Page 13 of Lucky Night

Jennyjennyjennyjennyjennymyjenny

Well, that’s plenty. If not too much. But pet names, any sort of lovey-dovey cuddly smoochykins business? That’s not Nick. He has affection for her, she knows, but his mode of expressing it is rougher. He banters. He mocks. God, does it make her wet. Submission to his harangues. Domination by his merciless wit. She shouldn’t love it so much.

Oh well. It is what itis.

He does occasionally call her by her married name, just to annoy her. Tom’s awful name. She’s never used it—professionally she’s Jennifer Parrish, the name she was born with. Because what insane Polish person ever thought that made sense as a frickinglast name? It’s pure poetry, Nick says. Poetry on the tongue. He can be so irritating sometimes.

Not now. He’s holding her wrists over her head with one hand, undoing her buttons with the other. Good luck, Nicky boy—those are some slippery little bitches. She twists under him like she wants to escape. Tries to bite the unbuttoning hand. He holds her face,his thumb deep in her mouth. Presses himself down on her and bites her ear.

No faking this time, he says.

No faking, she agrees.

None of your thrashing and yodeling. Unless you meanit.

I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, she says.

He busies himself with the buttons. She wishes, not for the first time, that she hadn’t told him she’d faked it earlier.

Because that was a lie.

She came—of course she came! He’d obliterated her, swept her away as he always does. The lie was spontaneous.I didn’t come.Such a mistake! What did she think, he was going to shrug it off? This is Nick we’re dealing with. Analytical Man. The Great Interrogator. She reaches between his legs and strokes him.

Oh yes please, he says, pushing himself into her hand. Yes, that’s—ow, too much! Jesus, woman, you’re not milking a cow!

It was seeing her rings, on the table beside the bed. Coming out of the bathroom, about to rejoin him, and there they were, wedding on top of engagement band, reminding her of what happened earlier, when she took them off.

They’d made it to the bed from the door, they were naked, kissing, she was straddling him, he was biting at her hand, catching a finger, sucking on it. Her left hand. He’d held it up, the gold glinting.

I need you to take these off, he’d said.

And she’d obliged, twisting them loose, leaning over and placing them on the nightstand. He’d watched it all with a peculiar gleam in his eye.

She smiled down at him. Better?

Yes and no, he said. Part of me wants you to put them back on so I can watch you take them off again.

Oh, she said. So, you…didn’t want them off. You wanted to watch me take them off?

Desperately, he said, kissing her palm. I alwaysdo.

And she was mortified. Because she’d misunderstood. For a flash, an instant during the twisting and tugging, she thought thesight of her rings bothered him. Reminded him that she was married to someone else, maybe kicked up, who knows, some possessive instinct.

She thought he wanted them off because he didn’t like seeing them on her. Wrong. He wanted them off because he did like them. Her being married to someone else arouses him. He’s turned on by the transgression, the—to him—delicious violation of morals and manners that brought them here.

Where they would never be together otherwise.

And, look—she knows this about him, okay, almost from the very beginning she’s known it. But when he said it, his voice gone low and a little hoarse, when he caught her hand and said,I need you to take these off,her mind tilted sideways and that knowledge slipped out. She misread him, and—this is the worst part, the absolute worst!—she liked it. She thought he was jealous, and that pleased her.

So when she realized she was wrong, he was the opposite of jealous? She was mortified. How could she think that? She knows,knowsthat’s not what this is about.

She’d gotten over it, obviously, she’d forgotten all about it, but when she came out of the bathroom and saw him sipping his champagne, propped up like a smug king, her rings stacked beside him, taunting her—silly Jenny, you were wrong wrong wrong, oh and by the way, you’re married, so you’re also doing wrong wrong wrong!—she hated herself all over again. Stupid! This thing you have is ideal, it worksso well,you want to risk it, spoil it with greed for more?

You have a great life. Such good fortune. Be satisfied.

And so she toppled into a pit of shame and recrimination, all over a misunderstanding that nobody in the world would ever know about but her. Still, she had to blot it out, stop thinking about it. Which is why she lied and said she hadn’t come, prompting a whole big…

I didn’t even see you put this on, he says now, tugging at her camisole. Why so many layers?

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