She rode him like that in the water like a hungry she-wolf. She was determined to get off, and he could feel her heat building around him.
God he loved this woman. She could be demanding and insatiable when she wanted to be.
He closed his eyes and let the moment happen.
She crashed around him with a pulsating climax that pulled him over the edge of ecstasy at the same time. The impact of it almost sent his knees buckling, and he had to remember to keep his balance.
They cried out together as their bodies shuddered in unison.
John encouraged her to keep thrusting and milk every ounce of cum out of him.
With his eyes closed, every scent, every sounds, every touch and every breath delighted him as he came down from his orgasm.
Every sound, including that of nearby footsteps.
John opened his eyes. The sun was up, the gray woods were slowly becoming dappled with light.
He let Heather continue to pulse around him and begin to snuggle into him as he looked around.
And then he heard the voices.
Heather didn’t seem to hear anything over her own sighs and moans, but John was fully aware of the fact that they’d been caught … again.
And then he saw them. Five couples he recognized from the retreat, lead by none other than Burke. They were staring at them, agog. Some of them looked horrified. Some embarrassed. Some averted their eyes. One or two of them seemed envious and gave him a thumbs up. Burke, however, stood with his arms crossed and cleared his throat.
Heather’s eyes flew up. “Oh god.”
John realized they could see his wife’s naked body and dunked them down into the water until they were up to their necks. She slid off of him and kept her back to the hiking party.
John cracked a smug smile at them. “We went went looking for our car last night and got lost,” he said with a shrug.
Brynn cocked her head to the side as if she was dealing with a mental midget, pointed down the trail. “Parking lot is right there.”
John and Heather both turned and stared down the trail in the direction she pointed. There, between the trees, was the front gate. This whole time, their rental car was maybe 50 feet away.
Heather looked at Burke and said, “Well, the process totally worked! We hated Bliss so much we ran away and found each other in the woods! I’m going to leave an excellent Yelp review about this.”
Burke looked at John. “I could prosecute you for breaking into my office.”
John shrugged and then waded out of the water, buck naked, much to the admiration or delight of most of his fellow campers. He picked up his jeans and dug out his wallet, pulling out a wad of cash. “Here,” he said, handing Burke a $50 bill. “This should cover your secret stash of Girl Scout cookies.”
The other hikers all glared at Burke.
One of them shouted, “Cookies! What the actual fuck! I’m starving!”
John turned back and helped Heather out of the water, blocking her body from view with the blanket. The group began to argue and revolt against Burke. John winked at his wife. “Our work here is done.”
Chapter 23
John
As he drove in to work the following Monday, John knew exactly what he needed to do next.
What had gone wrong in their marriage was not simply fixed with sex. Obviously, the hot, sweaty, desperate mountain man-style sex was good. Really good, he thought, as he smiled to himself wickedly behind the wheel at the stoplight.
Man, I really hope the dude in the lane next to me sees me smiling like the village idiot over here.
He also knew no matter how stupidly that their renewed sexual chemistry made him smile, he still had some work to do.
It didn’t matter whether he or Heather had pulled away first. It didn’t matter who initiated their reconciling.
The fact of the matter was, it had become much easier to write computer codes than to speak to his wife over a few misunderstandings. He had learned to avoid the lull in their marriage and it soon became the norm for him to hide out in his office at work.
John had already supported Heather in coming to terms with the charity work making her feel constantly drained. Of course, part of that coming to terms had been forced by John.
After escaping from Bliss, he had taken charge the second they had walked in the door to their beautiful, air-conditioned, bug-free home.
Their three rambunctious blonde daughters were a sight for sore eyes. Two of them jumped into John’s arms as he was trying to peel off twenties to pay the babysitter.
He had asked the girl, “How much to be on call whenever my wife needs you?”
“I, uh,” the sitter had stammered.
Heather gathered up all three girls and led them into the kitchen with the promise of ice cream.
“Name your price,” John said, “Let’s say, we keep you on retainer for $1,000 a week?”
“But I have school.”
John sighed. “I see you drive a hard bargain. Five thousand a month, plus your own Suburban because we’re gonna fill that bad boy with a few more babies very soon. And you’d only need to stay overnight once a month, when Heather and I go out of town for a monthly romantic getaway together.”
He had glanced at Heather, who was watching from the kitchen door, speechless. She wasn’t trying to stop him, though.
