The Relentless Husband (Husband-On-His-Knees #2)

CHAPTER 1

CAMILA

The Atlantic Ocean was showing off today.

I could tell because even the horizon looked smug. It had that particular shade of gold and turquoise that belongs exclusively to the Caribbean, the kind you see on travel blogs and assume it had gone through numerous filters on Instagram.

But there was no filtering what my eyes were taking in. I’d been staring at the ocean sky for twenty minutes from my sun lounger on the pool deck on the most luxurious cruise in the world, drink in hand, and I still didn’t fully believe it was real.

Then again, I’d been saying that about my life for three years.

“You’re doing it again.”

I looked up. Jason was walking toward me from the pool bar, two glasses in hand, his broad shoulders blocking the sun for just a moment.

He was wearing navy swim shorts that sat low on his hips, and his skin — already perpetually golden — had deepened to the color of warm amber after two days at sea.

He looked like something a sculptor had labored over for a very long time and then stepped back from, satisfied.

I was his wife. I still forgot to breathe sometimes.

“Doing what?” I said.

“That face.” He handed me my drink — chilled Grand Crus Chardonnay. “The one where you’re thinking about how you don’t deserve to be here.”

“I wasn’t—” I started.

He gave me a look.

“Fine.” I took a sip. “Maybe a little.”

He dropped onto the lounger beside me, close enough that his thigh pressed against mine, warm from the sun. He plucked my sunglasses from my face without ceremony, put them on his own, and tilted his face toward the sky.

“Verdict?” I asked.

“Terrible. Can’t see a thing. How do you manage?”

“They’re prescription, Jason.”

“Ah.” He kept them on anyway. “Happy anniversary, by the way.”

“It’s tomorrow.”

“I know. I’m practicing.” He turned to look at me, my ridiculous oversized glasses sitting on his perfect face, and smiled — that slow smile that he saved for exactly moments like this, when it was just the two of us and the world was nowhere in particular. “Three years, Cam.”

“Three years,” I agreed.

He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, the gesture so easy and habitual it probably looked like nothing from the outside. From the inside it felt like everything.

That was the thing about Jason Riley that no one ever seemed to understand.

People saw the broad shoulders, the real estate empire, the jaw that looked like it had been carved for a purpose.

They did not see the man who remembered that I liked Grand Crus wine, or cucumber in my water.

This man, who remained neck deep in his business every day, but had booked this cruise six months in advance because I’d once mentioned, in passing, that I’d always wanted to see the Bahamas.

Who had argued with me, warmly and persistently, for three weeks when I’d suggested we postpone the trip.

Come on the cruise, Camila.

But your stress—

The only thing that will stress me out is not taking my wife to the Bahamas on our anniversary.

I’d stopped arguing after that.

We moved to the private jacuzzi as the afternoon light began to soften — the one that came with our stateroom on the highest deck, enclosed and entirely ours, overlooking the open ocean.

I pulled off my coverup.

Jason’s eyes moved over me in that slow, deliberate way of his, and I felt like the only thing in his field of vision.

I was wearing the red bikini he’d picked for me, a surprise he’d slipped into the luggage, and I’d been slightly scandalized when I found it.

It was tiny. Rings held the sides together at the hip.

The top accentuated my breasts, and the bottoms hugged my ass snugly.

But it was a little too skimpy. My ass was barely hidden in the bikini bottoms and my ass cheeks swayed with each step I took towards him.

The bikini bra was competing with the bottoms at hugging my curves tight at the right places while revealing the most flattering parts of me.

My breasts almost flowed out of the bra, my nipples- two taut peaks under the silky cups.

Jason smiled at me with a twinkle in his eyes, and I felt slutty and sensuous as I stepped into the Jacuzzi.

He let out a wolf whistle and stretched out his hand to help me step into the warm water.

He held me with his strong arms and cradled me into his broad chest. We kissed passionately, like two high-schoolers who had just a few moments to make-out before someone might see them—intense and fervent.

We kept kissing until Jason’s hands found the thin laces of my bra, and undid them with one pull.

The bikini bra fell into the water, a cascade of red silk, then disappeared within the gushes of the water stream.

I stood there, top naked, my tits already perky in anticipation of what was to come.

Jason massaged my breasts with his fists and gently pinched my nipples.

I let out a whimper. He started kissing me on my neck, sucking at just the right places.

I yelped with passionate delight and bit my lips.

I needed him, the entirety of him inside of me.

I whispered- “Yes Jason, yes. Fuck me Jason, fuck me hard.”

He took off my hair clip and unraveled my hair. My brunette hair fell down like a cascade of deep honey down my shoulders. Jason looked at me and smiled. “You’re my beautiful, sexy fox.”

I laughed.

Then I stopped laughing.

He was extraordinarily good at making me stop laughing.

He looked deep into my eyes, and tugged hard at my hair. I let out another pleasurable whimper. He mashed my tits in his hand, and I yelped out with burning desire.

He took his hands down under the water and reached my panties.

He yanked them apart and felt my clit. I was soaking wet and the warm water was making me squelch with passion.

He ran his massive thumb right up my clit, and felt my dripping wet pussy.

He smiled. He slipped two fingers inside of me, slowly at first. I was tight as fuck, but wanted him in, deeper and deeper.

I started shivering and whimpering as he ran another finger and I winced in pain.

