“I’m scared you want to put off having a baby because you’re not really sure you want to be with me forever.” I check the time on my phone. “Thirty seconds left.”

“I’m scared I’ll be a shitty mother like my mom.” Not possible. She’s nothing like her mother.

“I wasn’t unhappy when you told me it was your birth control patch I had pulled off.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “I’d beat you senseless with a handbag right now if I had one handy.”

How can she think she’d be a shitty mother? She already acts more like my mum than her own. “You’re becoming more like Margaret McLachlan every day.”

I hold up the phone and she announces, “Ten seconds.”

It’s her turn but I’m going again. We’re almost out of time and I have something to say. “I want you to have my baby … please say you will.”

She says nothing and the timer alarms, signaling the end of our timed confession. My heart and mind feel clear. Do hers? Or was that the worst thing we could have done?

That was stupid of me to ask her to have a baby during a three-minute confessional. I want to know what she’s thinking, but dammit, I can’t ask. We agreed this wasn’t about discussion.

I bet she’s pissed. She’s already told me she’d think about it and I agreed I wouldn’t pressure her. But now I have. And without giving her the option to respond if we stick to these stupid rules.

I have fucked up again. Why do I keep doing this? “I’ll find somewhere else to sleep tonight. Just give me a minute to grab something to sleep in and brush my teeth.”

I take my sleep pants from the chest and go into the bathroom. I’m changed and finished brushing when L comes up behind me. She slides her arms around my waist and places the side of her face against my back. She’s shorter and smaller so her image is almost completely hidden in the mirror. “I didn’t ask you to sleep somewhere else.”

“You told me to forget touching you.”

“It doesn’t mean you have to leave our bed.”

I’m not trying to convince her to kick me out of bed but I know when I’ve fucked up. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Even I know I’ve done wrong, L.”

“You’ve also done right.” She kisses the bare skin on my back and then her touch is gone too soon. “Even I know that.”

I watch her reflection in the mirror as she turns and lifts her hair. “Unzip me?”

I grasp the zipper of her black sheath dress and pull, letting my fingers graze her skin on the way down. I’m sure it’s the most action I’ll get tonight.

We’re standing in the bathroom and I’m peeling her out of a dress following an incident with one of my former lovers. This is like déjà vu because we’ve done this before. I recall being sent away that night, but not this time. She’s letting me stay.

I’d like to kiss her bare shoulder. It’s right there, so close to my mouth, begging me to place my lips against it, but I resist because I’m still not sure where I stand.

She catches the straps of her dress and eases them down her body. She wiggles as it slides down and tosses it onto the bathroom counter, leaving her in a black lacy push-up bra and a G. She’s hot as hell—like always—and I think this is my punishment for my earlier offenses.

I don’t think I can take this. She needs to be covered if I can’t touch her. And it doesn’t need to be any of that sexy stuff she usually wears to bed. As much as I love her in it, I don’t want to see her in it tonight if I can’t touch her. “I’ll grab you one of my T-shirts.”

“Don’t.”

She reaches behind her back and unfastens her bra before tossing it on top of her dress. I’m surprised by what she’s doing because even at her angriest moments, I’ve never known her to be cruel.

I close my eyes because it’s agony to see her this way when she’s already told me I can’t touch her. “Please don’t.”

“Please don’t what?”

“Torture me.” I wave my hands back and forth in front of her near-naked body. “Using this.”

“Torture isn’t my intention.” She pushes her panties from her hips and shimmies out of them. They drop to her feet and she kicks them to the corner, leaving her wearing only black pumps. “Something you said changed my mind. I want you to touch me.”

L’s forgiving me? Forgetting tonight’s events?

“What did I say to change your mind?”

“Shh … it’s against the rules to discuss anything we said during our confessional.” She steps close so her body is pressed against mine. “It’s two thousand fourteen. Let’s start the year off right.”

She begins at my top button, making her way down until the front of my shirt is open. She brings my hand to her lips and sucks my index finger into her mouth as she removes my cufflink. She makes a show of sliding it in and out of her mouth, her tongue swirling. Then she moves to my other hand to do the same.

Fuck, it’s hot. I’m instantly hard.

She hops up on the counter, her bum landing on my hand towel, and motions with her finger for me to come closer. When I do, she yanks the front of my trousers open and drags my zipper down. She pushes my pants and boxer briefs to my knees and wraps her legs around me. I put my hand on her bum and easily slide her bottom to the edge of the counter.

She puts her hand around my rock-hard cock and slides it up and down her drenched entrance. I flex my hips, trying to get inside her but she pulls away. I expect her to tell me she needs to insert the spermicide but doesn’t. “Tell me I’m the only one.”

“You’re the only one, forever. It’ll always be you, L. Never doubt that.”

She wraps her arms around me and tilts her pelvis so my tip is pressing against her. “You’re the only one I ever want inside me.” She reaches around to my bum and digs her nails in as she pulls me into her … without birth control.

I don’t think she’s ovulating but this is still me inside her without contraceptive so anything could happen. And she’s not telling me no. Her body is telling me the complete opposite as her legs alternate between squeezing hard and relaxing as she rides me on the bathroom counter.

Her arms are wrapped around my shoulders and her mouth is pressed to my ear, enabling me to hear every sound her mouth makes as she grinds her body against mine. Every moan, every grunt. Even the soft, breathless sound of her saying my name when she comes, followed by her whispering how much she loves me.