He smoothed his palm over my backside. His fingers slipped between my legs. “My conditioning is fine but I love the support.”
“You better keep it that way,” I said lightly.
“I can reschedule. I don’t want you going into this alone.”
“No, no, it’s going to be okay,” I said. “Grace is just going to have a lot of questions and I’m going to have to answer them.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“It’s a complicated thing. I wanted Grace to have the whole wonderful engagement season experience but giving her that has meant withholding a few tidbits.”
He gave my ass a rough squeeze. “You have to explain this to me because I’ve never known you to keep anything from Grace but now everything is about hermoment. You didn’t have amomentbefore our wedding.”
“Because I wasn’t really engaged.”
His hand cracked hard against my ass. This one actually stung a bit. “You break my heart every time you say that.”
“No, I don’t,” I yelped, trying to kick him away.
He responded by banding an arm around my hips and holding me down. “It’s a wonder I’m still alive with all the times you’ve broken my heart.” He locked a hand around my ankles when I went on flailing. “Would you have wanted the whole moment thing? If it’d been different?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my hair out of my eyes. “Probably not, but being engaged can be a lot of fun if you do it right. It’s like Mardi Gras. Nonstop parties, someone’s always pouring champagne, and endless reasons to dress up and look cute. And people basically throw gifts at you the whole time.”
“You don’t want that?”
I shot him a lopsided grin over my shoulder. “All I’ve done for the past few months is go to parties with you, drink champagne, and dress up in very cute outfits. And I had a small panic attack over the gifts we received. I’ve had all the Mardi Gras I need. I’m good.”
His hand left my ankles to trail up between my legs. “You don’t want the traditional stuff? Like Grace?”
“Really, I’m good. But no one’s ever really celebrated Grace before,” I said. “Her family is extremely nice but they never had birthday parties or graduation parties or anything special for each kid. Their holidays wereonlyabout religious services. If one kid in the family had something great happen—winning a soccer tournament or honor roll or whatever—they had to wait until all the other kids had something great to acknowledge them all at once. Doesn’t make a lick of sense to me but it’s how they did it. And Ben and Grace are paying for this by themselves. He’s working a ton of overtime, she’s waxing vaginas left and right, all so they can have this dream celebration. And I didn’t want to ruin any of that.”
“Muggsy, how the hell could you ruin it by telling her that your ex is a sociopath?”
“Because when I tried to, she wanted to cancel her wedding.”
“That’s a trick play if I’ve ever seen one.” He slapped me again and I had to admit I didn’t mind it. His hand was large enough to connect with a wide area and when I spread my legs a tiny bit, the blows landed lower. “You can’t just pretend everything is okay and expect it to stay that way. You gotta speak up when things aren’t good.”
I went back to groaning into my pillow. He continued spanking me. I was probably beet red by now.
“You’re sure Clara won’t be there?” he asked.
“That would never happen,” I said with a rueful laugh. “Grace didn’t want a bachelorette party because she didn’t like the idea of us spending more money on her, but she did want to have a cute lunch date with her bridesmaids. There’s no way in hell Clara would be invited.”
“You’d be shocked at what really goes on in hell so give me a call if you need backup.”
“I think I’m going to be all right.” It felt weird to say thatandbelieve it. It felt weird to wake up without the tang of bitterness on my tongue, the gnawing anger in my belly. If I reached for it, I could find the last shards but the rest was gone. It was like Ryan had plucked it out of me and given it all back to Teddy. It was like I was free. “Even if she made an appearance, it would be okay. It doesn’t feel like it matters in the same way it did before.”
Another rough slap though this one landed squarely between the thighs I’d been inching open. “That’s what I like to hear, wifey.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Did Ines come home last night?”
He barked out a laugh. “Uh, no, she did not.” Grabbing his phone off the side table, he said, “But Jakobi texted me at three in the morning to tell me her phone died but all was well.”
I skimmed the messages. “So, she stayed with Jakobi?”
Ryan shrugged. “That’s what it sounds like.”
I dragged my lower lip between my teeth. “I can’t decide if I’m worried about her getting involved with someone so much older and more experienced or happy that she’s found someone who plans constellation cruises just because she likes seeing the stars.”
