by Olivia Dade
“Come on my face. Now.” He lifted his mouth for a moment, sinking three fingers deep into her pussy. He rubbed her from the inside as she squirmed. Then he ducked down and gently sucked her clit between those soft lips of his, his beard abrading her sensitive flesh.
Her world turned white as she clenched around his fingers and exploded. With a low moan, she arched high off the bed. He licked and sucked at her, showing her no mercy as she came, and she twitched against his mouth until she was shuddering and sobbing at the pleasure of it.
By the time he raised his head, she was sweaty and limp beneath him.
“Happy cunniwingus.” He appeared very pleased with himself. Too pleased.
She forced herself to move, pushing at his shoulder until he rolled over and she could climb on top of him. “Maybe we need another tradition for when the Caps win. Cunniwingus, and then…” Her lips pursed as she thought about it. “Fucktory?”
“Fucktory?” He stared at her, his eyes heavy-lidded. “A combo of fucking and victory?”
Straddling his hips, she positioned his hard cock at her slit and began to sink down on him. “Yup.”
Then, to her shock, his hands clamped around her waist and lifted her off of him. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on his abdomen, his erection hot against her ass.
“Con, wait,” he gasped out.
Her mouth dropped open. Never, not once in her life, had a man interrupted her when she’d been impaling herself on his dick. And of all people, Sam was the first? The man who’d keep her continually riding his cock via some sort of adult-sized BabyBjörn carrier if he had that option?
“What the fuck, Wolcott?” She glared down at him.
With a pillow under his head, her wet pussy was pretty much at his eye level, and he couldn’t seem to look away. Licking his lips, he rasped out one word. “Antibiotics.”
“What about them?” She rolled her eyes. “Honey, I know you worry about me, but I’ve taken my medicine exactly on schedule. And even if I hadn’t, I certainly wouldn’t interrupt sex to do so.”
He shook his head. “That’s not it. When you were sleeping in the hospital, the nurse said—”
His words came to an abrupt halt when she reached between her legs to stroke her clit. “Go on. Just keeping myself hot and ready until you’re done talking.”
“Jesus.” He licked his lips again, then squeezed his eyes shut and spoke quickly. “The nurse said antibiotics can make birth control less effective. Definitely the Pill, maybe IUDs too. I don’t know, Con. But since you don’t want to get pregnant, at least not right now, we need a condom to fuck. And we gave away our supply to Grant and Angie.”
She stopped stroking herself. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know if you’re on the Pill or some other type of birth control. I’ve never asked, because that night in Thornfield Hall, you said you’d taken care of the issue, and I believed you. But your antibiotics might lower the—”
“I understand how antibiotics can make the Pill less effective.” Her arousal rapidly cooling, she climbed off of him and plopped herself down on the mattress. “What I don’t get is why we’re even talking about the Pill. Or any sort of birth control.”
Didn’t he understand? She’d thought she’d made the situation clear their first night together, without going into unnecessary detail. And hadn’t she reiterated it to Angie that very morning, only inches away from him?
“Honey, you mistook me.” She tapped him on the chest. “That first night, I didn’t say I was on birth control. I’m not. Don’t you think you’d have noticed if I were taking a pill every day?”
His breath seemed to get caught in his throat, and his eyes blazed with a mix of emotions she couldn’t quite decipher. “You’re not on birth control? Oh, shit, Con, you could be pregnant right now.”
“Sam. Sam. Calm down.” Leaning forward, she pressed a kiss on his mouth. “Don’t worry. I’m definitely not knocked up.”
He sat up straight. “Are you sure? Until this last week, we’ve been having sex at least once a day. Sometimes twice or three times.” His voice had risen in panic. Or was that excitement? “You could be three months pregnant. And we don’t even know how your medicine or the X-rays would affect a baby!”
Did he really think she was that irresponsible? What the fuck?
“Don’t worry,” she repeated. “That first night, I said I couldn’t get pregnant. And that’s exactly what I meant. I don’t need birth control.”
As he worked through her words, his face seemed to drop. But not in relief, as she’d expected. “You have”—he swallowed hard—“fertility issues?”
She blinked at him, so dumbfounded by the conversation she almost wanted to laugh. “In a sense. Sam, honey, I thought you understood. I’m sterilized. Have been for over a decade.”
22
Sterilized.
Sam couldn’t quite grasp it.
Sterilized. No children. Not ever.
No peering at a positive pregnancy test and crying together in joy. No watching Con’s tummy swell with their baby as he rubbed her tired feet and coaxed her to take it easy. No little Con-Sam hellions running around with dark hair, dark eyes, and potty mouths.
No real family. Not the way he’d always dreamed.
When he didn’t speak, she repeated herself. “I thought you understood. I told you I couldn’t get pregnant. Not wouldn’t. Couldn’t. That’s why we never talked about birth control, even though we were having sex like bunnies on an oysters-only diet.”
“I didn't ask because I didn't want to pry. And I was trying to show you that I trusted you. If you said you’d taken care of birth control, I believed you.” Desolate, he turned his head away and told her the complete truth. “And maybe I wouldn’t have minded if we’d had an accidental pregnancy.”
