The Open Door: A Found Duet Novella

by Laurelin Paige

  Apparently not so good that he didn’t think we required outside intervention.

  I didn’t know whether to be hurt or pissed. Frankly, I was both.

  But the baby was stirring and Theo was screaming because Jake, who was about to have another time out, had just pushed him off the ladder of his Little Tikes slide.

  Motherhood didn’t leave a lot of time to be hurt and pissed at husbands. At least not while the children were still awake.

  Fine. I could shelve the feelings for the moment. But just wait until JC was home and the kids were in bed. I was confident I could spare enough time then to be as hurt and pissed as I wanted to be.

  Chapter Two

  “The baby’s got his butt sticking straight up in the air,” JC said, chuckling, as he came into the bedroom.

  He’d arrived home only fifteen minutes before, long after the boys had gone down for the night. I’d given him a quick recap of his time away, mostly highlighting events with the kids, then, as to be expected, he’d wanted to sneak in and check on them all before giving his attention to me.

  He went to his side of the bed, took his watch off and set it on his nightstand. “Theo’s still sucking his thumb in his sleep. Should we be worried about that?”

  I’d already dressed for bed, donning one of JC’s T-shirts, and was now leaning against the headboard with my laptop. With my boss out on her own maternity leave, I had an extra load at the nightclub, and I’d found working from bed had become an unfortunate nightly ritual.

  I looked up from the screen and blinked, trying to focus on what my husband had just asked. “Dr. Agarwal said she wasn’t concerned as long it was restricted to naps and bedtime. Was Jacob asleep in his bed? Yesterday, he was curled up on the floor when I went in to check on him.”

  “That kid.” His blue eyes glazed with love for his boys as he toed off his shoes. He’d lost his suit jacket somewhere else in the house. I made a mental note to find it in the morning and make sure it made it to his closet. “Yeah. He was in his bed. He was tangled in his covers so I straightened them out and tucked him in.”

  JC pulled his belt from the loops of his pants and dropped it to the floor before crawling across the mattress in my direction.

  “Your suit is going to get wrinkled,” I warned, more a wifely duty than a real concern.

  “I don’t care. It needs to go to the cleaners anyway.” So, the dry cleaners, not the closet. “And I need to kiss my wife.”

  I couldn’t help the smile that appeared just as his mouth met mine. This man, after almost eight years together, still did it for me. Still made me giddy with a simple touch of his lips.

  “I missed you,” he said, cupping my cheek. He kissed me again, deeper this time, then sat back against the headboard with a content sigh.

  That content sigh was a lie. If I really made him feel that way, why the hell did he need to introduce us to extracurricular sexual activities?

  With perfect timing, JC looked down at my screen where The Open Door webpage was open in the corner, a reminder for myself that I wanted to talk about this later.

  “Ah, you got my email!” He didn’t sound the least bit sheepish. Rather, he sounded excited.

  “Yeah. I got your email,” I said dryly, my earlier emotions returning despite being beguiled by his kiss.

  I set the laptop down on the bed and stood up, needing distance from his charm before addressing the issue. I folded my arms over my chest. “Am I supposed to be enthusiastic about it? Because I can assure you that I’m not.”

  JC’s expression fell into his oh-shit-what-did-I-do-wrong look. I’d seen it plenty of times throughout our marriage, and even though we seemed to know each other pretty well now, it was surprising how often he still needed to wear it.

  “Well,” he said, cautiously, running a hand through his dark blond curls. “That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.”

  I was careful not to raise my voice, not only because I didn’t want to wake the boys, but because I’d learned over the years that yelling didn’t help these arguments. “Maybe you can tell me what you were expecting then. I mean, the price tag alone was enough to be intimidating.”

  His face relaxed with relief. “Oh, no. No. I didn’t pay for the membership. I’d never spend that kind of money without talking to you.” He slid my laptop aside so he could throw his legs over the side of the bed and perch on the edge. “Titus gave it to us. He said he was already a member and he’d gotten this as a gift. Which could be true.” He shrugged.

