Wanting to bring up tiny things like that…no thanks.
Especially not for the kind of rules they’d joked about for years.
The last person in the world he had to worry about was his purring Tabby.
His cock twitched behind his fly again. Her making that noise. Only for him.
Fuck.
He’d just had her two nights prior. Deep in her ass as Wes fucked her throat.
For a second, he closed his eyes and laced his hands behind his head.
Wes wasn’t the only person they fooled around with, but he was on a very short list. There were less than a handful of men he would consider Tabitha’s current hot wife dates.
Ares, a buddy from the gym he’d met a few years back. Bald, jacked. She’d said the first time he was with her he’d just ripped off her outfit, lifted her up and fucked her in the middle of the room. Not against the wall. Just standing with her thighs over his arms. She’d told Michael afterward she’d come twice before he put her down.
Duke, his best friend from back home in Kansas, had had the privilege a time or two when he’d flown over to see them for a weekend. The guy’d had a cocky attitude for days. The only thing he had more of was charm. He’d charmed his hands into Tabitha’s panties beneath the table at a restaurant downtown within five minutes of being seated. It was now their booth at the little Italian restaurant, Bella Luna, thirty minutes outside the city. The booth with her cum all over it was most definitely his favorite. Duke had a trip planned to see them in a few weeks. Michael’d forgotten to tell Tabitha about it. Forgotten. Sure. That was the word. Could have been something about surprising her with a little bit of hot wife fun. Maybe some cuffs. A bit of Duke’s whips. She creamed over being striped by his dragontail. Vicious toy. Yummy wife.
Hottest wife ever.
Each day he probably told her that a half a dozen times.
Not anywhere close to how many times he thought it, though.
Because she was.
The most amazing creature on the entire planet and she was his. He made plans to take her in the shower before bed.
He grinned.
And he’d take her again in bed before he fell asleep on her, inside her, beside her. All perfect.
Leaning forward, he glanced at the date.
Something about it kept poking him in the frontal cortex like he should remember. It wasn’t her birthday, which was in the first part of December. It wasn’t their anniversary, which was in the latter part of August.
He grabbed his phone to check their calendar to see if there was something in there when his desk phone lit up. He took a deep breath, silenced his cell, then traded it for the other phone and looked at the display.
Museum of the Marine.
Area code of Jacksonville.
He glanced at the clock and calculated time. He had hours left. Still plenty for what he needed to get done.
Pushing the talk button, he lifted the phone receiver to his ear. “Graves Design and Construction, this is Michael speaking. How can I help you?”
* * * *
Several hours later, he was so damn close to being done with the civic center plan. He’d kicked ass with the quiet of his office and only one phone interruption.
And he couldn’t even call it an interruption.
The amazing opportunity had come from some of his work at the military base. Word of mouth had turned his business into a success.
Rubbing his eyes felt so good it made his dick hard.
How long had he—?
Oh. Fuck.
He dropped his hands and focused on the clock again.
He was already fifteen minutes late for his date with Tabitha. And it would take him at least forty-five minutes to get home with traffic, since he hadn’t left in time.
“Dammit!” he barked at no one in particular.
He snatched up his phone and wondered if it had gone dead again. Talk about needing a new phone battery. The charge sucked and he just couldn’t seem to remember to grab the extra charger from the house.
Pushing the wake-up button on the bottom row of buttons, Michael made the display light up.
Six texts from Tabitha.
“Fuck,” he cursed again.
Silenced. He’d silenced the damn phone when the museum had called and he’d forgotten to turn it back on.
He hated nothing more than disappointing Tabitha. His stomach dropped as he pulled up her texts, which were all a few minutes apart.
You on your way, my husband?
Hello…
Knock knock.
Anybody home?
Did your phone die again?
Then at the bottom sat a picture of his wife’s delicious cleavage. In an equally gorgeous, skin tight black dress.
Oh, my fucking hell that dress is incredible…BLIP. You make my heart stop.
I’m still at the office.
I’m so damn sorry. Got caught up in two projects.
Wish you would have called the office phone, even though I know you don’t like doing that.
And now traffic is awful. Fuck.
He glanced at a monitor he had hanging in the corner of his office, which showed four different outdoor camera views along with twelve inside views.
I can see the 24 from here and it’s completely packed.
I’m the worst husband ever. Forgive me? Please?
I promise to make it up to you when I get home…
As he waited his phone went dark and he brought their text screen up again.
Then he remembered all the notifications were still off. He’d muted his phone so he was distracted. He literally held his breath until he started to feel lightheaded.
He got into the settings and turned them on just in time for his phone to buzz in his hand.
He exhaled loudly when he got back to their screen.
There were a row of hearts and smiley faces.
Of course, I forgive you. I know how hard you’re working.
Bet you’re gonna be a while now, huh? The food I made probably isn’t going to be awesome by the time you get here.
I feel like such an ass. So sorry, baby.
