by Monroe, Max
If that isn’t the biggest, most romantic, Cap-style kind of profession of love, I don’t know what is.
The Captain and his Ruby. Goddamn. He’s good.
And mine. He’s definitely mine.
I snuggle deeper into his arms as the people around us talk and laugh. There are so many unfamiliar faces, yet not a single one is unfriendly. Cap’s friends are a riot, and the ladies they’ve chosen to share their lives with—the ladies from the elevator I once felt oddly displaced from—are nothing short of amazing.
There are six couples—Kline and Georgie, Thatch and Cassie, Wes and Winnie, Quince and Emory, Milo and Maybe, and Trent and Greer—and one single guy named Harrison, along with Kevin and Julie, who seem to be having no trouble fitting right in. All but one guy from the book club is here, as he’s apparently away getting one of his nightclubs up and running.
Lifestyles of the rich and famous, am I right?
“This is just like Hope Floats,” Thatcher Kelly, one of the biggest human beings I’ve ever come into contact with, says as he sways his strikingly attractive, cleavage-bearing wife in front of him.
She scoffs and yanks from his arms to turn around and give him the evil eye. “This isn’t like Hope Floats at all, T-bag. You’re just going through a Sandra Bullock phase.”
“It is like Hope Floats,” he argues immediately, his back going straighter. “Ruby was all closed off before, just like Sandra. Cap’s a mediocre Harry Connick Jr., but the basic themes are there.”
“Ruby wasn’t closed off per se,” Julie jumps in, trying valiantly to defend me. I feel the corners of my lips turn up into a smile as Kevin snickers.
Cassie shakes her head as the group breaks out in smiles, and Cap’s lips run from my neck up to my ear in an exhilarating jog to whisper, “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby.” He sighs. “I love you.” My heart jumps in my chest, and I wrap his arms tighter around me.
I never imagined an embrace could feel this right—this complete.
“Where’s the little girl with the glasses, then, huh?” Cassie demands, winding up into a tirade, Julie’s comment ignored. Georgie pulls Julie to the side and whispers to her, and I think it’s in an effort to tell her not to take their self-absorption personally. They do this to everyone, I think I see her mouth as Cassie continues. “Ruby’s not a single mother going through a divorce from an asshat. She’s a badass lawyer-in-training. This is way more like Legally Blonde than Hope Floats.”
Thatch actually takes a step back from the group in affront. “Legally Blonde? You’re joking me, right? That movie is way more bouchie than our girl, Ruby. And Cap would have to seriously improve as a human to even come close to my boy Emmett.”
“What’s bouchie mean?” Cap whispers in my ear, just as the blonde I now know as Winnie asks the exact same question aloud to the group.
Everyone ignores her, though, too busy either arguing or observing the argument to answer, and she starts to panic. “Hello? Bouchie? Anyone? Woman with a teenage daughter here. Someone help me out.”
I smile. “I think it just means sort of high maintenance in a tacky-ish way.”
She breathes a sigh of relief and smacks Georgie on the shoulder. “Thank God. And thank God for Ruby since no one else is paying attention to me!”
Georgie rubs at her shoulder as Kline scoots her away subtly. Protecting his woman.
They are freaking adorable.
I stand up straight, which pulls my body slightly away from the heat of Cap’s, and he immediately sucks me back in with tightening arms. “My Ruby,” he says adorably, and I have to shake my head.
“You’re going to have to let me go at some point, you know,” I tell him quietly. “My bladder’s not made of steel, and eventually, with all of this champagne, I’m going to have to pee.”
“Me too,” he says cheekily, waggling his eyebrows. “We can do it together.”
I laugh out loud and shake my head. “No, no, we cannot. We’re not there yet, doll.”
He smiles at my use of his word and turns me around to face him. He slides his hands in at the sides of my jaw, all the way until his fingers are tangled in my hair, and he angles my head to kiss him.
