He was breathless.

Not just from the way she moved—graceful, certain, like the moment belonged to her and she was offering it—but from the way she let him in. The way she trusted him. With her heart. Her body. Her truth.

His hands stayed right where she’d placed them—shaking slightly, reverent, like he knew what a privilege it was just to touch her like this. To feel the thrum of her heartbeat against his palms. To know, without question, that it was for him.

“I feel it,” Mason whispered, voice wrecked and low, almost like he didn’t trust it not to break. “Every beat. Every part of you trying to tell me something I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to deserve.”

His thumbs brushed the curve of her ribcage—barely a movement, but it said everything. That he was here. That he was staying. That he’d never treat her heart like a weapon. Only ever like something sacred.

“You don’t have to hide with me,” he added, breath warm between them. “Not your sharp edges. Not your soft parts. Not the pieces you think are too much or not enough. I want all of you, Ro. Every version.”

His voice cracked just a little, like he couldn’t hold it all in.

“You make me feel like I could build a life that’s actually good. Like I could be more than just the guy who says too much and cries during Finding Nemo and screws up stage directions because I’m staring at you from the wings.”

He smiled then—crooked and dazed, like her. Like love.

“You’re my best part,” he whispered, tilting his head just enough to brush his nose against hers. “And if you want to keep looking at me like that… like I’m not a disaster in pajama pants, I’ll—God, I’ll spend forever trying to earn it.”

He kissed her again, slower this time, deeper. Less about hunger and more about devotion. About staying in this moment and letting it change him.

And when they broke apart, he didn’t open his eyes right away. Just rested his forehead against hers, one hand sliding up to cup the back of her neck, thumb sweeping her skin like he couldn’t help it.

“Thank you,” he breathed, almost like a prayer. “For choosing me. For seeing me back.”

Then, quieter—softer still—

“For letting me love you like this.”

And he did.

So completely.

So irrevocably.

Like it was the only thing that had ever made sense.

Rowan didn’t answer right away.

She just looked at him—really looked—like her heart was trying to memorize the moment. The way his eyes stayed on hers. The way his hands never moved unless she told them to. The way he said every version like he meant it.

And he did.

God, he did.

So she leaned in and kissed him.

Slow. Steady. A little shaky. But sure.

When she pulled back, her hands stayed at his jaw, thumbs brushing the corners of his mouth like she couldn’t stand not to touch him.

“You don’t have to earn anything,” she said, voice soft and uneven. “You already did. Just by being this. By showing up. By staying.”

Her smile flickered through the tears she didn’t bother to blink away.

“You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel like I don’t have to choose between being strong and being soft. Like I can be both. Like I can be me—and that’s enough.”

She laughed then—quiet, breathless, full of something that felt a lot like awe.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I didn’t think I could love someone this much without losing myself. But you… you make me feel like I’m more me when I’m with you.”

She leaned her forehead against his, eyes closing as she exhaled.

“And pajama pants or not, you’re it for me. The best part. The safe place. The whole damn future.”

Another kiss—slower this time. Anchored. Sacred.

When she pulled back again, her voice was barely audible.

“I’m not going anywhere, Mason. You’re stuck with me.”

And she meant it.

Every word. Every breath.

Forever.

Rowan didn’t move at first.

Just stayed there, forehead to his, feeling the weight of it—them—settling like something holy in her chest.

Then she kissed him again.

Slower this time. But deeper. More deliberate.

Like she was trying to tell him something in the way her mouth lingered on his. Like she needed him to feel it everywhere—what she couldn’t quite say in words, not all at once.

Her fingers slid down from his jaw, warm against his neck, and then lower—tugging gently at the hem of his shirt.

Not rushed.

Not demanding.

Just asking.

A silent, breathless can I?

And when he didn’t pull away—when his breath hitched just slightly, but his hands stayed right where they were, grounding them both—she kept going.

Kept kissing him like it was a promise.

Like she was unwrapping something sacred.

