by Various
“Yeah, we actually met at your wedding,” Kaz replied, eying the sofa and the drinks.
“Oh, that’s right,” Josie said. “I totally forgot.”
“Please, sit down,” Rob motioned. “I made hot chocolate.”
At the sound of those two magical words, Froggy shouted, “Hot chocolate! Hot chocolate!” and ran for his cup.
“Go slow, Froggy angel. It’s hot,” Josie warned, setting his mittens on the radiator to dry.
“I guess I burned it a smidge,” Rob apologized as Kaz reached for a mug. “Sorry if it’s a little off.”
“No, it’s great,” Kaz replied. “Burning stuff brings out the caramel taste in the sugars. That’s why you burn a crème brulé, right?”
As they conversed about cooking with the ease of old friends, it dawned on Josie that there were only three mugs of hot chocolate in total. Josie, Rob, and Froggy made three. He hadn’t counted on Kaz arriving early. And she knew Rob; she knew he’d let her have the third. What a sweetheart.
Picking up the last mug, she passed it to her husband, who simply shook his head and said, “It’s for you.”
She watched her surroundings, feeling oddly estranged from them. Froggy blew on his cup as Rob and Kaz talked about recipe websites. After a few sips of deliciously creamy hot chocolate, she passed the mug to Rob. “We’ll share, babe.”
When he smiled at her, she felt so at ease that she teased herself for having trepidations. There was nothing strange about any of this.
“You know, I’ve got to say, I don’t remember you from our wedding,” Rob began. “Most of our friends aren’t so cool. I’m sure I would have remembered you.”
Josie could have laughed out loud. Rob had a man-crush!
“Trust me, I was not very memorable back then,” Kaz replied. “Just your run-of-the-mill computer nerd. I still am, at heart. My old girlfriend just fixed up the package a bit.”
“I bet she did,” Rob chuckled, with a furtive glance in Froggy’s direction. He was fine, still exploring the cosmos in a cup.
Kaz offered a forced smile. “Right, well, she made me more to her liking. So I wouldn’t embarrass her around her friends, mainly.”
“That’s kind of funny,” Josie cut in. “Well, not funny, but you know what I mean. Because that’s the exact opposite of what you did for me. You helped me find my inner girl geek and be proud of her.”
Just as she was beginning to feel sublimely cosy, Froggy looked up at her and said, “I’m hungry.”
“Oh, that’s right. We haven’t eaten dinner,” she said, suppressing that mean little voice scolding, For shame! Must your son remind you to feed him?
With their newfound discovery of each other’s penchant for cooking, Rob and Kaz went nuts with dinner ideas. After digging through cupboards and flipping through cookbooks, they reached the consensus that, even if they had all the right ingredients, it was already too late to start preparing a nice coq-au-vin or anything along those lines. The pair of tongue-teasers got Josie’s taste buds all riled up for haute cuisine, but ultimately gave up and ordered pizza.
After story time with Mommy, Daddy, and their new best friend Kaz, Froggy was out like a light and Josie could finally really decompress. As much as she’d enjoyed playing in the snow and catching up with an old friend, she really felt like she needed some alone time with her hubby. He so often went without when she worked those extra hours.
A surge of joy ran through her at the thought of a few days off.
“On holidays—finally!” she squealing, hugging Rob around the neck as he bent low to stack the dishwasher. “Hey, what would you say to opening up the hot tub and going for a soak?”
“That sounds great!” Kaz replied, patting them both on the shoulders. “I didn’t bring a bathing suit or anything but, hey, we’re all grown-ups, right?”
Chapter Three
Josie was about to give Kaz a friendly swat and say, Oh, very funny mister. She only had to take one look at him to see that he wasn’t joking.
“Oh,” she stammered. “Well, you know, the hot tub’s outside. Most people can’t stand the thought of braving the snow in their skivvies, so if you’d rather not, we would totally totally understand.”
“Are you kidding?” Kaz asked, bubbling over with a seductive sort of glee. “That sounds like the perfect way to sit back, relax, and really get to know each other.”
Glancing sheepishly at Josie, Rob replied, “Yeah, it certainly can be.”
“Oh my god, I just realized what a rude jerk I am!” Kaz cried, smacking his forehead with his hand. Just as Josie started breathing a sigh of relief, he walked out to the front hall and said, “I left my luggage sitting here like it’s going to grow legs and walk itself to my room. Please, let me get all this crap out of your way.”
Josie and Rob breathed a collective sigh—and this one didn’t know the meaning of the word relief—before he said, “Why don’t I show you to the guest room while Josie checks the chlorine levels in the tub.”
“Bromine,” she called, shaking her head as Rob led Kaz to the guest room. He never listened when it came to practical matters. “Put chlorine into the mix and the whole tub will explode.”
The night was even milder than she’d anticipated: one of those rare states after the snow stopped falling and before the temperature dropped and the winds picked up. There wasn’t even a breeze out as she brushed fresh snow off the tub cover. When she lifted the top, stream rose up to the sky. It was deep, dark, inky blue pierced by pinholes of starlight.
