“Okay.”
“That’s all you can say?” she huffs.
“It’s a woman’s prerogative?”
She tucks her knees to her chin, and rubs the tattooed stars on her wrist. She had Creech add three. One each for me, Parker, and Carson. Then she had Creech turn Sharon’s name on my back into barbed wire.
She’s nervous about somethin’. I want to go to her, drag her into my lap, kiss her ‘til she remembers there’s nothin’ she can’t tell me. She ain’t alone in life anymore. I got her back. In everything.
But I wait. I think I know where she’s goin’, but I remain calm. She has surprised me before. Often.
Finally, she sighs. “I want to have a baby. Your baby. Dumbass.”
My heart leaps in my chest.
“But not right this minute. I got to get used to the idea. I’m gonna stay on the pill until at least this prescription runs out.”
“Okay.” A grin splits my face.
“And there’s things I want to do first.”
“All right.”
“And we got to make sure Parker and Carson are okay with it.”
“They will be.” Both boys have asked me when we’re gonna have a baby. They’re outgrowing their stuff, but they’re attached to it, so instead of donating it to the Goodwill, they want to pack it away “for when you and Fay-Lee have a kid.”
“I don’t want stretch marks.”
“I’ll love your stretch marks.”
“We should probably get married first.”
“I’ve asked you a dozen times,” I point out. “Bought you that ring.”
“Rings don’t mean anything. And it’s just a piece of paper.”
“We can go to the courthouse. Don’t need to be a big deal. If you’re worried about family bein’ there, you know Steel Bones are your people now.”
She gets maudlin every once in a while after she’s had a glass of wine. She’ll call one of her sisters, and they’ll go on about themselves, won’t let Fay-Lee get a word in edgewise, and then they ask for money. She ends up cryin’ in the bathroom with the door shut.
“I’ll think about it,” she concedes. “I don’t want to be a boring married mom. I still want to do kinky stuff. In bed.”
She crawls over to where I’m sitting and tucks herself under my arm.
“I’ll fuck you however you want.”
“You’re an infuriatingly simple and easy-to-please man.” She’s smiling now, too. I push down my pants to past my knees and scoop her up into my lap. She squirms until she’s straddling me, arms wrapped around my neck. Her pussy’s hot and wet against my belly. My cock is nestled in her ass crack.
I kiss her. She tastes like ginger ale. “Want me to show you how I’m gonna put a baby in your belly? When you’re ready?”
“Yeah,” she pants, guiding my cock through her legs so she can rock her wet slit up and down the shaft. I take her mouth, twine my tongue with hers, breathe in all her smells and sounds.
Before this woman, I was gettin' by. Making do.
Now, I’m livin’. She’s given me everything. And as I slide home, burying myself to the hilt in her heat, I swear in my heart, as I have every day I wake up beside her—I will give this woman the world.
My woman. I caught her. She’s mine.
* * *
