Brutal Game (3 page)

“Not too sore?”

She shook her head and tousled his short hair. “Nope. I feel sturdy.” Physically and emotionally. She felt that way more and more, since meeting this man. Crazy how dabbling in such dark fantasies seemed to purge some unseen, unnamed weight from her subconscious. Or perhaps that was just the ease that came from feeling safe in a relationship, accepted and supported. And lusted for.

“Hang on—brush your teeth,” she commanded, and gave his bare butt a good smack when he climbed over her to comply. She watched his body as he crossed the room, all that winter-pale skin and improbable muscle. Way more man than she’d ever imagined she wanted, and so much so that if this affair ended, replacing him would be no less than impossible. No chance
two
men built like that would be fool enough to fall for her in one lifetime. Her karma wasn’t bad but it wasn’t spotless, either.

He emerged from the bathroom in all his naked glory, eyebrow raised pointedly.

“What?”

“No note on the mirror?”

“I’m not that creative this early in the morning.” Or that disinhibited without a drink or two. “Can we just do plain old fucking?”

“Always.” He all but pounced on her, the covers shoved aside and hands seeking skin—hers warm, his cold. She yelped and laughed and squirmed and they kissed until the ice in his touch melted away.

“How do you want me?” he asked, a low and familiar growl in his voice.

“On top.” She couldn’t always get off first thing in the morning, but she’d stand the best chance if she got to watch that body working above her, that gorgeous, mean face staring her down and her right hand free to assist.

He moved his legs between hers. “You need lube?”

“Probably.”

He snatched the bottle off the shelf, and if his fingers were cool, the gel was
frigid
.

“Ah, fuck.”

“Don’t think about it,” he breathed, easing two thick fingers inside her. “Think about this.”

Indeed. Or think about what those fingers promised but could never approximate. She looked between them, to the half-hard cock between his thighs. She closed her fist around him. If her hand was cold, he didn’t show it. His eyes shut and his head dropped back, and his groan made her feel like the one on top, the one with all the power. He added a third finger, driving inside her to the rhythm of her strokes. In a minute flat she was all but panting for him.

“I’m ready.”

“I’m not,” he murmured, eyes on his hands, plundering her sex.

She squeezed his stiff length. “Liar.”

“Don’t rush me.”

“Tick-tock, Flynn.”

He knocked her hand aside with something approaching a snarl and fisted himself, angled his crown to her lips. He sank deep, not too fast, but not slow enough. A twinge tensed her and she stilled him with a squeeze of his arm.

“Slow. Just to start.”

“Sure.”

He was different when they weren’t role-playing, but in some ways much the same. He was always intense, whether he was issuing orders or holding her down or propped above her in the sunshine, smiling. Just now he was caught somewhere between tender and impatient, his cock easing in slowly even as his eyes shone with need.

“Better?”

“Yeah. I’m good.” She squirted lube onto her fingertips and he sped up. She watched his body in the silvery morning light, marveling that this room had ever seemed cold.

“Fuck, you feel good.” He close his eyes, hips beginning to rush.

“Ooh.” Another cramp jabbed her, the shock of it stealing her breath.

He stopped. “Too rough?”

“Too deep, I think… I’ll get there. Just give me a minute.”

Always the picture of control, he kept his thrusts shallow. Laurel got lost in her own pleasure, in the glorious view, in the sounds of his soft grunts and the smell of his skin and—

“Oh!” A cramp to put the first two to shame.

He slowed. “Okay?”

Her legs seized up, stilling his hips. “Hang on.”

He paused, cock seated deep and pulsing sharply, like a wild creature feigning patience.

“It hurt?”

“I’m crampy. Really crampy. Ow, ow ow ow.” She squeezed her eyes shut as her body twinged around him.

He eased out. “Better?”

She released a breath and nodded. “Yeah, thanks. Jeez, that was new. Felt like you were jabbing me right in the cervix.”

“Sexy.”

“You’re huge, but still, that was weird.”

“Is it because of how rough it got last night?”

“No, probably just some Pill side effect. Like maybe my period’s decided to turn up after all.”

