Her skin burned. He rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip, and his voice was a husky seduction. “I think about you walking around that way, talking to people, going about your business, and you and I are the only ones who know that I’m there inside you.”

She burst into flames.

“And I finally understand the whole unbelievable beauty of two people being one because that’s the way I want it to be, the two of us one.”

His eyes had begun to glisten with tears. Her own spilled over her bottom lids and trickled down her cheeks.

His voice grew fierce and raw. “You’ll never ever find a man who’ll love you as much as I do, who’ll protect you better than you’ve ever been protected—even from yourself—and who’ll be right at your side while you become the best person you can be. Because I know that’s what you’re making me, the best man I can be.”

A hiccup rattled her chest.

“And I don’t give a damn about living with all the red, white, and blue star-spangled baggage you’re carrying around. In fact, I love it because it’s made you what you are—the best woman I’ve ever known, and the only woman I’ll ever love.”

He finally stopped and simply gazed at her. It was as if all the words had run out of him, leaving raw emotion in their place.

She touched his face with the tips of her fingers, traced the moist tracks down the hard, handsome planes of his cheekbones, and absorbed the absolute rightness of everything he’d said. Yes. This was what she’d dreamed of but never believed she’d have.

When she managed to speak, she could think of only one thing to say. “Could you please repeat all that?”

He let out a ragged bellow of a laugh, pulled her into his arms, and made love with her just the way he’d imagined.

Epilogue

Epilogue

NEALY HAD NEVER looked more beautiful to Mat than she did that January day as she stood in front of the United States Capitol with the sun glinting in her hair. One end of the red, white, and blue scarf draped around the collar of her wool coat caught the wind and fluttered behind her, giving the cameras another great shot.