Bruce switches to his other paw, and I reply to Logan. It’s become our thing. We still post on Made Connections, leaving sexy and romantic notes for each other, listing things we’ve done and things we want to do.

It keeps the fire burning bright. That’s not hard, though, when you already have the four key components to a forever relationship: trust, honesty, laughter, and great sex.

Though there’s a fifth too.

Love, and we have that as well.

Dear Mr. Unzip Me Now,

The answer is yes, and I look forward to the sleeper car.

Xoxo

A few weeks later, we board the train for our “road trip.” It’s the second time we’ve taken one. A year ago, we traveled by rail through New England, then hunkered down in a cabin in Maine for four days. It was glorious.

And today, it’s glorious too, as porters load our suitcases and Logan and I head into the first-class car on a train that’ll take us across the country.

I open the door to our sleeper cabin, eyeing the bed. “What do you think, Mr. Smolder?”

He wiggles his brows. “Why don’t you check under the covers?”

I shoot him a what are you talking about look. “For what? A mint? Bedbugs?”

“Hopefully it’s more like a mint.”

I tug at the covers, yanking them back. My breath flees my lungs when I find a royal-blue velvet box.

Hope rushes through me.

“Is this for me . . .?”

“Yes,” he says in a soft, low voice filled with wishes.

I take it, flip it open, and gasp.

When I turn around, Logan Clarke is down on one knee. “When I met you, the only thing I regretted was not getting your name and number soon enough. But we found each other. We made the connection, and every day I’m so glad we did. Because the last year and a half with you has been the best of my life. There’s been so much trust, honesty, and laughter that I sometimes can’t believe it’s real. But it is. Every day with you is so real and true,” he says. I press my lips together, but that doesn’t abate the tears. They flood my eyes, and my heart fills with happiness.

“Before I met you, Bryn, I was going through the motions. After I met you, I understood what it meant to be in love, to be happy, and to feel everything. I want to keep feeling everything with you. I hope you’ll live with me and be my wife, because I love you so much, and I want to be with you always.”

My hand presses over my heart, like I need to hold it in place lest it jumps out of my chest and into his arms. His arms—where I want to be.

“I would love to be your wife. Because I love you so much, Logan. So incredibly much.”

I hand him the box, and he takes out the stunning diamond solitaire, slides it onto my finger, then pulls me into his lap and kisses the breath out of me.

I see stars as his lips slide across mine.

And soon, very soon, I see galaxies as my fiancé makes love to me on the train, in a sleeper cabin on our very own road trip.

It’s just another way we’ve made things our own.

EPILOGUE

Bruce

After That

Day 1 in Solitary Confinement

This was not in Bruce’s plan.

No one ran this past him.

First, there was that infernal cat carrier. Like he was some sort of ferret.

He could handle a harness and a leash, thank you very much. But to be stuffed inside a portable cell?

To be placed in a basic sedan?

Shouldn’t he have been carried on a sacred bed in some air-conditioned, temperature-controlled limousine? That would have been more fitting for a being of his stature.

Now, here he was in some new and different place. He’d show them. He’d prove to them that those years in prison hadn’t softened him at all.

Not one bit.

He’d only been pretending to like the woman.

And the man too.

Though was it truly pretending? The man, after all, had brought him yellowtail several times. Sliced ever so delicately and served—gasp—raw.

It had been divine.

But no! He couldn’t linger on those thoughts. Bruce had been moved from his cell, the cell he had grown to think of as home, and had been placed in a new prison.

And he would let them know exactly what he thought of . . .

Meow!

Oh.

Ohhhhhh, yes.

Was that a lovely lady cat?

Hello there. That tail was so lush. So big. So soft. She smelled of catnip. And she was the finest specimen of feline he’d ever seen.