Page 82 of Whips and Chains
X’s mouth dropped open in horror. “The rage is back,” he whispered, pulling me close again.
But Grandma Ruth winked at me, and I suspected the old woman was just having a bit of fun. I couldn’t blame her. She was old, not dead. If she wanted to sit on the lap of a man forty or maybe fifty years her junior, then who were we to stop her?
Plus, I kinda liked having X wrap himself around me like I was his comfort blanket.
He’d been that for me more than once, and I drew just as many good feelings from his scent and the strength of his arms as he was currently getting from me.
Grandma Ruth clapped bony hands together. “Now that everyone is here, how about we get this game night underway?”
I grinned. “We’re playing games?”
Jeanie nodded. “It’s tradition. First Saturday night of every month is game night. She tucked her arm into mine. “You don’t cheat, do you, Violet? We like to run a clean, fair game here.”
I suddenly really wanted to make a good impression on this woman. I didn’t want her to think I was lacking in moral character.
Even though I had sworn to bury the psychopath playing games with us. And I had meant it in the physical way.
“I’m not a cheater,” I promised.
The thought of Levi and Whip suddenly flickered through my mind. Was I cheating? Levi and I had spent the night in bed together, and it had felt like a whole lot more than fucking.
And Whip? Every time I thought about him, something deep inside me yearned for his touch. He felt safe and calm, and I kept turning to him when I was scared.
I knew he wasn’t mine, and yet I didn’t want to give him up.
I had no idea what I was doing with any of these men, but they all knew about each other, and so far, none of them had asked me to choose.
Which was good, because I was pretty sure I couldn’t.
Jeanie winked at me. “Well, that’s a shame, because the rest of us are.”
I laughed at her, and X sat me down onto the floor next to his nephew and sister-in-law and started setting up Monopoly pieces.
I watched on, the family all chattering with each other and laughing when one of X’s brothers accused him of stealing an extra hundred from the bank.
He totally had, I’d seen it too, but when his brother turned to me for confirmation, I shrugged.
“I didn’t see anything. Looked completely legit to me.”
Hendrix just laughed. “You fit right in here.”
I hid a smile, because fitting in with a family, especially one as loud and colorful and fun as the one I’d been introduced to tonight, felt like the biggest compliment in the world.
The game began, and I watched Suzanne from the corner of my eye, her son cuddled up on her lap, her daughter bouncing around the uncles, each of them vying for her attention, X included. Suzanne had gotten to marry into this family.
I wondered if she knew how incredibly lucky she was.
I was dead jealous of her. Of all of them, really.
There was so much love in this room, even though there was also a lot of trash talk, and play fights, too. I’d never seen anything like it. My only memories of family nights were my foster parents gathering all the kids in the house in the living room to scream about which one of us had drunk their vodka and refilled it with water.
I flinched at the memory of a belt cracking across the backs of my thighs because nobody had owned up. So they’d punished all of us.
I knew it had been Travis who’d done it. I’d seen him drinking with one of his friends after school one day, but he’d let us all take his punishment, and he hadn’t even been a little bit remorseful for it.
I’d been too scared to tell our foster parents who it really was because I knew Travis’s punishment would be worse than a spanking if I tattled.
X’s fingers squeezed the back of my neck, bringing me back into the present. “What’s wrong? We’re winning.”
