by Nell Iris
“Don’t you want kids?”
I shook my head. “No.”
His eyes widened. “You don’t?”
“No,” I repeated. “I’ve never felt the longing for children. To tell you the truth, I’m scared I’d become like my own parents. Cold and distant.” I would never want any kid to feel the way I had when I’d grown up. Lonely and unimportant. And with my mother and father as role models, that was the best I could hope for.
“You could never be cold and distant.” He curled into my chest. “You’d be a great dad. You have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Are you trying to convince me to change my mind?” I chuckled.
“No!”
“Good. That would be stupid since you don’t want kids.”
His hands found their way under my shirt and I forced myself to relax. He’d proved over and over that he was attracted to me and liked my body with love handles and all, and I was trying my best to learn to trust in it. “Do you really mean it?” he asked.
“I do. I love the idea of being just the two of us. Besides. It’s not like our lives will be deprived of kids. Between your brothers and sisters, we’ll soon have a gazillion nieces and nephews to spoil.”
“That’s true,” Levi said with a chuckle.
“This whole ‘no sleepover’ thing is a different matter though.”
“Yes, I’m sorry about that.”
“We’ll just have to make sure this isn’t a lengthy engagement.”
“Engagement?” he asked, lifted his head, and looked at me with a twinkle in his eyes. “We’re engaged?”
Heat crept up my neck and settled in my cheeks. “Um. That’s not…You know what I mean.”
“I do.” He leaned in and kissed me, and I forgot everything about my slip of the tongue and concentrated on his mouth. His lips. His passion.
We both breathed heavily when he pulled away.
“I love you,” I said, unable to keep it inside for a second longer.
He smiled. It was a happy smile, lighting up his entire being. “I know.”
“What kind of answer is that?” I asked with a mock scowl.
“That’s Star Wars speak for ‘I love you, too’” he said and kissed me again.
Epilogue: Beckett
Six months later
Pisces (February 19—March 20)
With Saturn and Pluto in a private sector, you finally feel ready to do something you’ve been thinking about for a long time. Like taking your boyfriend house hunting. And…ask him to marry you?
THE END
ABOUT NELL IRIS
Nell Iris is a romantic at heart who believes everyone deserves a happy ending. She’s a bona fide bookworm (learned to read long before she started school), wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without something to read (not even the ladies’ room), loves music (and singing along but, let’s face it, she’s no Celine Dion), and is a real Star Trek nerd (“Make it so”). She loves words, poetry, wine, and Sudoku, and absolutely adores elephants!
Nell believes passionately in equality for all regardless of race, gender, or sexuality, and wants to make the world a better, less hateful, place.
Nell is a forty-something bisexual Swedish woman, married to the love of her life, and a proud mama of a grown daughter. She left the Scandinavian cold and darkness for warmer and sunnier Malaysia a few years ago, and now spends her days writing, surfing the Internet, enjoying the heat, and eating good food. One day she decided to chase her lifelong dream of being a writer, sat down in front of her laptop, and wrote a story about two men falling in love.
Nell Iris writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angst, and wants to write diverse and different characters.
For more information, visit nelliris.com.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC
JMS Books LLC is a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance, erotic romance, and young adult fiction. Visit jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!