Page 152 of The Complete Truth Duet
She continued searching the murky water for the invisible shark. “What do you mean?”
“When this is all over, Thomas and Manuel are either sharing a cell or a grave, and we finally get to start a life together, where do you want to live?”
Her eyebrows drew together as her gaze bounced to mine. “What are my choices?”
“Ummm…planet Earth. I’ve got money, but not Mars money. And at the rate I’ve been going, I won’t even have Earth money in a few years, so I’ll probably need to find a job at some point, so let’s attempt to keep it somewhere with English as the first language.”
When we reached waist-level—for her—I set her on her feet.
She cringed when her toes hit the sand, but if I had any hope of deflating my hard-on in the next, oh, million years, I needed to stop her from rubbing against it with every step. I dropped to my knees so as not to scandalize the public beach.
“You good?” I asked.
She straightened her back. “Yeah. I could probably run from a shark if he got any ideas. This feels more solid than liquid here.”
Underwater, I clamped my hand down on her calf and she jumped straight in the air, letting out an ear-piercing shriek.
I roared with laughter and she splashed water in my face.
“Dammit, Penn.”
“Okay. Okay. Okay.” I lifted my hands in surrender. “I promise: no more fucking with you.” I rose to my feet when the stretch of my swim trunks told me it was safe and tossed my arm around her shoulders. “So, seriously, where do you want to live?”
She reached up, caught my hand dangling over her shoulder, and laced our fingers. Together, we started toward the shore. Catalina and Drew were chilling with beers under an umbrella. Oh, so casual for a man on a suicide mission and a shattered woman with a taste for psychological warfare.
“I don’t know,” Cora said. “Cat and I had talked about Seattle when I finished my degree.”
My eyebrows popped up. Seattle was amazing, but it didn’t strike me as Cora’s scene. Then again, I wasn’t sure what her scene was. She’d always been such a homebody by necessity.
I abruptly stopped walking, pulling her up short with me. “Seattle?”
She shrugged. “There’s a lot of coffee there. It’s like my personal Bat-Signal.”
“There’s coffee everywhere, babe. Not sure that should be your only prerequisite for where you settle. But if Seattle is what you want, I’m down.” I slanted my head when a thought donned on me. “Wait… Do you want to get married?”
Her whole body jolted, including her eyes, which flashed comically wide.
“Wait. Wait. Wait. That wasn’t a proposal,” I clarified. “I’m not asking if you want to marry me.”
The only thing more humorous than her wide eyes was her palpable disappointment.
My chest didn’t just warm. It ignited in an all-out wildfire. And not like the one that had been roaring inside me for the last four years. This one was a controlled burn, destroying all the debris, creating room for new growth.
She wanted to be with me.
And fuck me, but I wanted to be with her more than I’d wanted anything in my entire life: Cora, food, water, shelter. In that order.
But I didn’t need a marriage certificate or a ring on her finger to make that come to fruition.
I just needed her.
Curling her into my side, I kissed the top of her head. “Relax. I’m not asking yet, okay? It occurred to me that we’ve spent so much time discussing the past that I never found out what you want out of life. We’ve talked about you finishing college and getting your degree, but what next? Would you want to get married in general? Not just to me.”
She gave me the side-eye. “I’m not down with polygamy, Penn Pennington.”
I laughed.
Craning her head back, she peered up into my eyes. “Yeah. I’d get married again.” She nudged me with her elbow. “Assuming the right guy asked.”
I grinned down at her and started walking again. “You want kids?”
She buzzed her lips. “Wow. I honestly don’t know. I never thought I’d have the option again.” Her nose crinkled and she swayed her head from side to side in consideration. “I love kids, but with the way things went the first time, I’d have to feel…safe before taking that leap again.”
Safe. Kids or not. I could give that to her.
I would give that to her. I could give her the most boring, uneventful, simple life in the world. Not usually a selling point for a marriage, but for us, the slow life was exactly what we finally needed.
“You?” she asked, her voice squeaking at the end like she was preparing for the answer.
“I’d love to start a family. Lisa was never interested. It didn’t fit into her lifestyle. I accepted that. But if it were up to me, I’d want a couple.”