Her stare seemed to sear the side of his face, burning through flesh and sinew until he was nothing but dry, charred bone. “Earlier today, I said babies weren’t in my future. What did you think I meant?”
“I thought…” His lips had gone numb, his tongue clumsy. “I thought you just didn’t want any right now. That you weren’t ready for kids yet, but might change your mind in a few years.”
How had he gotten this so wrong? Why hadn’t he ever pressed her? And why hadn’t she made their childless future perfectly clear long, long before now?
Anger kindled within his chest. “Why weren’t you ever direct about this? You should have told me in plain language from the very beginning.”
“I thought I had!” She spread her hands with a disbelieving, humorless laugh. “I mean, I told you I can’t get pregnant. How much more information did you need? Did you want to hear about the inserts the doctor put inside my fallopian tubes? Did you want me to describe how I went to the clinic and spread my legs and—”
“No.” He squeezed his eyes shut, wrestling with his temper. “I just wish I’d known.”
She reached out and touched his arm lightly. “Honey, I always said my child-rearing days were over. Remember, when we’d get those classes of kids on board Big Bertha?”
She had said that. Repeatedly. Along with other comments that had become much clearer in retrospect. And if he’d listened to what she’d actually said, instead of what he’d wanted to hear, he’d have understood.
He hadn’t ever asked her for clarification. Maybe because he hadn’t really wanted to know the truth. After all, if she’d answered the wrong way, his dreams of their future might have crumbled under the impact. Just as he feared they were doing now.
But that wasn’t her fault, was it?
“I’m sorry I raised my voice.” His head dropped to his chest. “I was just…surprised. I didn’t get what you were saying until right now.”
“It’s okay.” Her fingers trailed through his beard and stroked his cheek. “If you didn’t understand, all this must come as a shock to you.”
“Yeah.” He took
a shuddering breath. “Did you get sterilized because of a medical problem?”
Her brows drew together. “No medical problem. I chose to do it of my own free will, even though I was fertile and healthy. Because I didn’t want children.”
That couldn’t be right. He’d seen her with the Bookmobile children, listened to her on the phone with Pru and Chas and Christian. She was a natural-born mom, loving and practical and loyal. And if she’d had the sterilization procedure done over ten years ago, surely she’d had time to change her mind about motherhood since then. Maybe she even regretted her choice?
Especially now. Especially with him. Because how could she not want his baby when he so desperately wanted hers?
His brain couldn’t seem to process all the information and sort it properly. But he knew he could find a loophole somewhere. A gap in the code he could exploit to fix the problem.
And then it occurred to him.
Adoption. Of course. The kids wouldn’t be his biological offspring, but they’d be his—and Con’s—in every way that counted. In his heart and his daily life. Still his real family, even if they didn’t quite match the mental picture he’d created long ago.
He’d have to broach the topic carefully. If she regretted the sterilization, she either hadn’t realized it yet or was too stubborn to admit it. She’d probably need some time to come around on the subject of kids, just as she’d needed time to accept an intimate, loving relationship with him.
“Okay. Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Maybe, at some point a few years from now, we can consider adoption. Not anytime soon, but in the distant future. When we’ve been married and settled for a while.”
Her answer came so fast he could hardly believe it.
“No,” she said. “Not now. Not in a few years. Not ever, Sam.”
Somehow, despite his desperation, he was losing this battle. But he could find an argument convincing enough to sway her. He always had in the past, hadn’t he?
He took a stab at it. “But you’re so good with your siblings and the Bookmobile kids. Surely you want children of your own someday.”
Her face turned neutral and closed in a way he hadn’t seen in months. In a way that told him very, very clearly he’d chosen the wrong argument.
“Nope. And if you think I haven’t heard that before, you’re wrong. I’ve heard it from dozens of people over the years. Even from my parents, who should know better.” Her slim fingers drummed on the bedspread without a sound. “People assume every woman must want a child. Or that a woman who doesn’t want children must hate them or not know how to handle them. That’s why I stopped talking about the issue years ago. I got tired of everyone telling me what I must surely want for my future.”
He winced at that word, which he’d used so blithely. At the arrogant, sexist assumptions she’d so neatly skewered. But he refused to give up, not on a subject this important to him, to them, and their lives together.
So he tried again, this time more carefully. “Why should your parents know better?”
“I’ve told them how I feel again and again. But they refuse to believe me.” Her shoulders drooped. “I should have talked to you about this earlier. I know that now. But at first our relationship was casual, so it wasn’t your business. And then I thought I’d made my position on raising more children clear. But obviously I didn’t, and I apologize.”
He was trying. He really was. But he still didn’t get it.
“You grew up in a big family, Con. Surrounded by your loved ones.” He reached for her hand, intertwining their fingers. “That didn’t make you happy? You don’t want that again?”
When he thought about her family, he imagined those nine children in a sun-drenched garden, giggling and playing as they planted seeds or picked tomatoes. Never lonely or wishing for a friend. Always with someone nearby for games or hugs or a listening ear.