His lips flirt with mine, tiny, light kisses that make my belly drop and flip over on itself.
He’s just getting to the good part—the serious contact and addition of his tongue—when a frazzled voice calls out from the door and makes us both pull back.
“Did I miss it?” Cap’s sister, Lena, asks breathlessly, and a whole band of people behind us breaks out in laughs.
Cap
“Aw, sweetheart,” Harrison says, stepping away from the group. “You missed it by a mile.”
Lena’s face falls, Harrison steps forward, and for the first time since Ruby agreed not to hate me forever, I step far enough away to lose the heat of her body.
But the separation is necessary if I don’t want to put her in the line of fire. “Step back, sister-chaser!” I shout, putting a hand to Harrison’s chest to keep him from coming any closer.
“Cap,” Ruby says behind me, a hint of surprise coloring her seriously sexy voice.
The band of misfits in the back just laughs.
I turn around to look Ruby in the eye, now that I’m considerate and loving like that. “It’s okay, doll. He’s a menace. I’m just doing a service to society.”
She shakes her head, and Lena steps around me deliberately. I can tell by the especially evil sparkle in her eye that she’s fucking with me on purpose.
“What did you say your name was?” she asks Harrison, and I roll my eyes at her attempt at flirting.
“His name is Harrison, and he knows not to fuck with you.”
“Cap!” Lena shrieks. “Why do you have to be such an ass?”
“Only way I know how to be, honey,” I say to her before turning around to my downright fucking gorgeous lady love. “Except with you, Rube.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “Life with you is going to be interesting, isn’t it?”
My chest constricts and my breathing stops at her mention of the bone-breakingly long commitment. We’re talking forever and ever here.
She notices my reaction to her comment and bites her lip as I walk over to her slowly.
“Ruby,” I say as she frets, worrying her lip into a deeper cherry color that makes me feel weak.
“Yes?”
“Hearing you say life that way…hearing you imply we’re going to be together forever… It makes me feel…”
“What? What does it make you feel?” she asks nervously.
“Fucking…incredible.”
Her face softens instantly, all the tension gone and replaced by a bright, heart-stopping smile. “I’m ready to live it all with you, Ruby. The happy, the sad, the good, and the bad.”
“You’re sure?” she asks. I smile.
“Oh, baby. Let’s get the hell out of here so I can prove it to you.”
Ruby
I’m on my back in the middle of Cap’s bed, and Cap is everywhere.
On top of me, inside me, mingling in the very air I can hardly catch a breath to breathe.
My toes are curled and my head is back, and the feel of his lips skating across my neck as he pushes inside me again is so goddamn good, I moan.
“Cap.”
He nods against my skin, flexing the tips of his fingers into the flesh at my sides and groaning. “You feel so fucking perfect, Ruby. We feel perfect together.”
I nod, because I sure as hell can’t do anything else as his cock grinds against my most sensitive spots both inside and out.
He is, without a doubt, the most skilled lover I’ve ever had. And according to him, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to get to keep him forever.
It seems unbelievably lucky, but dear God in heaven, if he keeps this up, I’m just going to be content to cherish it while it lasts.
I thought it would be harder to get into that headspace after the way he left things last time, but eve
rything about him is different this time around.
He’s attentive and direct, and every other word out of his mouth has been a promise to love me forever.
The Cap of old was a lot of things, but he was never about false promises. Even with everything else that’s changed, I have no reason to believe that to be any different now.
His breath feels warm on my neck as he grabs my hips and pulls them up to meet his with every stroke.
As much as I try, I can no longer keep my eyes open.
And that’s a real shame…because Cap’s naked body looks a whole hell of a lot better than the back of my eyelids.
I moan as he grunts territorially into my neck and nips at the skin there. My nerves tingle, my heart is racing, and a delicious burn zings through the bottom half of my body as my climax teases.
I’m so close, so fucking close to falling over the edge, when he stops.
