CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Tommy and Grace were in bed, too, cuddling with her back to his front and his dick still deep inside of her. It had been a long day and they worked all of their tension out in bed, but they were concerned too. Especially Tommy. Because of what Big Daddy had said to them. He knew their marriage wasn’t in dire straits like some of the others. They had been there, done that. But it had its issues too. And he knew they hadn’t addressed them at all.

“Grace?”

Grace had been dozing off as he held her so tightly still, which always made her feel safe and secure. “Yes?”

“What is the one thing about our marriage that drives you nuts?”

Grace paused. It was a question she hadn’t expected to hear from Tommy ever. But she also knew this just might be her only opportunity to go there.

She went there. “You’re the undisputed head of our family.”

Tommy knew that was true too. “Right.”

“And I adore that. The children do too. Carmine once told me he believes our children love our family’s arrangement , as he called it. And I know it sounds crazy quoting a kid,” she added, and Tommy laughed. “But he has amazing insight sometimes.”

“I agree.”

“But Carmine said our children love our arrangement because it provides them with unshakeable clarity. There’s no changes at the top because you’re always the top dog. In his household, he said Trina challenges Reno sometimes for the top spot, not because she disrespects him, but because in certain situations she’s better in that top position. But it’s situational. And that, I think, may be our problem.”

“That sometimes you want to be on top?”

“That sometimes, when it may be best for our family if I kind of took the lead, you won’t let me. And I don’t push the issue when I think I should.”

“So you think I baby you too?”

“Not like the family says it, no. I know what you’re doing. And when you insist on taking me and the children with you on your overseas business trips, I love that. They love it too. We’re a closeknit family and I don’t want that to ever change.”

“It won’t,” Tommy said. “I’ll see to that. But?”

“But sometimes I need some space.”

Tommy didn’t respond to that. But Grace wasn’t backing down now just because he might not like what she was saying. “It’s gotten to the point that I sometimes envy Trina and Roz. They have such a freedom with their husbands that I don’t have with you. You decide EVERYTHING for me. You even buy all my clothes for me. It’s my fault. I should have put my foot down long ago, but I didn’t. Then again, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the guilt.”

Tommy was confused. “What guilt?”

“Of divorcing you that time. It was such a horrific time.”

Tommy knew it too. And he still bore the scars of that time too. “Nothing to feel guilty about. We both messed that up.” Then he pulled out of her and turned her around. They were now face to face. “But what you aren’t going to do is blame yourself. I take full responsibility for what happened then too. Just like I take full responsibility now.”

“What do you mean?”

“My bad behavior caused our divorce. And my good behavior got us back together. But I hear what you’re saying. I need to trust you more.”

“In the decision-making process, yes, you do. Do you realize you call me every single day at work? And if I don’t answer, you call everybody you can think of to get me on that phone. You’ve got my employees thinking you’re like my daddy rather than my husband.”

Tommy smiled.

“It’s kind of embarrassing,” Grace said with a smile of her own.

Then Tommy nodded his head. “That babying you again issue,” he said.

“But my fear is that you’ll go overboard with it because that’s what you do. You get in, you’re all in. You get out, you’re all out. I never want you all out. I love to talk to you.”

“Just not every single day when you’re at work.”

Grace nodded. “Right. You’ve got to let me stand on my own two feet. That’s all I’m saying.”

“And if you fall?”

“Catch me, or pick me back up. I won’t mind that at all. But you don’t give me room to even almost trip, let alone fall. I sometimes feel a little stifled.”

Tommy stared at the woman many people thought wasn’t smart enough for him or pretty enough for him or sexy enough for him, when she was all three and so much more to him . Which was all that mattered to them. He rubbed her face and smiled a smile that showed those gorgeous lines on his sometimes unbelievably gorgeous face. “I understand,” he said to her. “You need room to grow when you’re in my presence, and when you’re out of my presence too. I understand that. And I will work on it. Good enough?”

Grace smiled. That was why she loved Tommy so much. “Good enough,” she said.

And then they laid there in their own contentment. Until Tommy smiled. “You know what else?”

“What?” Grace asked him.

“We’ve got this sheet so wet with our cum that we can’t even sleep on it.”

Grace grinned. “I was thinking the same thing,” she said with a laugh, and he joined her. Because it felt like a metaphor for their marriage. That wetness was a good sign of a healthy relationship. But that didn’t mean laying in that wetness was comfortable, and that a change didn’t need to happen.

They got up, and changed the bed.