It’s okay. I heard someone is going to make it up to me when he gets home.
I might have a few ideas for my husband…
Then a pic from up her skirt came through. Skirt. Michael wasn’t certain if there was enough material to actually call it a skirt. And she most definitely didn’t have panties on.
Hottest. Wife. Ever.
You’re the best.
And that dress? Gonna look amazing beside the bed.
Be home as soon as I finish one thing and the traffic gets moving.
Love you, Tabby.
Love you!
Another row of rainbow hearts and kiss emojis came through.
He swiped the app to get it to disappear and checked the charge. Dammit. It wasn’t gonna last until he got home. And he didn’t have a charger with him.
Epic. Fail.
He moved his mouse to wake his computer up so he could dig back into work, get finished and get home to his lovely and forgiving wife.
Disappointing his wife had to be at the top of the shit pile of things to do. He hated it. But it wasn’t just disappointment due to their dynamic. He was more to her, as she was more to him. Just…more. The connection went deeper, stronger.
People who had never experienced a kink relationship didn’t know what they were missing. It fulfilled him in ways he’d never thought possible. But if he messed up it was as if he’d endured a physical blow.
The gut punch he was currently nursing was less than he deserved. He’d earned it by letting her down. She deserved a whole lot on top of his upset stomach to make up for it.
He needed to hire extra help, but to find people who could do what he did would take a hefty paycheck. Investing that money back into growing the business before hiring additional help would get them much more return in the long run.
“I’m doing thi
s for us, baby. Only for us,” he mumbled to his empty office. A yawn caught him off guard and his mouth split so far open his jaw cracked.
Long day.
He took a deep breath and tried to focus. He’d already been there twelve hours and exhaustion was beginning to catch up to him. There were only a couple things for the civic center plan he had to finish up and he could get the entire project sent off before he left. “An hour,” he glanced at the clock with another yawn. “Maybe.”
He pictured Tabitha wrapped up in a robe, reading a book or watching something on TV when he got home. Fuck. Maybe he could convince her to still be in that dress when he pulled in. He couldn’t wait. Mmm. Sinking inside her tight heat before crashing sounded like the perfect way to end his long-ass day.
Even with all their combined baggage they’d come together and were some kind of perfect match. Like magnets or puzzle pieces, or cookies and milk. They helped each other be better.
And he’d never do anything to jeopardize that. Ever.
Even her being a hot wife and fucking other guys.
It wasn’t for everybody, probably not most people, but for them, it worked and that was all that mattered.
He closed his eyes for a second and rubbed them.
An image of Tabitha wearing nothing but his collar flitted across his mind.
His collar.
Not something they’d agreed on. Not something they’d ever really talked about. He’d been thinking about it a lot lately, though.
His need to possess more of her had been growing.
He shook his head, staring at the screen. “Not now. Can’t get lost in that right now. But soon and forever.” He focused again, determined to get done quickly and get home to his girl.
“It will all be worth it with the bigger house we can buy, vacations we can take.” He nodded, in full agreement with himself.
Epic. That was what he wanted her life to be. Epic.
Chapter Five
Tabitha
Standing next to the table, Tabitha cupped the top of a tapered candle and blew it out. She repeated the process two more times, dousing the once romantic dining room into a kiddie pool’s worth of meh.
She moved back to her chair and exhaled one more breath that ruffled her bangs. It didn’t take her two seconds of staring at the lovely dinner in front of her to completely deflate her ‘everything is fine’ attitude. She slumped back, wearing her new little black dress, and kicked her favorite heels off under the table.
After elbowing the arm of her chair, she propped her cheek on her fist.
It was fine. Truly.
In the scheme of things, it was such small potatoes she wouldn’t even remember the slight in a few weeks.
Apparently, she could add lying to herself to her new bag of tricks.
“Ugh,” she mumbled to the dinner getting cold in front of her.
She bit her bottom lip and gave herself permission to be upset for a few minutes.
So much for racing home after work to get dinner ready for date night.
And it was kind of their anniversary. Though not their wedding anniversary. If Michael had forgotten that she’d absolutely have known things were bad.
But they’d always celebrated the anniversary of the night they met. They called it their meetversary. Five years before, they’d bumped into each other at a mixer get-together of his then-employer and her accounting firm.
Talk about electric.
Love at first sight was nothing but a figment of women’s overactive imaginations around the world. Or so she’d thought.
She’d been walking around a corner and run right into him. Literally. He’d grabbed her before she fell. Like lightning, electricity had raced along her spine as he’d touched her.
For the first time in her life she’d been struck completely speechless by a man.
He’d eyed her mouth and she’d licked her lips.
The gesture hadn’t been some kind of come on. She just hadn’t been able to find her voice. Then he’d growled.
A dominant sound that had spoken directly to her soul.
Holy shit.
Sexiest man she’d ever seen.
Ever.
