Tara Janzen - Loose And Easy

“I’ve got something for you,” he said, reaching behind him into one of the cargo pockets on his BDUs.

She lifted her head from his shoulder, curious as he rummaged around in the pocket until he found what he wanted.

It always looked so sappy when guys did this on some reality television show, and it always sounded so sappy when some guy was talking about doing it, and it looked sappy when some guy put his big moment up on YouTube.

But when a guy was doing it himself, it felt, and looked, and sounded so profound, so different from what a guy had imagined. For one thing, he’d never imagined he’d be proposing to a naked woman in a hot tub unless there had been quite a bit of tequila involved.

Go figure. Here he was, stone cold sober, and she was as beautifully naked as a woman could get, which in his book was pretty well summed up by the word “completely.”

He pulled the small jeweler’s box out of the pocket and showed it to her, and his mind went blank. Just like that. Completely blank.

No, he thought, no, this couldn’t be right. He’d had it all worked out. He’d sweated over it, practiced it, memorized it, just the right words. Something about… about love, and life, and forever-sure, something about all that, except better, with a part about how wonderful he thought she was, more wonderful than anything else, and a small part about kids, maybe? What had that part been like?

“Honey? You look confused,” she said, and when he shifted his attention back to her, she was grinning at him.

“I had this all planned out.” It had been so perfect. “But I can’t quite remember how it went.”

“You mean your proposal of marriage, where you tell me you can’t live without me, and we’ll work out all the logistics, because in your heart you know we’ll both be happier if we’re together, even if certain sacrifices have to be made? That part?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, grinning back at her. “That part, but there was more.”

“You mean the part about how much you love me, and that you can’t imagine finding what we have together with anyone else?”

“Yeah. That part,” he agreed, settling back against the hot tub and just enjoying the view. “You’re pretty smart, aren’t you.”

“Valedictorian of my senior class,” she admitted.

“Smart enough to say yes?” He opened the box, revealing a one-of-a-kind Nikki McKinney creation, a gold band with platinum inlaid wings and a diamond set in a swirl of sapphires.

“Too smart to say no,” she said softly, taking the ring out of the box and slipping it on her finger.

“I don’t think we should wait, no long engagement or anything like that. I think we should just get married.”

She glanced back up from the ring, a small smile on her face. “Sounds like you got that part right.”

“Yeah.” He figured he did, and he kissed her again.

She pressed herself against him, getting even closer, her mouth so hot and sweet on his, and he could instantly see where this was all going to go, with her legs straddling him, and him being so much in love with her.

“I’m glad we’re not going to be on YouTube,” he said after a while.

“Yeah, me, too.” She kissed him again, with his ring on her finger, and it was all so perfect, cold snowflakes coming down, hot steam going up, and Esme the Wonderful on top.

Pseudonym for Glenna McReynolds.

Tara Janzen is the author of the award-winning CRAZY and LOOSE series of romantic suspense novels about Steele Street, a team of Special Ops forces. Her books have appeared on the New York Times and the USA Today bestseller lists.

Tara lives in Colorado with her family.