Husband Sit (Husband #1) (6 page)

“Jeez.
Ease me into it, why don’t you?” he muttered.

But
I simply wriggled around to get comfy and hooked a thumb toward my back. “When
you’re ready.”

I
heard him sigh, but a second later the bed dipped behind me and I smiled at the
window.

“Warm
it in your hands first,” I instructed.

“I
know what I’m doing,” he replied, with a hint of grumpiness.

That
made me smile more. I was tempted to say,
Oh, is that why your wife has a
girlfriend?
But I didn’t. I just waited for those lovely long hands to
start stroking my back, smearing that delicious cream all over me. And when he
did, I sighed. He started on my shoulders, which were probably the most burnt.
Then he worked his way gently down my back to my waist and below that to the
top of my sunburn-line. I wished then that I’d been wearing a g-string when I’d
been burnt so he had an excuse to stroke my ass, because exactly as I expected,
he bypassed it and moved down to my feet, slathering the cream onto my instep
which was far sexier than I’d have imagined it would be.

I
lifted my foot up and he obliged by rubbing the cream in with both hands. Then
his fingers slid between my toes, and before I knew it, I was making that
mmm
sound again, but louder. When he’d finished both feet, he started on my ankles
and to my surprise he moved around on the bed and pulled my legs apart so he
could sit between them. I wasn’t complaining.

His
strong fingers slid up and down my calves, and at the other end of the bed my
fingers opened and closed like a cat making bread. The
mmm
turned into a
purring sound deep in my throat and I could feel myself getting hot all over.
That delicious clutching sensation started between my legs and I knew I was
fast approaching critical mass, thinking that after he kissed me and left, I’d
be masturbating. Then I realized I didn’t need to wait.

So
while he massaged more cream onto my thighs, running his thumbs up the inside
to tease me, I tilted my ass up and snuck a hand down between my legs to stroke
the slickness that had formed there. Instantly liquid pleasure sent tendrils
out, snaking up my spine and making my breasts ache to be touched.

I
was starting to pant. “Don’t stop doing that, okay?” I whispered.

“Wow,”
he said, and I could hear a catch in his voice but he didn’t stop stroking me,
and just when I was starting to feel the rhythm moving me into pre-orgasm
trembling, his hands slid up past my thighs onto my ass, his thumbs sliding
along the crack, pushing me closer. Then I was making that
Oh, oh, oh
sound and he was kneading and stroking, and there was something about the
combination of the sunburn pain and the feel of his hands and the naughtiness
of masturbating in front of a stranger that pushed me over the edge into the
fastest orgasm I’d ever had. He gripped my ass tight while I shuddered against
my fingers and
God, oh God, Oh God!
felt the blood-pounding thrill of it
racing around the spasms under my hand.

“Dear
God!” I breathed as I slumped down onto the bed. “
That
was fucking
fantastic.”

Behind
me, Finn was silent. I breathed into the cool white sheet, wondering what he
was thinking.

A
long sixty seconds passed before he said, “That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever
seen.”

So
clearly, Katinka was saving her best work for her girlfriend.

“Do
you have a hard-on?” I asked. Rhetorical question.

“Well,
you won’t be winning rock, paper, scissors unless you’ve got paper. Put it that
way.”

I
grinned. “I’m bought and paid for,” I said. “And she wants you to do it.”

“I
want to do it.” After a couple of seconds, he added, “In fact, I’m so desperate
to fuck you right now, I think I’d do it, even if she didn’t want me to.”

“That’s
my boy!”

He
was sure to feel guilty about it later, but that was exactly what Katinka
wanted.

I
retrieved my sticky hand and levered myself up into doggy-ready position. “I’m
not lying on my back,” I said, and tried to look at him between my legs, but
dropping my head so low brought the hangover wooziness back so I tilted it up
and rested my forehead on the cool sheet.

Then
I wriggled my ass. “Come and get it.”

There
was complete silence in the bedroom for the longest ten seconds of my life.
Then Finn said, “I can’t do this.”

What?

I
wavered but didn’t slump out of my doggy-ready position. A part of me knew this
would happen. It was way too soon, but instead of feeling relief that my morals
weren’t stretched, I was disappointed.

“Fine.
Suit yourself,” I said, not exactly snippy, but I wasn’t sweetness and light
either. And I certainly didn’t want a discussion about it, so I slid onto my
belly as gracefully as I could and pretended to be going to sleep while I
listened to another long swathe of silence behind me. At last my bedroom door
opened and closed.

I
should have been full of orgasm endorphins and feel-good sexiness—I’d given him
a hard-on, and he
did
want to fuck me. Instead, I felt vaguely grumpy as
I closed my eyes and prepared myself for sleep, wondering what the afternoon
would bring.

Avoidance,
actually.

I
woke up mid-afternoon and Finn was out. He’d left a note on the kitchen table
saying
Home by 7 pm, bringing dinner
. He’d also left his cell phone number
in case I needed to contact him prior to his return. That was thoughtful, and
considering the state he must have been in before he left, it was telling of
his character. I wanted to stay cranky, but he was so damned
kind,
he
made that difficult.

