Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

On the one hand, he loved this. It was peaceful, and he knew how much Wyn enjoyed his playing, specifically this piece. It was her favorite.

On the other hand, with all their kids gone, the third family supper in a row consumed, and Wyn firmly establishing herself in his life and his home, he’d prefer to be doing other things with his wife.

He watched her lips tip up softly and called, “Good book?”

She looked up at him.

“It is, but I was remembering The Right Stuff.”

Remy didn’t miss a note, even if he remembered that too.

She had to know he did, but she laid it out anyway.

“We watched that movie at your place in New York, and during the fan dance scene, I started crying. You teased me. I said I’d never heard that song and it was the most beautiful song to ever touch my ears. You paused the movie and got right up, went to your piano and played it by memory. I was so impressed I could barely stand myself.”

He kept playing, now smiling, as he reminded her, “I got that, since, when I was done, you tackled me, and we had sex under the piano.”

Her face grew soft. “You had that tiny loft. A bed, a couch, a TV. All of that barely fit because you had a grand piano.”

He did.

Because his mother bought it for him, saying, “Uprights are common, Remy.”

He looked down at his hands moving on the keys.

Wyn kept reminiscing. “So when I moved in, we were totally scrunched.”

That memory was a load better.

Only when he finished the piece did he turn back to her, and this time he did it fully shifting his body on the bench to face her.

“What’s going on with Manon and her guy?” he asked and watched her head tick at the change of topic.

But she went with his flow because she was determined to go with his flow because she was determined to treat him like he was china now that she knew what his childhood had been like.

He loved her sitting right there.

He’d bleed before she was again anywhere but with him.

But that shit was beginning to piss him off.

“She tried to reschedule their date for last night, but he said he had something on. According to Manon, he’s playing games. Apparently, he was upset she cancelled the plans they had Friday night. She said two can dance that tango. So instead of going home yesterday, they stayed until today, because they also had brunch plans for this morning.”

They did stay, with Sabre, oddly, having no qualms falling in with her plans to the point he horned in on Wyn and Manon going shopping yesterday, declaring, “I need new jeans,” when Remy couldn’t remember the last time his oldest son had gone to a mall. This to the point he gave his sister money and a shopping list to do for him for Christmas, and since Manon could happily live in a mall, she had no problem fulfilling his orders.

And because Sah went, Yves went too.

Remy did not. He wanted to give them time with their mom, he had a delivery he needed to be home for, and like his eldest, he hated the mall.

It wasn’t shopping, he just wasn’t a crowd person.

“Did Sah get new jeans?” Remy asked.

Wyn nodded.

“Did you tell Manon she needs to dump this guy?” he asked.

Wyn’s lips tipped up again. “You think your daughter needs to dump every guy.”

“Only when she dates putzes. And this guy is a putz, if he gets in a snit when it’s more important she be with her family.”

“According to you, they’re all putzes.”

“Because they’ve all been putzes.”

Her smile came back.

“Do you think Sabre is acting strange?” Remy asked.

The smile went away, and she nodded.

“Yes. For Sah, he’s being…” she looked like she was searching for a word before she found it, “overprotective of Manon, when Manon is handling learning what happened to you a lot better than I expected.”

“He’s giving me a break, or he thinks he is.”

“Sorry?”

“He thinks I need to deal with Mom dying and he knows, usually, I’m overprotective of Manon. So he’s taking that on because he feels I need to have time to deal and not worry about my daughter. And he made a show of making sure I knew he was on the job.”

“We’ve got good kids, Remy,” she said softly.

“The minute she was out, I bought new mattresses,” he announced. “They were delivered yesterday while you and the kids were shopping.”

That made his wife look like she was going to bolt.

Since she didn’t, he went on, “Even so, I hadn’t slept with her in that bed in weeks.”

“Remy—”

“Because I fucked her, are you never going to touch me that way again, Wyn?”

“I think maybe we should get into this when—”

“She was my first, and only, after you.”

Color came into her face, and yeah.

He was getting pissed off.

The worst part about it?

He had no right to.

Not about that.

He’d done that to himself.

Regrettably, it didn’t make him any less pissed off.

“So you had a first but not an only,” he guessed, feeling that knife sink into his gut.

“I think maybe this is something we should both let fade away,” she suggested.