After the elated sitter left, Heather moved to give John a hug, but he was not done. He instead turned on his phone and saw that he had 17 messages, all from Carlisle Corporation. She looked at the phone. “I guess you’d better return some calls.”
John had looked down at her sweet, angelic face and he just couldn’t do it. That’s it, he thought. No more taking work home. If Meredith can’t handle it, then so long Meredith.
He leaned down and kissed Heather on the nose. He ignored the long list of voicemail notification and went to his contacts. In the next minute, he was on the horn with the hospital board. He could hear his girls happily laughing and eating ice cream, getting all kinds of hyper on sugar. The sound of them in the next room, and the look of love from his wife made his chest ache.
“Hello, Rita? Yes, it’s me. Yes, yes, glad you are all making good use of our last donation. Listen, that’s not why I’m calling. Heather isn’t going to make it to the next board meeting … no, she’s in perfect health …”
He knew he had been on the right track with this alpha-dog move to cancel her obligations for her, because Heather began tracing little nibbles across his shoulder while he spoke to Rita, the fussy, buttoned-up board secretary over the phone. “Ah … yes … no, I’d say she’s in more-than perfect health … actually quite athletic these days … but here’s the thing …” He had to stop himself from growling as Heather kissed her way across his collar bone through the fabric of his tee shirt, her erect nipples grazing his abs as she stood on her toes. She really knew how to torment a guy who was trying to do business on the phone.
He continued, “Heather’s not going to be at any board meetings or functions in the near future. We are hiring her a personal assistant who will attend on her behalf and take care of anything you need. Yes, that’s right. Oh my god.” Heather’s palms grazed over the bump in his shorts and he bit back a moan. “I’m sorry, Rita, I just stepped on a Lego. Yes, the proxy idea is very unorthodox, but what can I say? We’re having an early mid-life crisis.”
And with that he had hung up the phone and dialed the animal shelter with the same message. No more Heather for the time being.
She was his, and his alone.
Heather had always found strength in helping people who couldn't help themselves, and John had always loved that about her. Now, they would still be helping others, but they were also going to help their own marriage.
Camp Bliss, with all it’s quirks and alarming misleading methods, taught them to trust the process.
After parking in his assigned spot at Carlisle Corporation, John walked into Meredith’s office and closed the door.
“I need to speak to you.”
Meredith smiled. “You’re looking rather woodsman-chic, John? How was your weekend away?”
“Good,” he replied. “Weird. Really weird. But also good. That’s part of what I need to talk to you about.”
Meredith interrupted, “I’m glad you came to see me, actually, because we’ve gotten really behind since you skipped out of town on your little marriage retreat. Donny is in the weeds with all the new Giftr code, and we’ve been trying to reach you all weekend. I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s all hands on deck and we’re going to need your presence for the big rollout. And whenever you’re not here, we need you on call.”
John inhaled deeply and then smiled at Meredith. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
Meredith looked taken aback. “I’m sorry? Look, a lot of executives go through a little flaky time right after a vacation, so I understand you want to ease back into things …”
“No,” John said assertively. Meredith’s eyes popped.
“No?” she repeated back to him.
“My days from here on out will be eight hours. And I will not be on call. I will not be taking work home from now on.”
Meredith laughed. In the tech world, this was just not done. “Oh wait, you’re serious?”
“As a Russian masseuse with a tree branch in her hand.”
“Um, what?”
John laughed. “Never mind. Bad joke. But I meant what I said. Take it or leave it.”
Meredith narrowed her eyes at him. “It must be nice to have ‘fuck-you’ money. Do whatever you want. Go wherever you want. Just decide to be Superdad one day.”
John stood up and gritted out. “Listen. Carlisle has been very good to me. Yes, they paid me a massive amount of money for my app. But let me tell you something you don’t know. Heather and I came up with this idea when we were 18 years old. We came up with this technology between writing term papers in school. And then after college, we lived on ramen noodles for years — years! — trying to grow our business. Whatever we decide to do with our lives, we earned it, and I’ll not have you belittling the needs of our family.”
Meredith scoffed. “Look around you, John. Everyone here has a family. Everyone here is going to be missing their kid’s soccer game this weekend, or dance recital, or whatever-the-hell. It’s the way we work. This is why this company is great. We never stop. You knew that when you came on board to help us.”
John did as she said and looked out the plate-glass window of her office. He looked back and Meredith and sighed, “Well, not this guy. I quit.”
