Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Reuben and Alix stared at me, and my face flamed in embarrassment, but I plunged on.
“That’s how Michael and I usually do it,” I said. “When we—we swap partners in our open marriage.”
For a moment no one said anything.
I wasn’t looking at Michael, but I could feel the moment he turned to look at me, felt it like an icy blast down my cheek.
Oh no, what if Reuben just laughed? What if he didn’t think I was attractive?
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Michael said, and I felt his long fingers slide down to my lower back and pull, slow but domineering, on my belt. “That’s not how we do it.”
Was it ridiculous? Was I ridiculous? A woman no man would ever want? Not even my husband?
But then Reuben nodded, slowly at first, and then with a spark of more warmth in his eyes.
“That would be fair,” he said.
Alix gave a little screech, her voice sounding shrill. “It’s not funny, baby.”
“Who said anything about this situation was funny? You’re the one who wanted an open marriage.”
“I don’t—I don’t want an open marriage,” she said, darting her eyes unhappily between us.
“Then you just wanted to cheat on me?”
“It was a mistake,” she said uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“A mistake?”
“I—lied,” she begged, clutching at his arm, smashing her breasts against his white coat as she looked beseechingly up at him. “I told Michael we were in an—open relationship, too. It was just a stupid mistake. Please, you’ve gotta believe me, baby. I’ll never do it again, I promise.”
“All right. But I’ll be having sex with Mrs. Carrington first.”
My heartbeat began to flutter with excitement.
“That sounds fair,” I agreed, my fingers slick with nerves as I gripped my skirt.
“It’s not happening,” Michael cut harshly across Alix’s squabbling. “Now that this misunderstanding is cleared up, I’ll walk my wife out to the car.”
His hand extended over my lower back, each finger curving into my waist as he pulled me along with him.
Flushed with my boldness, I called back over my shoulder.
“I’ll be in touch.”
Alix was pulling on Reuben’s sleeve and gesticulating angrily at him. But he was looking toward me approvingly.
I felt a warm glow, not exactly of triumph, but of something.
He did want to do it.
There was one man on this planet who wanted me. Even if he was trying to get revenge on his wife.
“The fuck you will,” my husband hissed in a low, angry tone.
Michael’s arm was pressed firmly on my back as he walked me out of the hospital.
“I’m taking off early,” he bit out to the receptionist as we passed by her. “Cancel the rest of my appointments.”
Ever the perfect gentleman, I thought bitterly as he guided me to my side of the car and opened the door.
This had always been our relationship.
He led, I followed.
Without a word, he waited until I was inside and slammed the door shut.
I sat straight again, my skin tingling, knowing at least one thing.
Reuben would have sex with me. Even if it was just to piss Alix off.
My husband slid into the car beside me like a panther. The way he moved his body was always almost uncanny. Controlled, cold, efficient.
“What the fuck was that, Lavender?” he asked tightly as he jerked the stick shift into reverse.
“Nothing,” I said.
He glanced over at me, then adjusted the rearview mirror one infinitesimal micrometer and we were off down the road.
Now inside I had two things to be proud of. What I had suggested had pissed him off.
I had never seen my husband angry.
So I didn’t know, then, to be afraid.
“How could you suggest such a foolish thing?” he bit out as we turned into our palm tree lined street, his face immobile. “I would never let my wife have sex with another man.”
The unfairness of this dug into me like barbed thorns.
“Why not?” I asked. “You had sex with her.”
“That is an entirely different matter,” Michael said.
“Why?”
When he didn’t answer, I asked again.
“Why is it different? Why did you have sex with Alix then?”
“Because I could. Because she was there.”
His arm looked lean and strong on the stick shift, his motions controlled and precise.
“That’s why you cheated on me?” I asked. “Because she was there? How many women have you cheated on me with?”
“I’m not going to talk about this with you,” Michael said harshly. “I use protection every time and it has nothing to do with our relationship. It’s simply a release.”
A release?
I was not an angry person. I had never been anything but a sweet, quiet, shy person.
But at this, I felt another surge of anger rush through me as the garage door slid smoothly down behind us.
“Well, then, I will use protection too,” I said, still quietly, but as firmly as I could.
Then I opened the car door myself, without waiting for him, and slid out.
There was a noise, and my husband was around the car faster than I thought possible, blocking my path into the house.
