Lace and Sin (Sinners Series Book 1) (21 page)

Epilogue

Kayla

If you were to tell me a little over a year ago, that
I would be one of those girls who go weak at the knees for a guy, I would have
laughed in your face.

Yet here I am, breathless and completely turned on by
a gorgeous Carter, in a dress shirt and pants. With his standard black chucks
of course, he’s standing by a beautiful gun metal grey ZR1. The car has a big
red bow on it, and he’s standing there with a handful of red roses.

I run down the steps, slipping on the ice momentarily,
and finally reaching him with a smirk on my face.

“You’re really taking this whole hearts and flowers
thing to heart aren’t you” I lean up and give him a quick kiss. He doesn’t find
that sufficient enough because he grabs the back of my neck and pulls me
against him, our lips crashing against each other as he slides his tongue into
my mouth hungrily.

I automatically moan against his lips at the sudden
desire running through me, and I feel him grinning against my lips.

“Gets you every time, Kay” he chuckles.

I pull back, momentarily breathless while he hands me
the roses, “these smell amazing Carter, thanks.”

He turns to the car and pulls off the bow, then turns
around to me and jiggles a set of car keys on one of his fingers.

“You didn’t steal it did you?” I smirk.

“No” he grins, “Just get in the car babe.”

I do as he asks and slide into the passenger seat,
because he’s already said he’s driving. I don’t know what we’re doing but
apparently it’s all a surprise. God, he knows how much I hate surprises. It’s
officially our anniversary today, and he said he was going to take me out, not
that he doesn’t spoil me almost every other night anyway.

I couldn’t be happier with him, everything is just so
perfect. Considering how much I was against having a relationship or how much I
hated the thought of romance and love, I fell so fast and so hard for Carter.

“Are you nervous?” he asks as he turns to me with a
soft smile.

“I don’t know…should I be? You remember I hate
surprises, right?”

He chuckles softly and keeps his eyes on the road. I
love how he manages to slip his fingers between mine every chance he gets, when
he’s not changing gears or steering with both hands. After several minutes I
find us pulling into the Monroe tower, the same one that was Mikhalov’s, but in
the end we found Carter’s dad had left it all to him.

He auctioned off Mikhalov’s part of the business, and
gave the proceeds to numerous charities that meant something to either of us. A
portion of it went to adoption agencies, to community workers who help the
trouble makers, just like him and Jimmy. And he even gave a bit to Liz, only
because she was kind of like family, and a share to Jimmy too for all his
troubles. He wouldn’t accept it at first, so we started slipping it in with his
earnings from the night at the bar.

He also managed to return all the stolen cars to their
rightful owners, even though most of them were rich enough to replace them
already anyway.

I find myself grinning the whole time when he takes me
up the elevator and up onto the roof. We did this on our first official date.
We had laid under the stars, where we first officially unloaded all about our
pasts to each other.

We do the same again tonight, laying under the
moonlight and curling up against each other, his fingers running through my
hair gently.

“I love you Kayla, you know that, right?” he says.

“I do Carter” I giggle, because I’ll never get sick of
hearing him say that, “I love you too.”

We spend a bit of time up on the roof making out like
teenagers again, until we head off, I’m guessing to the ice rink just like last
time.

We drive silently, holding hands again, my grin
getting wider the closer we get to the ice rink.

We walk down the streets after we park, his arm
wrapped around me nice and tight, but I can feel his heart beating a million
miles a minute which has me intrigued.

Again, we’re the only two people on the ice because
it’s well after midnight, laughing like idiots as we slide around and try to
keep ourselves upright. After a while he slides his way over to me, and puts both
his hands against my face, kissing me softly.

“Kayla…I like you” he says nervously, just like I did
stupidly on our first date.

I laugh before I say, “Yeah…how much?”

“A lot. I can’t even find the right words to tell you
just how much I fucking love you, darlin.”

He starts to get down on one knee, and I realise what
he’s doing. Oh. My. God. He takes my hands between his and holds them tightly,
keeping them warm as he continues talking.

“Kayla, you managed to make me want to do better, be a
better person for you even though you didn’t need me to do that. You were so
adamant to not have the hearts and flowers, or any of this love stuff, but I
fell so hard for you, Kay. I wanted you from the beginning, before we met in
that tiny little office I saw you and knew that one day, I’d be able to call
you mine, to get the chance to make you smile.”

He reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out a
beautiful diamond ring. He grins at me with that gorgeous little half smile
that I love so much, dimple popping out on his cheek as he slips the ring onto
my finger. He kisses my hand softly and looks up at me once more.

“I love you so goddamn much, Kayla. I want to spend
the rest of my life proving to you how much I mean that. Will you marry me?”

He eyes me momentarily waiting for my answer, before I
grin and practically throw myself at him, kissing him a thousand times as I say
– “Yes, yes, a million times yes, Carter.”

We kiss on the freezing cold ice until we’re out of
breath and shivering. I roll off him and we lay there, again looking up at the
stars and bright moon.

“Fuck I love you babe” he says with a grin.

“I love you too, Carter” I say as I roll against his
side and cuddle into him for warmth.

Don’t let the bad things in life pave your future.
Don’t let the negatives create hatred in you, because you could miss out on
this. Carter pushed his way in, no matter how much I told him I didn’t want any
of this. In the end, this was exactly what I needed. Someone to work through
all the chaos with me, someone to love me so goddamn much that they’d do
anything necessary to be with me.

Everyone deserves something to fight for, but make
sure you fight for the right things. Love, is definitely something to fight
for, something to look forward to. Everyone deserves that kind of blinding,
all-consuming love. Just like Romeo and Juliet. Just like Carter and me.