As she breathed the fresh night air into her lungs, the light clicked on in the guest room. It suddenly occurred to her how fortunate they were to have everything they did, and how great it was to be able to share their bounty with others. She really didn’t resent Kaz staying with them, or showing up earlier than anticipated, or even invite himself into the tub. It’s not like she deserved these things any more than anybody else.
The pH and temperature were pretty close to perfect, so, with a few minor adjustments, she headed upstairs to jump into her suit. She could hear the deep vibration of the men’s voices up in the attic room.
The one-piece or the bikini?
Daring as it seemed, she chose the turquoise two-piece lined in chocolate brown. As she suited up, a racket like a herd of college boys shook the house. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought it was an earthquake.
Darting to the bedroom door, she threw it open just in time to see a naked Kaz racing down the attic staircase like a kid on Christmas morning. Rob was close behind, just as naked and twice as giddy. He stopped at the linen closet as Kaz kept on to the ground floor.
Josie didn’t process the scene fast enough to be shocked by it. Instead, she went straight to giggles. Their adorably juvenile behaviour reminded her of the time in high school when Kaz and his buddy Paul skipped fourth-period to perch their asses outside the classroom window, mooning everybody inside.
Even nerdy boys acted like maniacs sometimes.
“How’s the tub?” Rob asked, tossing her a towel as he followed Kaz downstairs. “Can we get in now?”
Sucking her teeth, she teased, “You’d better get your filthy asses into that hot water. Last thing I want is you two sitting your buck naked selves down on my good furniture.”
She laughed at her own jokes even after the sliding glass door opened and the boys coursed into the backyard. Before heading down, she peeked into Froggy’s room to find his angelic little eyelids resting closed like waxy little rose petals. How could that child sleep through such racket? She leaned in to kiss his forehead before closing his door to join the naked men outside.
Josie ran across the deck in flip-flops, kicking them off as she threw her towel over the cleared deck chair. The cold didn’t even manage to catch her up before she slipped her skin beneath the warm water. It bubbled away like a witch’s brew as she leaned into the jets next to Rob. She reached for his hand as he reached for hers, and they found each other’s thighs
instead, which was just as good.
Kaz sat across from them, which seemed fortuitous. Even together in the same hot bubbles, they could get away with murder under the hydric hum of the tub.
“Your head’s not too cold?” Rob called to Kaz over the noise.
“Huh?” he replied, placing a hand behind his ear. “I can’t hear you.”
“Perfect,” Rob whispered to Josie as he slipped his fingers between her legs.
Kaz shrugged and closed his eyes, at one with his jets. His seat was roughly the same as hers, with water flows attacking the stress in her lower back, upper back, mid back, not to mention her butt.
The one thing Kaz didn’t have was a husband’s naughty fingers creeping under turquoise bathing bottoms. The wetness that dear hubby came across was more than just water. It was the very nectar of Josie’s lust for him.
She couldn’t very well mount her man with Kaz across the way, even if his eyes were closed. What she could do was squirm out of her bottoms and hold them tight in one hand while she worked her way down to Rob’s cock with the other hand. His hardness made her gasp—or perhaps that was the fingers slowly stroking her clit.
Though she tried not to make much noise while he played with her pussy, her cries wouldn’t make much difference over the jets. She took a firm hold of his cock, rubbing up to the tip until she could feel that skin-on-skin sensation she loved so much.
Handjobs were fun, both giving and getting. She opened her legs wide, tossing her thigh over Rob’s as he snuck a wayward finger into her slit. As he penetrated her, she set his cock against her outer thigh and gave it a good smack. Rob loved that; she could see it in his eyes. He reached deep inside her to rub that sweet spot marked with a g and Josie went wild.
Pressing his palm flat against her clit, he rubbed it in circles. Josie almost felt guilty. There was no way what she was doing to him even half equaled the pleasure he was giving her.
Wrapping her fist around his cockhead, she teased the tip alone, pulling it while she cupped it in her hand. Rob liked being hard in her hands. He like the pressure and the jerking. She liked it too. She liked the rubbing feeling inside her body, compounded by the swirling motion on her clit as he stroked it in circles.
Her pleasure mounted as she watched the enjoyment on his face. His lips formed the words I love you before he threw his head back in ecstasy. He held on tight to her pussy, like he’d caught her with a curiously finger-like fish hook.
She writhed against his static hold, never letting go of his cock as she ground her pussy against his hand. His palm on her clit felt so good-beyond-good she couldn’t contain herself.
Just as a wayward cry escaped her lips, the hot tub clicked and she knew she had to shut her mouth because the bubbles were going to stop in three… two… one…
Silence.
Chapter Four
Kaz opened his eyes wide, the way Froggy did when he thought he’d inadvertently broken something. Rob must have noticed his terror too, because he said, “Don’t panic, man. The jet cycle just ended.”