Her hands slipped beneath the cotton, palms brushing over warm skin, and she smiled against his lips—small, soft, wrecked.

“You don’t have to be perfect,” she whispered, lips ghosting over his. “Just be here.”

She tugged his shirt higher, her touch reverent and slow.

“I want you. All of you.”

And the way she said it—barely a breath, but steady—left no room for doubt.

It wasn’t about lust.

It wasn’t about escape.

It was about love.

The kind that reached down deep and stayed.

He swore he could feel the earth tilt.

Just a little. Just enough.

Because the way she said I want you didn’t sound like a tease. Didn’t sound like a challenge. It sounded like home. Like gravity. Like everything he’d been aching to give her finally had somewhere to land.

Mason didn’t speak.

Couldn’t.

His breath caught somewhere between her whisper and the drag of her hands under his shirt, and it stayed there—lodged behind his ribs, burning slow.

So he let her lead.

Let her pull the fabric higher, slow and sure, until he had to shift—arms lifting just enough for her to slip it off, the cotton forgotten somewhere behind them.

Her fingers mapped his skin like he was something worth remembering. Like he was something beautiful.

And God, maybe he was. If only because she looked at him like this.

Still, reverent, lips parted like he was already wrecking her—and didn’t even know it.

He reached for her, finally. One hand slipping to her waist, the other to the back of her neck, thumb brushing the hinge of her jaw like he needed to make sure she was real.

And then he kissed her.

No hesitation. No restraint.

Just heat. Just truth.

His mouth moved over hers like worship. Like every breath he hadn’t known he was holding was meant for this. For her.

He kissed her like she was his whole damn future.

Because she was.

When they broke for air, his forehead stayed pressed to hers, breath shallow, heart thundering.

And even then—stripped bare, undone, utterly hers—he still didn’t speak.

He just looked at her.

Like she was the miracle.

Like forever had already started.

And then—God, he couldn’t help it—he kissed her again.

Deeper this time. Hungrier.

His hands slid to her hips, grounding her there, pulling her flush against him like he needed to feel every breath she took. Like if there was space between them, he might forget how to breathe.

He kissed her like he had something to prove.

Like he’d been waiting his whole life for this moment and never wanted it to end.

And when he finally pulled back—barely, reluctantly, lips brushing hers like an aftershock—his thumb swept over her cheek, slow and reverent.

No words.

Just that look.

That breathless, stunned, worshipful look that said everything he didn’t have to:

You. Always. Only.

Rowan didn’t break the kiss when she started to move—just let it deepen, let it stretch out slow and aching as her body shifted beneath his. Her hands slipped from his hair to his shoulders, fingers pressing into bare skin, guiding him down with her inch by inch.

Until her spine met the mattress.

Until her head hit the edge of the bed, curls spilling like wildfire over the side, catching light from the hallway like embers from a dying star. The cotton sheets were cool against her back, but he was warm—blazingly warm—where his body hovered just above hers.

Her chest rose and fell with shallow, hungry breaths. But her eyes—God, her eyes—they were steady. Locked on his like he was the only thing tethering her to the earth.

And maybe he was.

She smiled then—slow and sure, something wrecked and wild blooming in her throat—and tugged gently at his wrist, her thumb brushing over the vein there. Grounding. Pulling.

“Come here,” she whispered, breath brushing his lips.

And he did.

He crawled over her with quiet reverence, his movements careful but full of urgency, like touching her meant something more than just touch. Like it meant everything. His knees sank into the mattress on either side of her hips, arms braced beside her head. The way he moved—confident, trembling, like gravity had given up on him—made her stomach twist in the best way.

When he finally settled above her, Rowan took him in—eyes dragging over his flushed cheeks, parted lips, the strong line of his throat. His chest was bare, rising and falling like he’d just run a hundred miles to get to her.

And still, she smiled.

Because he had. In all the ways that counted.

All the pieces she’d hidden—the ones she’d polished sharp or softened to survive—she gave them to him now. Freely.

