I dabbed under one and two before she took the towel away, doing the job herself.
“Thanks,” she said, then moved that towel to dry her hair. The third towel I had I cinched around my waist, then followed her out.
I looped arms around her, her skin heated and perfect. She dried her hair in the mirror with a smile but didn’t stay with me long before she maneuvered out of my arms.
“Everything all right?” I asked, the second time in one evening. She’d seemed a little down before we’d gotten into the shower. I figured that may have been just because she’d been out of her element tonight with December and the others. I believed the night had gone well, though. She’d even been talking to Greer and December at one point.
“Fine.” Shifting on her bare feet, she pecked a kiss to my lips. “Just tired. Bed?”
Bed.
I nodded, following behind her. Normally, I’d pinch at her, tease her but her body language felt off.
Maybe she is just tired.
We got under my sheets after we both toweled off and got dressed. My bedroom was a loft style on my duplex’s second level. I preferred my bed in Maywood Heights, but the duplex on campus made do.
It helped having my girl in my bed with me, and no sooner had the lights flicked off than I pulled my arms around her, easing her perfect ass back into me.
I settled my cock between the curve from behind, completely ready to take her from the back. This was the song and dance with us. Shower. Sex, then more sex and sometimes even before the shower. It really just depended how we’re both feeling that day, but ten times to one, that was our routine.
“Not tonight, Ramses.”
Not tonight, Ramses.
I suppose there was that one.
I turned her over in the dark, her cheek beneath my fingers. My eyes adjusted enough to see her frown.
“I’m just tired,” she said, answering a question before I even asked. She was good. She sparred with me before I could even press her. Before I could possibly ask her a question she didn’t want to answer. I really was starting to get to know this girl.
At this point, something felt real damn off, besides the obvious. Of course, she didn’t have to have sex with me. I wasn’t a prick.
Her cheek left before more words could be exchanged, and when she took my hand, wrapping it around my front she eased back into me. She nestled herself away from me in the dark.
Like I said, she was real good.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ramses
I didn’t know what time I woke up that night. I just knew I was alone.
My bed empty.
I angled up to find my phone and maybe the time, but I found Bri before I could. She sat at the edge of the bed, back hunched and head lowered.
“Bri?” I eased over until I sat beside her. She had her arms cuffed, and I reached behind her for the lamp light. My loft illuminated, and I braced her hip. “What’s up?”
She wet her lips, her fingers embedded into her flesh.
It sent my back up like nothing else.
“Do you want children?” she asked, seemly haunted as she stared down. She swallowed. “Will you want kids?”
The ache in her voice immediately made my heart race.
As well as the need for the question.
“Why are you asking me this?” I squeezed her shoulder, and she sat up.
Eyes red rimmed, nose flushed and sniffling. She brushed fingers beneath it. “That’s not what I asked you.”
I’d heard what she’d asked me. That shit radiated me down to my toes, but not because I didn’t want kids.
Why is she asking me this?
My tongue drew across my lips before my answer, my hand folding over her arm. “Yes. Eventually, yes.”
This was the wrong answer.
Her body locked, and she eased out of my hands, standing from the bed.
I followed her across the room with my gaze before joining. “Do you not want kids?”
If she didn’t, that was okay. Having children wasn’t some grandiose dream of mine. I figured it’d just be part of the plan eventually.
Mom would fucking kill me for even considering the possibility of something else, of course. She was a mother and always wanted her baby to have babies. Naturally.
Bri said nothing, and I hugged my arms around her. “What’s going on? Kids aren’t your thing?”
Her lips pinched tight. Like she was doing everything she could not to cry, and I made her look at me.
“I don’t want kids.” That first tear blinked down, and it was like someone took a dagger to my insides. Her crying in the shower had been different.
Or had it been?
I framed her face. “Okay—”
“It’s not okay, Ramses.” She backed out of my hands. “That’s not okay, so quit pacifying me. Quit being so goddamn good all the time.”
My brow twitched, eyes wide.
She pressed palms to her face before folding her arms. “If you want kids, you should be able to have them. That’s not in the cards for me, and I don’t want you to get your hopes up about something that’ll never be there. Not with me.”
Not with her.
Not in the cards for me…
I wasn’t an idiot. I could read between the lines.
Shit.
In an attempt to put her back to me, she braced my bed frame. But when I snagged hands around her waist, she drew back to me.
She hit my chest, so warm, soft. She had all these hard edges. Played them up to hell.
But she forgot how delicate she was, how fragile.
I breathed her in, folding her arms in until we were locked. Until she couldn’t get out.
Until she couldn’t run.
“I don’t want to have kids with you, Ramses,” she said, a tortured ache in her voice. It twisted my gut, what she’d said only making the sick sensation worse.
Even still, I didn’t let her go. I wouldn’t. I closed my eyes. “Why?”
Was I not enough? Was all this too much? Our relationship too unconventional for her? I really hadn’t considered the age thing that big of a deal, but she always had and suddenly insecurities ran as rampant as my theories. I’d always considered myself a pretty secure guy.
But in her silence…
It radiated through the room.
Her sob accompanied it.
She physically broke down, tears gunning down her cheeks. It threw me for such a loop.
“What’s going on? Why don’t you want to have kids with me? Are we not…” My throat constricted. “Is this not working for you? Us?”
My worst fear, but that shouldn’t have her like this. Crying.
Her body shaking, she gripped her arms. “I don’t want to have kids with anyone.” She gasped, faced drenched. “I can’t. I can’t go through that again.”
What?
“It hurts too much.” She blinked tears down to my arms. “It destroyed me the first time.”
Whoa.
The unease of before transformed into something different, and when she keeled forward, body racked with emotion, I turned her around.
I buried her into me, swaying with her.
“Talk to me.” This wasn’t a request, not this time.
It was a goddamn need.
She needed to talk to someone for once, to get things off her chest and not bottle this shit up. She needed to vent, and I wanted her to do that with me. I wanted her to trust me.