Brutal Game (5 page)

“Not completely. It’s not easy growing up with a single parent. Or with two parents, if one of them isn’t up for it. I think you’d do a great job, don’t get me wrong, but I also think you’d do a better job if you were ready.”

“Mm.”

“You count, Laurel. What’s best for you matters. I know your own mom didn’t do much to drive that home, but it’s true.”

She felt emotion rush and rise at that, something breaking free in her chest, making her eyes sting. “How would you feel if I ended it? Disappointed or relieved?”

“I dunno. Maybe I’ll find out, and maybe I won’t.”

She sighed, exasperated and exhausted.

“I won’t tell you what you should do,” he said sternly. “I’ll do everything I can to help you figure it out—we can talk about it ’til we’re hoarse. But I dunno what I want any more than you do. I only know what I’d do if you decided to keep it, which is stick around.”

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 fuck?”

“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 fucked 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.

He sank deep, slowly. No cramps met the intrusion and she stroked his neck and his hair, sighed her pleasure. He dropped low, resting his forehead against hers and merely holding there for a time, that wild body tame and patient. She let her hands wander his chest and ribs to settle on his hips, and she tugged.

He gave her his cock in smooth, steady strokes, silent at first, until a soft shudder of a moan filled the air between them. She shivered, melting, pussy welcoming him deep.

As he found a pace she studied his face, the tendons in his neck, the shapes of his chest and arms, a rush of startling clarity making it feel as though they were standing in the broad light of day.
This is a man who would absolutely defend and protect my child.
The truth of that thought struck her in a deep, visceral place, vibrating on a wholly animal wavelength.

She changed beneath him, hands gripping him tight, thighs hugging his hips, urging him to go faster, deeper, to make it rougher. Not so much as a twinge this time.

“Feel okay?” he whispered.

“I need you.”

“You get me.”

“Harder.”

“How hard?”

“Ninety percent.” They spoke of his capacity for harshness in percentages sometimes, a hundred equaling the way he got when they role-played. Tonight she wanted his strength and aggression, but no playacting. Brash possession, and a chance to wallow in it as his lover, not his victim.

He pressed hard into her, forcing her legs wide and making her feel the obscene weight of his body. Something lit up inside her, feeling his power. She hadn’t had a chance to wonder how the pregnancy might change his attraction to her, if he’d still be comfortable being this way, being rough. She’d hate to feel as though she couldn’t be what he needed, couldn’t grant his darkest wishes. It deepened that ravenous sensation inside her, curled her fingers into claws against his skin and had her breath coming in gruff gasps.

She raked her nails up and down his back. “You feel so good.”

“You like me deep?”

“Yeah.”

“Need it faster? Slower?”

“Faster.”

He gave her that, their bodies meeting with sharp smacks. “Touch yourself.”

“Not yet. I want to go crazy first.” A couple times she’d come from nothing more than the fucking, but nearly always she needed her clit touched. Until then, the thrust of his cock was an exquisite tease and she lost herself in the friction, the slide and thrust, the impact of his hips. More even than the physical stimulation, his voice was setting her on fire. His exhalations were rhythmic grunts, soon lengthening to moans.

“Fuck me,” she whispered, mouth right at his ear.

“Take my cock, girl.”

Girl.
Not honey, now. He was slipping deeper into his kink, and she welcomed the shift.

“Get on top,” he ordered.

He moved to sit and she straddled him, feeling his guiding fist as her sex sought his cock then claimed it, deep.

“Yeah. Ride me.”

She sat up and leaned back, adjusting until she had the right angle. She took him smooth and slow, feeling magnetic with those blue eyes watching every undulation. All that wildness she objectified in him, it was coursing through her now. She felt powerful and ferocious, owning this man, and as not a single drop of wine had been drunk, she couldn’t blame her brazenness on alcohol. This was something even stronger, something mammalian and ancient and hot as sin.

He looked hypnotized, lost in the spell her body was casting. Her excitement mounted, gathering deep and low against the slick friction. She’d only come a couple of times this way, without touching her clit, and it had turned her inside-out.

“Lay back.”

