Taking her glass from her, I placed it and my own on the ledge and pulled her into my arms. “The ball hasn’t even dropped yet, and this is already my favorite New Year’s Eve that I have ever experienced.”

I cupped the side of her face with one hand, my thumb skimming over her full bottom lip. Fuck, it was so soft. I now knew how good her mouth tasted, and all I wanted was to drink from it all day long.

“I want this every day, not just tonight,” I breathed against her ear. “I want to see you smile, hear you laugh, and know that I’m the reason. And then I want to fall asleep with you in my arms and wake up to do it all again the next day and the next and the next. I know I’m not the first man to say that, Nova. I know I’m not the only guy in the world who feels this way about the woman he loves. But not a single damn one of them comes close to meaning it like I do.”

Her hands went under my coat and jacket, wrapping around me. “I know you love me. You don’t have to prove that to me over and over again. All I need is you. Not all of this.” She glanced around the rooftop, then over the side of the building at the hundreds of thousands of people below us. “Every smile, every laugh, those are always because of you. Not the things you buy me, but you, Ryan. We could have been sitting back at your apartment, eating ice cream straight from the container in our pajamas, watching all of this on TV, and I would have been just as happy as I am right now. Because you would be beside me. You would be the one holding me.”

A lump filled my throat, and I pulled the box from my pocket before I forgot about it. Offering it to her, I tried to get my tongue to work so I could speak. “This is your birthday present.”

Eyes wide, she pulled her arms from around me and accepted the long box. “Ryan, I just told you—”

“I know.” I tucked a few locks of hair behind her ear that the wind kept playing with. I was so fucked over this girl, I was even jealous of the wind touching her. “You might not need the things I can buy you, but I like giving them to you. I enjoy seeing you wear the things I choose for you. I don’t just want to see you in them, Nova. I need it. To mark you, to show the world that you are mine.”

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip for a moment before she released the tortured flesh and opened the long, velvet-covered box. When I’d bought her birthday present, I had no idea Elias planned on giving her a necklace as well.

The two overlapping Russian rings were platinum and engraved with RYAN’S HEART in a bold, all-cap font so no one could mistake what they said.