Johnny
We sat by the fire and ate our dinner naked.
Now, Poppy was sitting in my lap, our bowls discarded on the coffee table, a big blanket wrapped around us. We exchanged lazy kisses, my hands roaming over her curves, learning every single one while she discovered my scars.
“I could, you know,” she murmured, her lips so close I could feel her breath against my throat. “Just…get off the pill. Start having babies now.”
I hummed, shaking my head. “I want to do this right,” I said. “Not rush into it. Meet your family, ask them for their permission to marry you…the whole nine yards.”
She pulled away slightly. “What if I want to go fast?”
I frowned, reaching up to cup her face. “There something behind this?”
“Just…” Her eyes darted away, into the fire—then back to me.
“My parents are in their mid-sixties. Which is fine, they’re healthy, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.
But…I’ve always known I wanted kids young because I want my mom to be at every birthday party.
I want my dad to show them Star Wars for the first time.
” She let out a long breath, running her fingers along a scar on my arm.
“I want them to actually know my parents. Not just remember them vaguely.”
I held her a little closer.
Gave it a second.
“Is this about them…or me?”
She pressed her forehead into my chest. “I want our kids to know you, yeah,” she said. “And our grandkids. And—”
“Hey…hey,” I tilted her chin up to me. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
She laughed, a little watery. “I know. It’s stupid—”
“Look at me.”
She did.
“I’m forty-five,” I said. “Not eighty-five. I’m not going anywhere for a very, very long time.
” I stroked my thumb across her cheek. “And I take care of myself. I work with my hands, I sleep eight hours, I eat the same breakfast every day. I intend on being boring and healthy for at least another few decades.”
She laughed again, more genuine this time.
“So I have to insist on doing this right,” I said. “Meeting your family. Asking your dad—after he’s had a chance to google me, of course—and do it properly. That matters to me. But…I also hear you. I’m not interested in waiting years.”
“Then how long?”
I gave it a second. Needed the strength to say what I was about to say.
“Long enough for you to figure out if you want somebody younger,” I finally said. “More years.”
She took a deep breath. “I know it’s only been a few days, but…I think every year I spend with you is worth twice as much as if I found someone my own age.”
I looked at her for a long moment.
"That's a generous thing to say."
"It's not generous," she said. "It's just true.
" She shifted in my lap to face me more fully, the blanket slipping slightly off one shoulder.
"You're not a placeholder, John. You're not a compromise.
You're the person I want. I'm not going to wake up in ten years and wish I'd chosen someone else. That's not how this feels."
"You can't know that," I said.
She smiled. “Something you should know about me…I make decisions fast and I stick with them.”
“This is kind of a big one, though.”
“And I still trust it.”
I looked at the fire for a moment, mulling it over.
The thing is—she wasn’t wrong. I’d made the biggest decision of my life fast—to back out of the robbery, to take the fall, to go back to Elle after, to buy this land, to start Due North.
None of it had been slow. And all of those decisions, I’d lived with without regret.
Maybe that was something we had in common.
“Six months,” I said. “Give me six months to do this right. Meet your family, get you a ring, sort out the situation with Sophie.” She laughed softly at that. “And then everything else moves at whatever speed you want.”
She considered it. “Six months. Is that long enough for you?”
I gazed into her eyes. “I’d marry you today if I really thought I deserved you.”
Her breath hitched.
She lifted her head to press her lips to mine.
We kissed languidly for what felt like ages, the fire flickering, my cock aching as it pressed against her.
God, I wanted her again.
I wanted her over and over, for the rest of my life.
When she straddled me, I was ready, and she sank down on me without a second thought, like we already knew each other well enough to know what the other wanted, what we craved.
She moaned under her breath, resting her forehead against mine.
“You feel…” she paused, adjusting, a breathy sigh escaping her lips. “You feel so good.”
“So do you.”
She started to move—slow, reveling in it, nothing like in the kitchen. This was different. Just the two of us in the firelight, the lake outside, the blanket pooled around us, no urgency at all.
I held her waist and let her take what she needed.
She kept her forehead against mine, eyes open, and I kept mine open too. Neither of us looked away. It felt important not to look away. I strained to stay with it, not to come deep inside her when she hit that perfect spot, when she took me until there was no space between us.
Redheaded babies. I couldn’t stop the images from hitting me hard as I looked into her eyes, her curls falling around us both.
“I’m close,” she whispered.
“Take what you need,” I groaned. “I wanna give it to you. Give you everything.”
She came quietly, her whole body pressing into mine, her hands gripping my shoulders, my name barely a sound against my neck.
I followed her over with my hands in her hair and my face pressed to her temple and nothing left to hold back.
We stayed there after. Neither of us moved. The fire had burned down to coals, casting everything amber and low, and the only sound was the lake outside and both of us breathing.
She pressed her lips to my jaw. My cheek. The corner of my mouth.
I held her and looked at the embers and thought about a different redheaded kid—fifteen years old in Detroit, telling himself he’d have land on a lakeshore just like this someday.
Took a while.
But he got there.