Free Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) by Jamie Farrell Page A

in that kiss—maybe two—that haunted her for a different reason.
    “Oh, that’s bullshit,” he said. “I didn’t—”
    He stopped himself. The sudden flare of his eyes suggested he might have remembered after all.
    Nat scrubbed her hands over the goose bumps on her arms.
    His brow crinkled. His gaze dipped to her lips, and then back up. Uncertainty and a hint of vulnerability had snuck past the hardness in his eyes. “I kissed you,” he echoed.
    Her head drooped as low as her self-worth. She stared at his socks on the tan carpet. “It was horrible,” she said. “And you don’t even remember .”
    The blind kissing challenge was the crowd’s favorite event of the Husband Games. All the wives lined up on the outdoor stage set up at the Bliss High football stadium, and then one by one, their blindfolded husbands were led up to find and kiss the right wife.
    Usually Dad had led the men onstage. Both Natalie’s parents got credit for being chair couple of the Husband Games committee, but other than Dad’s role as emcee of the event, Mom did all the work. Not that year, though. That year, Dad had come down with food poisoning and missed all the festivities.
    Natalie had wished she’d done the same.
    Instead, she’d been onstage when Mom led the men out. Natalie was first in the line of wives, itchy in her rayon sundress, her shoulders already stinging beneath the bright sun, her stomach jittery. She hadn’t known yet that she was pregnant.
    Derek had been third. She’d intentionally not rinsed out all her shampoo that morning so he’d be able to smell her. Sure enough, when he stood in front of her, his black blindfold a perfect match to his always-too-long raven hair, his nose had hitched in an irritated sniff. He’d given her a perfunctory peck on the lips—obligation over—then taken his place behind her while the rest of the husbands were led out to find and stand with their wives. Four husbands later, when Mom stepped onto the stage with CJ, he hadn’t hesitated. As soon as he stopped in front of Natalie, he grinned big, his mouth wide and happy and tempting beneath his blindfold. Her stomach had dropped down—all the way down, until she felt pressure in places she had no business feeling pressure and tasted horror and fear and guilt in her mouth.
    He’d said, “Hey, beautiful,” then grasped her by the waist, pulled her into his big, solid body, and kissed her as if he were a caveman and she needed some clubbing.
    She didn’t remember if she tried to protest. If Derek did either.
    She just remembered that CJ was half a tongue-swipe into her mouth when he stopped cold. The laughter of the crowd penetrated Natalie’s ears. Lights danced behind her eyes.
    Watching men screw this one up was a hell of a lot more fun than being the woman onstage he screwed up with. Also much less confusing. Especially given the escalating number of fights Natalie and Derek were having.
    Fights over which movie to watch on a Friday night. Why the car was dirty. Who hadn’t paid the bills. The grease and grime from his job that she couldn’t get out of his clothes. Her obsession with expensive purses.
    Her demanding that he play in the Husband Games.
    Him shouting that all of Knot Fest was stupid.
    He’d written her poetry. He’d learned her favorite ice cream flavor. He’d taken her nowhere-near-subtle hints about getting the right engagement ring, which he couldn’t afford, and married her because she’d convinced him they were soul mates. That she could give him a life he deserved. A better life. A happy life.
    The life she wanted to dictate for him, since he was the only man in Bliss strong enough to brave dating her.
    But he’d still thought the Games, the festival, her life were all stupid.
    She’d felt pretty stupid then, standing onstage while a man who wasn’t her husband kissed her.
    CJ had pulled back, his lips screwing up in honest confusion. But then he flashed a grin in Mom’s general