring box?
Daisy’s heart hammered furiously. More manipulation? Or were they past that?
Alex held it out to her. “This is for you. I saw it at a little shop in Paris and I thought of you. Of us. It’s the way I’d like us to be.” He looked into her eyes and pressed it into her palm, then closed her fingers over it. Snowflakes dusted his dark lashes, settled on his midnight hair. He smiled gently. “I love you, Daisy. I hope someday you believe it.”
Then he drew away from her, turned and set off through the snow.
Numbly, Daisy stared after him. What?
He was just going to leave her here? He was going to tell her he loved her, give her his heart, then walk away?
No insistence? No demand? No renewed proposal?
She looked down at the tiny box in her hand, then fumbled to open it. Inside was a silver necklace—real silver, unlike the Porsche—of two interlocking, entwined open hearts.
I thought of you, he’d said. Of us.
Two open hearts entwined.
Daisy bit down on her lip. Her fingers trembled. She clutched the box with the necklace in one hand and her camera bag in the other and broke into a run. “Alex! Alex, wait!”
He stopped, turned. Looked at her, half stricken, half hoping. She recognized that look now. She skidded to a halt bare inches in front of him, blinking furiously into the sun, into the dawning hope in those beautiful pale green eyes. “Ask me.”
He frowned. “Ask what?”
“You know what!”
He raised a brow. A corner of his mouth quivered, almost smiled.
“Ask,” Daisy demanded.
Then he took a breath. “Will you let me love you?” he asked. “Forever?”
“Yes.” She threw her arms around him.
“Will you love me?” he asked as she kissed him. His voice was suspiciously hoarse.
“Yes!” She breathed the word against his lips.
“Will you marry me, Daze?” He barely got the words out because now he was kissing her back.
“Yes, Alex. Oh, yes, yes. Yes.”
Daisy didn’t miss Charlie that night as much as she’d thought she would. She took Alex home and didn’t even open the other Christmas present he’d brought her from Paris.
She put on her necklace—or, rather, he put it on for her. Then she took him upstairs to her bedroom. There, slowly, he took off her sweater, her jeans, her shirt, her socks. Then he lowered her to the bed, and, smiling, began to take off everything else she wore.
Everything but the necklace. Daisy wouldn’t let him take off that. But the rest—oh, yes. She shivered with pleasure at the way his fingers traced the lines and curves of her body, the way his lips followed and his tongue, as well.
When he unfastened her bra and slipped it off her shoulders, then bent his head to kiss her breasts, she lifted her hands and threaded them in the silky softness of his hair.
Alex kissed his way across her breasts, laved her nipples, made her tremble with longing. Then, smiling at her reaction, he dropped kisses down the line between her breasts, on down to her navel and beyond. And Daisy quivered with need for him.
“Alex!” She squirmed when he peeled her panties down, tossed them aside, then ran his fingers back up her calves, then her thighs, then touched her—there. “Wait. My turn. You’re overdressed.”
He lifted his head and smiled. “Am I?”
“Oh, yes.” And then Daisy set about unwrapping the Christmas present she wanted more than anything—him.
“I love you,” she whispered as she tugged his sweater over his head. “I’ve never forgotten doing this.” She tossed his sweater on the bedside chair, then quickly disposed of the buttons of his shirt.
“You’re faster at that than I remember.” Alex kept his hands at his sides as he watched her, but there was a flame of desire in his eyes.
“Practice,” Daisy said, beginning to work on the zip of his jeans.
“Practice?” Alex frowned.
“Charlie couldn’t always dress himself.”
He grinned, then sucked in a quick breath when she made quick work of the zipper and her fingers found him. He swallowed hard, then shrugged off his jeans and came to her on the bed, settled next to her, stroked his hands over her with an almost hesitant wonder.
And Daisy felt the same. “I love you,” she whispered, glorying in being able to say it, to acknowledge it, and to know that he wanted to hear the words.
“I know. But not as much as I love you,” he said, a tremor in his voice and another in the hands that stroked her sensitive skin.
“I’ll show you,” she insisted, and rolled onto her back, drawing him on top of her, wrapping herself around him.
“And I’ll show you,” Alex countered, teasing, tasting, touching. He was so exquisitely gentle, yet possessively so. His fingers found her, knew her, parted her. And then he slid in. “Daze!” His body tensed, froze. And then—at last—he began to move.
“Alex!” Her nails dug into his buttocks. Her head thrashed on the pillow. Her body tightened around him. He made her shiver, he made her quiver, he made her shatter. And he shattered right along with her, his face contorting, his body going rigid, then collapsing to bury his face against her neck.
She stroked his sweat-slick back, then turned her head and kissed his ear and along the whisker-roughened line of his jaw.
When at last he lifted his head it was to look down into her eyes with wonder. “Why did it take me so long to realize?” he murmured, sounding awestruck.
Daisy shook her head. She didn’t need to ask why anymore. She had the answer she needed. “I’m just glad you did.”
He rolled onto his back then and pulled her on top so that she rested her head on his chest and felt the gallop of his heart beneath her cheek. Softly, rhythmically, Alex stroked her hair.
Daisy didn’t know how long they lay like that. She might have slept a little. She thought he did. But when they roused and began to touch, to love again, he raised his head from the pillow and peered down his nose at her. “Is this the sort of match you try to make?” he asked, giving her his heart with his eyes.
Daisy returned his gift full measure. But then she shook her head no.
“It’s better,” she told him, rising up to meet his lips, to love him, to share the wonder once more.
*****