And I open my eyes to look right into the caramel brown of a man who’s no longer a stranger at all.
It’s a stark reminder of how far we’ve come.
From libraries and proverbial orgasms, to bedrooms and the brink of real ones.
“Cap,” I say, and even to my own ears, my voice is almost offensively breathy. I am a shameless hussy in my time of need, and there’s no going back. “What are you doing?” I ask desperately.
His face is paved with emotion, tortured with whatever is on his mind.
“Cap?” I say again, but this time, it’s more about him and less about the orgasm.
“Marry me, Ruby,” he says suddenly, and I’m so goddamn shocked, my vagina spasms so hard, I go into immediate free fall.
My head falls back, my spine arches, and I’m riding a wave of euphoria never before experienced by humans—I’m sure of it.
Cap’s raspy, amused chuckle vibrates against me and through me and into the deepest parts of my body I never even knew existed. We are, in that moment, as physically and spiritually one as I imagine any two people can ever be.
When I finally flutter my eyes open, I’m not even sure whether the last thirty seconds of my life really happened or not.
“Marry me,” Cap says again without hesitation, but this time, he’s holding an obnoxiously huge, oval diamond on a white gold band in front of me.
“Cap,” I whisper, my voice shaky.
He nods. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life, and I’m certain about a whole hell of a lot of shit, Ruby. You’re everything I never knew I wanted and beyond. The thought of living one fucking day without you from this point forward is completely unimaginable, and I want every single person we come into contact with to know it. I want to be yours, forever—”
Tears pool in the corners of my eyes before spilling over one by one.
“Until the world stops turning and we as a civilization choke out everything good and sustaining on this planet.”
“Cap,” I snort through a wet laugh.
“I need this. I need to know I can count on an us. I need to know that I have something to fight for every goddamn day. I need to know that you know you’re the only thing in my life that’s irreplaceable, and I want you to know it now.”
The rationality in me, unfortunately, won’t let me have this without questioning it. “But, Cap. This is fast. Fast and so opposite from the life you’ve always known. What if…what if you change your mind?”
“I won’t.”
I roll my eyes. “Cap—”
“Ruby, I love you. I know I came at this from all the wrong angles, but I swear I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving just how good of a partner I can be. Because, you and me?”
I raise my eyebrows, and he doesn’t hesitate to continue.
“We’re like the stuff in every last one of your books. We’re meant to be.”
I shake my head as my brain fills with every single possibility of distrust and hurt…and then, in a sudden rush of clarity, I empty it.
I love him. I love him enough that none of the rest of that matters.
“Yes.”
“What was that?” Cap asks teasingly, curving a hand around his ear.
“Yes!” I say louder.
He shakes his head. “Is that all you got?”
“Yes!” I yell, and he scoffs.
Annoyed, I shove him back and follow him down, my body on top of his now. “Yes, yes, yes! Okay, you idiot? Yes, I’ll marry you!”
His smile is overwhelming as he laughs. “Now that’s the kind of finish my neighbors are used to.”
Cap
It’s only been a few months since I proposed to Ruby, but time feels like it’s going too fucking slow. I want her to be my wife—fucking yesterday.
This is the first time I can say my bastard friends were right. When you finally find the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with, you know, without a doubt, she’s the only thing that matters. Life before her suddenly doesn’t count, and life with her…well, you want it to start right now.
Thankfully, with the wedding plans in full swing, we’re smack-dab in the middle of the first official step toward Ruby saying I do—our engagement party.
My eyes find her across the room, and she looks like every dream I’ve never been lucky enough to have. Her hair is pulled half up at the top of her head, and wild, loose curls cascade down and around her shoulders.
A cream-colored sweater dips down and off a tanned shoulder, and the fabric of her dark denim jeans hugs her ass perfectly.