Her voice came quiet. Barely a breath. But it held the weight of everything.

“I’m yours,” she whispered, honest and undone. “I’ve been yours since the moment you saw me and didn’t look away.”

She reached up again, fingers brushing over his jaw, memorizing every line, every freckle, every stubbled edge like it mattered. Because it did.

Then—tender, wild, and so sure it cracked something open inside her—she smiled. The kind of smile that split sky from stars.

“So take me, Mase. Not because you think you have to earn me. Not because you think you’re lucky.”

Her fingers slid into his hair again, nails gently scraping his scalp, drawing him closer.

“But because this is us. And we’re worth everything.”

She kissed him again—deeper now, fuller, like she was pouring every word she’d ever swallowed down into the space between them. Like the shape of her mouth against his was a vow.

And this time, when her body arched up to meet his, when her legs wrapped tightly around his hips and her arms pulled him down until he was pressed flush to her, there was no space left.

No distance.

No fear.

Just love.

Raw. Real. Forever.

Her lips barely left his. Just skimmed. Brushed. Ghosted like silk as her breath spilled between them.

And then she smiled again—this time smaller, more fragile, like a secret she’d been saving just for him.

“You feel that?” she breathed, voice trembling with intensity. “That’s me. Choosing you.”

She didn’t rush. She let him feel it. Her heartbeat against his. The weight of her body wrapped around him like she was meant to be there. Like this was always the end of the road.

Her thumb swept across his cheek, warm and slow. She looked at him like he was already her whole world.

And then she said it—soft, steady, utterly certain.

“I can’t wait to be your wife.”

Her breath caught, a quiet little hitch as her palm slid between their chests, fingers spreading over his heart.

“To take your name. To build a life with you that looks nothing like anyone else’s—but still feels like ours.”

Her other hand drifted down, fingertips gliding over his back, his ribs, curling low at the base of his spine. Her voice dipped with it.

“To be the mother of your daughter.”

That one hit her hardest.

Her eyes stung, but she didn’t cry—not yet. She just looked at him, like she already saw their future unfolding. Midnight feedings. Little giggles. Tiny hands wrapped around theirs.

And then she moved.

She pulled him down.

No more teasing. No more waiting.

She kissed him hungrily—mouth parting under his like she’d been starving for this, for him, for the life they’d started with one heartbeat and never let go.

Her fingers tangled in his hair. Her legs tightened around his hips. Her body arched up, meeting him with a kind of desperation that wasn’t about sex.

It was about belonging.

About choosing him—over and over and over again.

This wasn’t just love.

This was everything.

He was gone the second she said it.

Not in the I-can’t-think sense—though God, thinking was barely a possibility anymore—but in the deeper, darker way. In the way you don’t just want someone.

You need them.

Mason Hayes had always known he was a goner for Rowan Starling.

But now?

Now he was a man on fire—and she was the only thing that had ever made burning feel like home.

Her words weren’t just soft.

They were seismic.

Take me.

Because this is us.

And that was it. That was the match.

The wreckage.

The surrender.

His body pressed down into hers with a reverence so intense it bordered on ruin. Chest to chest. Heart to heart. No space, no air, no distance. Just skin and breath and the unbearable ache of loving someone this much. His hands moved like they knew her already—every curve, every secret, every place that made her tremble and sigh and pull him closer.

And when she said I can’t wait to be your wife—God, he swore he could feel the world tilt again. Like time itself had cracked open at the edges and let him glimpse the forever she was handing him.

The future she wanted with him.

Their daughter.

Their life.

Their everything.

He kissed her then—harder this time, deeper, like he needed her breath to survive. His mouth opened over hers with the kind of hunger that had nothing to do with appetite and everything to do with devotion.

It was heat, yes.

But it was also love.

Unapologetic.
All-consuming.
Utterly hers.