Heaven.
“No. That’s the absolute last thing I want.” She licked her lips and spoke slowly. “Sam, I don’t think you understand what my childhood was like.”
Evidently not. “So tell me. Please.”
“You know that stupid stereotype about Chinese-American parents? How they ruthlessly push their children into academic and extracurricular success?”
“Yeah.” He’d always assumed it was bullshit, but what did he know?
“My parents weren’t like that. But they still expected a lot from me. Too much.” She shifted restlessly. “I spent my so-called childhood raising my younger brothers and sisters. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t taking care of them. I changed diapers and cleaned spit-up and cooked dinner before I ever got my first period. Shit, before the training wheels came off my old, beat-up, hand-me-down bike. My own needs, anything I wanted to do, always came last. It had to come last, because I was responsible for the well-being of three, sometimes four kids. My time didn’t belong to me. Most days, it seemed like my goddamn thoughts didn’t belong to me.”
She shuddered. “I hated it. I love my parents and my siblings, but I hated almost every minute of my childhood. No, I don’t want that again. Fuck, no.”
He was about to say what he’d always thought. But you’d never feel alone. Not like I did.
Then it occurred to him. Yes, she’d never feel alone. But she’d also never be alone. Ever. Not even if she desperately wanted a minute to herself.
At that realization, his rosy vision of her childhood turned just the slightest bit darker.
He already knew the answer, but he asked the question anyway. “How did you ever get time by yourself?”
“I didn’t.” Her lips compressed. “In our house, personal privacy and possessions didn’t exist. Which is part of the reason I moved across the country and refused to live with a roommate, even when I needed one to afford a decent apartment.”
“Why didn’t your older siblings take care of you?” The whole situation… He couldn’t get it right in his head. Couldn’t picture anything so foreign from his own experiences. “So you could relax a bit and be a kid?”
“Maybe they did.” She shrugged. “At least until I got big enough to start helping myself and the little ones. I don’t remember. But even if they didn’t, I wouldn’t blame them. They had their own chores and responsibilities, and I was the most self-sufficient of the younger kids. I didn’t need them the way the others did. The way Pru, Chas, and Christian needed me.”
He struggled to resurrect his idyllic fantasy. “From all the conversations I’ve overheard, you sound like you’re close to your brothers and sisters. Your parents too. Despite the situation.”
“I am. I love them with everything I have, even though they wear me out. And I know part of the reason my siblings still need so much from me, even from across the country, is because I haven’t let them handle their own problems. I haven’t allowed them to fail or suffer.” Her slow breath raised and lowered her chest. “Probably out of guilt. I resented them for so long, when they weren’t to blame for the situation. When they were just normal kids who needed a parent. Maybe my mom and dad deserved my resentment. But my brothers and sisters didn’t.”
She offered him a wry smile. “I had plenty of time to consider the issue after we first got home from the hospital and I was lying in bed for days. If I give Pru, Chas, and Christian enough space to make mistakes and recover from them, I’ll have more energy for you. And I think they’ll be happier in the long run. We all will.”
An unbearable truth was beginning to reveal itself to him.
She liked kids. She loved her siblings. But…
“You really don’t want children. Ever.” His fingers tightened on hers. “Not even with me.”
Stroking the back of his hand with her thumb, she seemed to pick her words carefully. “I’ve raised my kids already, Sam. And they’re not completely out of the nest yet, despite their age. So no, I don’t want more children. Not even with you.”
The sheets were wrinkled beneath th
em, and he tried in vain to smooth out the creases with his free hand. At the moment, he couldn’t meet Con’s gaze. Not without embarrassing himself with the unwanted moisture in his eyes.
“I take it…” Her fingers trembled in an entirely un-Con way. “I take it you want kids.”
The depth of the understatement wrenched a laugh from him. “You could say that.”
“You always seemed so overwhelmed by the children on the Bookmobile.” She kept biting her lower lip, and it was turning raw and red before his eyes. “A little intimidated, maybe. You kept such a distance from them, I figured you didn’t want any of your own, either.”
He couldn’t stand it anymore. With a fingertip, he gently nudged her lip out from underneath her teeth. “You’re going to bleed if you keep doing that, love.”
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t say anything.
“I guess we’ve found a corollary to your statement,” he said. “We shouldn’t assume a woman who doesn’t want children must hate or fear them. And we also shouldn’t assume a man who does want children feels comfortable around them.”
She choked out a laugh. “Fair enough.”
“I’ve always wanted a big family.” He brought her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles. “Unlike you, I spent most of my childhood alone. My father had to work a lot of the time, so I was almost always by myself. Like it or not.”
Since she’d nestled her face in his chest, her words emerged muffled and low. “I’m sorry. That sounds lonely.”
“It was.” Another understatement. “My friends had so many people in their lives. Brothers and sisters and both parents at home waiting for them. I’d dream of having my own huge, noisy family. A wife. Lots of kids.”
“I can give you the first.” Her tears began to soak through the thin material of his tee, dampening the skin over his heart. “Not the second. I’m so sorry.”