His brow furrowed and he moved to sit beside her. “Turn up? You mean it’s late?” That stern expression froze her solid for a beat, but wait, no. Silly. No need to panic.

“Periods don’t really come late when you’re on the Pill,” she said. “They come or they don’t. My first cycle, I skipped it entirely. Another time it only lasted a day. That’s pretty common. But I do feel PMS-y.” The horniness was unusual for that time of the month, but she’d also had an achy back and a general feeling of off-ness the past couple days, of spacy distraction.

“I’d have to google it,” she said. “Maybe your period can come late if your body’s still getting used to the hormones…” The more she spoke, the deeper the barbs of doubt pricked.

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“It’s really, really unlikely that I could be…” She didn’t even want to say the word aloud. “Though I guess I could pick up a test after work, just to put our minds at ease.”

“Maybe.”

Weird. She’d never taken a pregnancy test before, never had any reason to.

What if I was?
she wanted to ask.
Pregnant.

She had less than a speck of a clue what answer she’d hope to hear from him.

A baby was simply not an option at this point in her life. The only thing about it that made sense was that this man should be the father.

“It’s
really
unlikely.” She said it to soothe herself as much as Flynn. “I haven’t missed a single pill.” She kept them in her purse, paranoid about forgetting them some night when she was crashing at Flynn’s. Took them each evening at the same time she flossed her teeth, using each chore as a cue to keep her from skipping the other.

“Up to you,” he said.

“I’ll see how I feel after work. Speaking of which, let’s get you taken care of. Clock’s ticking.”

Though his cock was still hard, he smiled and shook his head. “Not half as fun if I can’t get you off. You want my mouth?”

“No, my brain’s kinda hijacked, now. Thanks, though. But seriously, we can do you. I don’t mind.”

“You’re sleepin’ over tonight, right? I’ll save it up.”

“Oh good, I’ll be in for the mauling of a lifetime.”

He grinned. “You know it.”

“Right. Let me hop in the shower and we’ll get this show on the road.”

“You want coffee?”

“I’d
love
coffee, thank you.”

Flynn didn’t drink caffeine but he’d bought a coffeemaker just for her. A steaming mug was waiting when she emerged from the shower, dressed, a towel turbanned around her head. Flynn owned a hairdryer too, and she sometimes wondered who he’d bought that for originally, since he certainly didn’t use it. She liked to tell herself it was for shrink-wrapping the windows come winter or some other such manly, practical purpose, but it was nearly March and the view of the neighboring brick was as crisp as always.

Whatever. Every lover he’s had has made him the man he is today. I ought to be sending out thank-yous.

The man himself was nowhere in sight, which meant he was either chatting with his sister three floors down or doing something with his car. It always felt intimate and strange to be in this apartment without him. Like she was snooping, even though she never had. If she wanted to, it wouldn’t take long; he was the most minimalist person she’d ever encountered. If she moved in here, her possessions would make this lofty space feel instantly cluttered. And far more like home.

She turned at the sound of the key in the lock and smiled. He’d probably been gone for all of ten minutes, but the overprotectiveness charmed her. It was a novelty to someone who’d grown up with a mother as detached and careless as Laurel’s.

He was wearing a knit cap and his canvas jacket, cheeks burned pink. “Fuckin’ freezing out there.”

“Hard to believe it’ll be spring in a few weeks. You warming the car up?”

“No, checking on Heather’s.” Heather was his sister. “She said it wouldn’t start and it looks like she’s right.”

“Bummer. Hell of a week to get stuck waiting for a bus. Can you fix it?”

“Probably not, unless it just needs a jump or something. If not, I’ll get it towed for her and give the mechanic the stink-eye so they don’t try and overcharge her.”

Laurel smiled. “There should be a name for the opposite of feminine wiles. They get the same results.”

“How’s the coffee?”

“Delicious.”

“The key,” he said, crouching to slide a massive phone book from the bottom of his bookshelf, “is to put in way more grounds than you’re supposed to.”

