Page 134 of Iron Roses

He’s still hard.

His cock stands flushed and swollen, slick with my release, the head glistening, the shaft thick with need. He’s panting, chest rising, muscles trembling, but he hasn’t come.

I lick my palm—never breaking eye contact. Then I reach down and wrap my hand around his length. His eyes flutter closed immediately, hips twitching. I stroke him, watching the way his jaw clenches, the way his breath stutters with every pass of my fist.

His cock pulses in my hand, heavy and desperate.

I straddle him. Line him up.

And with one roll of my hips, I sink down onto his cock, sliding him back into the heat of me.

We both moan this time—together.

And I start to move.

****

My shoulder rests against his chest, skin still flushed where his mouth had moved. The air smells like the two of us—faint traces of the lavender soap he always keeps in the bathroom drawer. One window’s cracked open. The breeze moves gently across the back of my neck.

Cassian kisses the curve of my shoulder. Then again, slower.

His fingers trace small, absent shapes against my hip. I can hear his heart. It hasn’t slowed entirely.

He shifts beside me and reaches for the side table.

I think he’s going for water.

Instead, he returns with a small, black box.

He holds it in his palm, Then he opens it.

Inside is a ring. A diamond ring.

His voice is quiet when he speaks.

“Would you marry me, Elaria?”

I don’t answer right away—not because I hesitate, but because I feel her before I see her.

Giovanna appears on the edge of the table, perched like a memory made flesh. Her dress moves in a breeze that doesn’t touch the room.

She leans forward slightly, lips parted in a whisper that carries like wind in the trees.

“Say yes. Say yes. Say yes.”

I smile. My hand finds Cassian’s, steadying the box between us.

“Yes.”

He exhales, he slides the ring into my finger and he kisses my finger.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.

“I love you,” he says.

And I answer the only way I know how.

“I love you too.”

Beside the table, Giovanna fades with a smile. She doesn’t vanish all at once—she lingers at the edge of the moment, soft and proud.

And then she’s gone. But not gone.

Never really.