He did and she dropped to her palms, seeking the right pressure, chasing that hot, angry hum in her cunt. Her eyes roamed his skin, the faint sheen of sweat on his clenched abdomen, the knitting of muscle between his pecs and along his ribs. All at once her hips were driving, this sex feeling like an out-of-body experience.

His gaze was electric, nailed between them. “Yeah, use that dick. Fuck me.”

She buried her face against his neck. “You feel so good.”

“Love the way you fuck me, honey.”

Honey.
So close. “Say my name.”

“Laurel.”

Pleasure burst open inside her. “Yeah.”

“You gonna come on me?”

She nodded, eyes squeezed shut, lips pressed to his throat. She tried to say yes, to say his name back, to say anything, but all that came was a mewling, frightened yelp of a moan, as all at once she was bearing down on release.

“Yeah, come on my dick. Use me, Laurel.”

She did. He was everything—a hard cock, a gorgeous body, the man who shocked and comforted and irked and supported her, all of it feeling so starkly plain, sweet and bestial, at once a Valentine and pornography. The pleasure spiked, leveled, spiked, leveled, and she chased the orgasm so hard she thought her hips might seize up, but then—

“Oh God. Oh God.”

“Come on, honey. Do it.”

She already was. A shrieking, shuddering possession of a climax, like the kind she got through her clit, only tripled. Time slipped away as she rode the sensations—more a bucking bronco than a soothing ocean tide—and she didn’t know what she said, what he said in return. She was aware only of their bodies and, in time, the feel of his arm in her grip, and the sight of his skin beneath her raking nails. She pulled her hand back, half expecting blood. But no, merely marks.

“Jesus.”

He smiled, looking so amused and so patient, sprawled beneath her. “Good?”

“Crazy.”

“Glad to hear it. Turn over.”

She did, legs like noodles. He pushed inside, gruff, one hand on her hip and the other splayed across her lower back. In seconds flat it was rough again, so right and essential. With every thrust he tugged her hard to him, feeling ten feet tall behind her, unspeakably strong. She wanted more of him, more of every fucking thing about this man.

She arched her back. “Hold my hair.”

He gathered it in a fist.

“Yeah.”

“You need another?”

“I won’t be greedy.”

“Bullshit. You take what you want.”
If men could have multiple orgasms,
he’d said once,
sex would take a fucking week.

“Touch me, then,” she said. Unwilling to give up that cruel hand in her hair, she rose up on her knees. She held her breath, waiting until she felt those rough fingertips on her clit, the contact like a whip crack.

“Light,” she panted. “Light, to start.”

“Love when you get bossy,” he teased, hips punishing.

He gave her exactly what she needed—the barest whisper of friction at first, then a little quicker, a little more pressure as her nerves recovered. She got lost in the feel of his body owning hers—his hard belly against her ass, the filthy, exquisite intrusion of his cock. Got lost in the mean tug of his grip in her hair and the deft caresses of his fingers on her clit.

She came hard and deep, groaning. His fingers kept on stroking, cock still pounding, and just when she thought the sensation was going to rip her apart, another climax tore through her. She came down from it reeling and sweating and shaking, feeling high. Feeling crazed. She dropped to her hands and knees, muscles spent.

“Now,” he murmured, sounding full of himself, “it’s my turn.”

Those cruel hands claimed her hips, holding her in place as he took his pleasure. She craned her neck for a glimpse of his face. She wanted to drown in that expression, so determined and haughty but desperate behind it all.

This sex felt different. She hadn’t been in her head the way she usually was. Hadn’t needed any tangible thoughts to spur her pleasure, hadn’t wasted a second on insecurities. She’d been a thousand percent locked in her body and connected to his. Possibly the most primal sex of her life.

And why wouldn’t it be?
Fraught as their situation was, the biological fact of his would-be child inside her coursed like a drug, like the madness of ovulation times ten.

Behind her, he was coming undone. His thrusts raced and their rhythm faltered; she felt his hands trembling on her hips.

“Fuck, honey.” One palm left her, only to come down on her ass, making her jump and gasp. The spot flared hot and then he was rubbing at it, easing the sting. He pushed her down with his weight and Laurel lay flat on her belly with one cheek on the covers, brought her legs tight together when his knees urged her to. He braced his forearms beside her shoulders, his frantic body spilling heat and sound, feeling like the entire world.