“Or stop buying Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. It’s so watery, no wonder you need twice as much.”

He glowered, eyes on the pages he was flipping. “You take that blaspheming mouth out of New England, woman.”

“I’m from Providence—I get to say it’s awful.”

He set the Yellow Pages on the counter. Flynn was the only person Laurel knew who actually kept a phone book in the house. It was one of the many reasons she loved him. He owned a computer but barely used it, even though she’d insisted he finally get internet so they could stream movies.

“Almost ready?” he asked, eyeing the Auto Garage listings.

“Just let me chug this and dry my hair, and I’ll be good to go.”

“I’ll warm the car up. Meet me down there.”

“Will do. Five minutes.”

He left Laurel be with her coffee, and the second the door shut her head filled up with way too many questions. Was she actually queasy, or was that her imagination? Or was she just queasy with uncertainty? Either way, the coffee wouldn’t help. Neither would spending her shift trying to decide whether or not to pick up a pregnancy test.

“It’s really unlikely,” she told the coffeemaker.

You’ve said that three times,
the red light seemed to reply. She switched it off.

“Like, really unlikely,” she said, making it four. And she’d keep on saying that until she believed it.

S
unday wasn’t much
of a day of rest. Flynn dropped Laurel off at her work, back just in time to drive his sister and niece to church. By early afternoon he had Heather’s car entrusted to a neighborhood garage, and after a grocery run, he headed off for his near-daily workout.

The gym was the same venue where he fought each weekend, a shady little concrete-and-cinder-block outfit in the basement of a shitty bar. On Sundays it was usually just him and the younger guys, everybody else doing the family thing.

The family thing.
Sprawled on a weight bench, he stared up at the ceiling, at the bald fluorescent bulbs staring right back. Though neither of them had spoken of the question of a pregnancy test since Laurel had disappeared for her shower, he hadn’t quit thinking about it for a second.

Flynn’s mental baseline was a sort of anxious thrumming, not unlike the buzzing of the light above him—an ever-present hum that never let up, aside from when he was fighting or fucking. It was the reason he didn’t drink coffee, which only made him more of a punchy motherfucker than he already was. Alcohol turned him into a mopey dick, and he wasn’t about to go back to smoking a pack a day after kicking the habit once. He supposed a marijuana scrip wouldn’t be so hard to snag, but that stinky-ass shit was for hippies and burnouts. That eliminated the most popular chemical crutches. Physical release was all he had left, and so here he was every day he wasn’t in the ring, punishing his body until his brain could finally shut the fuck up.

The pregnancy question… It didn’t scare him, not the way it might another man. It was out of his hands. Whatever might ultimately come was Laurel’s decision. It was the simple not knowing that was gnawing at him.

It’d change everything.
No fucking doubt. His life was predictable in ways he found both reassuring and monotonous, and a baby would throw it all into chaos. That wasn’t to say he couldn’t handle it, but it would be a far more welcome challenge a few years down the road.

Laurel, though. She had potential. He might make decent money working construction, but it was nothing like what she could pull in if she managed to land an engineering job. A
career.
That was what she needed to be worried about, right now. Plus there was her mental health. She’d gone through a long blue patch over the holidays, and at his urging got prescribed an antidepressant she could take on an as-needed basis. It seemed to be helping a lot. Would she have to give that up, if she took on a pregnancy?

He dropped the weights he’d been using onto the rack with twin clangs, swore under his breath. He needed to chill the fuck out. He eyed the handful of guys on the benches and at the heavy bags, sizing them up. All kids or newbies, nobody fit to spar with. Not the way he needed to fight right now. He went through the rest of his routine, seeking solace and not finding any. Jesus, uncertainty was the motherfucking worst.

Desperate for distraction, he went back to the grocery store, bought the ingredients for the only thing he knew how to cook that tasted any good—casserole. He cooked noodles and slices of sausage and mixed them up with marinara sauce and covered it with mozzarella and foil and stuck it in the oven just in time to leave to pick up Laurel. If she hadn’t bought a test or gotten her period, they’d make a stop at Rite Aid.