“If you think for one goddamn minute I’m letting you do this, you’re out of your mind,” Michael hissed tightly, gripping my wrist with one hand. “Get back in that car and let me open the door for you. Nothing has changed.”
My heart was pounding through my throat, and I attempted to pull away.
“Ouch, Michael! You’re hurting me.”
But he wouldn’t release me, his fingers biting down on my soft skin. His flesh looked drawn tight over his face, his lips a harsh uncompromising slash across the sculptured cheekbones, the elegant jawline.
“Get inside.”
For a moment defiance hovered on my tongue, but he tightened his hold, cold strong fingers wrapped all around my slim wrist and I felt a sharp slice of fear go through me.
“All right.”
My husband was breathing heavily when he pulled me inside, his guttural breath loud in the cool white of our foyer.
Our whole house was like that. Just the way Michael wanted it. Sterile, cold, minimalist, big open windows that looked out over the dark expanse of the golf course and made me shiver not knowing what was out there.
“I’m ready to unwind now,” Michael said, giving me a little push toward the sitting room.
I knew what that meant. On evenings when Michael wasn’t working late at the hospital, or at meetings (or fucking other women, I reminded myself bitterly), he liked to sit in the big, cold sitting room with a glass of whiskey and have me jerk him off or suck his cock.
Automatically, I went over to the sideboard to get him a glass of whiskey, my fingers playing nervously with the fine crystal of the decanter.
Michael leaned back in his chair, his eyes on me as I poured a couple inches of the gleaming golden liquid into a glass. His hands were steady on the leather arms. Not twitching or tapping. Cold, unemotional, efficient. Like always.
Something like a lick of flame flickered around my collar, seemed to race down my arms and swirl around my wrist, each finger heating with anger and wickedness.
He was so emotionless.
While I felt raging inside with emotion. And suddenly I wanted it outside me, too.
My fingers extended and I gave the glass a little push off the sideboard, watching as it shattered onto the floor.
“Oops,” I said, feeling the raw anger twist in my gut. “I guess it fell.”
I bent to clean it up, to hide the way my hand was trembling.
“Leave it.”
Something in his voice made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I turned around nervously.
“I’m just getting a dust pan.”
“I said leave it.”
There was something in his voice that made fear trickle down my spine, my heartbeat fluttering like a frightened rabbit.
“Fill another glass and come here.”
I obeyed, the whiskey splashing on the wood of the sideboard as my hands trembled.
What was he going to do?
Avoiding the shattered shards, I walked carefully around them and stood in front of my husband.
There was one, singular finger on his hand moving now, tapping up and down on the sleek arm of the chair.
“Get my cock out.”
I obeyed him, as I always did, the sound of my knees hitting the floor loud in the silence of our quiet white living room.
My eyes were locked on that finger, though, the way I could see the flex of muscle in his wrist as it tapped up and down with a heavy staccato thump.
His cock was already hard, and it sprung out thickly in my face as I drew it from his scrubs.
Michael was big, very big, but I had done this so many times that I automatically relaxed my jaw as I settled between his thighs.
When we had first gotten together, his size had frightened and intimidated me, and I had to fight the panic every time his engorged cock slid past my tongue.
But now I could do it better.
The blood pounded in my veins today, but I still knelt obediently there, his long limbs arranged on either side of me, my throat forced to reject the gag reflex as I slid his cock in and out of my mouth.
My tongue worked underneath the head of his big cock, then moved to tease the big pulsating vein thumping along his shaft, all things I knew he liked, and it only took a few moments for him to let out a long, steady breath.
Drool pooled in my mouth, but Michael didn’t like me to stop, liked to watch me make a mess of myself, so I continued as it began to leak around the seams of my lips.
He drank deeply from his glass, my wide eyes taking in the way his Adam’s apple moved, the way the liquid slipped down his throat.
The textbook perfection of his face was almost uncanny, unsettling.
I continued the same gliding rhythm, with the exact pressure I knew he liked, my knees digging into the hard floor.
“Nothing is going to change between us,” Michael said, as his hand stroked down my hair, pulling one strand of the soft curls out of my braid and twisting it around his fingers.
My turtleneck felt hot and prickly around my throat.
“Eyes on me,” he said, and I obeyed.
I always obeyed.
Whatever he saw when he looked at me made him rougher, jerking his hips forward so I gagged on his cock, drool running down my throat to soak the front of my shirt.