“Missed you tonight.” I kiss her and pull her into a tight hug.
“The light bill was paid,” she says once I loosen my hold on her, and she starts toward the light switch.
“They work.” I grab her hand and walk us to the couch, where I have a bottle of wine and two glasses waiting. “Have a seat.”
“Wow, this is nice.” She sits down with her legs tucked under her.
I hand her a glass and then pour myself one before sitting down.
“It was busy tonight,” she says after she sets her glass down on the makeshift coffee table: a pallet with wheels attached and painted black. “I think I may have made enough to buy a mattress.” She smirks.
“Is that your way of telling me you wanna go right in there and get to it?”
She twists her hair between her fingers. “This is nice.”
I sit back and take another sip of my wine. “Nice?”
She nods, grabs her glass, and drinks it down. “It was a busy night.”
I suck my cheeks in, trying not to laugh at her obvious desire.
“Don’t laugh at me. You should like that I look forward to Wednesday nights.”
“Yeah, I was thinking about that. Woke up this morning—hard, of course, because I was dreaming of you—rolled to my side while still half asleep, and seriously thought I broke my dick.”
She laughs out loud and covers her mouth so she doesn’t wake up little chick, and then I lean over and kiss her. When I have drunk her in enough, I lean back, but she follows me, kissing me as she climbs on my lap and straddles me.
She takes the glass out of my hand and tosses back my wine. “You said you missed me when I came in. I think you should prove it.” Her hips circle as she pushes against me. “What’s this?” She smirks again and reaches between us.
“Hold up there, little momma.”
She grabs the package in my pocket. And by “package,” I’m not talking about my cock.
“What is this?” she asks again.
I take her hand and kiss it. “I would love nothing more than to be buried in you right now, but against my better judgment, I am gonna tell you a story first.”
“A story?”
“All about ass.”
“Is that right?” She gives me a confused smile.
“Before you, I would plan my day around the type of ass I wanted that night.” Her eyes narrow a bit, but I am determined. “I’d go to different casinos, knowing there were different types of woman, all with different needs and desires. I even named the ass. Women who were rowdy and could game for a little PDA action at Rehab pool parties, well, I called it Ready Ass. At the Cosmopolitan, I would run into Dominant Ass, or Submissive Ass—could always tell which, and I can promise you I didn’t like the dominant ones. First-Class Ass could easily be spotted at Caesars. Those chicks thought they were better than everyone else, and a lot of times, I needed to show them different.” She crosses her arms and glares into my eyes. “Okay, just hear me out. Aria is where you would find Settled Ass—older women who had been married and underappreciated for way too damn long. You know, the ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ type?”
She shakes her head, and I realize immediately that this little plan of mine was a fucked-up one at best.
“I’ve had a lot of ass, baby. Never wanted to settle down, ’cause ass was ass in whatever variation. All pink in the middle, all—” She shifts and rolls her eyes. “My point is, until I met you in that parking lot, I never believed there was one person made for me. The minute I kissed you, it was different from any other kiss. The minute I tasted you, I knew I was ruined. The second I was inside you, I knew without a doubt that I had found the perfect ass. Platinum, baby. You were platinum then and you still are.”
I pull the ring box out of my pocket. “You own me. You own my heart, my soul, my desire, my attention at all times. You consume me, day and night—hell, even in my sleep. You are the only person I want beneath me or on top of me. We love each other, baby. That’ll never change, and I swear to you, I will never let you feel settled. I will cherish you for a lifetime. Hailey Poe, I have my balls back, so the only answer I’ll accept is yes.”
I take the box out of my pocket and open it, revealing the platinum ring with a cushion cut two-and-a-half-carat diamond.
Her eyes sparkle. Then she chokes back a sob and covers her mouth before her eyes return to mine and she gasps, “Too much.”
“Last splurge, I promise. I am done wanting all the material things. When you say yes, the only thing I will ever want, even though I may not deserve it, is platinum. You.”