I nodded, hard, and he laughed again. “Good. Ready to go for round two?”
“Wait, what?”
I found out that he was ready, because only a short time later? I was screaming out his name again, and again. And you’d have thought that would have been enough, and that both of us would have been exhausted and fully satiated. You would have thought so, except that he woke me up sometime in the night with hismouth on my breasts and asking if I minded if he touched me for a while. I didn’t mind in the least. Then, when I woke up in the morning, I just—
“What are you doing?” Silas murmured. He was half-asleep, and I was grinding my hips back into the morning erection that I felt between us because I wanted him all over again. Desperately. He obliged, happily, and after that I was actually wiped out.
“I could make some breakfast,” he suggested, but he didn’t move and I was glad. My back was to his chest and his arms cocooned me, and I didn’t want him to leave this spot. We could stay here forever, just the two of us.
Just the two of us…oh, no.
“What?” He picked up his head. “Why did you stiffen up?” He brushed my hair from my face so that he could see me better. “Why do you look like that?”
I had been trying for “serene and unconcerned,” but I wasn’t. “We just had sex.”
“Yeah, four times. Give me a minute and then I might be able to pull off five, if you want more.”
“Silas! We hadunprotectedsex,” I clarified. “Four times! That could lead to pregnancy.”
“That’s the goal. The one class where I paid a little attention was health education,” he said. “It depends where you are in the menstrual cycle. I read more about it so I’d be up on things for Lyra, too. Are you a twenty-eight day kind of girl, and where are you?”
I understood that he was asking where I was in terms of ovulation but I couldn’t come up with an answer. I didn’t have a great idea of where I was at the moment—physically, I was here in this bed but mentally, I was not as clear. “I can’t believe we just did that,” I managed to say.
“Four times.”
“Silas! What if we made a baby?” I demanded.
“I thought that was the point.” His big palm moved from my breast to my stomach. “Can you imagine?” He was smiling again at the thought.
“No, I can’t. I can’t believe I did this! It’s like how I came to this house,” I said. “I thought it was a bad idea, I knew I needed to consider it a lot, and then poof. Poof! I moved in. That wasn’t like me at all! I don’t know why, but I get around you and I forget to be careful.”
“Good. I’m rubbing off, just like how you are on me. I never actually cared about expiration dates before. I never thought about having a career or saving, either. You moving in was a great idea, and so was giving you some of my sperm.” He bent and nuzzled my neck. “The baby will be like a sibling for Lyra. Didn’t you ever want a little brother or sister?”
“Yes, but—but—” I stopped, because it was hard to think when he was being so sweet and loving. That was it! That was what I’d been trying to pin down. “I was going to get anonymous sperm so that the biological father wouldn’t have any part in the baby’s life.”
“This will be better. I’ll be the father part.” He kissed my ear, and then my cheek. “I hope the baby is smart like you. And I hope she’s sweet like you, and that she looks like you. You’re so beautiful. And I hope she’ll wave her hands around to make a point, like you do, because I love that. I hope she has your focus and determination, all that drive you use to be the success that you are. I hope she’s just like you in every way.” He picked up his head again. “Are you crying because you’re afraid that the baby will be like me?”
“I would love to have a baby exactly like you,” I said. “He would be the kind of person that everyone could depend on, because he would always come through. He would make you laugh and not take things so seriously. He would make you look forward to coming home so that you could talk together, because he would really listen to what you said. He would be the best person you’d ever have met, in your whole life. Your best friend.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded, because I was crying a lot.
“I glad you feel that way,” Silas said. “You’re my best friend, too. And I love you.”
I stared at him.
“I know you thought that I was, uh, dating all those women bound for prison because I didn’t want to have a serious thing. Maybe that was true then, but I started growing up on the day I found out about Lyra. I know that I have a way to go with that, but I’m working on it. It hit me like an uppercut when my dad died and I thought of the life he had wasted. What was he doing?Why didn’t he see that the best part of all of it, all the shit in the world, is being with the people that you love?” He shrugged. “I’m glad that I figured it out.”
“Are you saying that you and I would be a serious thing?”
“A very serious thing,” he answered. “I seriously love you, and I seriously want to spend my life with you. All right.” He let go of my body and pulled his arms free, and then he briefly squished me against the mattress as he climbed over me and out of the bed. He knelt the floor. “I’m naked. Should I put on some pants?”
I didn’t quite understand. “I don’t mind you naked, not at all,” I answered.
“Good. Then I’ll ask you.” First, I watched him breathe in and out, and then he reached and took my hands. “Camille, do you want to get married? Will you marry me?”
I sat up and stared at him.