  I rolled my eyes. We both knew it was just as likely that Titus had flat-out bought it for my husband. Titus was the creator of one of the most successful apps that JC had invested in early on, and, now that he was a rich man himself, often co-invested in my husband’s projects. I’d had the chance to meet him on several occasions. He had a very obvious crush on JC, but that hadn’t stopped him from hitting on me at every opportunity. Despite his habit of injecting sexual overtones into every interaction, the guy was harmless. JC and I’d had more than a few laughs over him in the past.

  The knowledge that he’d been the one to pay the exorbitant membership fee helped.

  A little.

  “Is the cost the only thing bothering you?” JC could read me well enough to see that it wasn’t.

  “No, it’s not the only thing bothering me.” I was mad, and I wanted to stay mad, but tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

  “Hey.” JC reached out to rub my arm. When I dropped both of them by my side, he grabbed my hand and tugged me toward him. “What is it? Tell me how I hurt you.”

  I looked at his knees, unable to meet his eyes. “It just...it came as a surprise, honestly. I didn’t know you felt this way.”

  “What way? How is it that you think I feel?” He stroked his hands up and down over my hips and thighs, coaxing the truth out of me.

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I would not cry. I would not cry. “Are you not attracted to me anymore?” Somehow I managed not to let my voice crack as the question emerged from my mouth.

  “Seriously? Are you kidding me?” He jumped to his feet and cradled my face between his hands. “Yes. Yes, I’m still attracted to you. You’re the most beautiful creature on this planet. I’m so fucking in love with you. You know that. How can you not know that?”

  My eyes flooded with water. “I know you love me. Of course you love me.” We’d been through hell for each other, and, except for that time he got drunk and almost married another woman because he thought he’d lost me, oh, and that time he nearly stood me up at our own wedding, he’d shown me time and time again just how much he loved me. He adored me, actually. Treated me like a goddess.

  And he was crazy for it.

  “But look at me, JC. I have a C-section scar, my boobs are saggy from nursing. I weigh ten pounds more than I did when we were married, and I was three months pregnant at the time. I’m way past due for a hair appointment. I constantly smell like breast milk and spit-up. There’s an eleven wrinkle forming between my brows, and my favorite jeans don’t fit anymore and then my husband casually gets us a membership to an upper-class sex party. What other reason can there be than that I don’t satisfy him anymore in the bedroom, and why would I when I look like this?”

  He pulled me into him, his arms wrapped tightly around me, and I was pretty sure he was stifling a laugh. “You look amazing, Gwen,” he said over my shoulder. “You’re crazy to not see how addicted to your body I am. I can barely be in the same room with you without getting an erection, which has proved awkward on more than one occasion.” He turned his head so his mouth was at my ear. “And all those supposed flaws you just listed? They make you even sexier. They remind me what you’ve done for me, things I could never do for you. Carried my babies in your body. Put up with me. My hair would be completely gray if I had to live with the likes of me.”

  I brought my palms up to his chest and pushed him gently back so I could look at his face. “Then why The Open Door? Just becau
se Titus gave it to you didn’t mean you had to accept it. And you’ve never mentioned wanting to do anything like that before. It makes me think you might feel like something’s missing.”

  “Nothing’s missing, baby. I promise.” He weaved his fingers into the hair at the base of my skull as he kissed my temple. “I’ve heard you mention the club before, and I thought you might be interested in knowing more about it. That’s all.”

  A new thought brought on a fresh wave of panic. “Did you think that I was bored in the bedroom? I’ve only ever been curious about it because it’s so scandalous. That’s all!”

  “I know, I know,” he said reassuringly, his expression saying it was ridiculous that I ever thought otherwise. “Who wouldn’t be curious? And I could have told Titus thanks, but no thanks and then just tell you, hey, guess what really exists and leave it at that. But if I’d done that, I’d be denying you the opportunity to take advantage of a membership that you might find very satisfying.”