He was just shrugging into his jacket when a familiar sound stilled him—a knock and the scrabble of a key in the lock.

Laurel appeared, smiling, snowflakes melting in her hair. Then that smile drooped, her eyes taking in his coat and hat. “Were you about to come get me?”

“Yeah.”

“I left you a message, like, four hours ago. My coworker lives around the corner—she gave me a lift.”

“Oh.”

“You really need to check your phone.”

“I don’t think I can even get text messages.”

She smirked. “You can, you just refuse to learn how. And I left you a voicemail, anyhow. I know you.”

“Oops.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m here now. Saved you the trip.” She shed her coat and hung it up, then stepped close, rising on tiptoes to pull the cap from his head.

He kissed her temple. “How was work?”

“Exhausting. Like, really exhausting.”

He didn’t doubt it—she looked wiped, eyes dull and cheeks pink. Though now he thought about it, it wasn’t that windy today.

“I’m making dinner.”

She perked up some at that. “Are you? Let me guess—Italian casserole.”

“You guess right.”

“Well, good. I like your one recipe. I brought leftovers, but it’s only dessert, so that’s perfect.”

“You don’t look so hot,” he said.

“Thanks very much.”

“Can I get you something?”

“I dunno…” She unwound the scarf from her neck. “When’s dinner?”

“An hour.”

“I just want to lie down, I think. I’m all hot and woozy. I hope I don’t have the flu.”

How selfish is it that I hope maybe you do?
If it was between that or being pregnant, he knew which one he felt prepared for. “Go lie down, then. I’ll wake you up when it’s ready.”

Only he didn’t. Laurel curled up on his bed and passed out, and he didn’t wake her when the timer dinged. He took the foil off the dish and let the cheese brown, then turned the oven on low. Heather had lent him a book, some novel about broke-ass college guys in the Northwest doing rowing back in the World War II days or something. He stretched out beside Laurel on the bed and stared at the first page and kept on staring, didn’t take in more than six words while he waited for her to wake.

At long last, a
hmm,
a yawn. A dozy groan and she turned onto her side, eyes blinking open to find him there.

“Dinner smells good. Is it ready?”

“It is.”

“What time is it?”

He looked to the microwave. “Ten twenty-one.”

“Whoa. What?”

“You were beat.”

She sat up. “Jesus. I napped for three hours?”

“Hungry?”

She looked down at her stomach as though conferring. “Very.”

“Good. Me too.”

Beyond hungry, in Flynn’s case. He’d only eaten a fistful of cheese and a few slices of sausage since before his workout. His gut was packed with butterflies, but they weren’t particularly filling.

Laurel moved to the couch and he loaded a couple bowls with dried-out casserole. He made it a whole minute before the clinking of forks drove him to blurt, “You buy a pregnancy test?”

Pausing mid-chew, she studied him with still-sleepy eyes. She swallowed. “No, I didn’t.”

“Not to sound paranoid, but when’d you get your period last?”

She frowned, thinking. “Oh—it was New Year’s morning. I remember I had a champagne hangover and that showed up on top of it.”

“That was almost two months ago.”

“I know, but like I said, sometimes they don’t come at all on the Pill, or just a mini one.”

That didn’t do much to slow his pulse. “Maybe I should go out and get one now. Just so we can rule it out.”

She nibbled her lip.

“Just ask me to. I don’t mind.”
And I’m fucking dying inside.
No news was
not
good news. Whoever’d come up with that saying was so full of shit.

“It’s after ten. And it’s snowing.”

“Someplace’ll be open. Star Market.”

“What, in Dorchester?”

“Wouldn’t you sleep better?” He would. He might sleep at all, in fact. “Seriously, it’s no big deal. I’ll get you some Nyquil while I’m at it, in case it’s the flu. I’ll go right now.”

“Maybe…”

“I’m going,” he announced, setting his bowl on the coffee table and reaching for one of his boots. “And I’ll grab tampons, in case it’s just PMS. And Kettle Chips.”