His hands skimmed down her body—slow, sure, anchoring. One cupped her thigh, guiding her leg higher around his waist; the other slid along her ribs, fingers flexing like he needed to memorize every inch. His breath was ragged when it met hers, tangled and uneven and real.

And then he dropped his forehead to hers, eyes burning, chest shaking with it.

The need.

The want.

The reverence.

“You,” he breathed, voice rough and wrecked and low. “Only ever you.”

And then he moved.

No more hesitation.

No more space.

Just Mason—home in her arms, worship in his hands, fire in his kiss—and every single part of him saying yes. Yes to the now. Yes to forever. Yes to her.

Because this wasn’t just sex.

This was the beginning of something sacred.

And he was all in.

Rowan was pretty sure they’d lost the plot somewhere between “floral options” and Mason sketching a velociraptor in the margins of their seating chart.

“That’s… definitely not a groomsman,” she muttered, arching a brow as she reached for the highlighter. She circled cake tasting twice—mostly to keep herself from laughing at how proud he looked of his dino.

They’d been at the kitchen table for almost two hours now, surrounded by crumpled post-its, a nearly empty bag of sour gummy worms, and Mason’s handwriting getting increasingly dramatic in all caps across their wedding checklist.

Somewhere between the candle samples and deciding if burgundy table runners were too on the nose, he’d kicked his feet up on the chair across from her and started calling their potential playlist the Setlist of Eternal Love and Slight Chaos™.

And honestly? It fit.

She sat cross-legged in her chair, Mason’s hoodie drowning her frame, hair still damp from the shower and falling in soft waves over her shoulder. One of his hands was resting against her ankle under the table—absentminded, warm, grounding. She didn’t think he even realized he was doing it.

She looked at him then—really looked.

Burgundy pen cap between his teeth, focus narrowed on whether to go with the fall orchard venue or the moody conservatory. Barefoot. Soft-eyed. Wearing that damn faded theatre camp t-shirt she always threatened to steal permanently.

And it hit her again.

This was her person.

Messy handwriting, dinosaur groomsmen, and all.

Her future husband.

She smiled, biting her lip as she nudged his foot under the table.

“You know we’re still gonna end up crying like idiots no matter where we do it, right?”

Then, softer—without looking up from the list, just letting it fall between them like truth—

“I can’t wait to marry you.”

Mason didn’t look up right away.

Didn’t smirk. Didn’t fire back with a joke or pretend to take notes like a man on a mission.

He just… paused.

Burgundy pen cap still in his mouth. Fingers frozen mid-doodle. His gaze softening so fast it nearly knocked the wind out of him.

Because that voice—that quiet, steady, effortless truth of hers?

Yeah.

It got him every damn time.

Slowly, he lowered the pen and looked at her.

Really looked.

At the way his hoodie fell off one shoulder, how her legs were tangled beneath her like she lived here—which she did, thank God—and how her eyes never flinched when she said things like I can’t wait to marry you like it was just fact.

Like it wasn’t a miracle.

Like she hadn’t cracked him open and made a home out of the mess inside.

His fingers tightened slightly around her ankle beneath the table, thumb brushing the soft skin there, grounding himself in the fact that she was real. Here. His.

“You say that,” he said eventually, voice a little rougher than he meant it to be, “and then expect me to just keep breathing?”

He tossed the pen onto the pile of abandoned color swatches, pushed his chair back with a screech that echoed through the kitchen, and rounded the table in three slow, deliberate steps.

And then he was there.

Dropping to one knee.

Not like a proposal. Not this time.

But like he needed to look up at her when he said what came next.

His hands slid up her thighs, slow and reverent, until they framed her hips. He pressed his forehead to the space just above her knee and exhaled, like being near her was the only oxygen that ever made sense.

Then he looked up.

Eyes full of every vow he hadn’t put on paper yet.

“You’re it, Ro,” he murmured. “You’re my always.”

And then he leaned in—hands firm, grip steady, gaze never leaving hers—and kissed her leg like it was holy. Like the wedding didn’t start in a conservatory or an orchard, but here. At this kitchen table. In bare feet and highlighters and hoodie sleeves too long for her wrists.