Josie suppressed a chuckle as her husband rolled his head in orgasmic circles. He looked like a bobble-head doll.
“Want me to turn the bubbles back on?” she asked Kaz. “All it takes is the push of a button.”
“No, that’s okay,” he replied, shifting into the deep seat beside her. It didn’t seem like a big deal until she realized he was naked and she was sitting on her bathing suit bottoms. How could she squirm back into them without him noticing? Although, in the dark, did it really matter?
Chuckling, Kaz looked over to Rob and said, “Whoa, man, I think you might like those jets a little too much.”
Josie let out a weird high-pitched laugh as Rob set his head on her shoulder. “Yeah, he’d have married this tub if he’d met it first.”
“Maybe if you’d met him first you would have married me, right?” Kaz gurgled, sticking his toes out of the water at the opposite end of the tub.
The question made Josie’s spine straighten. That was exactly the kind of thing she didn’t want to get into.
“Who knows?” she said with that same high-pitched laugh.
“Take her, she’s yours,” Rob murmured as if in a dream.
With a giggle of surprise, she teased him with a playful slap to the chest. “Fuck you! Think you can go passing your wife around…?”
Hugging her, Rob replied, “It’s okay. I’m done with you. I’m ready to move on.”
“Like hell you are,” she laughed.
“I had a girlfriend,” Kaz broke in. His tone seemed sad.
Josie could feel Rob inhaling sharply as he sat up. The still water shifted around him. It was the sound of an oar in a midnight lake.
“Yeah, I remember you mentioning that,” Josie said. She would have set her hand on his thigh if she knew she could get there on target.
“Do you want to know why she broke up with me?”
“Why was that?” Rob asked, petting Josie’s leg. She always felt so lucky when other people talked about losing love. It wasn’t a sense of schadenfreude; it was more like delight in knowing she had someone as great as Rob to share her life with. She recognized how rare that was.
“There were a lot of reasons,” Kaz began. “Sure, she fixed me up, aesthetically. I looked really cool, but I was still a nerd. She kept trying to make me into something else, but we are what we are, you know?”
“Yup,” Josie replied, smiling at all the memories flooding back. “That’s what you told me when you realized I was smart. I didn’t want anyone to know. Smart and cool didn’t go together.”
Disturbing the water in front of him, Kaz said, “It wasn’t just that you didn’t want anyone else to know—you didn’t even want yourself to know.”
She smiled, realizing her eyes had adjusted to the light of the moon and stars. Kaz smiled back for a moment, but his expression became forlorn again as he said, “The other thing about my old girlfriend was that I always came in her hands.”
Rob sputtered, like he was choking on a drink. “Whoa, too much information, man!”
“Oh, shut up, Rob.” She smacked his wet chest. “What, are you stuck in the 90’s or something? Too much information…”
“Yeah,” Kaz went on, unperturbed. “Would you believe I’m still a virgin? All the years Shelley and I were together, I never got inside her. Not once. There were times when she’d get out a condom and by the time she’d rolled it down, I’d already filled the damn thing with jizz.”
“Dude,” Rob said, with a note of mockery in his voice. Josie pinched him and he straightened up to say, “That’s too bad, man. But I guess she wanted something you weren’t.”
“Yeah,” Josie picked up. “If she couldn’t take you for who you are, you probably weren’t meant to be together.”
“I know,” Kaz acknowledged. “Honestly, I always felt like I needed a really special girl to lose my virginity to. Josie, I still think that girl is you.”
Oh God.
The steam rising from the tub choked her as she struggled to get air in her lungs. She stared straight ahead, unable to succumb to the pressure of looking either her husband or her old boyfriend in the eye. It’s not that she was looking to have an affair or anything. Far from it. She was, for the most part, deliriously happy with married life. It was just… well, she felt so sorry for Kaz. Maybe if she’d been ready to share her body with a guy back when they were together, he wouldn’t be in this situation now.
Rob was the first to speak. “Wow, man. That’s a bold thing to admit in front of a girl’s husband.”
“Well, yeah, I know,” Kaz replied. The men looked around her to meet each other’s gazes. “But I wouldn’t have said it not in front of you, you know what I mean? That’s not right.” To Josie, he said, “I never brought this up behind his back, right? I never let on I felt that way.”
“No, you sure didn’t,” Josie answered.
She probably wouldn’t have invited him to stay for the holi
days if he had. Sitting in the hot tub between the two men, she felt like a child strapped into the middle seat of an old car, squished in between her mom and her grandmother.
“Excuse me,” Josie said, nearly rising out of her seat before she’d put her bottoms back on. After struggling into them quick as a bunny, she hopped up on the side of the tub and down onto the deck. “You guys stay out as long as you please, but I’m…”
As she spoke, she realized she’d put her bottoms on inside out and she hadn’t put her flip-flops back on at all. The snow burned her feet. She left her towel on the chair and raced into the house, embarrassed by the immaturity of her reaction.