Free After Dark by M. Pierce Page B

and stalked out across the hotel lawn.
    God, I despised this blanket of humidity.
    I gave Nate a call and asked if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for him to drive to Ella and Rick’s tomorrow. “Hannah asked for you,” I said. “Moral support or something.”
    “Does she need moral support?” Nate sounded affable, as always, and I sounded half-unhinged, as always.
    “Hell if I know,” I snapped. “She thinks they hate her.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “I called her a simple girl. God, I said that today.” I leaned against a tree.
    “‘Simple’?” Nate chuckled. “Well, she is very sweet.”
    “Mm, but how could I say that? She’s hurt. Pissed. I don’t know.”
    “I’m sure. Give her time. Apologize. Be good to her, Matt. She’s a gem.”
    “I know she’s a fucking gem. I am good to her. I’m the best I can be.”
    “Better than this, I hope.” He yawned in my ear and I glowered at the grass. “I’ll see if Val feels up to visiting Ella and Rick tomorrow. Either way, I’ll drive up.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Not at all. It’ll be great to see you two.” Again, he urged me to apologize to Hannah—he was the nettling good angel on my shoulder—and said good-bye.
    I returned to our hotel room with every intention of apologizing, but Hannah was still asleep. I rummaged through my suitcase. There, among the shirts, was my little surprise for Hannah: a stainless-steel plug with a sapphire on the stopper. Desire rippled through me.
    That morning, Hannah had caught me writing in my journal from Mike. Matt’s Black Book, as I had started to think of it.
    The entry was rambling, lust-fueled.
    I wrote about pain. Her pain, my pleasure. Restraints. A riding crop.
    Violent desire …
    Sometimes, I could almost convince myself that Hannah might like my “aberrant desires.” She’d let me spank her in the past, after all, with my hand and a belt, and I’d used clamps and other toys with her.
    Then, when I was sneaking between the mountains and our condo, we’d indulged in a weekend of rough sex. Struggle and force. Pleading, overpowering. A dark role-play. But I never really knew if Hannah liked those pleasures on the fringes of normalcy, and that fierce sex seemed localized in a riskier time.
    Too anxious to rest, too tired to write, I sank into the armchair with my laptop and browsed the Net: Twitter … Facebook … Gmail.
    I had one new e-mail from an unfamiliar sender, krazybaby88. I opened it.
    Subject: (no subject)
    Sender: krazybaby88
    Date: Friday, June 20, 2014
    Time: 9:20 AM
    I know something you don’t know. Your girlfriend knows, too. I wonder why she hasn’t told you. Christine Catalano is pregnant. Who’s the proud daddy?
    It’s Seth Sky!

 
    Chapter 11
    HANNAH
    Matt’s aunt and uncle lived in a townhouse in Moore Estate, a bucolic luxury community minutes from our hotel.
    I woke up alone that morning, which didn’t surprise me. Matt was in one of his moods.
    We’d spent the rest of yesterday in the hotel, skirting each other. I watched HBO and ordered room service. He hit the exercise machines, showered, and left for half a dozen smokes. I couldn’t get a word out of him.
    What the hell was that about? I was the injured party here. He’d called me “a simple girl.” Yeah, a regular country bumpkin compared to the great Matthew Sky.
    Unrefined. Uncultured. Untraveled.
    Good to know how you really see me, Matt.
    And today, I would meet more of the snobby Sky clan. Hooray.
    I rolled out of bed and shuffled into the sitting area. A note lay on the couch.
    Having coffee downstairs. Meet me in the lobby. Bought these for today. M.
    Even his use of the letter—not Matt, my fianc é , but M., the great author—irritated me.
    What he’d bought added insult to injury.
    It was an outfit. Not just a necklace or shoes, but a complete outfit—suitable, I presumed, for wearing around the elite Aunt Ella and Uncle Rick.
    I opened a Neiman Marcus box to find a cream-colored