Page 54 of Surge of Heat

“I honestly hadn’t thought about it,” I admit. “I’ve just been trying to survive day by day, hoping the green dragon won’t find me.”

His thumb rubs my hand. “I always pictured two possible futures, depending entirely on you.”

“On me?” I ask, surprised.

He nods. “One future involved not ending up with you. Fighting fires alone. Avoiding wherever you ended up with your husband and kids.”

That sounds sad.“And the other?”

He sighs. “The other involved marrying you, settling down in a house, and having four or five kids.”

“Fivekids?” I reply in shock.

He’s smiling. “Or more.”

“I don’t know whose vagina you think all these kids are going to come screaming out of, but it isn’t going to be mine.”

He laughs, and I forgot how much I love his laugh. “I don’t know. I just feel like we’d want to have a lot of kids, that’s all.”

I’m smiling, but I actually think about it. “Three or four kids wouldn’t be the worst.”

He squeezes my hand again. “I don’t think all this dragon stuff has to change anything. We could still have that life.”

My smile falters. “Aydan, we talked about this.”

He releases my hand and sits up. “I’ve just been thinking. You and Evander know nothing about each other. You don’t have a real connection. I think after what you went through with the dragon, you’ve just trauma bonded. We learned a lot about that in–”

I roll my eyes. “I know about trauma bonding, and this isn’t it.”

“Then, explain it to me,” he says.

It’s hard. I don’t knowhowto explain it to him in a way that makes sense. “You and Granger feel like you’re a part of me. Every time I think about you, I can’t imagine my life without you. Just the thought of losing you… it kills something inside of me.”

“That’s how we feel about you.”

“The thing is, that’s how I feel about Evander too. I know I haven’t known him as long. I know he’s not exactly the kind of person I saw myself with, but the heart doesn’t lie.”

He flops back on the bed.

Sitting up, I place a hand on his bare chest. “Are you okay?”

He runs his hands through his hair. “Have you ever had a problem you just couldn’t solve?”

I laugh and kiss his chest. “Absolutely.”

His gaze finds mine. “You’re that to me. A problem I just can’t solve.”

I kiss him again, this time on the lips.

Suddenly, he turns and rolls me under his body while I shriek. He plants a kiss on my lips and says, “Stop being a problem.”

I shove him off of me and roll on top of him. I grab his hands and try to hold his wrists above his head. He gives me a wicked grin and grabs my wrists instead. We wrestle on the bed, laughing and shouting before he pins me down on my stomach.

I wiggle around, wrists held behind my back. “Let go, you turd.”

“Turd? Did you call me a turd?”

“Well, if the crap shoe fits!”

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