  I scowled. Had he just given me the I-did-it-for-you excuse?

  “Don’t look at me that way,” he said, correctly assessing my expression. “All I’m saying is that, while I am perfectly happy and content to never change a thing in our sex life, I also know that pushing your boundaries is a real turn-on for you.”

  I felt my cheeks redden. It was weird how I could still flush when talking about these things with him. He had always been so forward, so direct, and I’d always been reluctant to speak openly about sex and the things I wanted from it.

  But he was right. I had always liked my boundaries pushed. And he’d always known exactly how to guide me through experimentation. He’d shown me that I liked mutual masturbation and the idea of getting caught and butt plugs and anal, all things I never would have tried if he hadn’t known better than I did that they were what I wanted.

  But I didn’t want to share my husband. I didn’t want to watch him with someone else.

  Did I?

  “I’m not suggesting we swap with another couple or anything,” he said, reading my mind. “I’d have to murder anyone who even tried to put his hands on you.” His voice dropped to a timbre that was thick and sultry. “But we could watch.”

  A shiver ran through me even though I suddenly felt incredibly warm.

  JC ran his fingers sensually up and down my back. “Letting strangers see how good I can make you feel, showing them how sexy you look when you come, making sure they know the whole time that you’re mine and only mine…”

  He trailed off, letting the fantasy form in my mind.

  “That’s hot,” I said, panting.

  “So hot,” he agreed with heavily lidded eyes.

  “But…” I said, trying to hold the thought before it got lost to lust. “Is that something people like us do? Regular people. With kids. Do moms just get a sitter on a Saturday night so they can go watch strangers fuck?”

  His brows moved together in a crease. “Does it matter what other people do?” He let a beat pass for me to ponder. “Remember when we first got back together? Not the first time, I mean the second time.” He had to clarify since there had been a year break in our initial romance due to circumstances beyond our control.

  I gave him an incredulous look, because duh. Our love story was the most important story of my life, and, yeah, I remembered it.

  “Okay, well, what do you remember about how we navigated that?”

  “I remember that you thought I’d be better off without you and you ghosted me right before our wedding.” It wasn’t where he was going with this, obviously, but I never failed to take an opportunity to remind him of his momentary stupidity.

  “Hey, I came back in time to say my vows,” he said, pinching my thigh in retribution for the reminder. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. Do you remember before that? When you worried things were moving too fast and that we shouldn’t jump into bed together so soon, shouldn’t move in with each other so soon, shouldn’t―”

  I finished for him. “Get married so soon. Yes, I remember that.” Suddenly I knew where he was going. “And you said fuck everyone else, we have to do things the way that’s right for us.”

  “Yes. Our way. And if going to kinky parties is our thing, then we should do it. It doesn’t change what we have or what we are to our kids. It’s just―”

  “Our way,” I said with him.

  We’d made a good life doing things our way. Why was I doubting it now?

  I couldn’t examine that answer at the moment, because JC seemed to want my help in reminding me what our way usually entailed―being naked. He tugged on the hem of my T-shirt and I raised my arms so he could pull it over my head. As I began to work the buttons of his dress shirt, he brought his hand to cup my bare breast. Then he brought his mouth toward mine.

  “Think about it,” he said after licking along the curve of my lower lip. “We can check it out, or we can forget it even exists. It’s completely up to you.”

  Then conversation ceased as he devoured me with his mouth, stroking his thumb across my sensitive nipple while I wrestled with getting his cock out of his pants.

  And I would think about it more―the club, the opportunity to push boundaries, the need to do things that were right for us instead of others.

  But, currently, I had better things to focus on. The kids were sleeping, the house was quiet, and my sexy-as-fuck husband was worshiping my baby-worn body, proving that nothing was missing between us at all.

