Chapter Twenty-Six
Nera
“What time is the event tonight?” I ask Tristan.
He and I are sitting alone around our vast dining table, having just finished a late lunch. The kids are all out of the house — Cato is at a movie with his friends, Kiza is at Thayer’s with Hayes, Suki is at gymnastics practice, and Juno and Hana are both at Bellamy’s to hang out with Riot and Rowan.
It’s a rare moment of peace in our otherwise bustling household and we’re savoring the calm. It’ll be over before we know it — Suki should be home sometime in the next fifteen minutes and the others won’t be far behind.
Tonight, we’re attending the hundredth anniversary party for Crowned King Industries, Rogue’s company. It’s a black-tie event guaranteed to be full of pomp and circumstance.
I’m looking forward to it—it’s been too long since I danced with my husband.
“Hmm, I’m not sure. Let me check.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his emails until he tracks down the invite. “Starts at…” He groans. “Ten pm.”
I laugh softly at his ill-tempered exclamation and give him a teasing smile. “Are you getting too old for ten pm starts, grandpa?”
His eyes flick to me and he lifts an unimpressed brow. “No.”
“Is this when we finally start to feel the dreaded age gap between us?” I sigh. “I knew you were too good to be true.”
“Nera…”
“It starts with complaining about how late parties start, and next thing you know you’re popping two Viagra just to perform. It’s a shame to think you could deteriorate so quickly, babe.”
Tristan chuckles easily, a laugh that tells me he’ll make me pay for baiting him. He stands and rounds the table over to my side. Grabbing the seat of my chair with one hand, he yanks it backwards and turns me towards him.
His face comes down inches from my own, his lips brushing against mine as he speaks. My breaths falter even as my heart starts beating faster, excitement thrumming to life in my blood.I love how easy he is to rile up.
“If you’re questioning my stamina, I’m more than happy to prove myself to you right now.” His hand cuffs my throat, his fingers caressing the sensitive skin there. He makes a soft sound of satisfaction when he sees me shiver beneath his touch. “You’ll regret provoking me when I fuck you for five hours uninterrupted.”
Without giving me a chance to answer, his mouth crashes down on mine. His hand moves from my throat to cup the back of my neck as his tongue thrusts past my lips, searching for mine with a desperation that makes it seem like the last time he had me was weeks ago and not less than twelve hours ago.
I’m about to lose myself in the moment, in the mindless lust, when an arrow of lucidity pierces through, reminding me that if I don’t stop this, Tristan and I may very well end up traumatizing at least one of our children.
“Tris,” I gasp, pushing against his chest.
His lips rip from mine against their will, his heaving chest evidence of how I affect him. Tristan immediately reaches for me again, his face coming towards me, intent on recapturing my lips.
“Tristan, stop.” Only my resolved shove keeps him from claiming my mouth again. His settles into an unhappy line as he lifts his eyes to mine.
“We can’t… Suki,” I pant, catching my breath. “Suki’s going to be home soon.”
“Fuck,” he groans, dropping his forehead to mine and closing his eyes. “ Fuck .”
When I notice the way his hard length tents his trousers, I can’t help but giggle.“Maybe you should walk that off before she gets home.”
He grunts grumpily, adjusting his cock with a pained sound of unmet need. With a heavy breath, he pulls himself away from me. “Don’t start something you can’t finish again.”
“Technically, you—”
“ You started it,” he interrupts, gritting his teeth in agony. “And your ass will suffer for it later.”
I shiver at his ominous promise and he doesn’t miss it, his eyes darkening until they’re nothing more than two black disks.
He takes a step towards me, then stops himself.
“No.” He turns on his heels and away from me, chastising himself beneath his breath. “ No. ”
“Down boy,” I call out with another laugh.
Tristan looks over his shoulder at me. His eyes flash, then narrow in a promise of upcoming retribution.I know what that look means and I swallow thickly in anticipation.
“Bend over the table.”
“We don’t h—”
“We have time for this. Bend over the table,” he orders. “ Now , Nera . ”
I stand on shaky legs and do as he says, as powerless to resist him when he uses that deeply authoritative tone of voice as I’ve ever been. There’s no view of the dining room table from the front door so if Suki does come home, I’ll have time to move before she ever sees what her father is about to do to her mother.
A strangled noise of arousal leaves Tristan’s throat as I lay on our table and arch my ass up. He closes the distance between us slowly, his eyes pinned on me.
“This isn’t doing anything to help calm my throbbing cock,” he murmurs.
His fingers graze the skin at the back of my thigh, making me jump at the contact. They trail up my leg, lifting the hem of my dress with them until my ass is bared in my undies. There’s nothing particularly sexy about them and yet Tristan reacts like he just uncovered incredibly provocative lingerie.
His touch raises goosebumps on my flesh, causing an electrifying shiver to rack through my body.
These half touches are driving me insane. He’s wasting time. “Get on wit—”
Slap .
I keen loudly.
“What was that, baby?” he coos, rubbing a possessive palm over the heated skin he just spanked.
I shake my head and he smacks my ass again. My hips jerk into the edge of the table, adding a new dimension to the pain rippling through me.
“Cat got your tongue?”
I blow out a throttled exhale just in time for him to bring his palm down on me again. And again. The whimper that rips from my throat is soaked with lust.
