“You’re still shaking,” he murmured against the crook of her neck. He was no longer sure if it was because she was chilled from the rain. Just in case she still had any doubts, he desperately needed to put them to rest. “Don’t you know I’d do anything for you? Don’t you know that I’ll always put you first?”

“I love you so much,” she said in a raw voice that shook just as much as her body still was, even as their lovemaking heated up more and more with every stroke of his body inside her. “More than I ever knew it was possible to love.”

And as they took each other over the edge of pleasure that was both sweet and sinful, Ford knew it was finally time to ask her to be his.

Forever.

* * *

Ford was stroking his hands over her back and Mia was trying to get her synapses to start firing logically again when he said, “The first time I saw you here in the tower, I wanted to ask you to marry me.”

Drawing back from the crook of his neck where she’d been resting her head, Mia watched Ford reach beside them to pull a little blue box out from beneath a cushion.

Oh God, he couldn’t do this now. He couldn’t ask her to marry him when she’d finally accepted just how much she loved him...and that loving him meant setting him free. She opened her mouth to try to stop him before her heart broke any more than it already had, but the sheer force of emotion in his dark eyes stole her words away.

“I look around this house, I walk through this city, and you’re everywhere. You haven’t just made music matter again for me, you’ve made everything matter.” When he opened his hand, there was a ring in it with a large sparkling yellow diamond in the center. “Marry me, Mia, and make me the happiest man on the planet.”

She hadn’t cried over him since that night in Miami, when she’d believed nothing they’d felt for each other was real. Now that she knew just how real their love was, her tears finally fell again.

“You can’t stay in Seattle.”

He stared at her as if he couldn’t have heard her correctly. But disbelief quickly gave way to confusion. “Everything I want is here, Mia. Especially you.”

“That’s not true.” When she saw the hurt rise up in his eyes, she went down on her knees before him and took his face in her hands. “I know you love me and you want to be with me. But you also belong on stage, Ford. Not just at an occasional fundraiser, but playing stadiums in front of hundreds of thousands of people.”

“Maybe I needed that before, but I’m not a kid dreaming of glory anymore.”

“You keep talking about glory, but when you’re on stage, it’s so much more than that. When you sing to people, magic happens, Ford. You make people happy. You inspire them. You touch their hearts and their souls with what you do and who you are. I know my brothers weren’t exactly acting like your biggest fans last night at my parents’ house, but you should have heard the way they talk about your shows. And it’s not just because you’re so talented and your songs are so great. It’s because you are so happy and inspired up there that there’s no way it can’t rub off on absolutely everyone in the audience.”

He covered her hands with his, closing his eyes as he moved his face so that she was stroking his stubble-covered cheeks. She could feel the ring between them, the ring that she wanted so badly to let him slide onto her finger.

But she could never forgive herself for stealing him away from the place where he truly belonged.

“I love being on stage,” he finally said when he opened his eyes again so that she could see everything he was feeling. “I would never lie to you and say that I didn’t. But I want to be here for you. I wasn’t willing to give up the road before, didn’t even consider it, though I expected you to give up your life for me. But I need you to know how much I love you, Mia, enough to give up absolutely everything for you, without regret, without ever looking back.”

“Oh, Ford.” She leaned her forehead against his. “I used to think love was all about the grand gesture, red roses, and sunset serenades. But now I know love is wanting you to be everything you’re meant to be and never wanting you to push away a part of yourself for any reason. Not even for me. I don’t need you to run through a burning building for me or to write me a love song to know that your love is real. All I need is for you to tell me what you really want.”

“You, Mia. I just told you, you’re what I really want. Why won’t you believe me?”

It should have been exactly what she wanted to hear, but just as she had with Colbie and Brooke in the bar, she knew in her heart when one of her best friends was simply telling her what they thought she wanted to hear rather than the truth. She would never want her girlfriends to feel that they had to hold back what was in their hearts because they were worried about how she’d react...and she wouldn’t let the man she loved do it, either.

“Of course I believe that you want me, just as much as I want you. But I can handle hearing the rest of it, Ford, hearing what else it is you really want. We’re best friends, remember? And that’s what friends do—they talk to each other and say things they really mean, even if they think it might hurt the other person to hear them.”

He hesitated for a long moment before saying, “I won’t lose you again.”

She knew where his fear of losing her came from. When his parents had wanted him to be someone he wasn’t, and he couldn’t do it, they’d turned their backs on him forever. Obviously, it was what he thought she was going to do to him now.

A lightning bolt jumped in the sky just then, and Mia felt as if it had struck her. Because what if loving Ford didn’t mean setting him free?

What if loving Ford meant never, ever letting him go?

She put her arms back around him and hugged him tightly, the sweet press of their still-connected bodies as sensual as it was comforting. “No matter what you say you want, you’re not going to lose me. I love you just the way you are. You don’t ever need to change for me because you think I won’t love you if you’re not following my rules for how life is supposed to go.” She pressed a kiss to his lips. “Now tell me what you really want, and no matter what it is, I promise I’m not going to go storming off or take my love away.”

“You,” he said again. “I want you.” But then he finally pulled out of her arms. As he stood to pace the tower, the blanket pulled away from his body so that he was gloriously naked as he finally admitted, “I want music.” It sounded as if the words were being wrenched straight from his gut. He took a deep breath. “I want family.” Finally, he turned back to face her. “Everything. I want everything, Mia.”