I smile to myself, thinking about how I had that bare ass in my hands just this morning as she laughs at something Kevin says. It’s weird, being okay with my woman having someone who undoubtedly wanted to fuck her at one time as her best friend, but I’ve been around him enough in the last couple months to know he’s a good guy.
In fact, he was rooting for my success behind the scenes all along. Who knew?
I’m just about to admire the thigh-high, brown suede boots my woman is wearing in a concerted effort to give me a raging boner when Ruby’s dad walks up next to me and stops.
I smile. When it comes to Mark Rockford, you really never know what might come out of his mouth, and I seriously love that about him.
“Well, son. I met your folks.” I nod. It is our engagement party, so some mingling of the parents was inevitable. Still, I can’t wait to hear how it went.
“And?”
“Jared’s good people. Maybe a little bit of a pushover, but I like him.” I laugh to myself at Mark’s candid description of my dad. He really doesn’t give a shit about being facetiously polite at all. “Your mom’s a real shrew, though. The wicked stepsister to my Connie.” Mark shakes his head. “It’s perfect.”
I jerk my head back at his unexpected assessment, and I laugh.
“Perfect?”
“Oh yeah. Connie’s so preoccupied with trying to decode Vicky that she’s forgotten to keep tabs on me and Ruby.” Speaking of my beautiful bride-to-be, she looks across the room, smiles, and gives me a little wave.
The corner of her mouth curls into her cheek, and her eyelashes flutter as she rolls her eyes at something her mom is saying across from her. I’m fucking done mingling. All I want is my woman.
“Sorry, Mark, but I’m—” I start to excuse myself.
He laughs and interrupts. “No worries, son. I can see the look on your face. It’s a lot like the one I had the night we made Ruby.”
I bark a laugh and slap him on the shoulder before stepping away and heading straight for my little red jewel.
I grab her by the hand and pull her away without saying anything to the women she’s now standing with. She balks but, seeing as I’m not letting go of her hand and it’s attached to her body, she comes with me anyway.
I pull us to the front of the large, inviting space. One of the caterers passes me a microphone, and Ruby shakes her head and rolls her pretty little eyes. Everyone else laughs.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” I say into the mic, and the crowd murmurs its
sentiments in return. I scan the faces to find almost everyone we love looking back at us, with the exception of my sister, Lena, now that she’s off to Milan, and my buddy Theo, who is busy globe-trotting in the name of opening new Cruz nightclubs across the world. “Ruby and I want to thank you all for coming out to celebrate our engagement. Truth is, I never thought I’d be a guy who said something like that, but it feels good.”
Ruby sways toward me and leans her head into my shoulder. I grin. I can’t help it. “Really good, actually.”
The women in the group collectively coo.
“We hope you’ll hang around for a while. Drink, eat, mingle. And when you’re done, don’t forget to take a favor.”
I glance to Ruby as she draws her eyebrows together, and the doors open behind me on cue.
Barks sound, and puppies yip as dozens of dogs from the local shelter fill the room. A titter starts up in the crowd, some of the women bending down to scratch little puppy ears while Vicky climbs up onto a chair, horrified.
I put the mic back to my mouth and look directly into Ruby’s beautiful blue eyes. “See, my girl here, she loves dogs. Loves them. So, she’s gonna pick one out, and we’re gonna take it home.” Ruby’s face melts, tears springing to her eyes and running down her cheeks immediately. A crying woman used to terrify me. But I can tell at this point in our relationship, these are the good kind of tears.
I wrap her in my arms and breathe her in for a minute, and when I release her, she runs out into the middle of the room and starts chasing dogs one by one.
I put the mic back to my mouth.
“And…the rest of you guys are going to take one home too.”
The women shriek in excitement, but the guys—my guys—they glare.
And all is right with the world. My Ruby is happy. The women love me. And the fellas—well, they just wish they’d thought of it first, obviously.
THE END
Another (unauthorized) Note from Caplin Hawkins:
Well, beautiful ladies...
I think it’s safe to say that my book is now your favorite book.