He didn’t need to tell me to pay attention; I was hypnotized. “I’m not that much shorter than you in real life, am I?”
“Shh,” Corbin said, laughing. “I feel something crucial is about to happen.”
“Oh, Corbin, you’re so sexy,” my avatar was saying. “You’re so sexy! If I can’t have you, I’m going to become a nun.”
“Ridiculous dialogue,” I said. I couldn’t stop shaking my head, and I was grinning so hard that my cheeks ached.
“I won,” Corbin’s avatar said. “But I only have one question for you.” He slid onto his knees. The camera zoomed in, capturing those brilliant eyes. “Will you marry me?”
The scene froze. An empty dialogue box popped up.
Corbin stood slowly and stared down at me. The warmth of his body wrapped around mine. He smelled like home.
“Audrey,” he said. “Baby. Love of my life. I only have one question for you, but it’s important.”
“Oh my god,” I said, furiously blinking away tears.
Corbin gracefully lowered himself onto one knee. His electric blue-green eyes seemed to shine.
“The first time I saw you in that tacky greeting card store, I wanted you. Because you’re gorgeous, and you’re my type, and I’m a man. When I found you in the middle of the road, I thought it was a sign that there might be hope for me after all my sins.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. My jaw was quivering, I realized, and my lips, too.
Corbin caught my other hand in his. “That weekend, you cursed me out. You challenged me, you sparred with me. I was intrigued by you, and I knew you were special. These last few months have shown me just how special you really are, but I know I’ve only scratched the surface. I know I don’t deserve you, but I love you, Audrey Stroop, and I need you, and until my last breath, I’ll do everything humanly possible to make you happy.”
He reached under a sofa cushion and pulled out a velvety black box.
“Audrey. Baby.” His gaze held mine, but not in his intimidating, dominant way. He was a man, asking a woman for something he wanted.
I couldn’t believe it. Any second now and I’d wake up—
“Please do me the supreme honor of becoming my wife.”
Silence descended on the room, but I couldn’t react.
Corbin raised an eyebrow, then smiled, and I felt I might drown in the fathomless depths of him. “That needs to be a question, I know. Will you marry me?”
I still couldn’t talk. I couldn’t even focus; my eyes were flooding with tears. I swallowed hard, then swallowed again, willing myself not to completely freak out and ruin this moment.
“Yes,” I said, my voice trembling.
Corbin’s smile illuminated his face, and he was so perfect that I blinked away the tears, not wanting to miss even a millisecond of this.
He snapped the box open. Inside was the sparkliest ring I’d ever seen, a square diamond bordered by smaller diamonds. Even the platinum band was encrusted with gemstones. It was completely over the top… and I loved it. If he hadn’t been holding my hand steady, I probably would have been shaking too hard for him to get it onto my finger. The fit was perfect.
His fingers laced through mine as he stood. Looking deeply into my eyes, he said, “Thank you.”
The sincerity of his gratitude was enough to kill me. His mouth crashed onto mine. He was greedy, hungry. I felt like all the atoms of my body had melted, flowed around him and reformed with Corbin as part of me. Or maybe I was part of him. I pressed up against him, needing him to be inside me.
He broke off our kiss. “Not yet,” he said. “We didn’t finish the game.”
A question was now waiting on the screen. Did you say yes?
I picked up a controller and clicked the yes button.
Confetti exploded across the screen, and the cutscene ended.
“There isn’t more,” Corbin said, grabbing his controller. “Sorry. But we still have to grab the invisibility medallion from a trunk on the second floor or we’ll have to do without it for the rest of the game. They wouldn’t program around that.” His avatar dashed up the steps.
Red dots were appearing on my map. More zombie cannibals. I raised my guns—
My avatar was now wearing a ring.
Grinning, I checked my ammo, ran to a window and began shooting.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How did you do this?”
“I called in a few favors. Believe it or not, video game design is well outside my skill set. I wanted to hire someone, but because of piracy concerns, the game company insisted on assigning a small, trusted team of their own designers to help me substitute the bonus scene. The original is scuba diving for hidden treasure guarded by men who turn into sharks.”
“Sharks?” I shuddered. “They scare me. I’m glad I missed it.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “It wasn’t a bad bonus round. Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks. The team is based in Japan, hence all the late nights. I had to be on their schedule. Those noises you heard—the panting, the pleading—that’s from the original bonus scene.”
Embarrassment made my face and throat burn hot. “Oh, god. I’m such an idiot.”
“Hey. Don’t blame yourself. I was behaving oddly. I know that. In the original, the female character ran out of air, then the sharks circled in while she begged. The developers didn’t swap out the audio until almost the final version, and I kept triggering it. You thought it was porn.”
“No!”
Corbin laughed.
“You know, my faith in you never wavered.”
At least Corbin was gracious enough to smile. “No more secrets,” he said.
The bonus round ended, and Corbin saved the game.
He grabbed my hand, and I looked down at the ring. It was humongous. I wouldn’t be able to wear it to work. Not unless I wanted to get mugged.
“Audrey, I didn’t want to lie to you, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, either. If I could have hired my own team or worked on it while you were gone, I would have.”
“But I unwrapped the game myself. How…” Then it hit me. “The beer. You swapped the game out while I was in the garage?”
“No. It was a patch, but the game system didn’t want to cooperate. That’s what I was doing on the phone, but you were too fast in the bathroom.”
I locked my hands behind his neck and pulled myself onto my toes. “So you cheated. The game was rigged to let you win.”
He winced. “I cheated, but the same way as the weekend we met. I played the game through a few times.”
“A few times?”
“Enough times to make sure I could win the bet.”
I kissed him. “That sounds like a ton of work.”
“You should have seen the look on your face,” he said. His voice dropped to a throaty growl as he added, “We do need to do something to help rebuild your trust in me.”
“I trust you!” I insisted.
He picked me up, holding me over his shoulder.
I squealed. The ring on my finger flashed. “Don’t go upstairs.” All the blood in my body rushed into my head, and I tasted beer.
“You should know by now that while I’m willing to entertain all reasonable requests, I don’t respond well to demands.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. What I meant was that I would really appreciate it, as your future wife”—I paused a second to hear the unfamiliar words I’d just spoken—“As your future wife, I humbly request—”
“My future wife. I like the sound of that. And I’ve decided that my first official act as your future husband is to put you across my knee and spank you for plotting to break into my office.”
“How did you know?”
Corbin swatted my ass, and I wiggled, then grew still; I didn’t want to make him drop me.
“How did I know about your devious scheme? I hope that’s a joke, because if not, you really underestimate me, little girl.”
“Obviously Benedict Rob told you. And I’m not a little girl.”
“Wrong thing to say.” Corbin headed for the steps.