“Shut up,” she interrupted with a heavy sigh.
I nodded. Shutting up sounds like a terrific idea.
Sweat beading at my brow, I wiped at my forehead with the back of my hand and chanced a glance at the position of the door locks. I wanted to know, if things got extreme, if kicking open my door and bailing directly onto the pavement would be a viable option.
Come on, Thatcher, I coached myself. Man up, for fluff’s sake. Your wife is one tough bitch, but you know how to handle her. You wouldn’t be married if you didn’t.
I took a deep breath and reset, and then started treating our trip with the respect and decency it deserved. Panama City Beach might have been deserted right then, but by God, it was the land of bare tits and loose behavior, and for Thatcher Kelly, that was the kind of memorial that deserved a worthy tribute.
“What do you say after we drop our bags off at the hotel, we go get a little bite to eat?” I offered, reaching over to squeeze Cassie’s luscious bare thigh. “Anything you and my little fetus want, Daddy will get.”
“Fine. But for starters, your fetus wants you to stop calling it a fetus.”
“Psssh. No problem. Do you know how many things I could call our little squash? So many—”
“No.”
“No?”
“No vegetables. I’m not growing a zucchini.”
“Noted. Oh!” I shouted, when another idea hit me. “Peanut.” I smiled. “Definitely not a vegetable.”
“No.”
“Spawn?”
“No.”
“Womb leech?”
“Don’t be a bunghole! You know it’s a little boy, so stop acting like a psychopath and start coming up with actual names.”
“Thatcher Jr.”
“Not a chance in a barrel of monkeys, T. One Thatcher is more than enough for any one woman to deal with. I’m already terrified about having another man with a Supercock complex. I don’t need to tempt fate by making him your namesake.”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘complex’? I mean, the Supercock is, in fact, super, is it not? It’s not, like, some silly nickname or some shit.”
She sighed heavily, ignoring our new battle of wits completely and instead going back to my earlier question. “Fine. After we check in and see what’s going on, we can go get something to eat if you want.”
“I want to do what you want,” I corrected magnanimously. “Whatever food sounds good to you, you just let me know. I promise not to have a repeat of the Chipotle incident.”
“What Chipotle incident are you referring to?”
What the fluff? Is my little uterine-pen-pal sucking the memory out of my beloved wife or what? Surely she hasn’t actually forgotten the events of a couple days ago this quickly. Right?
“I-I…” I stuttered, searching for an excuse that wouldn’t end with a fist to my dick. The poor guy was already exhausted from the roller coaster of pregnancy hormones. Called to duty one minute, insulted the next. I needed to protect what little bit of ego the Supercock had left as if his life depended on it—as if my life depended on it. No man wanted to live his life with a brain-dead snake between his legs. “I don’t know. I think I may have hit my head. What day is it?”
“We’re here!” the Uber driver said suddenly, pulling to a stop in front of a little mom-and-pop-style hotel where the balconies all faced one another to encourage partying. It wasn’t the kind of place a billionaire and his new wife honeymooned—it was the kind of place teenagers could book without their parents’ permission.
The kind of motel hookers could rent by the hour and sketchy, midafternoon sex romps with side-chicks and side-dicks could occur.
Unless I wanted us all to leave Panama with a brand-new case of hepatitis, this was no place for my pregnant wife and unborn son.
Nope. Not happening. Not on my fucking watch.
“No,” I said immediately, shaking my head to emphasize the point.
“Sir?”
“Thatch—”
“No, Crazy. You know I’d sell my soul to make your tits happy, but we’re not staying here. Not a chance in fluffing hell. We’re staying somewhere nice, where my pregnant wife and I can relax without worrying about getting stabbed in the middle of the night.”
“I hate you.”
I nodded. “I know.”
She gritted her teeth and shook her head, and then suddenly, launched herself into my lap. “I hate your big ogre heart and your sexy protective side, and dammit, now I need you to bone me immediately.”
Now that’s what I’m fucking talking about.
Flexing my fingers, I gripped her hips tightly and settled her legs onto either side of my own, reaching around her back to signal to the driver to step on it. Come hell or high water, I was going to do everything I had to do to keep my wife feeling frisky instead of frenzied.
“To the nicest hotel in town,” I said bluntly. “Now.”
Ready to be rid of us or not, my new buddy complied so hard, my back slammed into the seat and Cassie’s tits right into my face—a fortuitous coincidence.
“Hold tight, my beautiful babies. Daddy’s gonna motorboat you so hard, you’ll be at the Yucatan Peninsula by morning.”
When I woke up from a dead sleep in the middle of a plush hotel bed, it was to the smell of a traitor.
The Marriott in Panama City Beach wasn’t exactly the Four Seasons, but I had to admit, the mattress was probably a little higher quality than the one I’d planned for at the Hammerhead Inn, and the catnap of sleep it had provided after getting dropped off by our airport Uber driver had me feeling rejuvenated and ready to brawl. It didn’t matter that it was still day one of the honeymoon with several more to come; there was no time to waste.
And right now, I had a giant defector to bust.
I jumped up quickly, shuffling to the side of the bed and climbing onto my feet like a cat. I was quiet, instinctual, and this fluffing giant didn’t know who he was messing with. I would have thought, after all the pranks we’d experienced together while falling in love, it would’ve taught him not to underestimate me as an opponent, but I supposed I was wrong.
But only because men were inherently dumb. And I couldn’t really be blamed for the inferiority of an entire contingent of our species.
I stalked slowly toward the bathroom door, my stomach growling silently in anger. Even she understood the importance of carrying out this mission silently, and for that, I would be forever grateful.
Once there, I leaned my head into the surface and inhaled deeply, allowing the aromas to decode themselves among my heightened senses.
Sweet-and-sour chicken, lo mein, and spring rolls.
Fluffing contraband, secret, unshared food, right there behind the door with my turncoat husband. I knew it was him by the sound of his snuffling as he chewed.
What a dicklicker.
I was fully prepared to bust the door down if I had to, but to my shock, the knob turned easily and the door swung open to reveal my husband, curled up on the tile bathroom floor in front of the shower with food containers strewn out all around him.
His eyes were wide and his lips moist with sweet-and-sour sauce.
“Caught!” I yelled victoriously, as if I’d solved a great, historic heist. “Red-handed and red-faced, Thatcher. How’s it feel to choke on your own nutsac so spectacularly?”