Chapter 36
JULIA
Jesus is staring at me, judging me from his place on the crucifix hung on my wall.
“Sorry,” I quietly tell him as I stuff my pink lipstick – the one that I’m not supposed to own – into my handbag.
My parents think I’m going to study group tonight. They would kill me if they knew that the car that I’ll be climbing into in the next hour belongs to Tripp Montgomery and not to a taxi company.
Picking up my Blackberry, I re-read my boyfriend’s response to the text I’d sent him earlier, asking what he thinks I should wear to the party tonight.
My teeth tug at my lower lip as my cheeks heat, and I drop the phone back onto my bed before moving toward the mirror hung over my closet door. Smoothing my hands over my top, I turn side to side, letting myself inspect the outfit I’ve chosen.
A knock sounds at my door, and my mother lets herself into the room without being invited. She never waits for an invitation.
Almost immediately, she scans me head to toe. Inspecting. Looking for a flaw.
“Sweetie, you can’t wear that,” she says with a shake of her head. Her disappointment in me seeps into her every word. As she crosses the room, she takes hold of my soft belly, squeezing it between her fingers. “It’s too small for you.”
My eyes move to the mirror, the same mirror that my boyfriend has made me stare at and tell myself over and over again that I’m beautiful. That I’m perfect. That my body is healthy and that I don’t need to look like anything or anyone else.
The mirror in which my mother now amplifies the very thing that she finds disgusting about me.
And I close them.
“Are you taking your pills?” She asks. “They only work if you take them consistently.”
“They make my stomach hurt,” I grumble.
“A stomach that hurts is a stomach that doesn’t hunger,” she tells me with a kiss to my cheek before moving toward the door. “Ninety pounds until your goal weight, Julia. You can manage that.”
“Mommy,” I call out as she passes the threshold. She turns, bracing a hand against the door as she meets me with an expectant rise of her brow. “What if I can’t?”
Her features twist into contemplation, thoughts visibly swirling behind her eyes before she looks at me again.
“Then I suppose you won’t be getting your car returned to you or joining us in Seychelles next year, will you?” She muses. A soft smile pulls across her face as she dips her chin. “We love you, sweetie. We only want what’s best for you.”
And then she’s gone, and I’m all alone.
Present Day
My hands smooth the buttery burgundy fabric of my dress over and over again. Fingers tug at the ruched sections, pulling and adjusting. Hoping that it will somehow sit in a way that it isn’t designed to.
This is the fifth dress I’ve tried on tonight, and it’s just not…
Yanking the fabric down the length of my body with a groan, I toss it onto the bed behind me, where the other failures of the evening now live, and I slip back into the plush pink robe that I feel most comfortable in.
This hasn’t happened to me since high school. I don’t feel bad in my clothes, but tonight, every single piece is wrong.
“You’re not dressed yet,” Tripp comments with a gesture toward my discarded pile of clothes.
Thanks, Lovey, for that incredibly observant commentary, I want to snap at him.
Biting my tongue, I shrug, defeated, as I pull the tie on my robe to wrap it into a bow.
“I don’t know what to wear,” I tell him. At the furrow in his brow, I add, “I just don’t feel good in anything and I don’t want to look as stupid as I feel. I really don’t want to ruin his night.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, he pulls in a considering breath. “You talked to your mom, didn’t you?”
No secrets.
No lies.
“Not recently,” I tell him with a shake of my head. “I think all of this talk about families just has a lot of things cropping up to the surface, and I’m…” I heave a sigh in the direction of my clothes. “I just have to get out of my own head.”
“It’s not you who’s in your head,” he argues, “it’s Michelle.”
Nodding, as if solidifying something in his mind, he steps across the room to reach for my floor-length mirror and he slides it across the carpet to prop it against the wall in front of me.
As he moves to stand behind me, his hands slide up from the curve of my hips to let his arms wrap around my shoulders.
His lips meet my temple, gentle but firm.
“Look at her,” he says of the woman facing me in the mirror. He frees one hand only for a moment to pull the clip from my hair. “Look at her and tell her how fucking beautiful she is.”
I don’t, because right now I don’t feel beautiful. I feel puffy and irritated and defeated, and all I want to do is to get into our bed and watch a movie until tomorrow comes and I can wash my hands of this feeling.
A new slate, where the insecurities that ruled my every thought a lifetime ago can go back to being a thing of the past.
