He pulled his silk tie off and unfastened his cufflinks as he pursued her down the long hallway. By the time they’d played cat and mouse into their bedroom, he’d unfastened the buttons of his linen shirt and pulled the tails from his slacks. Dani turned around and slid the wetsuit from her body, revealing all her glorious skin. He was behind her in a moment, wrapping her in his arms.
“I am many things, but never a coward.” He leaned in and gently bit the juncture of her neck and shoulder.
“Ah… admit it, you’re afraid of those kids.”
“Never.”
“Really?” She spun in his arms and found his belt buckle. She undid the fastener as she stared up at him.
“Really.”
“Then maybe we should consider having one of our own.”
He settled his hands on her waist. “I thought…” She reached in his slacks and under the waistband of his boxers.
“Use your words, King.” She cupped his shaft and stroked it from base to tip.
He wrapped his arms around her and captured her lips. He craved his woman, needed her in ways he still couldn’t comprehend. When she ended the kiss, she sighed, “Okay, no words.”
Keeping her in his arms, he moved her backward toward the bed. He leaned over, half pushing, half placing her on the bed. Her legs came up, and he grabbed them, pulling her ass to the edge of the bed. He entered her and bent over her, pinning her to the mattress. “You shouldn’t tease me.” He withdrew and slammed into her. “I face my fears. Kids included.”
“I know.” She panted the words and pulled him down for a kiss. He let her lead the kiss while his hips pumped hard and fast. She was tight and wet, the heat and clinging slide into and out of her body taking him precariously close to orgasm too damn fast. He lifted slightly from the kiss to breathe.
“God, so good. So good.” Dani’s breathless words against his lips. He repositioned his arms so they were tucked under her, grabbed her shoulders, and used the brace against her body for more leverage. He stared at her, still mesmerized by the way her body reacted to him, the blush that spread from her chest up her neck and to her face as she neared her climax. He’d watched her countless times, and each time they made love, he found something new to admire. She arched under him and grabbed his shoulders. He adjusted and thrust harder, knowing they both were close. Her body tightened around him. He stared as her eyes closed and her body contracted around him. He pulled her tight against him and bucked into her, stilling only after he found his release.
Her hands trailed over his upper back. He lifted away from her, stopping to kiss her soft lips. They both crawled to the middle of the king-sized bed and collapsed, wrapped in each other’s arms. He pulled his hand through her waves of hair and sighed, “I’m not afraid of children.”
Her laughter bubbled around them. “I know. How else was I going to get you to stalk me down the hallway and take me like a caveman?”
He lifted away from her. “Seriously? How about saying, ‘Hey, I want caveman sex’?”
Dani laughed again. “Duly noted. Caveman sex. Maybe we can have a code word for that. It would be awkward in a crowd.”
He chuckled and dropped back down to the bed and pulled her on top of his chest. “Yeah, like Neanderthal or sabretooth tiger.”
Dani shook her head. “Too hard to work into a conversation. Oh! I could just call you Tiger.”
“Tiger, huh?”
“Yeah.” She smiled wide and lifted her eyebrows a couple times. “But I was serious. Maybe we could think about starting our own family.”
He stared at her for a moment, letting the sincerity of her words cover him. He blinked back the surprise. “Starting a family would mean no more adventures.” They’d spent most of their lives together finding the next extreme event to take part in. They were self-admitted adrenaline junkies and unapologetic in those pursuits.
“I’ve been thinking about that. We are extremely conscientious. We have the best safety gear money can buy. The likelihood of us getting hit by lightning, or heck, a bus or a car is higher than us getting hurt doing the things we train for months to do.”
He pushed her hair back from her face. “I want a family with you.”
“But…” She cocked her head and waited.
“But I’m not sure.” There. He’d said it. “What if something happens to me?”
Dani played with the hair on his chest. “You mean like what happened to your father?”
He nodded. “My dad left my mom with eight kids.”
“Well, first off, we are not having eight kids.” Dani smiled down at him. “How about we start with one?”
He gave a half-hearted smile. “Point taken.”
She shimmied up his body and dropped her elbows by his head, making direct eye contact with him. “No one knows the future. We could live to be a hundred or we could die tomorrow. I’m positive you’d make a wonderful father. I’ve seen you with your nieces and nephews.”
He held her eyes but shook his head slightly. “You can’t know that.”
She smiled down at him. “Just like you can’t know you won’t be. Look, I’m not trying to rush you into anything. Take all the time you need. If you think about it and you’re still not sure or you don’t want to have kids yet, that’s fine. Starting a family isn’t something one of us decides. We both need to be ready.”
“How did I ever get so lucky?” He wrapped his hand behind her neck and brought her down for a kiss.
She pulled away and whispered against his lips, “We weren’t lucky, Mr. King. What we have—it was destiny.”
Chapter 7
Zane opened the last cabinet in the bathroom. Not there. Damn it, he’d bought extra toothpaste. He remembered it distinctly. “Babe, where did you put the toothpaste?”
Not getting an answer, he popped his head out of the bathroom. “Jewell?”
“Huh?” The distracted call came from the living room.
He sighed and padded down the hallway. “Babe, where did you put the extra tube of toothpaste?”
She blinked up from her cross-legged position. “The what?”
“Toothpaste,” Zane repeated.
“Ah… try the maintenance cabinet.” She stared down at the tablet, once again lost in the program she was working.
“Maintenance cabinet. Perfectly logical.” For his wife and about three other people in the world with her intelligence. He muttered the words as he spun on his heel and headed toward the small cabinet that held the hammer, screwdrivers, tape measures, and the odds and ends that they used to fix up things around the apartment. And there it was. He grabbed the boxed tube of minty freshness and shut the cabinet. He started to go into the bedroom to finish packing for them but stopped short. No. He had to ask.
“Babe.” He waited to see if she heard him.
She blinked up at him. “Wasn’t it there?”
“It was, but I have to ask… why did you put it there?”
“Oh, we had a full tube in the bathroom, and I read somewhere you could use toothpaste to patch holes in the wall.” She lowered her head and ran a finger across her tablet. “Why would he put the same code in twice?”