Free Spiral of Bliss 01 Arouse by Nina Lane

sexuality.”
    “Interesting,” I remark.
    “Maggie, check with the registrar about those classes and get back to me,” Dean says. “You’ll have to have your thesis proposal approved before next semester, then you can submit a paper for the conference.”
    “Okay. Nice meeting you, Mrs. West.” She heads off down the hall.
    Dean looks at me. “What’re you doing here?”
    “Thought I’d see if you wanted to grab lunch.”
    “It’s ten-thirty.”
    “Or brunch.”
    He frowns, then gestures me into his office and closes the door behind us. “What’s going on?”
    I sigh and flop into the chair in front of his desk. I’ve never brought our personal stuff into his workplace. But now I plunge ahead, like a rock rolling downhill.
    “I looked at the stuff on your computer this morning,” I admit.
    “What for?”
    I shrug and chew on my thumbnail, nettled by the sense that there is something I don’t know about him when I thought I knew everything.
    “You don’t even look at porn, do you?” I ask.
    “Why would I look at porn?”
    That makes me laugh. “You don’t know?”
    “I’ve got you. I don’t need porn.” He scratches his head, looking baffled. “Where are we going with this? Do you want me to look at porn?”
    “No.”
    “Do
you
want to look at porn? Because there’s plenty of it, from what I gather.”
    I study him for a moment. I don’t care about porn, but I’m curious about what one of us might do if the other one isn’t around sexually, whether because of physical or emotional separation.
    Sex has always been a big part of our relationship, both for the usual reasons—pleasure, to connect, because we’re in love—and for intensely personal reasons that belong to us alone.
    “Would it bother you if I did look at porn?” I ask.
    “No. If you want to, go ahead.”
    “I don’t want to.”
    “Liv.” Dean gestures to his desk, which is piled with papers. “I’ve got a shitload of work to do. Whatever you’re here about, can we discuss it at home?”
    “You haven’t been home much this past week,” I remind him. “And we tried to discuss it, but we never reached any conclusions.”
    He folds his arms. “The baby you’re thinking about.”
    “And you’re not.”
    “Liv, you haven’t even reached a conclusion about what you want. What is there to reach a conclusion about together?”
    “How would you have felt if that test was positive?” My heart thumps. He’s watching me, his arms still crossed, his expression wary.
    “I don’t know,” he says. “But that’s a pointless speculation.”
    “You didn’t even… wonder?”
    He shakes his head. My unease deepens.
    “Dean, when I told you I didn’t want children, you agreed with me. You said it was fine.”
    “It was.”
    “But what did
you
want?”
    “I wanted what you wanted. I understood.”
    “But even when we were dating…” A simmer of tension rises in my chest. “When we fell in love, you didn’t… didn’t ever think of us having children?”
    “Why would I when you closed that door?”
    “You never wanted to open it? Never pictured yourself as a father or me as…”
    My voice fades. We look at each other for a long moment. Something is off. I don’t know what it is. Dean has always moved forward in life, always made things happen. So why hasn’t he ever imagined our marriage as… as
more
?
    “Liv.” He slides his warm hand beneath my chin and lifts my face to look at him. “Not having children doesn’t make us any less married. Any less in love. It doesn’t make us any less a family.”
    “It doesn’t make us more either, does it?”
    He drops his hand to his side and steps back. “I didn’t think either of us needed more.”
    “Not more
than
each other,” I say. “More
with
each other.”
    “I have more
with you
than I ever thought I would,” he replies, his voice tense. “But if our marriage is suddenly not enough for you, then a baby sure as hell isn’t going to solve