A loud thump drew my eyes into the room before I’d gotten the door fully open, and I saw nothing but a completely naked Presley, tied to a large bed and a look of utter shock on her face.
“Fuck!” I shouted and clenched my eyes shut just as the door slammed in my face. Tara jumped behind me, grasping my arm.
“Occupado, man!” Owen yelled from the other side of the door.
“Sorry, bro!” I grabbed Tara and bolted to the next room I saw that said it was vacant, not bothering to check the color code to surmise the risqué scale. I entered my key, and closed my eyes as I swung the door open, not needing to see anyone else who simply forgot to mark the room as occupied. Who the fuck does that?
Someone not thinking about protocol that’s for sure.
Not hearing any screams, I opened my eyes and swept Tara into the room, shutting the door behind us in a frenzy—like Owen may charge out of the Spy Suite at any moment to give me my own personal TKO.
Tara burst out laughing as she leaned her back against the door, and after my heart stopped racing, I joined in.
“You should’ve…seen…your face,” she said through sucks of air she laughed so hard.
“It said vacant! Damn!” I held my side, reeling in my laughter as I shook my head. “On a scale from zero to dead, how do you think Owen feels about me right this second?”
She wiped at tears pooling underneath her eyes. “I don’t think he’s the one you’d have to worry about. Presley is probably mortified.”
I shook out my limbs as if that could rid me of the image of her on the bed—not that she was bad looking. She wasn’t. She was gorgeous, but she wasn’t mine. And there wasn’t a woman on this planet who could hold a candle to my Tara.
“Relax,” she said, smacking my chest. “They both seem too nice to let that make it awkward.”
I nodded. “Owen did seem like a cool dude. Much less intimidating than I would’ve thought.” I’d thought for sure he would be one of those meatheads that only liked to intimidate and berate—I liked him as a boxer but he rarely spoke for the cameras, so I didn’t know a thing about him. I’m glad he didn’t act like that, though, and after what Tara had told me about their exchange, I knew he was a good guy. Just wish I hadn’t walked in on him and his fiancée in a damn Wonderland room.
“Holy shit,” Tara said, drawing my attention. “Where did you bring us?”
I finally looked around, my mouth dropping open as Tara walked further into the room.
There wasn’t a bed in the suite. Instead there was a lone metal chair, and the walls were adorned with every manner of whip and chain and handcuffs, leather cuffs, ball-gags—it was like the set of Pulp Fiction and Fifty Shades combined.
Tara sashayed over to the corner of the room—which was lit by a soft red glow—where a set of leather handcuffs hung from the ceiling. She tapped one so it swung in the air and arched an eyebrow at me. “What do you say? Have you been a bad boy?” she asked in a horribly soft and high-pitched voice.
I snorted. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?” She grabbed a small handheld whip off the wall and smacked her palm with it. She winced, and I chuckled. “Fuck,” she said, shaking out her hand. “That actually hurts.”
I crossed the room to meet her, taking her face in my hands. “When you talk like that…” I hissed, unable to stop staring at her perfect mouth. After a breath I smiled. “I just bolted into the first room I saw. We can go.” I turned, ready to pull her out of there and find something a little more my taste, but she tugged on my arm.
“Wait,” she said. “We’re already here.”
She said it like we’d driven to the wrong restaurant but might as well eat.
“Let me tie you up.”
My eyes widened. “Yes, Ma’am,” I said, extending my hands toward her in submission.
She slipped my shirt over my head before taking my wrists in her hands, her delicate fingers struggling with the leather cuffs for a few moments before she shackled me. A devious grin shaped her lips as she yanked hard on the rope connecting to the cuffs, causing my arms to shoot above my head in one swift motion before she tied it off on the hook on the wall, rendering my hands and arms useless.
Tara slowly circled me, her fingers lightly grazing my chest, each soft touch making my dick jump. When she came back around, she slowly pulled her shirt off, letting it drop on the floor. A see-through, purple lace bra held up her gorgeous breasts, and I moved instinctually to fill my hands with them but was jerked back by the chains.
A quick laugh ripped from her lips before she got back into character, pointing a finger at me and swaying it back and forth while she sucked her teeth. “Bad boy. No touching.”
I hissed when she nipped at my chest before soothing the bite with her tongue. My heart raced, every impulse telling me to break the fucking chains and rip her pants off. The strain only amplified the want pulsing through every inch of me, and I growled, remembering her drunken declaration of loving the sound.
Her breath was hot against my skin as she worked her way up and down my chest and abs, licking, sucking, biting until I was seconds away from really ripping the cuffs off—but she must’ve felt the tension in my muscles because she backed away and glanced upward. Her eyes trailed my arms, which were fully flexed in their tied position. She smiled as she unbuttoned her pants, letting them fall slowly around her ankles before she kicked them to the side.
“Fuck,” I hissed. Her thong matched her bra. I’d gotten so used to seeing her in the cotton boy shorts she loved—which were hot in their own right—that this dramatic change was a like a stun to my dick.
“You like?” She asked, spinning on her bare feet to let me get an eyeful of everything the bonds were keeping me from touching.