He opened her office door and walked out, despite her protests. Before he hit the lobby to say his final goodbye to his favorite security guard, he turned to the room of coders and addressed them.
“Go home to your families this weekend! And when you, do, really go home. Lock your phones in a drawer and don’t check your messages until you get to work again next Monday. Because you know what? Nothing will collapse without you!”
But no one was listening. Everyone had their faces glued to their state-of-the-art computer screens, tablets or phones. Meredith simply shrugged and looked at him and said, “Did you expect a geek revolution on a Monday morning?”
John mirrored her shrug, turned, and made his exit. “A revolution of one is still a revolution,” he said.
Epilogue
Six years later
The problem with three additional kids in six years — three boys, including a set of twins named Ty and Travis — is that even after a marriage gets its mojo back, a couple has to work even harder to find time for the hot monkey sex.
Even though John had quit his job, and Heather had resigned from two of the five boards that she chaired, and they’d hired a full-time nanny and house staff to keep up with chores, things were still chaos. Say what you will, rich people of leisure still led hectic lives.
So, over the years, John had developed a code phrase whenever he felt like he was losing his connection with Heather.
He used it one day when Heather had just finished chauffeuring two kids to soccer practice, brought one to the doctor for vaccinations, and was laying on the couch nursing the newest addition, their 1-year-old boy, Trey.
“It’s time to go camping, mama,” he said, flopping down on the sofa next to her.
Heather had been half asleep while Trey nursed. “OK. Let me just get Trey to bed and then we’ll put the rest of them to bed, oh and Willow needs her tooth pulled and the twins are going through a thing where they need three books at bedtime, and …”
Heather spoke of all these things with her eyes closed, she was so tired.
But John wasn’t having it. “No,” he said. “I’ve already called Lacy, she’s coming to watch them in an hour. She will put them all to bed. We’re going camping.”
“But,” Heather protested.
John shook his head. “No, trust me. Finish up with Trey and I’ll put him down. And then we are out of here.”
Heather sighed. How could she say no?
One hour later, Lacy, their nanny who John had paid triple to come back and stay the night with the kids, was inside putting all their hooligans to bed.
Hidden in their special grove of trees on their estate, John was building a fire, shirtless and oozing that sexy primal aura that had woken her up those years ago in the woods, while Heather made the beds inside their luxury yurt that they had built just for this purpose.
Well, what else could anyone expect? She wasn’t going to sleep on the ground every time they needed a break from the kids, was she?
When she finished with the beds, she came outside to the fire, where John was finishing up grilling a giant porterhouse steak, just to medium rare. They ate their fill like a couple of hungry cave people and then retired to the yurt.
John methodically lit candles around the tent, plugged in twinkle lights for added ambience, and then presented her with a velvet box.
Heather grinned and opened it to reveal a gorgeous pearl necklace.
“Oh my god, it’s beautiful. But you know I’m not really into jewelry. This is unexpected.”
John took the box and tossed it aside. “Fine, then how about the other kind?”
Heather’s eyes flashed with lust. “What did you have in mind, caveman?”
In seconds, John had her on her back, literally tearing off her panties and ravishing his wife with the very thing the jewelry had meant to imply.
When they were finished utterly ruining each other for the night, Heather curled up on her side, John’s big arms cradling her. She reached for the remote and clicked on the plasma TV that stood at the other end of the yurt.
Happy and naked, they stayed that way, binge-watching “The Office” until they fell asleep.
“Camping is the best,” Heather said as she drifted off.
“Yep,” said John. “Sure is.”
About the Author
Gracie Sullivan is a new author of steamy, funny contemporary romance books dedicated to helping heroes and heroines fall BACK in love with each other!
We are two mom friends who spend way too much time laughing, drinking coffee, and talking about sexy times, and who decided to put their ideas into lovable characters and enjoyable books.
Our books may (usually!) take place within the bonds of marriage, but that’s no reason why it can’t be over-the-top HOT!! We create stories with happy endings, NO CHEATING, and no cliffhangers without a warning. We do our best to avoid triggers and make our stories enjoyable from beginning to end. If you happen to get your mojo back after reading, all the better!
In It For My Wife is Gracie’s first book, but watch for more!
Keep up with the latest happenings on our newsletter, and follow us on the following social media!
.Net
In It For My Wife Page 7