by Noelle Adams
So incredibly warm.
“Ready?” I ask, smiling and trying to subdue another wave of intense affection. If I let myself act on it, I’ll attack him with a passionate kiss, and that would hardly be appropriate in these circumstances.
The passionate kiss will have to wait until later.
He must see something on my face because he leans over to press his lips against mine softly. “More than ready.” He clears his throat softly. “And speaking of...”
When he trails off, I frown in confusion. Rika is unsuccessfully hiding a giggle, and Max suddenly looks stiff, almost sheepish.
“What’s going on here?” I demand.
Both of them know something that I don’t.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Max says, his lips turning up in a little smile. He clears his throat again.
I turn my eyes from him to Rika and back again. “Ask me what?”
He stuffs one hand into his pocket and digs around.
I gape at him, a roar of recognition suddenly hitting me.
Maybe...
Maybe that’s why Rika has been so excited.
Maybe that’s why Max suddenly looks a little nervous, something he almost never is.
I stare as he retrieves his hand from his pocket. He’s now holding a small velvet pouch.
My mouth falls open even more.
“I know your lease isn’t up until August, so we can’t... and we agreed not to do anything definitive until then. But I want this so much I can’t wait. If it’s too soon, just say the word. We’ll completely understand.” He glances over at Rika, who nods soberly, although she still seems to be bursting with joy.
I can’t even breathe. I’ve frozen completely.
Max pulls a ring out of the pouch. It’s beautiful. Simple. A princess-cut diamond on an elegant platinum band. “I love you, Katrina. I want to marry you. Freddie and I want to be a family with you. So...” He glances down with a throaty sound and then slowly raises his eyes to mine again. “Will you marry me?”
My vision blurs. I try to speak but choke instead.
“If it’s too soon, it’s really okay. We can wait. Or not do it at all. We won’t get married until the summer when your lease runs out, but I want to be engaged to you now.” His mouth twists slightly. He must be misinterpreting my response. “If you want it too.”
“I do!” I burst out, the twisting of concern on his face finally pushing me into speech. “I want it too! I want to marry you! I want to be engaged to you! Right now!”
I’m way too loud, so it’s fortunate that the hallway is empty.
Max makes a throaty sound and pulls me into a hard hug but not before I see the wash of shattering joy on his face.
Rika is giggling and clapping her hands and doing a little jig as she waits for her turn to hug me too.
Max is openly emotional as he withdraws and finds my hand so he can slip the ring onto my finger. “There,” he murmurs. “Now we’re engaged.”
“Now we’re engaged.”
We both beam down at the ring like fools.
Then Rika can’t wait any longer and throws herself at me in a hug. “I’m so excited! I told him he needed to ask you here in the hallway since this is where he saw you for the first time.”
I’m sniffing and giggling as I pull away from Rika and lean against Max, clinging to his shirt. “It’s the perfect place. I can’t believe it. I really wasn’t expecting it. But an August wedding sounds perfect to me.”
It’s a few minutes before we recover enough to move. Then we get in Max’s car, drive over to my little house to pick up Tulip, and we all head back to Max and Rika’s house to eat ice cream and talk about the wedding.
It’s the best night of my life.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The next book in the Milford College is Secret Santa (about May and her best friend Jeremy). You can find an excerpt on the following pages.
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Excerpt from Secret Santa
WHEN I RETURN TO THE administration building, I walk down to the basement to reward herself for my efforts and share my news with the one person I always wanted to share good news with. On one end of the hall in the lower level was the Facilities department, and on the other end was the I.T. department.
Jeremy is the Director of I.T, and he’s been my best friend since high school.
I wave at the student manning the help desk and step in through Jeremy’s half-opened door.
He’s working on his computer, which faces a far corner of the office, so he doesn’t see me come in. I stand there for a minute, smiling at his brown hair and broad shoulders and watching him work.
“May, I need your help,” he says without ever turning to see me. I have no idea how he knew I’m here.
I roll my eyes. “You’re not the only one.”
He glances over, his brown eyes glinting with humor although he’s not smiling. He nods toward a plate on his desk. “If you don’t take some of those, I’m going to eat them all before the afternoon is over.”
On the plate are chocolate chip cookies that look homemade. I make a pleased sound in my throat and come over to grab one. “Who gave you these?”
“Dr. Sherwood. Because I spent two hours the other day showing her how to get around in her online class shell.”
Carol Sherwood was a History professor in her mid-sixties who wasn’t at all happy with the move toward online components of classes that the administration was implementing. She was also a very good baker. May hummed in pleasure as she chewed a bite of the cookie.
“Take at least half of those,” Jeremy says. “Or I’ll seriously eat them. I’ve already had four.”
“Why were you helping Dr. Sherwood? That’s not exactly your job. Don’t they have workshops and things to help faculty who can’t do online stuff?”
“Of course they do. She’s taken three of them but still didn’t know what to do. She asked for my help. What am I going to do? Say no to her.”
“But you also have your own work to do.”
He turns his chair to face me. “Do you really think I’m not getting my work done.”
Jeremy is one of the smartest people I know. He’s brilliant with computers, and he could probably get a job anywhere, making a huge amount of money. But he was dating a girl when he graduated college who lived in Milford, so he took a job here instead. His salary is better than mine—a lot better—but it’s not anywhere close to what he could be earning anywhere. He broke up with that girl a year and a half after he moved here, but he doesn’t seem inclined to find something better.
“I’m sure you’re getting your work done. You could probably get three different people’s work done.”
