He made me feel safe.
Comfortable. He’s done this before, switching an event onto himself so it eases me into it. His confidence has a way of seeping straight through me, and I love this person in front of me…a man that I always want to be with.
I splay my palms flat on his bare chest, and he hugs his arms around me, even if I don’t really reciprocate it with my arms around him. I just keep my hands right here.
My tipsy-self almost wants to tell him, you’re so hot. I want to bang you. You’re bangable, you know? Your hair is perfect. Your lips even more so. I keep opening my mouth, but even the thought of uttering an overly sweet compliment tastes strange and wrong.
So I land with this, “I hate you.”
He grins more. “So much so that if I stayed up there for three minutes longer, you would’ve climaxed.”
I scoff. “No…” I trail off, remembering the pulse of my body that was climbing towards a peak. You would’ve orgasmed on a bar, Rose. In front of everyone.
I believe it, but I just raise a hand to his face to shut him down.
He clasps my wrist, and he lowers his lips to my ear. “I’ll take care of you tonight.”
Translation: Keep drinking if you want.
I do want.
And then I watch his eyes slip off me, and I follow them to Ryke. Everyone laughs around him. Even Daisy looks like she feels better with a brighter, more genuine smile. However, he wears a dark questioning glare, pinned on us.
It says: why the fuck are they doing this? Did they lose a bet? It doesn’t make fucking sense…
What we can’t reply: we’re doing this to draw attention off our kids and onto us.
This might be the night where Ryke refuses vague excuses and fights for a real answer.
32
CONNOR COBALT
Daisy and Rose stumble down the hotel hallway together, drunkenly laughing and clutching onto each other for support. They both took tequila shots until the pub closed, and they’ve been singing “My Heart Will Go On” by Céline Dion, all incredibly out of tune.
I’d enjoy the whole scenario more if Ryke wasn’t beside me, silently overthinking my striptease back in the pub. I can practically feel his mind at work as we walk behind the girls, and he steals reticent, cautious glances my way, hoping I’ll meet his eyes and regurgitate every secret I have.
I’m not that easy to crack.
The girls trip over each other near our hotel door, and they collapse in a heap, giggling. I rub my lips, trying not to laugh since Rose never makes this noise. It’s a rarity that I’ll remember—it’s one that I do adore.
I stop in front of them, staring down as they look up. “Girls,” I say, passing Ryke the hotel keycard.
Daisy with glazed eyes says, “Rose wants a cupcake. Don’t you, Rose?” She pets Rose’s cheek.
Rose wears a pleased smile. “Yes…cupcakes, please.” She holds out her hand, as though waiting for me to kiss her wedding ring or deliver her a treat.
“How about bed, darling?”
She makes a face at me like I offered her dirt in a bag. “That’s a horrible present, Richard.”
I clasp her forearm and help her up, but she staggers against me. It’s easier for me to carry my wife, so I cradle her in my arms and kick open the door before it closes, then Ryke helps Daisy the same way.
“We’ve decided on a sleepover,” Daisy declares behind me, her arms wrapped around Ryke’s neck as he carries her into the room with one king-sized bed.
I set Rose on the hotel bed and she sprawls out and hugs a pillow. “No boys allowed,” Rose adds a requirement, which further leaves me alone with Ryke. We have four hotel rooms, and I hoped the girls would want to talk with each other for another hour and then let us split them apart.
Clearly that’s not happening in my favor.
Ryke obliges and actually tosses Daisy on the bed beside her sister. She laughs, and Rose spreads out her arms as though she’s suddenly at sea, sinking on the Titanic. Her hairband is lost in the depths of the white comforter.
I lean over my wife and comb her hair out of her face, and her eyes narrow at me, even glazed they still contain heat. Blood pools in my cock. I can always tell when she’ll start her period because my body grows more primal, attracted to every physical move she makes.
She emits pheromones around this time, and the chemicals usually send me over until I fuck her—but tonight is different.
She looks closely at my lips. “Why do I love you?”
I rile her. “If you really want me to list all the reasons why, I’ll be here all night.”
She tries to cover my mouth with her hand, and she misses completely, swatting air beside my head. I laugh.
I notice Ryke sitting on the edge of the bed with Daisy lounging drunkenly across his lap. “Big bad wolf…” She reaches up to touch his hair but her arm sags limply next to her. “Eat me.”
It’s a provocative, intoxicated statement that I do my best to block out.
Ryke lowers his head to her, kissing Daisy once…twice and then he says, “Every fucking day, sweetheart.”
“Where’s Lily?” Rose asks me.
“Her hotel room with Lo.” They’re fucking, something I’d prefer to be doing with Rose, instead of sharing Ryke’s company.
“Where’s Poppy?”
“Her hotel room with Sam.”
“Where is Willow…and where’s her boyfriend?” Rose swats the air for answers. I clasp her hand.
“Lo’s sister didn’t want to go out,” I remind Rose. Willow turned eighteen last week, but Lo said that she preferred to spend the night at her apartment and read a comic book. “And she doesn’t have a boyfriend.” I know Rose must be referring to Garrison.
Rose snorts and tries to wave me off, but I have possession of her hand. “I’ve seen them flirt,” she says matter-of-factly, as though that’s evidence enough.
“Your logic isn’t sound, darling.” I tug her dress down when it rides up her thigh. I’d let her be, but Ryke is on this bed too. “We flirted for years, and you never called me your boyfriend.”
Her mouth falls and eyes flame. “What we did wasn’t flirting.”
I arch a brow. “When I was seventeen you said you wanted to perform an autopsy on me, to crack open my ribcage and squeeze my heart until it burst between your fingers.” What is that—if not flirting?
She lifts her head off a pillow to near me, propping her elbows on the mattress. “That was me hating you, Richard. I dreamed of your death.”
“You dreamed of clutching my heart,” I rebut.
“Of killing you,” she emphasizes.
I lean closer to her, our eyes locking. “Vous m’aimiez.” You loved me.
She breathes shallowly and collapses back against the mattress, conceding early, mostly due to the alcohol. Her heavy-lidded eyes fight to stay open longer, just to glare at me.
When I turn to look at Ryke, he’s staring between Rose and me with more suspicion than I’d like to meet. “You know,” he says, “for so many years, I’ve never fucking understood why you both occasionally use vous instead of tu.”
My muscles still stay flexed, even if this is a pointless topic for me.
Rose answers before I do. “It’s formal.” We’re both not natives of France. Since we usually only converse with each other, we do what we want.