Forbidden Fantasies (2 page)

Not wanting to ruin the mood, he let it go. Talking about sex was always hard for Jess, but something told him there was more to her embarrassment than just him talking dirty. This wasn’t the first time she had distanced herself from him during sex, and one of these days, he was going to have to figure out what was going on in her head, why she seemed so flustered lately, because it was driving him nuts.

“It doesn’t matter either way, babe.” He stifled the frustration that seemed to be his constant companion these days and ran his knuckles gently down Jess’s cheek. “I’m just glad you’re awake and I get to spend some quality time with my gorgeous wife.”

He’d deal with the questions some other day, though, because now Jess had her hands on his thighs. She slid them forward until her fingers nestled in the crook of his legs, close to his cock and balls, but she didn’t touch them. And oh, how he wanted that. His muscles bunched and flexed as she rubbed her thumbs closer and closer.

“Babe, you’re killing me here.” He closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the edge of the tub. “Touch me. Please.”

“Touch you how?” Jess’s voice was like velvet, her softly uttered words uncharacteristically bold. And totally at odds with the uneasiness he’d seen in her eyes just a minute earlier. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

His eyes flew open, and in the dim light, he saw raw desire on his wife’s face. Damned if that didn’t turn him on too. Whatever was going on with Jess, whatever she wouldn’t—or felt she
couldn’t
—share with him, it definitely added a spark to their sex life. He liked it. A lot. All except for the emotional distance, but he shoved that thought away for now.

He kept his eyes locked on hers as his heart threatened to gallop out of his chest. He had to clear his throat twice to get his voice to work. “Get your hand all soapy, and wrap it around my cock. I want to feel your fingers on me, stroking me, touching my balls.”

Her eyes lit up. “Like this?”

Steam rose around them, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the water or from the heat they generated together. Her slick, soapy hand stroked tightly up and down his erection, and she slid her thumb over the head each time she reached the tip. Her fingers cupping his balls were gentle, caressing that sensitive spot underneath them. She scraped there with her fingernail, and his body jerked in response.

It felt like hell, and it felt like heaven. “Stop,” he groaned. “Or I’m going to come like this.”

She didn’t listen.

As she worked him with her tight fist, she slid her other hand under his balls, pressing against the tight hole there, sparking the nerve endings to life. She’d never done that to him before, but
damn,
it felt good. He wanted her to do it again. Later, when he had more control over his body. His balls drew up, and he knew he was going to lose it, right there, without being inside her, if he didn’t do something fast. And he didn’t want to come alone.

He tugged Jess up his body, draping her legs on either side of this, and urged her down onto his pulsing cock. As good as her warm, soapy hand had felt, it was
nothing
like the heat and tightness of her pussy. He held her hips steady, thrusting up until he was fully enveloped in her body.

“Alex,” she cried out as he pressed deep, closing her eyes and biting her lip.

“Ride me.” He didn’t care how needy he sounded. He could feel the ripples inside her body, urging him toward release. He slid his hands into her hair, pulling her down for a kiss as she rocked back and forth on his body, her movements drawing him closer and closer to the fire.

She went over first, and he tightened his hands in her hair, deepening the kiss, swallowing the ragged sound she made as her orgasm flashed over. She shredded his restraint, and he followed her almost immediately, holding her close as wave after wave of pleasure overtook him.

They lay together in the tub, breathing heavily, and he stroked a hand up and down her smooth back. He didn’t know how long they lay there like that, entwined, his softening cock still inside the grip of her body. This was the first time in a long while she seemed content to stay connected to him, to rest in their intimate embrace, and he felt even more tension leave his body.

“A husband could get used to coming home to this every night,” he murmured in her ear, and he felt her smile against his neck.

“So could a wife,” she said with a satisfied sigh.

Jess shivered as Alex helped her from the tub. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her. After drying himself off, he drew her toward their bed, naked but for the wicked grin on his face.