She smiled, seeming to surrender. “You know, there’s something surpassingly manly about a guy who’ll pick tampons up for you without batting an eye.”

“Your pussy doesn’t scare me, honey.”

“No, I daresay it doesn’t. I could come—”

“Nope, you couldn’t. Eat up. Stay warm. Back soon.”

She smiled and shook her head, watching him lace his boots and pull on a hat, something simultaneously soft and fierce about her expression. Or maybe that was a fever brewing.

Twenty minutes later, Flynn was unloading his basket onto the checkout conveyer belt. The young clerk passed his purchases stoically across the scanner—tampons, Nyquil, potato chips, pregnancy test, plus a bottle of red wine. It wasn’t until he handed over the plastic bag that the kid showed any sign of life, saying flatly, “Party time.”

Flynn was tempted to meet the snark with a verbal backhand, but he didn’t have it in him just now. Instead he muttered, “You know it,” and headed for the door.

Pregnant. Pregnant.
The word had grown larger and larger over the course of the drive, thundering now, echoing and huge. He let it tumble around his skull as he started the trip back home, windshield wipers batting harmless fluffy flakes aside.

What if she
was
pregnant? He’d been preoccupied with the thought all day, but it changed now, with the test in his possession. With an actual answer at hand.

Plus that’s not really the question, is it?

The real question for Flynn was, what would she want to do about it if she was?

It wasn’t his decision, but if she asked what
he
wanted her to do… Shit, be honest? Or refuse to say so she wouldn’t feel pressured? But refusing to say, was that supporting her choice or was that forcing her to make it completely on her own? He thought he knew what he’d want her to do, but it felt so goddamn delicate, the question of whether or not to say.

She might not be pregnant. Probably isn’t.
Some cramps and hot flashes could be anything, and feeling exhausted after waitressing all day was to be expected. The female body was like a car with no manual, a mystery designed to confound and bewitch the simple male brain. A man was lucky to get invited to dick around under the hood and go for a spin, but fuck if any of them knew how to service the thing.

He pulled up behind his building, yellow streetlight making the steadily fattening snowflakes glow like gold. The plastic bag felt monumental in his grip, as though he were lugging a bomb, not a couple pounds of snacks and feminine hygiene products.

Not a bomb,
he corrected.
A pregnancy was scary and profound and life-altering, but that was a metaphor too far. Still, his hand was shaking unmistakably as he unlocked the door.

“Honey, I’m home. Got you booze and chips and a stick for peeing on. You on the rag yet?”

A laugh answered that crass greeting, loosening his chest, if only by a fraction. “No, I am not.”

He flipped the deadbolt, rummaged in the bag and pitched the box toward the bed where she was lounging. “Best pee on a stick then, woman.”

She’d changed into her pajamas—or rather, her pajama bottoms and one of his tee shirts. Why was that so fucking sexy? Though he was grateful to register any reaction apart from anxiety, he set the thought aside.
Answers first, then depravity. We can fuck to celebrate, if it’s negative.

Laurel knelt and picked up the box, studying it. She opened it while Flynn peeled off his layers.

“Thanks for doing this.” She unfolded the instructions. “Going out in that.”

“It was nothing. Go pee on a stick,” he repeated.

“The snow’s picking up,” she said, still reading.

“Go pee on a stick.”

She met his eyes, smiled dryly. “I guess I’ll go pee on a stick, then.”

“What a good idea. How long does it take to get the answer?”

She scanned the paper. “Three minutes. Wow, that sounds really fast and like forever at the same time.”

Well put. “There’s chips and wine, while you wait.”

She smiled. “Classy. If it comes back a plus sign I better spit the booze out, huh?”

There was a joke in there, but he barely heard it, caught too completely on
plus sign.
Plus sign. How could one shape—two fucking little perpendicular lines—possibly be so powerful?

Then he thought of the cross, that symbol that had dominated his childhood and bullied his psyche, and somehow it made perfect sense.

Fuck you, lines.

At least these lines would bring answers. The other kind had done nothing but torment and confuse and contradict.

Right. Now, to survive the longest three minutes of his entire life.