“I was thinking about blessings,” I say, meeting his gaze. “About how you’re my greatest blessing.”
He blushes, an adorable reaction I don’t get to see enough of because he’s damned hard to rattle. He reaches over and squeezes my wrist. “You’re my greatest blessing, too, Master.”
I lean in and kiss him but quickly disengage when my cock thickens in my slacks.
A decade married or not, it’d be bad form for a US senator to get caught fucking his husband in their car just outside their church.
* * * *
Our ride home is companionably quiet. We hold hands as I drive, accompanied by only the sound of the radio playing a jazz station. One of the many things I love so much about Daniel is there’s no need to fill silences with him. I don’t nervously chatter, I don’t feel anxious. His peaceful energy flows through me and settles my soul.
I revel in the quiet and soak in his calm. As if just being in his presence helps soothe me and dampens the noisy chatter in my brain. No matter how crazy the world around him, Daniel is always safely within the center of the storm, the calm and peaceful eye of the hurricane.
The anchor that prevents everyone else from breaking loose from their moorings, going adrift, and crashing into the rocky shoals.
Especially me. I didn’t realize how emotionally untethered I was until he reached out and pulled me to safety.
My soul has healed in infinite ways I never dreamed possible with his love. Just because I’m his Master doesn’t mean he doesn’t own me, too.
At home, I park in the garage and my good boy waits for me to get out and walk around to open his door. It’s a protocol I insisted on from day one, and it’s one I treasure because I don’t get to do it enough with him.
Catching his hand as he steps out, we pause, staring into each other’s eyes. My heart makes that clichéd little skip all the romance books and Hallmark movies are so fond of.
But it’s true.
He’s only the second person in my life to make that happen. It’s a miracle I can even feel it after what I endured.
I count it as another blessing.
His lips part as I lean in, but I only nuzzle my nose against his. “Don’t strip,” I whisper.
He smiles. “Yes, Master.”
Instead, I lift his hand to my lips and kiss it, then send him inside with a hard swat to his ass.
He knows what I want and wastes no time hurrying on ahead.
When I follow, after hanging up my coat next to his in the hall, I find him exactly where and how I want him—upstairs and kneeling on the floor of our bedroom, fully dressed, forehead against the tops of his hands, which are flat on the floor in front of him.
Ass toward the bedroom door.
I can see him naked any night we’re in bed together. But there’s something about the sight of him in a suit that fills me with a lustful pride of ownership I cannot fully explain.
Unless you want to boil it down to something as simple as a suit fetish.
Maybe that’s it.
Or, maybe it’s the memory of two guys standing in an upscale men’s clothing shop, while the one watches with barely constrained lust in his eyes as the other gets fitted for his very first custom-tailored suit.
I shove those memories away. Today’s not the day to let the ghost have its way with me.
Unfastening and removing my cufflinks as I walk around Daniel, I suck in a sharp breath at how his suit jacket bunches up in that familiar way, how his shirt cuffs peek out past the sleeves.
How the cufflinks I gave him for Christmas and fastened on him this morning twinkle in the dim light.
Another subtle day collar for him to wear every day.
I remember the first suits I bought for him—
I have to shove that memory away, too, for now, because it’s too close to the ghost who’s tapping at my soul and demanding attention.
I’ve been good lately. At least a year since I’ve written an e-mail I won’t send, and at least two years since I Googled my ghost, or scanned social media to see if he got divorced.
Or had kids.
Despite my years of intense emotional and psychological work, there’s still a lot of old and painful baggage left to unpack. Maybe, one day, I’ll do that.
Today is not that day.
Today is the day I focus on my husband and love him, because we’ll return to DC in three days and life will get crazy.
We will once again have a Democrat in the White House when President-elect ShaeLynn Samuels is inaugurated later this month. I’ve worked closely with her in the Senate over the past several years. While I’ll miss her there, she’s definitely the best choice for president. I’m hopeful her VP, Congressman Elliot Woodley, will go on to run for the office, too, after Shae’s two terms end.
Sixteen continual years of Democrat control of the Oval Office—if we can hold on to the Senate and House—will help us rebuild so many critical policies, infrastructure systems, and social safety nets our country desperately needs.
I reach over and drop my cufflinks on the dresser before I start to slide my jacket off. From the quickening of the rise and fall of Daniel’s chest, I know he’s listening to every sound.
His hearing is spooky-good.
I use that to my advantage.
I know he’s listening to the rustle of fabric, the way the air shifts and moves and makes every sound change. Draping my jacket over the nearby chair, I slowly roll my cuffs up to my elbows as I watch him.
This dance we do never gets old. In this moment, my cock’s as hard as it was ten years ago on our wedding night. The only difference now is that sometimes my forty-six-year-old body doesn’t want to fully cooperate—especially if we try for more than once—whereas in our early days we fucked several times a day like horny teenagers.
Sometimes, we still do, if the stars align.
I leave my tie on, my collar buttoned. He prefers that, and I can’t resist giving my boy every- and anything he desires. Call me old-fashioned, but I like spoiling him and keeping him happy.
Doesn’t mean I won’t redden his ass when I want to, or when he feels he’s failed me and he needs it.