“Love. Want. Now.” The woman had reduced me to caveman language, and if she didn’t let me have her soon, I was sure I’d go prehistoric on the chains.
Swishing her hips, she returned to me, only to lightly trace her breasts over my chest as she kissed me even more gently. I tried to move against her, to connect with her in every hard way I wanted to, but she kept me a breath away, drawing out the tension until I felt it in my bones.
She licked her lips, never losing my gaze as she slipped her hand beneath the band of my jeans, and clutched me in her warm fingers. The relief at her touch was so much I sighed, only to have her take her hand back after a few pumps, the heat in her eyes flaring with every struggle I showed her.
“Tara,” I said, my tone chiding even though I fucking loved it when she tortured me like this—when she’d draw out the moment until I could literally think of nothing else but burying my face between her thighs and lapping up her flavor until she screamed my name.
“Quinn,” she whispered, the sound of my name on her tongue shooting another stream of want down my spine.
“Unlock me,” I said, sucking on the skin of her neck she’d left exposed and in my reach.
“Or what?” she challenged, raking her fingernails down my back as she brought her body flush with mine, only to back away after rolling her hips against me.
“Or I will make you pay for this.” I smirked.
She tilted her head as if she was contemplating the extent of my punishment. I never lost her gaze, promising her it would involve copious amounts of bringing her right to the edge of her orgasm before pulling her back and taking her there again.
Finally, she reached upward.
I couldn’t wait to get ahold of her body.
She smirked as she tightened the bonds, and dropped her hands to my jeans.
“Tara,” I said, warning again, adrenaline racing through my already heated blood.
She popped the button on my jeans and ripped them off, tossing them to the side where they thunked against the hardwood—my cell no doubt cracked from her throw. Not that I gave a damn, because she immediately set her mouth on my dick over my briefs, sucking and teasing through the fabric. I arched my head backward, unable to take he
r torture without moving something.
A quick reach and she’d grabbed the whip she’d held earlier, lightly smacking my ass with it. I hissed, shocked by the pleasure found in the tiny bite of pain—something I didn’t think I’d be into but, fuck if it didn’t feel good being “punished” by my woman. She did it again and every one of my muscles tensed, and I laughed darkly.
“You are so going to get it, honey,” I said, looking at her from the angle in which my head still hung.
“Oh, I’d like to see—”
“Mom?! Dad? What in the absolute hell?!”
My head snapped up so fucking fast I nearly broke my neck—my brain trying to figure out how the hell Blaire had gotten to the resort and why the fuck she was in the room.
Tara yelped, jumping toward the pile of clothes where I caught a glimpse of Blaire’s horrified face—her eyes firmly closed—from the partially exposed screen of my cell on the floor.
“Oh my God,” Tara said, throwing her shirt over the phone. “Hang up, Blaire!” She used the mom tone that promised hell if she didn’t obey.
“Why the hell did you answer? Oh my God!” Blaire screeched, sounding so much like Tara I almost laughed—but couldn’t because I was currently tied up in leather cuffs that hung my arms from the ceiling while my wife whipped me and somehow fucking technology made it possible for my only daughter to see that shit.
Quiet filled the room, and I thanked God Blaire had hung up. Tara triple checked the phone before setting it down. She covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide.
“Honey,” I said, ready to talk her down from the horrified fit she was about to throw.
But instead, she burst out laughing, the motion making her perfect breasts bounce slightly in the damned lacy bra. It was almost enough to make me forget about our girl FaceTiming us at the wrong fucking time…almost.
I laughed with her, unable to contain the overwhelming rush of emotions that conflicted and battled us at every turn. “Can you let me go, please?” I asked through my chuckles.
Tara only nodded, unable to speak properly. My arms sighed in relief as she uncuffed me and I let them drop to my side, shocked at the difference in feeling when I was no longer in the heated moment with my wife. She wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me quickly before shaking her head.
“How?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I have no answer,” I said, knowing nothing would ever explain our complete fails around each other lately. At least this time Tara was laughing about it instead of over analyzing it like she normally did.
Finally, she sighed and nodded. “We should go back to the suite. Call her back. Try and…explain.”
“Ha,” I said, scooping up my jeans and putting one leg through. “Good luck there. I’m sure she is scarred for life. At least she had eighteen good years before we traumatized her.”
Tara smacked my chest after slipping on her shirt. “Stop it!”
“What? Could you imagine seeing your parents doing what we just were?”
She clenched her eyes shut, and a shudder ran through her body. “No. Ugh.”
I kissed her forehead after she’d gotten her pants on and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I’m just kidding, honey. I’m sure she didn’t see…much.”
She didn’t seem convinced, but there was a lightness to her touch, her smile, as we made the trek back to the suite. With one botched fantasy and two failed Wonderland rooms, I was sure she’d retreat into herself even further than she had been, but I tried not to let the thought consume me. Instead, I focused on the insane amount of fun we’d been having before Blaire had called and prayed we could recreate it again soon.
