Hoops Holiday (Hoops 2.50)

My lips twitch, but I refuse to laugh. “Do not try to cheer me up.”

“I don’t want to cheer you up. I want to wake you up.”

“Thank you, Tony Robbins.” I roll my eyes and start for the door.

He takes my elbow again, tugging until I’m standing in front of him.

“Hey.” He pushes a swathe of hair behind my ear and lifts my face. “You’re stronger than this.”

“Am I?’ I shake my head and a runaway tear skids over my cheek. “What if my PCOS ruins everything? What if the doctor is right, and I get early onset menopause? What if—”

“Yeah, what if all of that is true? What if it happens?” He waves his hand, motioning for me to continue. “What else you got?”

I’m quiet, hurting.

“Oh?” He cocks his head. “You’re out already? I’ve got some. What if I’m sterile? What if my dick falls off from overuse?”

“Okay.” I snort involuntarily as he knew I would. “That’s not a thing.”

“Lucky for you,” he says, relenting a small smile before going on. “My point is there’s no scenario you can dream up where I don’t love you, Banner. None of those things mean I don’t have you for the rest of our lives.”

I look up, captured by the passion in his voice, the earnestness on his face.

“I know you think I don’t want kids, and honestly, I never did,” he admits. “But I want to experience everything with you because everything is better with you. Life is better with you. I want to live it and not worry about what might happen, why it’s not happening fast enough, why it’s happening for someone else. All of it’s happening with you, and that means we face everything together. We have everything together.”

And we have so much.

I hate it when he’s right, but he’s so right. I’ve allowed this irrational fear and dissatisfaction to wreck my entire day. It road blocked my excitement for what is essentially Zo’s miracle. It had me snapping at the man I love more than anything in the world. Is there a lobotomy for emotions because I could do without them today.

“You’re right,” I finally say.

“No surprise there.”

I give him a quelling look to let him know he’s pushing it.

“Sorry,” he says, an unrepentant grin crooking his lips.

“Liar.” I chuckle and reach up to link my wrists behind his neck. “I can count on one hand how many times you’ve been sorry since I met you.”

It’s not an insult or a reprimand. I don’t need a man who apologizes for what he wants, for what he believes. Jared is a man of conviction. All completely his own, and I need that sometimes. That unshaken demeanor; his I don’t give a fuck on days like today when everything feels like salt poured over an open wound.

“The way I look at it,” Jared says, slipping wide palms up my bare thighs and under the t-shirt to grip my ass. “We could stand around talking about having a baby, or we could try to make one.”

He ghosts kisses down my neck, sucking the curve to my shoulder

“Are we really gonna let all that super sexy ovulating go to waste, Banner?”

“We shouldn’t.”

I tunnel my fingers into the thick silkiness of his hair and walk us backward until he’s sitting on the window seat and I’m straddling him. With one hand he reaches between my legs and pushes my panties aside. He brushes over my clit, my lips, through the wet folds until he reaches the hot, waiting center and thrusts two fingers inside me. Unceremoniously. He tips his head back to rest against the window and watches my face for the response I can’t hide.

“Jared, dammit.” I rock into his hand and press my forehead to his.

He pulls me down farther, widening my knees over him and pushing my Kindle out of the way. It lands with a quiet thud on the carpeted floor.

“You need to be gentler with my kindle,” I tell him, my laugh breathless; my lips following a hungry path up to his earlobe.

“What’d I tell you?” His laugh is husky. His eyes, heated, loving. “Less reading. More fucking.”