Brutal Game (Flynn and Laurel #2)(17)

She frowned, stumbling over a question she’d never thought to ask him in all their months together. “Do you want children? Like, theoretically. Not even with me, specifically, just in general. Do you want kids?”

“I think so.”

She craned her neck to meet his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Probably. I’m kinda on the fence, always have been. Some days kids seem great, like they’d make life have a bigger purpose or whatever. Other days it sounds like hell and I can’t figure out why anyone would want any. I think if I didn’t have any, I’d always wonder if I was missing out, always wonder if I woulda been a decent dad. But I don’t think I’d regret it, necessarily. What about you? You want kids?”

“I think maybe. I mean, my gut says I would like one, in ten years or something, but then you do the math and ten years from now my eggs’ll be all dried up and dusty.”

She felt him laugh, a silent shimmy of his chest at her back.

“But imagining having a baby five years from now?” she said. “I know I’d be thirty-five and that’s already kinda pushing it, but that sounds so soon. Fuck, I dunno. Maybe I’d feel different if I was using my degree. Or was married. Or basically did any of this shit in the right order.”

“Sure.”

“Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and the answer will be so obvious…”

“Maybe.”

“But probably not.”

He gave her a hug and the sweet, clumsy weight of his chin came to rest on the crown of her head.

“Tell me what to do,” she murmured.

“Nope.”

“I feel so alone in this.”

“Your body, your choice.”

She rolled her eyes, sighed her annoyance.

“Still think feminism’s not complicated?”

“Shut up, Flynn.”

He laughed.

“‘My body, my choice’—that’s about the right to have an abortion, not about women being the ones who have to make the decision for a couple.”

“This little clump of tissue or whatever it looks like—if you decided to turn it into a baby—is going to have a bigger impact on your life than mine. It’d derail your career for the next couple years at least. It’d force you to figure out how serious you are about me, and probably sooner than you planned to.”

“Sure.” She hadn’t thought of that. She was stupid in love with Flynn, but that wasn’t the same as being ready to marry him. They made each other happy, here in these early months of new attraction and sexual exploration, but that couldn’t compare to living with someone for two or three years. She wanted to know how they’d be when the honeymoon lust mellowed to something more companionable. More than that, she wanted to be able to enjoy that shift, with only the relationship at stake.

But my body seems ready. And there’s no other man I’d want to leap into the terrifying unknown with. Plus Flynn really would be a great father. No doubt strict and a little controlling, but fierce and loving, too.

Fuck, she had no clue. But having him at her back, literally in this moment and in whatever decision she decided was best for her, she felt strong, if still uncertain. He was the only one she could imagine being this lost with.

She turned in his arms, draping her legs over his thigh and putting her hand to his jaw. It was Sunday night and he was as stubbly as he ever got, and she admired the rough bristle of it, of this tiny little taste of letting go from a man who gripped the reins of his life so tightly.

“What?” he asked, voice so soft the movie all but swallowed it.

“Just admiring you.”

“Thought you were annoyed with me.”

She smiled. “Never for long. Thank you, Flynn. For being so calm about this. I know a lot of guys would be losing their minds.”

“Who says I’m not?”

She studied his eyes, shook her head. “Nope, no freak-outs hiding in there.”

“Maybe not any freak-outs. But my brain’s goin’ a mile a minute.”

She looked to his chest, traced the little triangle hem at the center of his thermal’s collar. “We got thwarted this morning.”

“We did.”

“You want to pick up where we left off?”

He laughed. “You want to f*ck?”

“I think so, yeah.”

He moved, above her in a blink, cupped hand guiding her head to a pillow.

“Well,” he said, and kissed her softly, “I hope you feel like getting f*cked for six hours, because I can’t remember the last time I was this distracted.”

She laughed. “Maybe five and a half.”

Flynn slapped the laptop shut and moved it aside, and they shed their clothes between deepening kisses.

Laurel searched for signs that it was different this time. It didn’t feel heavy or angsty. It didn’t feel monumental, but it didn’t feel like usual, either. There was something delicate—no, not delicate. Vulnerable. There was something vulnerable in the way they touched and the way he watched as she slicked herself with lube. Something even akin to fascination, his eyes narrowed as though he were seeing her in some new and remarkable light.

Or maybe that was just hormones.

“Ready?” he asked.

She nodded.