I
took a coffee out to the table by the pool, thinking that hot men should be
avoided at all cost—because they scrambled your brain and gave off
mixed-signals—feeling you up one minute and then turning you down the next.
That train of thought, however, was just to distract myself from the fact that
I’d scrambled
his
brain by telling him we’d only be kissing, and then on
a whim I’d tried to turn our tucking-in session into sex.

Which
wasn’t fair.

I
should have been thinking about the big picture of what I was doing, not just
freewheeling into whatever felt good at the time. Finn deserved better than
that. When I’d taken the job, he’d just been a generic “hot guy”. But now that
I was living in his house and he’d been patient with me when I was drunk, and
caring when I was hung-over, I could see he was a real person, a sweet guy,
actually, who appeared to be trying hard to be faithful to his wife.

So
why had I greedily tried to seduce him? Was I that selfish? Or was it because
his wife was cheating and he should too—some bizarre peer-pressure deal? Or…
was this about my own self-esteem?

A
pang of discomfort opened up in my chest and I forced myself to look at it. Had
my relationship with Doug made me feel boring and not-sexy? Was that why I was
so keen to have sex with Finn? Was I trying to prove to myself that I still
‘had it’? And if so, what exactly had I proved? That masturbating naked can
give a man a hard-on? That didn’t mean Finn was attracted to me. It only meant
he was heterosexual and awake. I could have been porn on the teev and he would
have had the same reaction.

I
was supposed to be acting like a mature businesswoman, not a needy schoolgirl
offering sex in exchange for approval.
That
was embarrassing. I really
had to change my behavior, and I could start with easing-up on Finn. There
would be husbands who wanted to cheat. And if building my sexual self-esteem
was important, I could make sex part of my
Must Have
list so I didn’t
get into the situation of being available and unwanted again. That felt like rejection.

For
now, however, I was contracted to say in Katinka’s house for a month, and I was
going to do that. If Finn wanted us to pretend to be house-mates, fine. I
wouldn’t earn my five grand bonus, but my conscience would be clear.

So
I decided to start as I meant to go on, by being a grown-up. I went inside and
grabbed my phone to text Finn that I’d be making dinner. Then I set to work on
clearing left-over veggies from the bottom of the refrigerator and turning them
into a vat of risotto which I planned to serve with a mellow Lambrusco I’d
found at the back of the bar. Dinner was still warm on the stovetop when I
heard the garage roller-door grind up at two minutes to seven.

He’d
clearly stayed away as long as he could, and I felt bad about that. But I
planned to make the rest of my stay as easy as possible, so I remained where I
was, at the table by the pool, pretending to work on my laptop. When I saw him
in the kitchen, I called out, “Hey, I’m out here!” and I waved at him through
the big glass sliding doors. Then I went back to typing, as though I was
finishing a sentence.

He
came out onto the back patio and said, “You’re working.” The sun was setting
and it covered him in gold, making his green eyes look luminous. A treacherous
part of me said
You do want to fuck that guy. Admit it.

“Writing
a book,” I lied casually. Then I winked at him. “Potential best seller. About a
woman who can’t get a fuck in a brothel.”

His
eyes widened, but a second later, he realized I was teasing him and he smiled, his
shoulders relaxing inside the very nice casual jacket he wore over jeans and a
tee-shirt. “Some guys are crazy, right?”

I
nodded, but we were smiling at each other. “In any case,” I went on, “I’ve
decided my character has secret literary ambitions, so I’m giving her the month
off sex to create a novella, and then I’ll let her get back to some erotic
adventures.”

He
tilted his head to the side and his dreads slid over the shoulder of his
jacket. The lingering way he looked at me made my celibacy resolve waver.

“So…dinner?”
I said brightly.

He
nodded. “Have I got time for a quick shower?”

I
had an instant visualization of the two of us in his overlarge ensuite shower,
all slippery and naked, but I pushed that aside to say, “Sure. I’ll pack up my
work.”

“Thanks.”
He didn’t seem in a hurry to leave the pretty terracotta patio with its drapery
of fragrant jasmine scenting the cool evening air. At last he said, “I’m
sorry.”

I
didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “My bad, actually.”

“No.”
He shook his head, to reinforce the point. “I should never have agreed to this.
I was attracted to you from the moment you walked into my house.”

Oh.
So it wasn’t
about porn-come-to-life. “I didn’t realize.”

He
frowned, as if to say
How could you not?
But what he said was, “I imagine
she’s doing this to punish me.
She
knows I’m attracted to you.”

That
only made me frown. “Punish you? But she’s the one cheating—”

“With
a girl. This is different.” He pointed between the two of us. “I think she’s
testing me to see if she can trust me.” He nodded to himself a few times. “I’m
not doing well.”

My
laptop was making its shutdown noises in front of me, but I wasn’t distracted
by that. I was completely engrossed in the tortured expression on his face. “I
don’t understand.”

Well,
that wasn’t completely true. I did understand, now that he’d explained it, that
he was having trouble resisting me. I could see that on his face, could feel
the throb of it behind my breasts. I also knew that I’d
love
to be in
his bed, which didn’t bode well for my ‘adult’ resolution of a few hours
before. What I didn’t understand was why he thought a lesbian relationship
wasn’t cheating.