He rested his cheek against her thigh, voice low and serious and cracked right down the middle.

“I’d marry you tomorrow in a parking lot if it meant I got to keep you forever.”

Then, quieter—more breath than words—

“You sure you’re ready for a lifetime of Setlists of Eternal Love and Slight Chaos™?”

He grinned up at her.

Soft. Wrecked. So full of her it was stupid.

Then he kissed her again.

This time right above her knee, and again, a little higher, and again—lazy, reverent, heated now in a way that had nothing to do with wedding logistics and everything to do with the girl in front of him.

The girl he got to love forever.

The only thing on the list that ever really mattered.

She didn’t say anything at first.

Just blinked down at him, hands still curled around the highlighter like they were mid-checklist, not mid-heartbreak.

Because that’s what he did to her sometimes.

Broke her open in the gentlest way possible.

No drama. No grand gestures. Just Mason—on one knee in their kitchen, hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, mouth on her leg like he was praying.

And all she could do was stare at him, at his stupid theatre camp curls and the fact that he meant it. Every word. Every vow. Every ridiculous, perfect, maddening inch of him.

“You’re such a menace,” she said eventually, voice quiet but steady. “You realize that, right?”

One hand left the table and slid into his hair—because she needed the contact now, needed to anchor herself to him like he was the only real thing in the room.

“You get all soft and sincere and ‘I’d marry you in a parking lot’—and expect me to just sit here?”

She tugged gently at his hair. Just enough to make him look up again.

“You think I won’t drag you to the courthouse tomorrow and call it a day?”

But her voice cracked a little on tomorrow, and that’s how she knew it was real. That’s how he’d know too.

She leaned in, forehead resting against his, breath shared in that tiny space between all their noise.

Then, softer:

“You wreck me, Mase. And I still want it. All of it. Every chaos-soaked, glitter-stained second.”

She kissed his temple, his hairline, the tip of his nose.

Then leaned back, picked up the highlighter again, and muttered—

“One more velociraptor on this seating chart and I’m putting you at the kids’ table.”

Which earned her a grin. That soft, wrecked, all-in grin that always made her feel like the bravest person in the room.

And she wasn’t done.

Not really.

She looked back down at the checklist—half-scribbled, half-destroyed by pen doodles—and let herself picture it again. The ceremony. The candlelight. The chaos. Him.

She exhaled. Steady. Certain.

“I’d say yes a thousand times, Mason Hayes. Even if all we had was sour gummy worms and bad handwriting.”

Then she looked back at him.

“Lucky for you, I like the way you love me.”

And her smile—tired and tender and full of something wild—said the rest.

Mason didn’t breathe for a second.

Couldn’t.

Not when she looked at him like that. Not when her voice got all soft and cracked and full of forever.

Not when she said tomorrow like it might actually happen.

Like she’d really drag his chaos-drenched, Velociraptor-loving ass to a courthouse in a hoodie and mascara-stained cheeks and call it the best day of her life.

And the thing was?

He’d go.

No hesitation. No questions. Just where and what time, babe? and a quiet little vow to kiss her hand every morning for the rest of their lives.

His throat was tight—like something too big to name had lodged itself there—but he still grinned. Couldn’t not. That crooked, crooked thing he always did when he was trying to play it cool but had just been emotionally wrecked beyond recognition.

She had no idea what she did to him.

“I’m not at the kids’ table,” he murmured, voice low and rough as he let his hands slide a little higher on her thighs. “I’m the groom. I outrank the raptors.”

She rolled her eyes, but her fingers were still in his hair—still curling, still holding, still grounding.

He leaned into it. Let his lips trail up the inside of her knee with a reverence that had nothing to do with performance. This wasn’t a bit. Wasn’t even flirting anymore.

It was worship.

