"What? You what?" I stammered.
Scott peered up at me, his eyes misty as he presented me with a ring. The one and a half carat diamond round sat pedestaled above two accent stones and a white metal twisting around the rock as an embrace. The ring was beautiful, breath-taking, and perfectly me. I look up into the man's clear blue eyes; and I knew, this man knows me as well as one person can know another.
"I would be honored if you would marry me," he repeated.
I took a step back, a step further into my apartment. The whole thing was a shock. He was a shock. "Y-you've been gone," I stuttered. "You picked up and you just left. I haven't seen you in three months, and now you show up and ask me to marry you?"
Scott stood up and followed me inside, closing the door behind him. "I know," he answered.
"You left."
"I know."
"I haven't even heard from you since that night." I said it louder than I meant, but my head was swimming. There was this buzzing sound that I couldn't clear out of my ears, and I couldn't quite make sense of the world around me.
He sighed and slid the ring back into his pocket, "Baby, I know, and I have spent these last three months thinking about you, thinking about nothing else but how stupid I was to have ever left. This," he said, taking my hand. "You and me. This is what I want. This is all I've ever wanted."
"What about your work?" I asked.
He smiled, a shy grin that melted me every time I saw it. "I'll find a new job. I love you. I want you."
I bit my lip and stared at our entwined fingers. So much had changed while he was gone, and yet, as he held my hand, so much felt the same. "Listen, Scott, these last few months -"
"I don't care," he shrugged. "Whatever happened while we were apart doesn't matter. None of it matters. Just say 'yes'."
My eyes tracked up over our hands, his arms, back to his eyes. I could gaze into those eyes for the rest of my life, and I knew that somehow, I would. "Yes," I whispered. "Yes, I'll marry you."
His arms immediately closed around me, and I felt my feet leave the ground as he spun me. "I love you," he murmured into my hair, "God, I love you so much. You have no idea how much I've missed you."
I breathed deep, taking in the scent almost as familiar as my own, a scent I had missed for three months, and I knew, it mattered. These months mattered, our time apart, mattered, and what I did, who I had become in that time... all of it mattered.
It felt like a dream. Everything seemed to have a cloudy edge to it, every movement was just a little slower, every sound vaguely distant. It was as if I wasn't experiencing everything as much as someone had filmed it, edited it, and simply played it back for me.
But it was real. Here was Scott, in the flesh, in my bed. I reached out and touched his cheek as we lay side-by-side, staring, absorbing, simply letting the reality of it all sink it. "You're here," I whispered.
"Yeah," he said, flashing his signature grin, "I'm here." His face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath, warm and soft, cruising over my skin, electrifying my senses.
Involuntarily, I let out a small hum of pleasure. "Hold me," I said, turning to my other side and nudging myself closer to him as his arm closed around me. He pulled me tightly against him.
"I've missed your smell," he whispered. The slight breeze of his breath tickled the back of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. I snuggled closer as his lips found my flesh.
"This spot, I've missed this too."
I reached up, tangling my fingers in his hair, urging him on as I ground my hips against his. His hand moved up my stomach and cupped my breast as his mouth continued to feast on my neck, nipping and licking. Oh, yes, I thought again, this man knows me.