Slowly, he unwrapped the towel, his gaze heating her skin as he bared her body. He towel-dried her arms and legs, but he dropped to his knees and used his tongue to catch the moisture between her thighs. The chill vanished, replaced with a warm flush that swept over her.

He stood and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “I’m glad you’re still up.”

She cast her gaze at his semi-aroused penis. “I’m glad you’re still up too.” With her best shot at a sexy smile, she turned and reached for the nightshirt she’d tossed onto her side of the bed.

He laughed and flicked the towel, catching her right across her bare backside.

At the quick sting against her flesh, Jess bit her lip to hold back the moan that wanted to escape. Before she could even process her reaction, Alex scooped her up and tossed her onto the bed. She laughed, but her mind was otherwise occupied by the locker-room towel flick.

He dropped onto the bed, settling himself between her legs. “Love you.” He whispered the words in her ear, nipping her lobe lightly.

She shivered again, this time from arousal, and wound her arms around his neck.

“Want you again.” He licked a path down her throat to her breast, tongued her nipple. He groaned as he entered her body.

So did she.

“Right now.” He said the words, but he took his time, stroking her body slowly, pulling all the way out before sliding in again, one excruciating inch at a time.

She whimpered, thrashing her head against the pillow as her mind wandered into fantasy.
I’m bound to a chair in my Master’s front hall, naked and gagged. Every guest who enters the house for his dinner party touches me. Some pinch my nipples while others strike me with a small suede flogger. I love it all, but I need more.

She arched her back, trying to get Alex to move faster, but he kept his pace steady. A frustrated sound tore from her throat against her will.

“Easy, love. We’ve got all night.”

Air dances over my bare skin as I stand on the balcony overlooking the moonlit city, my feet spread wide, my breasts resting on the railing as my Master commanded. He stands behind me, and with a twist of his hips, his erection breaches the entrance to my ass. I cry out, the sound carrying to a building across the street from us, where a man sits on his balcony, his hooded eyes locked with mine as he fists his cock.

When Alex rolled them so they were on their sides, facing each other, she had to close her eyes for fear he’d see inside her vivid imagination.

He kissed her as he stroked inside her, lifting her leg over his hip so he could fill her more deeply with each thrust. “Look at me, Jess.”

She forced her eyes open and was stunned by the fierce need on Alex’s face.

“You with me?” He punctuated his words with sharp thrusts.

Damn good question.
Guilt prickled her skin, but she forced it back, threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him closer for a tongue-dueling kiss.

He laughed roughly, and his voice was uneven. “I’ll take that as a
yes
.”

He slipped a hand between them, rubbing her clit on every stroke, until nothing mattered but Alex and the orgasm that seemed just outside her reach.
My Master pulls the vibrator from my body just as I’m about to come. “Not until I say you can,” he says sharply. He withholds his permission for a long, frustrating minute, and I want to scream. Finally he relents, blowing a whisper of air across my clit. “Now, slave.”

She came as if the release had been ripped from her against her will, her body straining and her heart hammering. Alex followed right behind her.

* * *

While Alex took the kids to Ben’s baseball practice, Jess cleaned up the mess in the bathroom. She picked up his clothes, wadded up in a ball next to the hamper but not in it. He’d been in a bit of a hurry, not that she could blame him. She’d
wanted
him to hurry.

It had been an amazing night, especially since it had been a gift. She honestly hadn’t thought she’d see him until the morning. But over breakfast, he told her they’d caught an unexpected break in the case.

As wonderful as the night had been, when Alex came downstairs for coffee this morning, he’d had that wary look in his eyes again, the one guaranteed to make her guilty feelings rise up and choke her. She hated this, really she did. What she needed was a time machine, so she could go back to that day at the bookstore. The day she let the perfect opening slide by, all because she’d been afraid.

A couple of weeks after she picked up that first book, Jess had found herself at the bookstore again, this time with Alex and the kids. Kara went looking for the latest preteen vampire book, and Ben went with Alex to scour the kids’ section for anything about baseball.

