“What’s that?” she asks, tapping her fingers together.
“Reciprocation. If you ask, I will tell you. If it is something I do not think you’d wish to hear, I will warn you. But if you insist, I will tell you. You will be the only person in the world with such access to my whereabouts, but more importantly, to my body, my heart, and my mind.”
She moves a pawn on the board, stalling, and my heart ceases beating as I wait for her verdict. Finally, she looks at me, steady and sure. “I can do that.”
It feels like a negotiation, but she’s giving me everything, and I’m more than happy to take all of her, hoard it for myself if I can, and then yearn for more. I’m greedy, I know that.
She bites her lip and then I see it.
She’s set me up. Somehow, someway, she had already reached that determination in her mind. She might have been willing to fight me for my giving in on my transparency, but she had made up her mind sometime during the night, maybe in her sleep, that she was mine.
I’m not mad. If anything, it just proves to me just how special Allie is. She’s going to keep me on my toes, keep my mind sharp and my heart full.
But there is something more.
“Dom?”
I give her my full attention, the chessboard all but forgotten as we move to the endgame of the real contest we’ve been having over this bed.
“When Robbie said you were sending stuff to his Old Lady, you called his family interesting. What did you mean?”
The tension in her shoulders seems heavy compared to the question, and I analyze it, looking for hidden subtext or something she would deem important because she doesn’t seem the least bit jealous. She’s . . . curious.
“As part of Zallow entering my territory without clearing it with me, I went to his house,” I explain carefully. “I met Myra, his woman, and their daughter, Violet. They’re a good match. He is a rough man and has seen and done awful things, and though Myra is small, she is strong enough to be there for him. In return, he worships the ground she walks on. After he and I smoothed over our differences, I sent them a few baby goods as congratulations, to make their life easier. I take it that he didn’t appreciate the gift as much as I’d hoped.”
I grin, knowing that he had appreciated them in his own way, but he’s a prideful man who wants to provide for his child himself, something I can respect.
Judging by the way Allie has moved from biting to full-on chewing her bottom lip, there’s still something bothering her. I reach out, placing my hand on my King and tilting it over, surrendering to her.
“Just ask it, Allie. No secrets.”
“Do you want kids?” she blurts without hesitation. “I mean—”
Though I know she is on birth control, my first illogical thought is that she’s pregnant and my heart soars. “Are you . . . ?” I say, eyes jumping to her belly.
She places her hands there, blocking my sight, gasping. “Oh! No! I just mean . . . ever?”
I beat back the swarm of butterflies that had taken flight at her words, knowing that they will have their time, but it is not yet. Instead, I reach across the board and lay my hands on top of hers.
“Allison, it would be my pleasure to see your belly swell with our child, to hold a baby created from our love.”
Her eyes tear even as her lips smile. “Really? But how? With all this?”
I shrug. “My childhood was seemingly normal, with private schools, bodyguards, reading, and chess games with my father.”
Allie bursts out laughing. “None of that is normal, you goofball. Not by a mile. But I guess it can be done. Part of me was just worried that you didn’t want that.”
Her words get quieter, and I can feel that this is the root of her worries, the thing that has held her back.
“Why would you think that, Allison?” I ask gently. “Do you want children?”
She nods, and my heart leaps in my chest. “I do. Not now, but I really do want that husband, wife, two-point-five kids and a dog family. But I want it with you, so maybe we’ll have to make it a guard dog and the kids can call the bodyguard Uncle Joe?”
She looks at me hopefully. And I know in this moment that I will do anything this woman wants me to.
“I think that’s reasonable.”
Her smile emerges from the depths of her soul, so bright that it dazzles the sun as she beams, just freed from darkness. We can do this. She is willing to stand at my side, perhaps not in spite of what I am but because of it.