Tripp kisses my neck, sucking at my skin just before he pulls away. His hands move toward the tie of the robe, and I reach for his wrists as he tugs at the ends.
“Stop,” I whisper.
“Not until you look at her,” he argues. “Not until you appreciate her the way I do.”
As the robe falls open and I’m faced with my body, dressed in only a bra and a pair of underwear, my jaw hardens. Tripp’s hands land at my hips, slowly following the soft curve of my body as he stares at the reflection ahead of us.
Not studying; admiring.
“Do you know how many men spent years of their lives trying to carve a body like this out of stone?” His lips meet my shoulder as he pulls my robe from my body, sliding it down my arms and letting it drop onto the floor. “When you tell me you don’t like this body, you’re insulting a masterpiece.”
That same old step creaks under Connor’s weight to announce his presence as he treks up toward our bedroom. Stopping in the doorway, he surveys the two of us, scanning up and down the length of my body. Unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt, he cocks his head to the side, raising a questioning brow.
“We’re not leaving by seven,” he teases.
“Our wife doesn’t think she looks good,” Tripp explains. I melt against his hands as they travel across my back to unclasp my bra. “I think she could use a confidence boost.”
“Tripp—”
My bra falls to the floor before I can protest, my husband’s hands moving to massage into my breasts as Connor approaches us, loosening his dress shirt and pulling the hem of it out from behind his waistband.
The corner of his mouth quirks as he scans the length of my body, using his chin to gesture toward the mattress behind me. Stepping toward it, one hand pulls open the leather belt around his hips, the other bracing his body as it drops onto the surface.
Accepting his silent invitation, I follow his path, pivoting my body as his hands rest at the curve of my hips. His lips melt against my skin as he presses them to my lower back, his fingers sliding my panties off of my hips and his voice muffled when he speaks.
“Make my day and be nice and loud for us, okay, Princess?” His question is punctuated with a soft kiss that contrasts with his touch as he lowers me onto his lap.
Hands trail down the lengths of my thighs, spreading them apart, and Connor’s lips meet my neck as Tripp lowers himself between them.
My husband’s hands glide slowly from my ankles to my knees as he presses soft, teasing kisses to the insides of my thighs.
His featherlight touch sends warmth through my belly, forcing a contented sigh as Connor’s hands cup my breasts to knead into my flesh.
Tripp kisses his way up my body, and when he reaches my breast, he offers a broad stroke of his tongue across my nipple before pulling it into his mouth. I shudder when his teeth lightly graze the sensitive peak, but he’s painting my skin with pleasure, and I never want him to leave it.
His tongue and his lips only stop when his nose finally rests against mine. My eyelids grow heavy as his hands slide across the skin of my thighs.
“Keep those eyes on the mirror, baby,” he whispers.
My hand tangles into the neatly-styled hair at the back of his head as our mouths crash together, and a soft moan slips from my lips as Connor’s hand slides between my legs to tease my pussy, his fingers carefully spreading me open as if he’s plating Tripp’s meal for him.
My husband takes his time kissing his way back down the length of my body, every inch of my skin on fire, torn between vulnerability and a desperate, aching need while they toy with me.
With every pull of suction against my neck, every roll of my nipple between Connor’s fingers and every soft breath against my skin, my heart beats faster in my chest.
As Tripp’s tongue finally slides between my lips, I gasp, locking eyes with myself in the mirror.
“Let me get a taste of her,” Connor orders.
Obeying his demand, my husband raises himself from his knees to take hold of Connor’s head, meeting him in a fervent kiss that sends heat pouring down my spine.
With Connor’s cock swelling beneath me, Tripp lowers himself again, diving into me with long strokes of his tongue. He pushes my thighs to bring my feet to his shoulders while my nipples are carefully rolled between the pads of our partner’s fingers.
Suction sends my head flying backward with a moan as Tripp pulls my clit into his mouth, sucking and teasing it with the tip of his tongue, and I watch in the mirror as his body shifts in response.
He’s getting hard.
“She’s perfect, isn’t she?” Connor breathes. His voice is strained, stuck in his throat.
He frees a hand from my breast to reach for the back of my husband’s head, pulling him tighter into me. A finger slides deep inside of me, and I pull in a sharp intake of breath.
“Mmmm, fuck,” Tripp groans into my skin, his words muffled by the greedy mouth that won’t leave my skin.