What he considers failures rarely cross my radar as infractions, but just as it’s in my nature to need to dominate and subdue him, it’s in his nature to atone and submit.
Everyone’s a winner.
I stand directly in front of him, the tips of my loafers barely touching his hands, and gently nudge.
Faster than I can follow the movement, he cups his hands around the backs of my ankles and kisses the tops of my shoes. From there, he slips off my left shoe and sock, then the right, sets them aside, and scoots forward a little so he can press his forehead against the tops of my feet, his hands once again cupping my ankles.
We both deeply inhale, hold it, and slowly breathe out. This little ritual developed accidentally and organically and is one we both love. It helps connect and center us, grounding us to each other and the moment, shutting out all other intrusive thoughts and distractions.
Well, mostly. Sometimes, my mind can’t help reaching for old memories.
Which I then viciously squash to preserve my sanity and peace of mind.
In my briefs, my cock’s aching and probably already leaving a wet spot. My boy does that to me, even this many years later.
Only one other man has ever had this effect on me. Even though Daniel told me in all seriousness that my ghost can be my hall-pass fuck, I could never imagine being with anyone else now.
Besides, how do you even try to fuck a ghost? Especially when you have a beautiful, perfect man such as this bowing at your feet?
* * * *
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Free Preview: Poly
The following is a preview from Poly by Tymber Dalton writing as Lesli Richardson.
Description
(Contemporary poly
romance, mmf, HEA.)
I love my husband…and his boyfriend.
And he loves us. Love isn’t always neat and tidy.
Unfortunately, there are those who don’t understand. When we finally decide to be a family together, it means we have to fight to keep what we love before others rip us apart.
* * * *
Chapter One
Zoey
Friday Afternoon
I pinch the bridge of my nose as I struggle against what’s sure to quickly escalate into a screaming migraine. The middle of the check-out line at Publix, with my overflowing cart only half unloaded, on a Friday afternoon, and with three people backed up behind me, is not the best of times or places to have a “conversation” with my ex-husband.
Why did I even answer the damn phone? You’d think I’d know better.
“Bill, will you please calm down. What’s going on?”
Hell, the butchers cutting meat in the back of the fricking store can probably hear him screaming over the phone and understand him a damn sight better than I can.
“I’ve had it, Zoey. I’m done. You can fucking have him. He’s not my son. I want him out of my fucking house!”
Oookay, so Lucas the pod-teenager and his father have had yet another fight. “Bill, please, would you—”
He hangs up on me.
Must. Not. Throw. Phone.
Nolan will give me a ration of shit if I break another phone. He’s getting tired of setting them up for me. This is my fourth one in as many months. Although, to be fair, the last two destructions weren’t my fault.
One ended up in a toilet when it fell out of the back pocket of my jeans—fucking designers and their shallow pockets in women’s pants, anyway—and the other ended up in the laundry when Arlo helpfully decided to wash my jacket for me after my best friend’s cat yakked on it, and Ar didn’t check my pockets first.
I thumb the power button to shut my phone off, bury the offending device in the bottom of my black-hole purse, and start throwing the rest of my groceries onto the conveyor belt without giving a crap what I put where.
Usually, I group everything carefully based on what it is, to make the bagger’s job easier. Frozen items together, cold items, produce, et cetera.
Not today. Nope. You get frozen peas and tampons and canned tuna alll mixed together.
Bad enough it looks like my weekend might be ruined by a migraine. I damn sure don’t want to hear about the latest teenage-angst-fueled war between my sixteen-year-old son and his father.
Lucas wanted to live there. He got his wish.
That still stings, even two years later. Arlo and Nolan have tried to get me to talk about it, but I prefer burying it under a pile of other shit I don’t want to think about until I can process it without crying.
Which at this point is looking like half-past never.
My ex is a douchebag, to be sure. He’s finally managed to hang on to a job longer than a couple of years without pissing people off and getting himself fired. He’s the head of maintenance at an office building in downtown Sarasota, and sometimes he has to work weekends or nights if there are repairs going on, or maintenance jobs that have to take place when most of the tenants are closed.
When I arrive home, before I even unload the first grocery bag, I go inside and swallow three Excedrin Migraine tablets with a glass of water. I won’t get much sleep with the caffeine in them.
That’s something I finally feel like smiling about. Because I hadn’t planned on getting much sleep this weekend, anyway.
It takes me twenty minutes to unload the groceries from the trunk of my car, as well as my laptop and other stuff. By the time Arlo arrives home ten minutes later, I almost have everything put away. He walks into the kitchen, sets his lunch cooler on the counter, and kisses me.
Then he frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“What?”
He circles his finger in the air, indicating my face. “You’re wearing that pinched expression.” He holds up the bottle of Excedrin and shakes it. “And these on the counter.”
I sigh. “Bill’s on the warpath.”
“Oh, fuck me. What the hell did that asshole say to you this time?”
I love Arlo’s protective streak. Normally, he’s a gentle man. The only thing that ever enrages him is Bill Motherfucking Webb.
“Calm down,” I say. “Apparently, he and Lucas had a fight. I made the mistake of answering my phone in the grocery store. Then he hung up on me before I found out anything.”