  Chapter Three

  The sex had just started getting good when Jake called out for Mommy.

  We tried to ignore him, hoping at least one of us could get to a climax before our five-year-old got out of bed and came looking for us.

  But his call persisted, his tone getting more and more frantic, and soon the baby was awake and crying too. Whatever progress my orgasm had made was lost in the chaos.

  With a sigh, JC and I threw clothes on and split our parenting tasks. I went for Braden, who was teething and probably just needed some baby Anbesol and a quick comfort feed. JC got the short end of the stick, it turned out, because Jake had woken up with a tummy ache, and by the time his father reached him, he’d thrown up all over himself and his bed.

  Needless to say, it was a long night for all of us.

  Maybe that was why The Open Door was the first thing on my mind when I awoke from the three hour “nap” I managed to get in the early hours of the morning. The one thing a sex club like that could offer was a kid-free environment. Of course, we could get that just by hiring a babysitter and getting a hotel for a night. These days, though, I wasn’t sure that JC and I wouldn’t just use that time to catch up on our sleep. And, thanks to Titus, this was already paid for.

  The Open Door could push us to give attention to our sex life―to us―and while our relationship was pretty solid for the most part, there couldn’t be any harm in making sure we stayed that way.

  And sex was vital between my husband and me. It was how JC and I had first connected. We’d had a no-strings arrangement for several months, an arrangement that quickly turned complicated when feelings got involved. Regardless, our initial draw to each other had been through physical intimacy, and, as much as I wanted to deny it, we really had let that aspect of our relationship slip in the past couple of years. The Open Door might be just the answer.

  But was that the best way to address the issue? Inviting strangers into our love life? Possibly encountering new challenges and jealousies?

  Problems like this were best discussed with a friend. Luckily, I had a date with my best friend that very morning.

  So, exhausted as I was, I forced myself out of bed and into the shower while JC took the first round of kid-wrangling.

  * * * *

  "I'm sorry,” I said when Alayna met me at the elevator of her penthouse. It was pretty obvious what I was apologizing for. The plan had been for me to come over sans kids. Alayna wasn’t only my friend, but also my co-manager―technically, my boss―but she
was still on maternity leave after the birth of her twins, and I hadn’t seen her in a while.

  I’d desperately been looking forward to a day off from momming, but when that didn’t work out, I wasn’t about to cancel my date with my friend.

  "No worries," Alayna said. She shifted her own sleeping baby to one arm and reached for Theo. The nanny arrived just then to take her infant off to the nursery.

  "I'm sorry," I said again, setting the diaper bag and the carrier on the floor before bending down to unbuckle the child inside. "JC was going to watch all of them. Since we both have Mondays off, we don't have the nanny, but then Jake got sick, so JC had to take him to the doctor, and here I am, schlepping kids over to your house." I paused and smiled as I really looked at my baby. "Hey, look at that. Braden's asleep too."

  "I'll put the carrier in the nursery then," the nanny said, returning for the next batch of kids. She grabbed the handle of the baby carrier in one hand and held her other hand out for Theo, enticing him to accompany her with the promise of puzzles.

  "We have so many babies," Alayna groaned, with a tired look that likely matched my own. "How did this happen?"

  "I keep asking myself the same thing. But they’re so cute." We both had three kids that we loved with all our being, but at least I’d had mine one at a time. Alayna had decided to follow her first daughter with twins.

  Which was one of the main reasons why she was still on leave almost a year after they’d been born, and I’d been back since Braden had been four months. Well, and she’d had some health issues too, both before and after their birth. I was lucky in that department. While I seemed to get pregnant at the drop of my husband’s pants, at least I had easy-breezy pregnancies. Even the recovery from my C-section with Theo hadn’t been too rough.

  "We could've rescheduled, you know," Alayna said, as I trailed after her into the living room. She plopped down on the sofa. "Today wasn't urgent."