But I wanted more of this- this cycle of pleasure and pain that Jason knew I wanted.

He kept fingering me deep, deep inside, until his fingers reached my g-spot.

My eyes rolled over my head and I mewed like a drunk kitten.

I wanted him to fuck me , fuck me so hard and rough that I started pleading with him.

“Please Jason fuck me, fuck me hard, please.” He took off his swimming briefs, and shunted his big, hard cock right into me, using my own pleasure as a lube.

I sucked in air as he worked right inside of me.

He started slowly circling inside of me, and then tugged at my hair again.

I was addicted to this cycle of pleasurable pain that my husband was able to give me so effortlessly.

I liked it rough and he liked to give it rough to me.

In that way, we both fit perfectly, our sexual desires completely in sync with one another.

My hips started to buck on instinct. He moved into perfect sync with my body and he thrusted into me.

He pounded me, gently at first, and then as we both reach the pinnacle of pleasure, we both jerked and swayed in perfect rhythm as he fucked me so hard, I was a wet, whimpering mess- crying out without any restraint on our private deck.

I came first and realized I was crying tears of pleasure from what I had just experienced. Jason wiped my tears with the back of his thumb without saying anything. I was amazed at how Jason found it almost his duty to pleasure me just the way I wanted and liked it. Could I be any luckier?

I loved him, and at that moment my love for him was as far and as deep as the ocean that lay ahead of us.

Within minutes, Jason shook with passion and finished off with a gush of cum inside of me.

We both floated in the silence of the satisfaction that came with the kind of lovemaking we had just enjoyed, and we both stood naked in the jacuzzi, silent, except for the rhythmic sounds of the ocean beneath us.

We sat in the warm water afterward with glasses of white wine, his arm around my shoulders, the Atlantic spread out below us in every direction. The sun was beginning to descend, painting the water in shades of copper and rose.

“Best thing that ever happened to me,” he said, into my hair.

“The cruise?” I said.

“You.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “You, Camila. I love you”

I love you, I said back, and meant it in the way I’d meant it more and more with every passing year. I knew there’d be many more anniversaries to celebrate together, but I couldn’t fathom how I could ever love him more than I already did — with every atom of my body and soul.

By the time we were dressed for dinner, the stateroom had taken on that particular golden-hour glow that made everything look like the inside of a memory.

I was in the ivory cocktail dress — short, lacy, accentuating all my curves in a way that made me feel like a sensuous little slut— Jason’s slut.

I accessorized with the diamond necklace he had given me on our first anniversary.

Jason saw me in that dress and almost froze.

“Oh my god, Camila. How can you be so breathtaking?” he said and planted a kiss on my lips.

“You don’t look half bad yourself.” I said as a complete understatement.

He was in a three-piece navy tuxedo that did extraordinary things for his shoulders, his olive skin a perfect contrast to the deep color of the fabric. He looked like a Greek god.

He looked at me like I’d said something funny.

“I may not look half as bad, but I have some really bad thoughts circling my mind right now.” He stepped closer, eyes moving over the dress. “I’m trying very hard right now to be a gentleman.”

“And how’s that going?”

“Poorly.” He held out a small bundle of white flowers — freesias, my favorite. “Happy almost-anniversary.”

I took them, laughing, and he leaned in closer to my ears. “You look so good in that little ivory piece that I don’t think I can wait until dinner to take it off. I’m getting horny just looking at your ass in that dress.”

“Take it off?” I pulled back to look at him. “I hoped you’d said tear.”

His eyes darkened slightly. “Rip it off,” he corrected, in that low, deliberate way.

“Rip the lace right off and make wild love to you and not apologize for any of it. I’m planning to skip dessert tonight, because you, Camila, will be my dessert.”

“Oh no! That was so cheesy.”

“I know.”

“I liked it.”

“I know that too.”

“Okay, now Mr. Horny, let me get ready.” I pulled myself away and moved to the dresser. I picked up my stark red lipstick and looked at Jason’s reflection in the mirror, standing right behind me, still smiling at me with a mix of lust and admiration.

I smiled back.

I was still smiling when his phone buzzed on the dresser.

I was watching his face in the mirror as he glanced at the screen, and I saw the exact moment something changed.

Not dramatically. Not in any way I could have pointed to and said: there, that’s the thing, that’s where it started.

Just a tightening. A stilling. The easy warmth of the last three hours replaced, in an instant, by something closed and unfamiliar.

He set the phone face-down and straightened his jacket.

“I’m going to take a quick walk before dinner,” he said. “Get some air on the lower deck.”

I turned from the mirror. “Now? You’re already dressed.”

“I won’t be long.” He crossed to me, pressed a quick kiss to my forehead. “You finish getting ready. I’ll be back before you’ve done your lipstick.”

He was out the door before I could find the words to ask what had just happened.

He’s stressed, I told myself. The investor pulled out from his project at the last minute. Maybe he just needs five minutes to himself.

I uncapped the lipstick and leaned toward my reflection. Something about the change in his expression was not sitting well with me.

He is the best husband in the world. Stop it, Camila.

Stop looking for things that aren’t there.

I started humming to myself — something I did when I needed to quiet my own mind — and focused on the mirror.

The dress really did look wonderful.

By the time I’d finished my makeup, I’d almost convinced myself I’d imagined the look on his face entirely.

Almost.