Which gave Jess a few minutes to look for herself. She went right to the same author, hoping she’d find something like the last book. And, at the same time, hoping she wouldn’t, because she still felt guilty, unsure how Alex would feel about them.

She found another book that intrigued her. The cover showed three people. A man, in tight jeans and nothing else, stood behind a naked woman, holding her bound wrists in one hand and a leather flogger in the other. Another man, clad in black leather pants and an open white shirt, was putting a mask over her eyes. The photo had been taken through a sheer curtain, but it was obvious both men were going to dominate her.

It was just as obvious she was excited by it. And, like the last book, this cover image set her imagination off on a wild journey.

She was reading the first page when Alex came up behind her, sliding his hands around her waist, nuzzling her neck. Lost in her own fantasies, she jumped a mile, her heart thudding.

“Whoa, babe, it’s just me. Whatcha got there?”

“N-nothing,” she stammered. She pulled away, trying to put the book back on the shelf, but he took it from her. She felt mortified and a little angry.

He stared at the cover for a long moment, locked eyes with her, then handed the book back. He had on what she always considered his inscrutable cop face. “Looks hot. We’re ready to go whenever you are. Are you buying anything?” he asked in a quiet, emotionally distant voice.

She didn’t know what to say, how to respond to his lack of reaction, so she mutely shook her head. As much as she wanted that book, she put it back on the shelf and they headed home.

He didn’t say another word about it, and he even went to bed early, still unusually reserved. Sitting alone in the kitchen, her anger at him and her own embarrassment faded into something a lot more uncomfortable. For the first time in nearly fifteen years of marriage, it was as if a wall had come up between them, and she knew it was all her fault.

She went back to the store several times after that, but the memory of the look on Alex’s face kept her from buying that specific book—until she took Kara there to get a birthday present for a friend and found herself in that very spot, looking at that very book. Before she could change her mind, she paid for it and put it in her bag.

When she got home, she felt so guilty about it she almost threw it away without reading it. She shoved it in her nightstand drawer, still in the bag, and left it there as she tried to decide what to do with it. It nagged at her and because of it she was short with Alex, picking at him for things she’d normally ignore. She was aware of her cranky attitude but couldn’t seem to stop herself.

But it didn’t stop her from turning to him in the night, curling into his hard body for heat to warm a chill no amount of blankets could help.

“I love you, you know,” he whispered, drawing her against him, lifting her leg over his hip, nudging her entrance with his erection. “Tell me what’s wrong, so I can fix it. You don’t have to be the one in charge all the time.”

At his words, tears filled her eyes. “I love you back.”

He rolled her onto her back, twined his hands with hers, and entered her fully with one long, deep, hard thrust. She groaned at the power behind his penetration, of being held in place, and something clicked inside her brain and her heart and her soul.

That was the exact moment she’d realized what it was she truly desired—Alex in charge, not to fix something, but to take control in bed. She wanted him to hold back nothing, to take what he needed and he wanted. She wanted to offer him that trust, and in return, be offered the pleasure she’d glimpsed inside a world she’d just discovered. Light bondage. Spanking. Toys to torment her.
That
was what she hadn’t been able to tell him, what had turned her into a crazy woman. How could she have explained it, when she’d only just figured it out herself?

And, weeks later, she
still
hadn’t explained it to Alex.

With a disgusted sigh, Jess tossed the comforter on the floor, then yanked the sheets off the bed, holding them to her face, breathing deeply. They smelled like Alex, and like her, the smell that was uniquely theirs when they made love. She loved that smell.

Once the bed was remade, she carried the dirty pile downstairs, tossed the whole thing into the washer and, frustrated with herself for all her waffling and her lack of a damn spine, slammed the laundry room door shut. She winced as the dishes on the counter rattled. She was rattled, too, pulled apart by what she wanted, what she needed, and what she thought Alex—and their marriage—could handle.

