Then she spoke.

“Right. The dudes you picked in the past,” she shook her head, “not all that. Except Pete was okay, but he was no Raiden Miller.”

“You’re telling me something I know already,” I pointed out.

She put the spoon in a spoon holder, turned down the burner on the stove and her attention to me.

“What I’m saying is, you don’t have experience of men who are men. I know you have issues with Mark, and I love you more than I already loved you that you’ve kept those to yourself. I hope it’s because you understand I’m not an idiot and I wouldn’t put up with his shit if it wasn’t worth putting up with. And he gives me shit, Hanna. He’s arrogant, and that can sometimes, not often, lean toward him being a jackass. But he loves me. He loves Sam. He finds ways to show us that every day. No, that isn’t right. He doesn’t find them. He just does it, no effort. He gives it naturally. And I know he’d die before he let anything harm either of us,” she put a hand to her protruding belly, “any of us.”

That was huge.

And beautiful.

And something I never knew because I never brought it up.

“Holy Moses, KC,” was all I could think to reply.

“So,” she went on brightly, grinning at me, “when he’s an arrogant ass, tells me what to do or whatever, acting totally like we’d been hurtled back to the 1500’s and I was his chattel, I smile, nod and do whatever I want.”

I thought about doing this with Raiden and it didn’t give me the warm fuzzies.

KC read my face, wagged a finger at me and kept talking.

“This is what you have to learn. Don’t backtalk. Don’t explain. Don’t protest. Don’t fight it out. Just say, ‘All right, honey,’ and do whatever the hell you want. For example, just this morning, Mark said, ‘Make tacos tonight, babe,’ before he kissed me good-bye. No ‘please’. No, ‘are you feeling like tacos?’ Just ‘make them.’” She tipped her head to the side. “Now, are we having tacos?” She shook her head. “Hell no. We had tacos two days ago. I get he loves my tacos, but eff that. My friend is coming over and I just had tacos. Furthermore, I have to make the damn things. So we’re having a roast. You serve company a good roast. Not freaking tacos.”

She moved to the fridge while I asked, “Isn’t he going to be ticked?”

She yanked something out of the fridge as Sam slurped at my neck and I cuddled her closer.

KC turned to me and closed the fridge. “Do I care? If he wants tacos, he can come home and make them.”

“So he doesn’t get ticked?” I pushed.

“If he does, he keeps it to himself. Usually he just shakes his head and grins at me then gets a beer. I’ve decided to take that as him accepting the woman whose ring he slid his finger on. If he’s storing this shit up to list it out in the divorce papers, so be it. His loss.”

If Mark was doing that, it would be his loss.

Absolutely.

But I was getting the feeling Mark would never do that.

KC moved back to the stove as I asked cautiously, “But does he get physical?”

She poured something in a pan and turned to me. “No. That said, when he says something like he’s going to change locks to keep me safe, I don’t argue with him. That’s his job. I give him the freedom to do that.”

“So you think it’s okay that Raiden did what he did?” I pushed.

“I think he didn’t hurt you and I think he could, easily. I think what that said was, you were standing in the way of him doing something he thought was important, that something was looking out for you, so it actually was important and he did what he said he was doing. He got you to shut up and pay attention. It isn’t me, babe, who can say if that’s right or wrong. I wasn’t there. You gave me what you gave me, so I only have that to go on, and this is my opinion. It doesn’t have to be yours. But if he doesn’t hurt you, hit you, smack you, shake you but simply moves to make a point that you need to shut up and listen to him because he’s relaying something important, honestly, Hanna, I cannot think that’s wrong.”

“He backs me into walls,” I blurted.

She blinked before she whispered, “What?”

“Well, we’ve had some kind of… intense conversations,” I thought it safe to share. “One, well, I mistook his intentions about me and accused him of using me…” Her eyes got big and I held onto Sam with one arm but waved my other hand in front of my face. “Long story, and not for now, but he kind of lost it when I wouldn’t listen to him. He backed me into a wall, caging me in, got in my face and explained he is most definitely into me.”

When I was done speaking, her lips were parted and her eyes were glazed.

“KC?” I called when she didn’t say anything.

“Shh,” she shushed me. “I’m having an orgasm.”

It was my turn to blink.

“What?” I asked.

KC came back into the room and focused on me.

“Honey, in the bedroom department, Mark rocks my world, every time. Every time. He does not mess around and has made it clear from the very beginning he has two priorities when we hit the sheets, and the first one is me. No joke. And my man is hot. Yum… mee. Four years of marriage, a kid and one on the way and I still get a shiver just hearing his car pull up the drive. And still, the thought of Raiden Ulysses Miller backing me into the wall and telling me he’s into me. Instant orgasm.”

“But… it scares me,” I told her.

“Then start paying more attention to him and less to whatever it is mucking up your head,” she returned. “Honestly, Hanna, with how cute, pretty, funny and sweet you are, plus those legs, which I would murder for, I do not get and never have, and I’ve told you that a million times, why you’re so damned shy and don’t know down to your bones you deserve a guy like Raiden Miller. But that’s you and I love you, so…” she shrugged, “whatever. I’m assuming that he again didn’t hurt you. He just wanted your attention, and babe, he’s got a fine way of doing that, which a lot of women would pay him to do with them.”

“Maybe I should explain more around how that came about and you’d understand,” I suggested.

“No,” she shook her head. “Maybe you should stop trying so damned hard to find fault in him or yourself or how you both are together and just accept him for who he is and how he is as he’s obviously doing with you. I get you wouldn’t quite believe, after years of crushing on that guy, that this can be real and it’s all going to go up in a puff of smoke, but girl, the time is nigh to believe.”