9
Tara
“Toys? You can’t be serious,” I said, turning away from the fresh canvas Grant and I worked on—today’s was blue—in order to show him my shock.
He shrugged. “I have no clue what the man really likes!” He pointed toward the door as if Quinn stood on the other side of it. “You haven’t told him about this place, and I haven’t been able to do a proper analysis of his desires because I’ve got faulty information.”
I lowered my gaze, my shoulders sinking. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Grant sighed. “Don’t be sorry, love. Just fix it. Talk to him.”
“I’m not the best at talking.” I started painting circles again.
“You do fine with me.”
“It’s an anomaly. You’re not him.”
“What are you so afraid of?” He asked.
Tears filled my eyes. “Losing him, of course.”
“What makes you think you would?”
I sucked in a sharp breath and faced him. “There is something I haven’t told you.”
“Are you finally ready?” He asked.
No.
“Yes.”
Grant turned, giving me his full attention. I hoped he wouldn’t kick us out after I told him. “The night I booked this trip…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I went to Quinn’s work building. I was trying to be spontaneous.” I forced a small smile before I raked my fingers through my hair. “Before I pulled into his lot, I saw him driving away in his truck. So I followed him. I wasn’t even thinking I shouldn’t. I only knew I had to see him. And he never saw me…but I saw him.”
“And?” Grant urged me to continue.
“He went inside a lawyer’s office. It only took a quick google on my phone to realize they specialized in divorce.” Tears spilled over my lashes despite my efforts to hold them in. “And I can’t even blame him. I’ve been a mother for so long, I’ve forgotten how to be a wife. How to be in a partnership with intimacy and communication. Plus, we married so young…it’s no wonder he’s contemplating it.”
Grant pulled me into a quick, fierce hug. “I think you’re mistaken.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he said, pushing me away to look me in the eyes. “Why would he come here with you? Why would he hang on your every—though limited—word you speak? If a man is contemplating divorce, he isn’t doing the things Quinn is.”
“Maybe my fast acting with this trip was a curiosity he couldn’t pass up. Maybe he wants one last fun time with me before he goes to find other options.”
“Or,” Grant said. “You could be completely off-base. You want my expert opinion on how to figure it out?”
I nodded.
“Talk. To. Him.”
“I’ve thought about that.”
“And?”
“And what if he throws in the towel earlier because I know? What if he leaves that much faster?”
“What if he could set your mind at ease and tell you that you’re all he’s ever wanted. And that what you saw was something else entirely?”
My heart swelled at the thought, but I shook my head.
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Because I’ve never been what he wants!” I shouted, the anger at my own indecision and insecurities fueling me. “I was what he needed. The mother of his child. His duty. Marrying the girl he knocked up.”
“You honestly believe he would stick around this long because of some misguided sense of morality?” Grant tilted his head, his long black hair falling over his shoulder. “I can’t believe we’re still stuck on this issue. He’s a better man than that.”
“I know he is, damn it.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“I don’t know how to be his wife!”
Grant blinked a few times like I’d said I didn’t know how to tie my shoes. “You are his wife.”
“I’ve been his daughter’s mother for…forever. I’ve never simply been his wife. We’ve always been parents.”
“And now Blaire is at college,” Grant said. “I understand the fear of the unknown, of change, but you have to communicate your worries to him, Tara. He won’t ever know what is wrong if you don’t tell him. He can’t read your mind.”
“What if he bolts?” The fear ate at my insides lik
e a starving sucker fish.
He glared at me, setting his brush down. “Then he’s not the man you’ve portrayed him to be in all the tests and interviews you handed in.”
“Do I have to tell him now? Can’t we just finish out our stay and then, maybe, you could help me talk to him on the last day?”
“Why do you want to put it off?”
“You know why.” A flush raked across my cheeks. I needed that connection with Quinn again—the one I’d felt so close to so many times on this trip before it was ripped away. “I need to rediscover him. Show him…remind him…”
“You mean you still haven’t,” Grant said when I hadn’t continued.
I slowly shook my head.
He rubbed his palms over his face as if this was the first time this situation had ever happened at his resort. “How is that possible?” He motioned his hand toward the door again. “Look at this place! It’s designed to make that happen. To make it easier to happen. Hell, we encourage it on the damn website!”
I chuckled, his complete audacity at me and my inability to fuck my husband in his adult playground of a resort seemed insane even to me. The hysterics were contagious, and he ran his fingers through his hair, taking a steadying breath.
“All right,” he said, back to business. “Like I said earlier. The Toy Shop. That’s where you’re headed for fantasy number two.”
A wave of nerves hit me like I’d stepped up to an edge with an endless drop. We could make this one work. We had to. Everything else had gotten messed up each time. I wasn’t even worried about being mortified anymore; I was just trembling with frustration so thick I could cut it with a knife.
“Okay,” I said. “And if it works out—”
“When,” he cut me off.
“When,” I amended. “Then I’ll tell him. Then I’ll know.”
Grant pressed his lips together, the sincerity in his eyes hitting me right in the chest. “For your and Quinn’s sake, I truly hope so.”
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