Back upstairs in their bedroom, she sat on the floor and pulled out her hoard of books, the ones that fueled her fantasies. Because they were erotic stories, she wasn’t sure how Alex would take them. He liked the results of them, even though he didn’t know the
why
of it. The nights she fantasized, their lovemaking was always supercharged.

She wasn’t sure why she thought Alex would mind. Mostly, she figured he’d lump her erotic romances in with porn. But they weren’t the same. The stories engaged her brain and her emotions as well as her libido.

But that wasn’t the real reason she worried, was it? No, this was no longer only about fantasizing. She wanted to
try
some light bondage, like being tied up and blindfolded, and other things that made her blush but set her heart racing. Some stuff was too extreme for anything but fantasy, at least for her. Ménages were exciting and arousing to read about, but she couldn’t see them in reality. And anyway, the only man she wanted was Alex.

But now she wanted more.

Only, how did you ask the man you’ve been married to for fifteen years for things like that?
Excuse me, honey. Would you tie me up and blindfold me? Oh, and whip me with this flogger, too, if you don’t mind.

Yeah, right.

If they’d experimented before they were married, it would be different. But they hadn’t. Now, if he thought the things she wanted to try were too kinky? Talk about taking a potential wrecking ball to your relationship. Her heart clenched at the thought.

They had two mostly happy, relatively well-adjusted kids, a small circle of good friends, decent jobs. They had a roof over their heads, food in the fridge, and a small safety net of savings in the bank. Things hadn’t been perfect for them—two miscarriages and various everyday challenges had seen to that—but they’d survived what life had thrown at them. Together.

Like most married couples, their sex life often suffered from too much to do, too little time, and no energy to do much about it, but their marriage was rock solid. And she wanted to keep it that way, because when she’d said forever, she’d meant forever. She’d rather keep their sex life as it was and not risk damaging their relationship. It wasn’t fair to ask Alex now for something she’d never asked for before. Not something like this.

Period.

So she stowed the books back in the box, shoved it all the way under the bed—all the while wishing she could do the same with the images and fantasies in her head—and went back downstairs to make lunch for her family.

* * *

“Hi, babe.” Alex kissed Jess on the cheek. “Practice was muddy today. I sent Ben upstairs to get washed up. He’s a mess. And Kara’s in her room, sulking because I told her we think she’s still too young to have a cell phone.”

“Hi,” she answered absently, turning back to the sandwiches she’d been making.

Alex stifled a sigh. He’d hoped whatever she’d been worried about last night would be gone today, but it wasn’t. He still saw the shadow of
something
in her eyes, and his heart twisted. Jessica’s silence on whatever was bugging her was scaring him, way down to the hidden part of him that had never believed he could have—
or keep
—a woman like her. She was everything to him. She and their kids were his life.

Something had changed in the past couple of months. At first, he’d thought it was for the better. God knows, it’d been a long time since their sex life had been so active. It hadn’t been bad, but after fifteen years of marriage, it had become predictable. Now, however, it was different, more intense. Exciting again. He’d initially chalked it up to the kids being older and more self-sufficient, which freed up time for both him and Jess. But he’d noticed lately there was a furtive, almost desperate tone to it, as if Jess was using sex to chase some demon away.

The thought of what she might be hiding from him made him sick. The first time, about three months ago, he’d been shaken to his core. She’d made love to him with wild abandon, and then immediately afterward had curled up on her side, shaking. He’d tried to get her to talk, but she’d just withdrawn further. He’d spent the night wrapped around her, holding her, unable to sleep as he tried to figure out what might be wrong. But the next day, it had been almost as if nothing had happened.

She’d begun withdrawing emotionally from him when it came to sex, and only sex. The things going through his head were killing him, because the rest of their life was absolutely normal. The insecure husband worried she might’ve had an affair and was feeling guilty. The cop in him worried she might have been assaulted and was trying to drive away bad memories by creating new ones. Neither of those situations was palatable.