“You say I wreck you,” he said, letting the words slip out between kisses—light, slow, spaced out like he needed to taste every inch of her just to stay tethered. “But Ro, you...”

His breath hitched as he looked up again.

“You ruin me.”

And he meant it. In the best way. In the God, please keep doing it way.

In the you are the love of my entire stupid life way.

He rose slowly, hands still on her thighs, kissing his way up until his mouth found her collarbone, then the curve of her jaw, then her cheek.

And when he finally reached her mouth again, he kissed her like it was the only thing keeping him sane.

Like every I love you and every I do and every hell yes lived right there between their lips.

He pulled her closer, one hand slipping beneath the hem of his hoodie she was swimming in, palm flat against her waist. The other cupped her cheek, thumb brushing gently beneath her eye, just in case a tear decided to make a run for it.

“I’ll marry you in the courthouse,” he whispered against her lips, breath warm, body trembling, “in the kitchen, in the goddamn snack aisle at Target. Just tell me when.”

And then—

Because he couldn’t help it.

Because he was Mason freaking Hayes, chaos gremlin and heart-eyed menace—

He grinned.

“You’re mine, Rowan Starling. The rest is just confetti.”

And this time, when he kissed her, it wasn’t soft.

It was deep. Heated. Lit with all the things he didn’t have words for yet.

Because this?

This was his forever.

And he wanted to start it now.

Rowan could feel her heart in her throat.

Not in the soft, fluttery way people described in poems—but in the oh-hell-it’s-happening, knees-weak, brain-empty kind of way. Like everything inside her had cracked open just wide enough to make room for this.

For him.

For Mason Hayes, who made dinosaur jokes in the margins of wedding plans and still somehow made her feel like the most sacred thing in the universe.

And now he was kneeling.

Hands warm on her thighs, lips reverent on her skin, voice wrecked like she’d just given him the sun.

She was already gone.

But this? This ruined her.

“Mason,” she breathed, half-laughing, half-gasping, barely able to get his name out without dissolving. “You absolute menace. You kiss like a prayer and propose like a man having an emotional crisis in a rom-com.”

Her fingers slid into his hair, curling there like she couldn’t stand the idea of letting him go. Like if she wasn’t touching him, none of this would feel real.

“My life is now an ongoing montage of post-it notes, snack aisle vows, and you making velociraptors weirdly romantic,” she said, blinking through the blur. “And I wouldn’t trade a single second.”

She tilted his face up gently with both hands, her thumbs brushing along the curve of his jaw. That grin—God, that grin—was still hanging there like it belonged to someone who didn’t even realize he’d just broken her open in the most beautiful way.

Her voice dropped, went soft, went full of every ounce of truth she’d been carrying since the first night he looked at her like she wasn’t too much.

“You look at me like I’m your whole damn world, Mase… and I still don’t know what I did to deserve that.”

A beat.

A breath.

And then: “You ruin me too.”

She leaned in, forehead to his, chest to chest, hoodie riding up around her thighs but she didn’t care. Not when his hands were on her waist. Not when his thumb was still brushing beneath her eye like he knew her tears before she did.

“You ruin me in the best, worst, most completely beautiful ways. And I swear—” she laughed, voice shaking, “—if you ever stop saying unhinged, lovesick things in the middle of my parents’ kitchen, I might combust.”

She kissed him then—hard. Deep. Like every I love you she’d ever swallowed was rushing to the surface.

And when she finally pulled back, lips swollen, eyes glassy, she whispered the only thing that mattered anymore.

“Yes.”

She kissed him again, smiling into it now.

“Yes to the courthouse. To the kitchen. To Target.”

Another kiss, messier this time. Desperate.

“Yes to the raptors. To the Sharpie vows. To whatever version of forever you want—because if it’s with you, I’m all in.”

And this time when she looked at him, it was through tears and laughter and the kind of love that rewrote bones.

“You’re mine too, Mason Hayes,” she said, breathless, glowing. “And you’re so damn lucky confetti makes me cry.”