He holds out his hand. “Hand it over. I’ll babysit your phone this weekend. I will not have our first full weekend together in a freaking month ruined by that nutsac full of flaming garbage.”
“Have at it.” I point at my purse, which I’d dumped on the couch with my laptop bag and other stuff from work. “It’s in there. I shut it off. Be my guest.”
From the fridge I grab a package of defrosted chicken breasts that have been marinating all day and dump them into the electric skillet. I empty a bag of frozen veggies and some spices on top of it, turn it on medium, and put the lid on it. Tonight, I’m cooking Nolan’s favorite. God knows as complicated as this thing is between the three of us, at least he’s dang easy to cook for. Tomorrow night, Arlo will fire up the grill and cook us steaks.
Between a project at work and caring for his six-year-old daughter, Katie, Nolan hasn’t been able to come over alone for a visit in almost two weeks. When I hear Arlo step into the shower, I smile despite the headache still threatening to set in.
Just a few minutes.
I hurry to our master bathroom, quickly strip, and step inside the shower with Arlo.
He smiles and kisses me. “Feeling a little better, hon?”
I drape my arms around his neck. “I’m sure I’ll be feeling real good by the time I finally go to sleep tonight.”
He laughs. “I think we both will.”
I study his blue eyes, the flecks of granite in them. Nolan’s are brown with streaks of amber and honey. Arlo’s hair is a lighter shade of brown than Nolan’s, nearly dark blond. Despite the men being friends and unrelated, and that I don’t think they really look that much alike, people often mistake them for brothers because of how they act with each other in public. They’re both six-three, trim, and sexy, although Nolan’s a little beefier than Arlo.
“I still say buying an RV’s a good idea,” I tell him. “It’d be fun. We’d be able to get away, go wherever we want.” I grind my hips against his. “Just think, we could skinny dip in some backwoods lake.”
“So you could watch us shrivel up? Or we could get eaten by alligators? No, thank you.” He nips my neck, and for a few minutes we’re both distracted. “I was thinking about something else,” he says a moment later.
From his tone, this feels big. I pull my head back to look him in the eyes. “Thinking about what?”
He shrugs and steps under the spray to wet his hair. “Nolan and I got together and crunched some numbers this week.”
A flash of something not quite hitting the jealousy mark washes through me. I don’t mind that they got together.
I mind that I didn’t get to see Nolan, too.
This is the first I’m hearing about it from either man. “When? You didn’t tell me you guys talked.”
Okay, yes, I feel a little miffed that not only did I not get to see Nolan, neither man told me about their meeting before now. Yeah, I get to talk to Nolan every day on the phone, and we Facetime and text—we both text with him—but it’s not the same.
“He had a little free time at lunch Wednesday, so we went out and grabbed burgers. It was a last-minute thing. No, we didn’t get to cuddle or blow each other.” He arches an eyebrow at me. “You want to hear about it, or not?”
I still sulk a little. “Yeah.”
He grabs the shampoo. “We’ve got those fifteen acres in Nokomis my parents left me. We could sell this place and build a house there. With our income, and with what Nolan would save on rent and utilities a
nd stuff, and with him paying part of the bills, we could easily do it.”
I think my heart might actually stop as the full implication hits me. All sulkiness rapidly drains away as I process his words. “You mean it?” I softly ask.
I’ve never dared to hope for more than we have. Which is stolen moments of time, and a weekend here and there, like this weekend.
“Yeah. Nolan talked to his attorney on Monday. We could set up a trust and make all three of us owners of it, or members, or whatever the term is. Partners. So we’re all protected.”
“But what about Katie? And what about when Lucas comes to visit?”
Arlo smiles. “Split floor plan. Extra rooms. Two bedrooms on one side of the house, the kids’ bedrooms on the other. When kids are in residence, they’ll never know any different. Besides, Nolan’s attorney said there’s nothing in Nolan’s divorce agreement that mandates where he has to live, as long as it’s local. They both have to stay in Katie’s school district, or close enough to it that they can take her every day. It’d be only ten minutes from Katie’s school, and it’s closer to Nolan’s job. Jerilyn knows he and I have been friends since high school. It makes sense in this economy. If Nolan needs it, we file an affidavit or something that says he signed a lease, or that he pays rent or…whatever.”
“What about the housing market? It sucks right now.”
“We only paid seventy-two for this house, and now it’s worth over two hundred and fifty grand, even after the bubble popped. We can easily price it to sell below market value to move it fast and still make a nice profit. It’s doable, Zo.”
It feels like I can’t breathe. “Really?” I whisper.
He smiles and pulls me into his arms again. “Really.”
“You’re okay with this?”
He laughs. “It’s my idea, isn’t it?” His expression turns serious. “I hate this as much as you do. So does he. Lucas will be going off to college in a couple of years, not that he’s here much, anyway. When Katie’s old enough to understand and make up her mind about life, if Nolan thinks it’s okay, he can tell her the truth and Jerilyn won’t be able to poison her against him.” He caresses my cheek with his thumb. “We can really do this.”
Pet: A Governor Trilogy Novel Page 22
