On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [128]
“You’re unbelievable,” Devon said.
Lilah peered at him. She didn’t think he was complaining; there wasn’t usually any doubt about it when Devon threw a hissy.
“I’m not unbelievable, I’m practical,” Lilah said. “And I happen to have excellent instincts about how to improve the lives of those around me.”
“What you have,” Devon said, voice soft, “is an unparalleled capacity for love. I’m awed by your ability to give it, show it . . .”
“Make it,” Lilah interjected, pleased and embarrassed at the same time.
“Mmm. That, too.”
Devon leaned his head back against the seat, his gaze steady and open on her face.
“I love you so damn much,” he said, his voice low and full of feeling. “Will you marry me?”
They both froze.
Lilah’s lungs stopped working, like her brain was diverting all power to figuring out what she should say. What would the old Lolly do, she wondered frantically. Obviously, Lolly would jump on it—in the back of her mind, she’d been worrying about the two of them showing up on Aunt Bertie’s doorstep at Thanksgiving not engaged. But on the other hand, wasn’t it much more of a new Lilah-type adventure to agree to marry a man she’d only known for six weeks?
“I’m sorry. Shit! I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that,” Devon said, sitting up straight. “I don’t even have the ring with me! Crap, what kind of proposal was that? I suck at this.”
The distress on Devon’s handsome face somehow, paradoxically, drained all the distress right out of Lilah. The thought crystallized in her mind as if it had always been there: she didn’t have to choose between Lolly and Lilah—they were both a part of her. She could just be herself and stop worrying about it.
And in this case, the response to Devon’s question was unanimous, anyway.
“Yes,” she said, too softly.
Devon paused while running his hands through his hair, leaving it sticking straight up. “What?”
“I said yes, I’ll marry you,” Lilah said more strongly. “I don’t care about the ring, or the fantasy proposal of you down on one knee, or whatever you’re thinking you should’ve done. I just . . . I don’t care about that stuff. All I care about is you, and the life we can have together.”
His face actually crumpled a little, his chest heaving with strong emotion, and Lilah pushed through her own surging feelings to give him a tremulous smile.
“You know,” she told him, “you’re not half bad at showing the people you love how you feel.”
“No?” His voice cracked a bit, and love overflowed her heart.
“No! You’re improving by leaps and bounds,” she said encouragingly. “You’re really starting to move past that grumpy, bitter, emotionally stunted half-man you were when I met you.”
Devon shouted a laugh and made a grab for her. Out of the corner of her eye, Lilah caught Paolo’s smile in the rearview mirror as he hit the button to make the tinted privacy shield slide into place.
Lilah let him catch her and pull her onto his lap so she could lean back in his arms, secure in the knowledge that he’d never let her go.
“Oh, Lilah Jane. I think you’d better come here and let me practice.”
His warm, aroused voice was like a full-body hug. The naked kind.
“Practice what?” she asked, breathless.
“Showing you how I feel,” he said, his mouth finding hers in a quick clash of teeth and tongues and laughter and so much joy, she was afraid her heart might actually burst.
Well, she thought hazily as he coiled her curls around his fingers and nuzzled into her neck. Practice makes perfect.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The charity Devon chooses for his fundraiser benefit is the Center for Arts Education of New York, and that organization actually exists. Committed to restoring and sustaining quality arts education to all grade levels of New York City’s public schools, the CAE has a fantastic and very informative website at www.cae-nyc.org/. Check it out! Every child deserves a well-rounded education. Find out what you can do to make a difference.
And a quick note on the recipes included in this book: the corn salad is completely new, dreamed up by me and rigorously taste-tested and kibitzed by my husband