Page 91 of Playing With Danger

I rolled up, tagged her around the middle, and pulled her back down. This time pulling her over my chest, with her cheek resting on my pec. She did the rest and curled into me.

This was where she was meant to be.

Her place.

“Though the neck was just a graze. And as you can see, I’m fine. So, what about my back?”

“We’re not done talking about you getting shot,” she groused. “But I meant my nail marks on your back. You said you liked the pain. You got off on it. Is that because you want to punish yourself?”

I tried. Seriously I did. I even locked my body tight so it wouldn’t happen. But I lost the battle and shook with silent laughter.

“Are you laughing at me?”

Fuck.

I sobered immediately.

“No, baby, I’m not laughing at you. I get why you asked that, but no, I’m not trying to punish myself and using your nails as the tool to deliver it. Straight up, Sophie, it’s about you. Only you. Not ever before did I get off on some chick tearing me up. It’s about you losing control, being lost to the moment, me feeling that loss of your control in a visceral way. The kind of pain that heightens all your other senses. That’s yours and only yours.”

I felt her thighs squeeze together and shift restlessly.

“You okay, Soph?” I teased.

“Peachy.”

“You need me to take care of that for you?”

“Do you need to ask?”

Normally, no.

“Right now, yeah, I need to ask. Before I take more of your body I need to know where you’re at and I need you to know where I’m at.”

“And where are you?”

It was time to buck up and lay myself out.

I rolled her to her back, came up on an elbow, and leaned in. Unseeing but still feeling her attention on me I gave her what she needed.

“I’m in deep. I’m falling in love with you and that scares the fuck out of me, but I’m not letting you go and I’m not running. We’re in this. Together. Me and you fighting to keep what we got strong.”

“You don’t want kids.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a question or a statement. What I did know was my heartrate kicked up a few notches.

“I also didn’t want a woman or a wife. Yet here I am with a woman, falling in love, hoping she doesn’t wise up before I can get my ring on her finger. Do you want kids?”

“I used to. But I’m thirty-seven. I might’ve missed my chance.”

She sounded pained and full of regret. She wanted kids.

“It’s not too late. When the time comes we’ll make beautiful babies.”

“That’s awfully presumptuous of you to think I’ll be popping out mini-Valentines,” she huffed.

I dropped my head and laughed. There she was, my Sophie, giving me shit.

Thank fuck.

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