I
closed my laptop and stood, deciding to get to the crux of the matter. “How
long has Katinka had a girlfriend?”

Finn
said nothing for a long time. Just looked at me. Then he nodded again, as
though resigning himself. “Three years. This is their sixth holiday together.”

How
did he not think this was serious? “What if she leaves you for this woman?”

He
shook his head. “It’s like men on a fishing trip. They have their adventure and
then they come home.”

You
keep telling yourself that, buddy
.
“You’re very… forgiving.”

“Marriage
is about more than just sex.” He sounded like he was trying to convince
himself.

“I
wouldn’t know.” I shrugged. “I’ve never been married.” Although I did have
opinions. There was no way I’d marry someone who was cheating on me, or stay
with them if they did.

“It
complicated.”

His
marriage might be, but I
didn’t
want the details. “Anyway… I’m not here to be a counselor. I just stop husbands
straying. So couples stay married,” I added, a touch self-righteously.

His
gaze dipped to my breasts a nano-second before he met my eyes again, then he
said, “I don’t need help to stay married.” With more than a little self-righteousness
of his own.

For
some reason that annoyed me. He shouldn’t have the high ground. He’d nearly
fucked me. “Then Katinka wasted her money,” I shot back.

 He
stared at me a moment longer, then shook his head. “She bought me a month of
torture.” His hot gaze licked its way down my body and then back up to my
flushed face. “I didn’t think it was going to be this hard, but you’re sexy
and, I suspect,
experienced
…”

I
blinked at him in shock as a surge of indignation spiked up the
Richter
scale.
Nobody wants to be hit with the slut-stick. Not to mention that I’d been such a
clumsy twit the night before, I was clearly not some suave seductress. Yet they
were paying me for sex, assuming I was skilled, so his comment was justified.

Unfortunately,
it eroded my ‘poor Finn’ resolve. He wasn’t attracted to Jill Wilson. He was
attracted to whatever he thought I was,
some version of a prostitute, so
I obliged him by saying, “I sleep with men for money,” and shrugged as if I was
proud of the fact.

Across
the darkening patio, I saw him tense. “I don’t want you to.”

“What?
I’m not…” What was he saying? “I only do one at a time.” Did he think I was out
fucking men while he was at work?

“I
don’t think you should do it at all,” he elaborated, his beautiful eyes
narrowed. “You’re smart and funny. You could—”

“No.”
I held up a hand. If he was going to tell me I could do something more morally
correct with my life, I didn’t want to hear it. Not from him. His situation was
fucked. I wasn’t about to let him lecture me.

So
I picked up my laptop. “Dinner in ten minutes?”

That
caught him by surprise but he didn’t argue, so I marched straight past him into
the house, scenting the illicit Morrissey aftershave on the way. It warmed me
from top to bottom, but he went straight for the shower so I busied myself
sorting plates and cutlery and lighting candles on the dining table.

When
he returned I was seated, and I gestured at the placed I’d set across from me—too
far away to accidentally touch. When he’d settled himself, I raised my glass.
“To successful marriages,” I said without a trace of irony. It was, after all,
the reason they’d employed me, and with him looking even more scrumptious, damp
from the shower in denim shorts and a worn tee-shirt, I needed to remind myself
of that at every opportunity.

He
raised his glass and I thought I could see color riding his cheekbones. Did he
think I was mocking him? “To self-control,” he countered, and looked deadly
serious.

I
couldn’t help saying, “No more tucking me into bed?”

He
shook his head and took a deep, slow breath. “Everywhere I go in this house, I
fantasize about fucking you. And those are places where I haven’t touched you.
There is
no way
I am going back into your bedroom. That hits too close
to the—”

“Boner?”
I couldn’t help drawling the word. I shouldn’t be teasing him but I was
unashamedly thrilled to hear that he’d fantasized about me. It made the
insecure part of me sing. “So, on that chair,” I nodded to where he sat. “Right
now? You’re fantasizing about fucking me there?”

He
licked his lips and I’m sure it was an unselfconscious action, but it turned me
on, and I licked my own back at him. The reckless anger he’d incited in me out
on the patio was still tumbling around and I needed to damp it down. So to
throw him completely, I put down my wine and started serving the risotto,
telling him about the vegetables I’d used and how we’d need to shop for more,
and how did he want to do that?

He
started breathing again, and actually joined in the conversation as we worked
out how best to provision the kitchen while Katinka was gone. Then we ate and
finished the wine, talking about the slow food movement and local organic food,
why I was a vegetarian and how little he cared about what he ate, so vegetarian
food was fine while I was living there. Etcetera.

Finally
I stood, and immediately he tensed, but I just said, “Do you mind cleaning up
while I have a shower in your ensuite. Then I’m off to bed. I’ve got a new book
to read.”

He
watched me carefully for a couple of seconds and I waited patiently until he
said, “Sure. I’ve got things to read too.”

“Fab.”
I smiled brightly. “See you at breakfast if I’m up. Otherwise at dinner
tomorrow night. I’ll cook again.”