my new sperm disposal business,” her grandmother said. “Now I know. Next time, we’ll use an Instant Pot on the porch.”
“No,” Grace said, shaking her head. “Absolutely not. Honestly! I left you two alone for one afternoon.”
“To be fair,” I said, “it was like most of the morning, then lunchtime, and all afternoon. We were here alone a while.”
Grace glared at me. “You need a job. Both of you need a job.”
43
Grace
I made Gran burn different, nicer-smelling candles after shooing Chris and the Svensson brothers out for a boys’ night. I had caught up on my editing work at the office earlier, especially since the last wedding had a curtailed number of photos in my queue. Now I needed to work on some sort of viral article that would magically convince the publishing house to produce my coffee-table book.
But all I could think about was Chris.
“You sent him away to not have the distraction,” I reminded myself as I sat at my desk, staring at the blinking cursor on the Word document.
I was not a writer; I was a more visual person. The most I had ever written were little captions in the scrapbooks I made for each bride. But now I had to write not only an article, but one that was funny, addictive, and interesting and would make people want to read it immediately then share it.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose under my glasses. I had zero ideas—not even bad ones.
I wished Chris were there.
You do not miss him, I scolded myself as I forced my brain to work on my article.
In the end, I only managed to write three sentences about how I wasn’t sure what to write then shut my laptop. It was hopeless. The cold fingers of despair grabbed my stomach. I went into the kitchen, which now smelled like rosewater and sugar cookies from the twenty Bath & Body Works candles I had set ablaze in the space, and heated up then stress-ate all the remaining leftovers from the wedding.
What if Chris comes back home with another woman? I fretted.
It was certainly within his right to. I had told him we were divorcing, that this marriage was meaningless. Still the thought of him with someone else made me feel irrationally angry.
He’s a grown man. If he wants to sleep around, that is on him. It’s not like we made some sort of lifelong promise of fidelity to each other, I reminded myself as I ate another big spoonful of pasta. After polishing off a wedge of wedding cake as big as my head, I staggered back to my bedroom.
You’re just tired. You need to rest. All that sex has messed with your sleep hygiene.
Wait, no, don’t think about sex!
Too late.
My bed somehow seemed to smell like it, and all I could think about when I lay down was Chris next to me, then on top of me then inside of me…
I tossed and turned, feeling hot and bothered.
“My bed isn’t even as big as his,” I grumbled, pulling one of the food pillows onto my head. “Why does he keep coming in here?”
Coming…
“That’s it!” I announced, sitting up.
I went across the hall to Chris’s room. It was a bit cooler in there and had the clean sage-and-spring-water smell I associated with him.
I snuggled under his covers, surrounded by the scent of him…
And woke up the next morning with Chris in nothing but his silken boxer briefs wrapped around me, one leg thrown over mine.
“Oops,” I murmured. Chris buried his face in my hair.
“You missed me.”
I felt him smile against my cheek.
“You made my room smell like sex.”
He chuckled softly. Then he swept my hair aside and kissed me lightly on the back of the neck then grazed kisses between my shoulder blades then down, down. I gasped in anticipation.
“And now,” he said, “I’m going to make my room smell like sex.”
“Is that a promise?” I rasped.
“Hmm,” he hummed, but from the way he touched me, I knew it was. Chris smiled as he added, “I loved seeing you on your hands and knees for me.”
I took that for the cue that it was and rose into position. Getting fucked doggy style had nearly driven me out of my mind before. His thick cock had struck all the areas inside that drove me up the wall. I was more than ready for round two.
Chris, it seemed, had other ideas. He sat on his knees behind me, his big palms cupping my ass like