The corners of his mouth turn up. He’s got a square face with full cheeks so he had a baby face when he was younger. He keeps his hair short, and he wears khakis and a camp shirt almost every day. His frame is big, but he doesn’t like to exercise so his belly isn’t entirely flat. He might not be George-Franks level of hot, but I’ve always thought he’s adorable. “Maybe two people’s jobs,” he drawls.
I’m leaning against the edge of his desk with one of the chocolate cookies in my hand. Remembering I haven’t taken a bite yet, I do so.
His eyes are running up and down my body the way George’s did earlier. It’s not surprising that he’s looking at me. Why wouldn’t he? I look at him too. But the look in his eyes prompts a flicker of something inside me.
Something.
It makes me immediately uncomfortable, and I’m not used to feeling that way around Jeremy. I frown. “What are you peering at?”
“Something happened,” he says, his thick e
yebrows pulling together. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on. What are you talking about?”
“You look...” He shakes his head. “What happened?”
I know exactly what he’s talking about. He somehow seems my excitement about my date with George Frank. But that something I saw—I felt—when he was looking at me makes me feel weird about it.
I’m going to tell him about the date. I tell him everything.
But for some reason I don’t want to tell him right now.
I curl up my lip in a faint snarl. “They foisted the Secret Santa thing on me. So that happened.”
As expected, this distracts him from his probing. “Why did you get stuck with it? That’s not your job.”
“I know that. But they took it away from Cindy, and someone has to do it.”
He shakes his head. “You need to work on not being so likeable. That’s your problem.”
“Likeable? How is being likeable a problem?”
“It’s a problem because if everyone likes you then you’re always going to get jobs like this dumped on you.”
“Not everyone likes me.”
He lets an eyeroll be his answer to that.
“Okay, most people like me, but that’s because I exert myself to be nice to them. That’s something you could use some practice at.”
“You think I’m not nice to you?”
“You’re very nice to me. But you act all grumpy and aloof with other people.” I reach over and squeeze his knee. “They don’t know you like I do, so they think you mean it.”
“I do mean it.”
“No, you don’t. You try to act like a grizzly, but you’re actually a teddy bear.”
His narrows his eyes.
I giggle at his disapproval. “You are a teddy bear. You’re my teddy bear.” With a wave of affection, I reach over to give him a hug.
I’m standing and he’s sitting, so it’s not exactly ideal hug-conditions. I lean over to wrap my arms around him—a gesture he immediately reciprocates—but the positioning is awkward. I lose my balance and start falling forward toward him, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. But his chair is on wheels, and it rolls.
I squeal as we both get pushed backward until the chair connects with the bookshelf against the wall. I end up in a sprawl on Jeremy’s lap, my face buried in his shirt.
He smells like laundry and coffee. He’s warm and big and familiar. His arms are surprisingly strong as they grab hold of me. I try to straight up and end up with my face a few inches from him.
I see the dark stubble on his skin. The thick fringe of his dark eyelashes. I’ve always seen him in my mind with the baby face he had in high school, but I’m suddenly aware of his cheekbones. The square cut of his jaw line.
One of his hands is spanning the curve of my ribs, and the other one is holding me at the hip. The touch is intimate. A lot more physically intimate than Jeremy and I ever get.
I flush hot and fight against a surge of pleasure, excitement. My female parts have all clamped down around my sudden awareness of his body.
His hand on my thigh moves slightly, and it feels almost like a caress.
A feel another clench of interest.
This won’t do. It won’t do at all. I’m not going to let it happen.
I climb off his lap and straighten up, trying to hide my self-consciousness with a casual laugh. “Well, that didn’t work too well. I was trying to give you a hug.”
“I know what you were trying to do.”
Something in his voice sounds off, so I shoot him a quick look. His cheeks have reddened, and he looks stiff. He must be embarrassed too.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. I’m naturally a straight-forward person, and I’ve always been honest with Jeremy. “I’ll try not to give you any more ill-advised hugs so we don’t end up in a weird tangle like that again.”
“You can hug me any time you want.” He meets my eyes. “Weird or not. Please don’t stop.”
I nod, dropping my gaze. “Okay.” I swallow, trying to move us past this. “You still coming over tonight?”
“Yeah, if you want me to.”
“I do. I need help setting up my new TV. And I can cook you dinner as a thank-you.”
“I’m not going to say no to that.” He’s smiling as he turns back to his computer. He’s still flushed, but otherwise normal.
“See you then.” I start to leave and give him one last backward glance.
Instead of my cute, familiar friend, I’m seeing the broad line of his shoulders, the sexy stubble on his jaw, the hands that have suddenly becoming bigger and stronger than they should be.
I shake the thought away.
That’s not going to happen. I’m not going to mess up the best relationship in my life because I’ve not dated in a few months and am feeling frisky.
I’ve got the date with George Franks on Saturday. That’s more than enough to satisfy those particular inclinations.
Jeremy needs to stay who he’s always been.
YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE about Secret Santa here.
About Noelle Adams
NOELLE HANDWROTE HER first romance novel in a spiral-bound notebook when she was twelve, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. She has lived in eight different states and currently resides in Virginia, where she writes full time, reads any book she can get her hands on, and offers tribute to a very spoiled cocker spaniel.
She loves travel, art, history, and ice cream. After spending far too many years of her life in graduate school, she has decided to reorient her priorities and focus on writing contemporary romances. For more information, please check out her website: noelle-adams.com.