Page 61 of The Merger
“That’s a pretty big detail to leave up to chance,” I scoffed.
“Let me put it this way. I want everything with you. If you weren’t in the picture, no, I wouldn’t want kids. With you, I couldn’t think of anything more amazing than holding our little girl and spoiling her rotten.”
I groaned. “I don’t know if I can figure out what that means. Deciding to have kids can be make or break for couples.”
He tapped the end of my nose. “I want you to be happy. I’m not the one who has to be pregnant. If you don’t want kids, then we don’t have to have them.”
“What if I didn’t? How could you be happy to let me decide something so big on my own?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Easy, because the only thing in this world I’m convinced I would be unhappy without is you. I’ve already endured five years knowing you exist but that I wasn’t even a memory for you. I don’t ever want to do that again.”
“So I could go get my tubes tied and you’d be okay with just me for the rest of our lives?” I pushed.
“I mean, I’d probably want a dog eventually,” Stryker joked.
“I’m not sure how I feel about this. You have to have a preference.”
He took a deep breath. “If you’re asking me if I would love to see you carry my child someday, the answer is hell yes. I’m going to warn you now that if you do, I will annoy the fuck out of you. I’ll probably wrap you in bubble wrap and insist on carrying you everywhere. Would I like to hold a person in my arms that was half you and half me? Absolutely. But, do I want kids so badly that if you don’t I’ll eventually leave? No. The only person I’d want that with is you.”
I think I ovulated right there on the spot. “Are you real?” I asked without thinking.
“How so?” he asked.
“You say all the perfect things. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and have you reveal something disgusting, something I can’t live with, but then you just get better. You walk into my life looking like my fantasy book boyfriends, fuck like what I imagine a rockstar would, and practically speak in sonnets.”
A woman behind us gasped and put her hands over the ears of a younger girl. My face heated and I winced. Stryker laughed a deep belly laugh and threw his arm around my shoulders. “Sorry, my wife has no filter.”
Of course, she blushed when his deep growly voice rolled over the word wife. She dropped her hands. “I was a newlywed once myself. It can be hard to adjust sometimes.” Her eyes traveled up and down Stryker before she turned and winked at me. “I say, have lots of kids, sweetie. It’ll sure be fun getting them.”
This time it was the younger girl throwing her own hands over her ears. “Gross grandma!”
The woman laughed. “How do you think your daddy came into this world?”
Stryker laughed again, and I resigned myself to the eternal embarrassment I would always feel. Once the ladies were out of earshot he bent down and whispered in my ear. “So I fuck like a rockstar, huh? Wanna go home and practice?”
Oh boy, did I. “We can shop later.”
“Good girl,” he whispered and nipped at my ear.
This time I didn’t try and hide my reaction. I groaned and hurried us out of the market.
* * *
We barely made it inside the door of the apartment before he lifted me up and pressed me against the wall. I expected his kiss to be desperate and full of longing like the other times. We always crashed together as we fought for dominance. Instead, he held me tight. The same need vibrated through his body into mine, but he didn’t rush to take me.
Gently his lips pressed against mine. Every move of his mouth against mine said that he had all the time in the world and he planned to use it to worship me. My fingers threaded through his hair, and I let myself get lost in him.
Stryker pushed off the wall but didn’t set me down. He carried me through the apartment and entered our room. Only once we were inside did he lay me down on the bed. He looked down at me, and without thinking I let my fingers trace the sharp lines of his jaw.
When I got close to his lips he turned his face and nipped at my fingers. “I’m trying to be sweet, but I can’t if you touch me. Just let me.”
My hand fell to the bed and he resumed kissing me. It was slow, teasing, and full of emotion. I thought the hunger between us was hot, but this set my soul on fire. Emotions I wasn’t ready to put a name to percolated inside of me.
Stryker took his time peeling away the layers of my clothes. Every new part of me exposed was treated to his focused attention. The fire inside of me started climbing higher and higher. I was desperate to feel him plunge into me, but he was nowhere near ready to end my torment.
When his eyes found mine I felt my breath catch in my chest. He was close to saying the words I longed for and dreaded simultaneously. Part of me couldn’t believe I’d married this man on a whim five years ago. It was reckless and completely out of character. I needed time to know all the variables and convince myself we could beat the odds that so many people couldn’t.
Yet, here we were. It didn’t matter that my mind and body were still at war. I was married to this man. Now I needed to be brave enough to let him in.