Do I really have to use the company laptop if my work is getting done?

Hi everyone, I’ve got a bit of a mental debate going on and would love outside perspectives.

I started about two weeks ago as a remote contractor for a US company. My job involves doing takeoffs in Bluebeam Revu — working with very heavy PDFs (architectural drawings), so I really need speed and responsiveness.

Their original workflow was for me to work through a remote PC connection. We tried it, but the lag made it painful — everything took longer than it should. So I ended up working on my personal desktop instead, which honestly is a great machine: fast, dual monitors, my own peripherals, full freedom to install what I need. The work has been going out on time and the quality has been good — no complaints from them.

They insisted the work should happen on their remote PC, and since that wasn’t working well, they’ve now decided to ship me the actual laptop I was remoting into. When I asked if that was really necessary, they said yes — apparently they’ve had virus/security issues in the past.

Here’s my dilemma: I don’t really want to use their laptop. My honest plan is to keep working on my personal PC (which is clean, no malware, and they haven’t asked me to install any monitoring software on it) and leave the company laptop in a drawer. My contract says I provide my own equipment, and it doesn’t say anything specific about being required to use a second computer they send.

Part of me wonders if the laptop is partly about monitoring me, but the work is getting delivered and everything’s going well, so I don’t know.

Am I overthinking this, or would quietly not using the company laptop be a bigger deal than I think? Has anyone been in a similar situation as a contractor?