Eventually she’d fixed her momentary muteness and they’d introduced themselves. He’d bought her a drink, and asked for her number before they’d parted ways hours later.
The rest, as they say, was history.
But not some inconsequential history of people she’d never met.
No, it was their history. The start of their happily ever after.
One of their special moments they always celebrated, no matter how busy they were, so they could stop and remember those first words. First kiss. First…everything.
Tonight was listed in their shared calendar, the apps on their phones syncing up their lives and appointments and meetings and dates. Their dates and their dates.
Michael had never missed it before. Not till today.
One last ugh left her lips, then she stood to haul everything back into the kitchen.
Tabitha wanted to throw it all out, cause she definitely wasn’t hungry anymore. She should eat, but eating alone always left her feeling worse than throwing it out. She could just put it in containers and heat it up for leftovers tomorrow but it would probably be gross. She shook her head. The seafood in the pasta would never keep with the sauce on it and she hated to waste good food.
A thought popped into her head as if it was a light switch flicking on. Before she lost her nerve, she grabbed the cordless house phone and dialed Robin, her best friend, a few houses down the road. She and her husband Roland had become neighbors after Tabitha and Michael had moved in and the couples were extremely close. Tabitha hadn’t seen Robin all week and she honestly really needed a girl kind of powwow.
“Hello?”
“Have you had dinner yet?” Tabitha asked by way of hello.
“Does a package of Pop-Tarts count?”
Tabitha laughed, already knowing she’d called the right person to help her out of her funk. “Not if you’re over the age of fourteen.”
“Then no.”
Staring at the counter, Tabitha pointed and listed things off. “I have linguini with scallops, salad with homemade croutons and cheesecake.”
“I’m pretty sure I just drooled on the cat. What kind of cheesecake?”
“Turtle. Homemade. As if there’s any other kind.”
“I’ll be at your door in less than forty-five seconds.”
The phone clicked in Tabitha’s ear and she smiled as she pushed the off button.
Robin was gorgeous. One of those chicks Tabitha wanted to hate but just couldn’t. She was beautiful with her dirty blonde hair, colorful stripe and striking green eyes. Not to mention friendly, down-to-earth and fiercely loyal. Setting down the phone, she thanked her lucky stars they’d met the first weekend after she and Michael bought the house. Fate had definitely had a hand in them meeting.
Tabitha barely had time to dig her heels out from under the table and swap them out upstairs for her fuzzy caterpillar slippers before the doorbell chimed throughout the house.
Opening the door, Tabitha stepped aside to let Robin in. “You weren’t kidding when you said less than a minute. I almost didn’t have time to get my slippers.”
Robin pulled her close and hugged her tightly. “And let that be a lesson to you when you call mentioning scallops and cheesecake.”
Tabitha motioned her in and shut the door behind her. “You know the way.” She turned back around and Robin was eyeing her from head to toe.
“I know neither of our doors swing toward the girl-on-girl action side of things, so why the LBD?” Her gaze went to Tabitha’s feet and she grinned. “And caterpillars?”
Tabitha thought of several things to say, a couple of lies and a couple of half-truths. “Ugh,” came out instead.
“Oh, goodness. This sounds like quite a story. Good thing I came hungry.”
Tabitha took her elbow and the
y moved toward the kitchen. “Very good thing. Everything almost ended up in the trash.”
“Blasphemer,” she gasped and actually made the sign of the cross before looking at the ceiling. “She didn’t mean it, Honoré.”
Handing over a plate when they got to the kitchen, Tabitha raised an eyebrow. “Honoré?”
“Patron saint of desserts or something like that. Can’t be too careful you know.” Robin stared at the food and did a little dance. “My Pop-Tarts can suck it.”
They both made plates and sat down at the breakfast nook table off to one side of the kitchen. The last thing Tabitha wanted to do was sit in the depressing dining room.
“Who cancelled? Michael or a date?”
“Michael,” Tabitha confessed and her stomach tightened with unease. Saying it out loud made it sound far too real.
Robin was a hot wife, too. The kink relationship her and her husband had was different from what Tabitha shared with Michael, but the hot wife dynamic they had in common had made them inseparable almost at the first hi-how-are-ya.
They’d found it out kind of by accident at a weekend block party several years before, right after they’d moved in. Being two of the only households in the neighborhood with no children, they’d gravitated toward each other and had had a connection from the word go. One conversation had led into another and one of them had revealed they were a hot wife. There had definitely been alcohol involved. They hadn’t scarred any of the neighborhood kids. Well…not permanently.
“Oh. Well. Shitballs. I was hoping it was one of the others and then you could just kick them to the curb. Lots more out there who want a piece of what we have to offer. But Michael letting you down definitely isn’t a good thing. First time?”
Tabitha just stared at her for a long second then glared at the food on her plate so she could successfully push it around the circular porcelain in front of her. “I keep expecting things to settle back into our routine.”
“But?” Robin prompted as she dug into her food.
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