He’d almost given up on that dream. But now here it was, right in front of him, everything he had ever wanted.
“It’s cute, charming. I like it, Will.” She ran her hand over the fireplace mantel, still the original oak. “It has character. Good bones.”
“Good. I’m glad you think so, because I like it, too.” Will searched for the right words to convey to Charlotte what she meant to him, how she was his family, his life, his heart. “And I only want to buy this house if you can picture yourself living in it with me.”
Her head whipped around and her eyes met his, wide with shock. “Excuse me?”
Will didn’t even hesitate. They’d wasted enough time, he didn’t intend to waste any more. “Charlotte, I know this is moving fast, but we know each other better than a lot of people who’ve been dating for years. I am completely and totally in love with you…You are my very best friend, you are amazing, and I want you to live with me. In this house, or a different one, if you don’t like it. But I want you with me, now, forever.”
He closed the two feet between them and took her hand. “Will you marry me?”
Even he hadn’t known he was going to say that last bit. But it just came out, right and strong.
Charlotte thought Will’s proposal was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard in her entire life. It should have felt surreal, strange, that after all those years of just being friends, they would leap straight to a commitment, but it didn’t. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Will Thornton was the man for her. And now he was going to be her husband.
Tears popped into her eyes and she touched his cheeks, studying his strong, handsome face. “Yes,” she said, nodding her head rapidly. “God, yes, I will marry you.”
Then she was kissing him, or maybe he was kissing her, she wasn’t sure which, and it didn’t really matter because they were together, as one, and it was a kiss of pent-up love, past frustrations, present passion, and future happiness.
“I love you,” he whispered, pulling back a hairbreadth.
“I love you, too.” And all the amazing things his tongue was suddenly doing to her neck.
“This house still has some furniture in it since it was a rental,” he said as his tongue splayed across the swell of her breast, her neckline stretched down again. “Couch or bed?”
“Will! This is Mrs. Stritmeyer’s house…we shouldn’t.”
“So? We’re buying it, aren’t we? It’s going to be our house soon.”
Their house. Holy crap. She almost had an orgasm just at the thought of that. Waking up with Will. Eating dinner every night with him. Sharing a bed, a shower…That image went straight to her inner thighs. “Shouldn’t we look at other houses?” It was a struggle to feel practical when his hand was sliding over her clitoris through her jeans, but she forced the words out.
“I did. Didn’t like anything else.” Then he buried his head back in her breasts. “Besides, don’t you know the story? This is the honeymoon house. The original owner built it for his bride.”
How romantic was that? She almost melted right then and there, but Charlotte had heard a different version. “I heard it’s haunted…that the lady cries in the mirror upstairs because her husband left. That’s downright sad.”
“She cries from missing him because they were so in love. That’s romantic. We can bring love back to this house, sweetheart.” He peeled her bra down and licked her nipple. “Starting right now.”
“Okay.” She did like the house. And it was the spot where Will had proposed. And he was doing really amazing things to her nipple, which made really just about everything make sense. “Let’s buy it.”
“It might be cool living in a haunted house, as long as this ghost isn’t yanking down my zipper like the one in your garage.”
Whoops. Guess she had never really discussed that with him. She really wasn’t at all sure how he was going to like the idea of having a witch for a wife. Not that she was exactly witchy, but still, he might not be comfortable with her strange new ability to levitate objects. She wasn’t comfortable with it, come to think of it.
“That wasn’t a ghost, baby.”
“Well, something did it. I didn’t imagine it. Or the fact that someone grabbed my butt.”
Had she done that, too? Charlotte didn’t see how that was possible, but at the same time, she’d been waxing quite poetic about his ass right at that particular moment. “You see, the thing is, you know how Bree thinks I’m a witch?”
“Uh-huh.” His mouth switched to her other breast.
Like it wasn’t hard enough to force out the words. He was seriously distracting her.
“Bree says I can move objects. She says I unzipped your pants with my mind.”
Will went completely still, tongue on her nipple. His breath blew hot on her slick skin, making her nipples firm even more. “Say that again.”
She really wanted to just forget the whole thing and go back to foreplay, but he had obviously gotten distracted by the whole “I’m a paranormal freak” thing she’d just thrown at him. “I unzipped your pants. I was, well, interested in you, sexually, you know, and I envisioned your jacket opening, and it did. Then I pictured your pants unzipping and they did. I’m sorry.” She really did feel contrite about that. It wasn’t fair to unzip his pants without warning and she was going to have to learn how to control her so-called talent.
Will stood up, leaving her chest half uncovered. “So, you’re saying you did it? Did you know you could do stuff like that?”
“No. I’m still not convinced I can.”
“Unzip my pants now.”
“Will!” Charlotte felt her cheeks burn, and she wasn’t sure why. “I don’t think so.”
“Come on. I want you to.” He stood with his legs apart and hands loosely at his sides. “Unzip me. Take what you want.”
Oh, my. That was a little hard to resist. Charlotte stared at his snap and zipper, pictured them opening for her. Pictured what was behind them. Pictured wanting him, undressing him. She chanted down in her head over and over, concentrating on the metal button, vision blurring.
And the button popped open. The zipper went down.
“Whoa,” Will said.
Charlotte felt a strange sort of pride in her accomplishment. “I can’t believe I can do this.”
Will grinned, peeling off his winter jacket and tossing it to the floor. “Think of how many ways you can take advantage of me.”
“You don’t mind that I have a freakish ability?”
“Hell, no. That is seriously hot, sweetheart. Just don’t ever get mad at me and wing dishes at my head.”
“I’m not a dish-throwing kind of girl.”
“I know.” Will sat down on a fussy Victorian sofa in front of the fireplace. “But you’re not really the nice girl you claim to be, either. You have a naughty side, too.”
“Maybe I do. More than I realized.” Because she was already stripping her jeans off, just like that, and climbing onto his lap. “We’d better make it quick,” she told him, even as she ground her panties against his erection. “The heat’s not on in here. And you never know who might show up.”
“I can be quick.”
He wasn’t lying. He had somehow managed to spring himself free, and while he kissed the stuffing out of her, he got her shirt up, bra unhooked, and panties pulled to the side. Before she could barely blink, his finger was inside her, stroking her incoherent. Charlotte plunged her tongue into his mouth, needing to taste him, her hands in his hair, holding on. God, she loved him. She never wanted to let him go.
Desire spiraled into desperation. Normally, she’d always thought of herself as a little bit sexually inhibited, but none of that was in evidence with Will. She just felt, reacted, took. Ripping his shirt up, she pressed her bare chest against his, dragging a moan from both of them at that wonderful collision of hot flesh on flesh.