“Yeah. I just…I wanted to make sure you knew this was me, you know.”
As Qhuinn fingered the neat row of gunmetal gray hoops that ran up his ear, Blay leaned in and kissed those lips—and the hoop that was once again in the lower one. “Oh, I know it’s you. It’s all you—but I’m glad they’re back. I love them.”
“Then they’re never getting taken out.”
In the beat of silence that followed, Blay thought, Oh, God…was this really…maybe he’d misconstrued—
Qhuinn got down on one knee. Just dropped right onto the depiction of an apple tree in full bloom.
“I don’t have a ring. I don’t have anything fancy in my mind or on my tongue.” Qhuinn swallowed hard. “I know this is too early, and that it’s out of the blue, but I love you and I want us to—”
For once in his life, Blay had to agree with the guy—enough with the fucking talking.
With a decisive shift of his body, he leaned down and kissed all that conversation right into silence. Then he pulled back and nodded. “Yes. Yes, absolutely, yes…”
With an explosive curse, Qhuinn came up off the floor and they wrapped their arms around each other. “Thank fuck. Oh, man, I’ve been having a heart attack for days—”
All at once, the sound of clapping erupted, filling the foyer’s three-story space, echoing around.
People streamed out of the darkness, all kinds of smiling faces, and happy—
“Mom? Dad?” Blay laughed. “What are you—hey, how are you?”
As he embraced his parents, his father said, “He did it properly. He asked me first.”
Blay’s head whipped around to his mate. “Really? You asked my dad?”
Qhuinn nodded, then started to smile like a motherfucker. “It’s my one and only shot. So I wanted to follow protocol. Can we cue the music?”
Instantly, everyone backed away, their collective bodies forming a circle on the edges of the light, and as they settled in, strains of something very familiar bled out into…
Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”
Qhuinn held his hand out. “Dance with me? In front of everyone…be mine, and dance with me.”
Blay started to blink fast. On some level, this gesture seemed like a bigger deal than the mating proposaclass="underline" in front of God and everybody. The two of them. Linked heart to heart.
“Like I’m going to say no?” he whispered hoarsely.
Except just as their bodies met, he hesitated. “Wait…who leads?”
Qhuinn smiled. “That’s easy. We both do.”
On that note, they held each other close, started moving together in perfect harmony…
…and lived happily ever after.
BY J. R. WARD
Dark Lover
Lover Eternal
Lover Awakened
Lover Revealed
Lover Unbound
Lover Enshrined
The Black Dagger Brotherhood:
An Insider’s Guide
Lover Avenged
Lover Mine
Lover Unleashed
Lover Reborn
Lover at Last
Covet
Crave
Envy
Rapture