“Not so mouthy when you’re submitting your ass to my hand, are you, wifey?” Pride and satisfaction drip from every word, especially the last one. He leans over me until his chest is pressed against my back. “I hope you know a spanking isn’t what I was talking about when I said your ass would suffer later.” His fingers dig beneath my undies and dip between the valley of my cheeks, dancing down to find my tight hole. He rims me skillfully with his index until a powerful ache pulses between my legs and my shoulder blades bunch together in the middle of my back. “No, baby, that would be too easy.”
I should tell him no, not now, not when our kids could walk in at any point, but it’s beyond my abilities when he’s touching me like this. Thankfully, he straightens and pulls his fingers away himself, making me sag against the table in something that’s more disappointment than relief.
I have only seconds to gather myself before his hand comes down on my ass once more.
He smacks my cheeks with an assuredness that speaks to the eighteen years he’s spent exacting this particular punishment out of my flesh anytime he’s deemed it necessary.
He loves playing with my ass, in any and every way that he can, whether it’s touching it, groping it, smacking it, or simply fucking it.
And, I… Well, I never say no.
I bend over like a good girl and let my husband do whatever he wants to me, coming with explosive screams every single time.
My ass is burning, my skin red and throbbing from his blows, but my pussy is wet and my blood is thrumming through my veins and demanding that I undress and claim my husband right this minute.
He spanks me again, this one the hardest yet, and I cry out. My scream is cut off by the sound of a key turning in a lock.
Tristan immediately rights my dress with one hand and grabs my arm with the other, guiding me up from the table and back down into my seat in the next breath.
I wince when my ass makes contact with the velvet of the chair and he smiles a sinfully dark smile.
As sensitive as the flesh of my ass is, the unmet, unsatisfied arousal in my pussy is worse. I rub my thighs together in search of a release, knowing I’m unlikely to get one for several hours yet.
His smile broadens when he sees my legs move and hears the tormented whimper that falls from my lips.
This was his plan, I realize. To make me as aroused and desperate for him as he was for me so we both suffer equally.
He’s diabolical, my husband.
I moan and peer up at him. He thumbs my chin, tipping my face up towards his. “Are you horny for me, baby?”
I nod and he brushes his thumb across my lower lip.
“Join the fucking club,” he growls. He leans forward and captures my mouth with his in a quick but intense kiss. When he pulls back, he whispers against my lips, “And for the record, I wasn’t complaining about the start time because I’m tired. I groaned because a ten pm start means we won’t get home until two am at the earliest and we have Hana’s dance recital at eight tomorrow morning. I groaned because Rogue’s damn anniversary party is cutting into the very few and extremely precious hours I have at night with my wife.”
Tristan has a knack for always saying the most perfect thing. He never misses. Not once. Sometimes I wonder if he’s rehearsed these lines because there’s no way a man could be this romantic, but the openness in his face and the raw authenticity in his features tell me he’s genuine.
I don’t get to answer him because the door slams and Suki comes storming into the room. Tristan straightens, distancing himself from me, and turns towards our daughter.
He stiffens, and when I glance at Suki’s face, I understand why.
Even through the haze of my arousal, I can tell something’s wrong. Her features are tight, her face flushed red. Her eyes are shining in a way I’ve never seen from my ten-year-old.
“Darling, are you alrig—”
She comes to a dead stop, her fists clenched at her sides. “I want to stop gymnastics.”
My brows pull together. “Why, you love—”
“Well, I hate it now!” she screams. “I hate it. I want to stop.”
Her anger has an immediate cooling effect on the fiery lust burning through my veins, dousing them entirely. Suki’s always had a strong character, it’s what I love most about her. At such a young age, she already knows who she is and what she wants, and she’s not about to let anyone tell her what she can and can’t do.
But she’s never raised her voice like this before.
Tristan takes a step forward. “Su—”
She turns on him. “ Don’t try to change my mind. I don’t like it anymore and I’m never going back there again. If you force me, I’ll run away.” Her lower lip trembles as her eyes turn glassy.
I raise a calming hand and stand, rounding the table. “Of course we’d never force you, Su. If you want to stop gymnastics, then that’s the end of it.” I go to close the distance between us so I can hug her, but she flinches, freezing me in my tracks. “I want to make sure you’re okay though. Are you?”
“I’m fine,” she snaps. “Stop asking me if I’m alright, I’m fine .” With those final hissed words, she spins on her heels and stalks out, slamming the door closed behind her.
I turn towards Tristan to find him blowing out a breath.
“Do you think that’s a taster of what her teenage years are going to be like? Because that might actually kill my stamina.”
I smile but my heart isn’t in it. “She didn’t seem like herself.”
“No, she didn’t,” Tristan agrees. “But you know how she gets. She probably couldn’t master one of the skills today and decided to give it up. It happened with ballet, it happened with archery, and now it’s happened with gymnastics. She’ll find something new soon and hopefully this one’ll stick.”
Tristan isn’t wrong in his assessment. Suki is a bit of a perfectionist. She gets it from me and I know better than anyone how toxic the dark side of perfection can be. I’m sure he’s right and her tantrum was informed by a bad practice.
We’re close, she would tell me if it was something else.
***