Chapter 5
I take a quick trip to the bathroom before I leave, and the fluorescent light is unforgiving, the mirror showing me someone I didn’t know existed.
There’s mascara smudged beneath my eyes.
My lips are swollen. I’m flushed, and I look like exactly what I am—a woman who got fucked in a storage room and sent away unsatisfied.
I fix what I can, wetting a paper towel to scrub at my face, smoothing my hair, tugging my dress back into place.
When I’m semi-presentable I speed walk as fast as I can in these heels. All I can think about is getting home to Robert. I need my husband.
By the time I get to my car, I’m trembling so hard I can hardly unlock the door.
Once I’m inside, I pull out my phone.
SHANNON: Settled some of my tab. Tony says hi. On my way.
I stare at the message after I send it.
Tony didn’t say hi. I don’t even know if Adrian actually settled my debt. It doesn’t matter.
Forty-two minutes until home.
I fucked two men tonight. Tony’s mark is on my thigh. I missed some of the cum on my face. I can feel it dried and crusty.
As I drive, things surface. The stuff I’ve been pushing down since Tony’s office. The photo with the state senator. Adrian walking in without knocking. Like an equal.
The conversation about suppliers. About payments. They’re not just running a casino.
I don’t know what they’re doing, but it requires political connections and backup plans and men like Adrian who handle problems coldly and without sentiment.
Robert wouldn’t want me going back if he knew. I’m certain of that. He said yes to extramarital sex, not to whatever is happening at that casino.
Part of me doesn’t want to tell him at all. Because telling him might mean losing access to this. To whoever I become when I walk through those casino doors.
When I pull into our garage, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Well, what I’m going to do after I get my husband’s cock inside me. That’s the priority.
Robert is waiting in the bedroom.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed in sweatpants and nothing else. When I walk in, his gaze rakes over me. The smeared makeup. The wrinkled dress. The way I’m fighting to hold myself together.
“Shannon.” He’s on his feet, crossing to me in two strides. One hand grasps my waist and the other cups my face, tilting my chin up. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” My voice cracks. “No. I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
I give him the highlights of Tony’s office, and Robert’s breathing speeds up. His hold on my waist goes rigid.
I tell him about the poker table. The reckless bets. The thousands I threw away because I was chasing a high.
“What happened then?” His words come out rough.
I tell him about Adrian. The storage room. About how close I was when Adrian pulled out and finished on my face.
“He didn’t let you come?”
“No.” My face burns. “He said next time he might.”
He groans, but I catch a flicker of something on his face. The corner of his mouth lifts like he’s won something.
“You let another man edge you.”
“I...” My throat tightens. “It’s not like I asked for it.”
Robert laughs. “Shannon, you said he left you there. You could have finished yourself.”
He’s right.
“You came home to me instead.”
“Yes.”
He backs me up until I’m flush against the nearest wall. “That’s everything I wanted.”
My breath catches and a fresh wave of arousal makes my body respond.
“Show me.” His fingers slide into my hair. “Show me how he fucked you.”
I spin until I’m facing the wall and rest my palms on the plaster.
Our bedroom wall is smooth, not cold concrete. And Robert knows how to touch me in ways Adrian never will. He knows how to angle my hips to hit the spot that makes me come hard every time.
“He touched you here?” Robert cups me through the fabric of my panties, soaked through, and I whimper.
“Yes. But he was rougher. He didn’t care about...”
“About what you needed.” Robert pulls my panties down to my knees and rubs my clit with the skill of a man who’s spent fifteen years learning my body. “He took what he wanted and left you aching.”
“Yes.” I’m trembling. Close enough that I might come before he even fucks me. The orgasm I was denied is right there, and Robert knows it.
“Look at you.” There’s wonder in his voice. “So wound up you can barely stand. Another man did this to you and sent you home to me.”
He spins me around, yanks his sweatpants down, and lifts me against the wall. He pushes inside me in one smooth stroke.
I cry out. The stretch is different, but just as wonderful.
“Beg for it.” Robert’s words are rough as he fucks me.
Fuuuck. The words stream out of my mouth. “Please, Robert. Please. I need to come. He didn’t let me and I... please...”
“That’s it.” He slides his hand between us and circles my clit while he hammers me into the wall.
My orgasm hits and I scream. My body convulses around him, voice cracking. Robert holds me pinned to the wall, fucking me through it, his own groans mixing with mine.
“Again,” he says.
He carries me to the bed. Bends me over the mattress the way Tony bent me over his desk. He drives into me from behind with long, deep strokes that make me sob into the bedding. He rubs my clit again, relentless, and I shatter a second time with his name tearing from my throat.
“Again.”
He flips me onto my back, hooks my legs over his shoulders. Fucks me deep and hard. I’m lit up everywhere. The third orgasm crests as Robert’s rhythm falters.
“Look at me.” His eyes lock on mine, fierce. “You’re mine, Shannon. No matter who else touches you. No matter who else makes you scream.”
“Yours. Always yours.”
He groans and we come at the same time. His warm cum fills me as color sparkles along the edges of my vision. Pleasure turns my mind to mush and there’s nothing but the two of us as he fucks me through the ecstasy.
Afterward, we lie tangled together. The ceiling fan turns lazy circles above us. Robert’s hand rests on my hip, then slides down to my thigh. His fingers move higher until they find the mark.
He goes still.
“What’s this?” His voice is quiet, but there’s heat underneath.
I know what he’s found. Tony’s hickey. Dark purple against pale skin, positioned exactly where only an intimate partner would see it.
“Tony.” The word comes out breathy.
Robert’s thumb presses against the bruise. I hiss at the tender sting.
“Here.” His touch is possessive as he circles the mark. “On your inner thigh. Where I’d be the only one to see it when I fucked you.”
“Yes.”
His eyes meet mine, and that look I predicted is there—raw and claiming. Mine.
“He marked you for me to find.” Robert’s thumb presses harder, and I gasp. “Wanted me to know exactly where his mouth was on you.”
“Robert—“
He shifts, pushing my thighs apart so he can see it properly. The hickey is vivid against my skin, unmistakable.
“Fuck.” The word is reverent. His thumb finds another bruise—Adrian’s fingerprints, forming—and moves over it slowly.
“Two men.” His voice is drowsy, satisfied. “In one night.”
“Three, counting you.”
His snort makes me smile. “And you came home to me.”
I look at him. The lines around his eyes that I’ve watched deepen over fifteen years. This man who asked me to explore and then turned my exploration into the fuel for our best sex in a decade.
“I’ll always come home to you.”
He kisses my forehead tenderly and snuggles against me again. His breathing slows, evens out, and I know he’s drifting toward sleep.
I stare at the ceiling fan. I told him about every touch and every obscene word.
But I forgot to tell him about the used panties. That wasn’t on purpose, and it’ll probably earn me a hard fucking tomorrow when I do.
I said I’d tell him everything, but I didn’t tell him what I suspect about Tony’s connections. About the business that isn’t the real business.
I can’t—not yet. I need one more time. Then I’ll come clean.
I close my eyes.
Next time, I’m not going to stumble into anything unaware.
Next time, I’m done playing it safe on the main floor. I want to know what it takes to become a high roller.
The End