"Like it or not, that story resonated within New York’s underbelly, Aidan." Even as my heart ached for the teenaged Brennan, even as my soul wept for what Aidan was going to have to do, I told him, "You don't have to be like your da, you don't have to make the same choices he did, but you have to follow his path to some extent.
"Your da knew how to make memories last. His reputation made him the city's boogeyman. You need to do that if you want to survive this, Aidan, baby."
"If we have kids, I'll never put him or her through what Da put us through. I promise—"
"You don't have to promise me that," I assured him. "Because I will make damn sure that you don't."
A soft breath had him sagging against me. "You mean that."
I snorted. "Of course I do. My mom and dad made a lot of mistakes, and they did weird shit that I wish I could unsee because,gross, but... they were good parents.
"They let us get away with too much, and we weren't on a tight enough leash, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I know what good parents look like.
"I can fangirl over your family, Aidan, but I can say,categorically, you had parents who deserved to go to jail for child abuse and child neglect." He stilled at that. "They fucked with your heads, they tore you down, and they broke you so that they could shape you into the image they wanted you to be. Then, when you were how they wanted, they punished you for that too.
"So, no, if we do have a child, I'll never let you do that. And if I ever think you are starting to go down that path, I will take that child and I will leave your ass because that kid is me and you together. Before life and the firm and everything else got in the way.
"That kid will be our love. A union of us. Pure and perfect and exactly how it was supposed to be.
"The other night, I told you that lying to me was my hard limit. But that's the current Savannah. Not the ‘mother’ Savannah. Remember that, sweetheart. Your ma didn't go to war for you, but I sure as fuck will go to war for your child. Do you hear me?"
I wasn't sure why I expected recriminations. He'd already told me at the start of our relationship that there would never be a divorce for us. That we were it. And it had nothing to do with him being ‘semi’ Catholic.
So I expected a negative response to my stark warning.
Something that’d tell me I was his woman and that nothing would tear us apart… Not even a child. That he was the he-man and I was the woman and I should listen, blah, blah, blah.
What I didn’t anticipate was for him to roll us over so that I was on my back and for his dick to turn to steel inside me without me having to clutch at it to hold him there.
Slowly, he pumped into me, and his hands snagged mine as he drew them over my head and pinned them to the pillows.
He used that as the fulcrum for the slow thrusts that he tormented me with, and then, he breathed into my mouth, "My fucking queen."
I shuddered at that. His words, not at what his cock was doing to me.
Not at what he was making me feel.
But at his respect.
His appreciation.
He didn't take offense at my words; he gloried in them.
His tongue thrust between my lips with as much force as his dick slid into my pussy, and I let him. I let his stroke against mine, let him devour me, let him bask in the things this mouth had told him.
Hard truths, but loving ones.
Protective ones.
Assertive ones.
For a kid we might never have.
As he drove his cock into me, his pelvis did most of the heavy lifting as he ground into my clit, and while the spikes of pleasure were there, it wasn't the desperate need that I'd come to associate with sex with him.
It was loving and needy and clingy and wanting. It was love made real. It was everything I'd never known I'd needed because Aidan had already given me so much in the bedroom.
He swallowed my air and I took his. He cherished me and worshiped me all because he'd accepted the truth—I wasn't like any woman he'd ever known.