DontCallHerAngel

by Cara McKenna

  She reached over to touch his hand, just a brief pat of his knuckles. “Oh my goodness, no. I love when you come in. It’s such a nice change from all the usual folks.”

  His ego surged and his nerves retreated a pace or two. “Oh. Good.”

  “Lemme ask you something,” she began, looking down at the steering wheel and wrapping her hands around it.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you like me?”

  Jeremy smiled, nerves returning. “Yeah, of course I do. And I do have a crush on you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  She nodded thoughtfully.

  “But I’d never hit on you,” he went on. “I respect that you’re married. Even if your husband didn’t scare the shit out of me, I’d never want to do anything that…you know, crapped all over your vows.”

  “That’s sweet. You’re a very sweet man.”

  He sighed, feeling lightheaded from all the uncertainty. “What’s this about, Emily? Do you guys need a sperm donor or something?”

  She looked over and blinked at him, then laughed. “Oh my gosh, is that what you thought? Sorry, I shouldn’t make fun. The real reason’s way crazier.”

  “What’s the real reason?”

  It was Emily’s turn to sigh. “We, um… Oh gosh. We’re wondering—and totally do not hesitate to tell me I’m a psycho—but we were wondering if you might want to join us sometime. Like, join us in bed.”

  Jeremy felt as though he’d been punched, a sharp jab that bypassed his skull and reordered his brain.

  “Say somethin’.”

  “Uh… So like, a threesome?”

  She nodded, expression earnest. Her brows were pinched together in a way that said she was terrified of getting turned down.

  “Well. Wow. That is not what I was expecting. At all.”

  “Sorry if I’ve completely freaked you out.”

  He fell silent and Emily let him process the request. Jeremy wasn’t a stranger to bold—often downright sleazy—propositions. In his four-plus years as an upscale personal trainer he’d been solicited by at least twenty female clients, surely a dozen of them married. Bedding a younger man, a hired professional, a service provider, seemed to be a common kink for high-powered women. He’d politely declined every offer—even from his single clients—knowing they’d likely never hire him again and probably talk badly of him to their peers. Fine. Good riddance. If he wanted that kind of degrading treatment he’d take up tanning and find a job as a pool boy.

  But being solicited by Emily…gentle, married, God-fearing Emily…that was just weird. Her ears weren’t even pierced. How could she be after a three-way with two guys? And why wasn’t Jeremy already sprinting for his car, or jolting awake in a cold sweat, back in his bed?

  “I guess I need more details,” he finally said. “I mean, I’ll be honest, I am a little freaked out. But tell me what you were thinking of so I can try to wrap my head around it.”

  “Right. Well, it’s sort of a fantasy of mine. That’s so cliché,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.

  “It’s not cliché coming from you,” Jeremy said.

  “Well, anyhow. We were interested in invitin’ a man to join us for a night. You wouldn’t be doing anything with my husband. Nothing directly, if you catch my drift. It’d just be you and me.” She waved her hand to encapsulate the two of them, and Jeremy’s body warmed against his rational brain’s wishes.

  “But he’d watch, or…?”

  She nodded. “He’d watch, and you’d watch us, and he’d boss you around. He’s very possessive of, um…giving me pleasure,” she mumbled. “You’d be there to take his orders, so like, I get what I want—two men—and he gets to feel in control of my experience. But he is very rough, I’ll warn you about that up front.”

  He believed it. Rasul was more intimidating than any of the ex-military boot camp fitness instructors Jeremy knew from his professional circles. “Rough how?”

  “Like he’d bark orders at you. He might rough you up a bit, physically, but not violent or anything.”

  The fever in Jeremy’s body cooled. “But hands-on?”

  “I expect so.”

  “Huh.”

  “I decided to ask you, because I thought you might like me,” she said, sounding shy.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “And I like you too. I mean, you must know that, since we’ve been flirtin’ for the last few months.”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe you were that friendly with everybody.”

  “Nah, I have a little crush on you,” she said.

  Jeremy’s fever returned.

  “I, um, I think you’re very sexy. And you’ve never once treated me poorly, and I’ve never seen you drunk, which is very impressive, seeing as how I only know you from a bar. Anyhow, you’ve charmed me. You’re my first—and at the moment my only—choice for this, um, project.”

  “Wow. Well, I’m flattered. I don’t have an answer for you though.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.” She pulled out her phone and checked the time. “I ought to get back behind that bar. And you probably want to head out, and maybe spend a few days decidin’ how crazy you think I am.”

  He smiled. “Yeah. Probably.”

  “Well, whatever you choose, and whenever you choose it, I hope I haven’t ruined the bar for you. You’re always welcome, no matter what you decide.”

  “Thanks. And no matter what I decide, I promise this conversation doesn’t leave this car. I won’t tell anyone that you…”

  “Solicited you?” she supplied, a smile in her voice. “I know you won’t. You’ve met my husband.” It wasn’t a threat, he didn’t think. Merely a tease directed at herself and Rasul. Nice she had a clear appreciation of how frightening her beloved was.

  “Not just because of that,” Jeremy said. “Because I wouldn’t ever mess with you that way.”

  She touched his arm, spreading more warmth through him. “I know you wouldn’t. That’s why I picked you.”

  She’d picked him. Another ego-gasm. “Right. Well. I better get home and give this some thought. I’ll try and have an answer for you on Tuesday.”

  “There’s no deadline,” she said. “You don’t even have to give me an answer. But if you decide you’re interested, you just let me know, and we’ll figure out the particulars.”

  He nodded.

  “I promise I won’t ask. Unless and until you bring it up again, this conversation didn’t happen. We’re just friends, bartender and customer, like always.”

  “Right,” he said again. Like always. As if he’d be able to look at her the same way ever again. He pushed his door open a crack. “Um, enjoy the rest of your night. Don’t let the business tools give you any grief.”

  “I’ll try. You drive safe.”

  He offered her the calmest smile he had in him and stepped out of the car, smiling again as he slammed the door. As he crossed the parking lot to the alley, he wondered what he was to her, if she was watching him. What she wanted out of him, and how he felt himself. A guest, a victim, maybe a lottery winner, suddenly offered a chance to sleep with the woman he liked most in the world, even if there’d be some very sizable strings attached.

  Jeremy got into his car and started the engine, flipped on his lights. He stared at the illuminated gauges for a minute or two before he backed out.

  As he drove home, his brain felt cloudy, no fault of the alcohol. He tried to imagine being with her. He’d imagined it before. Jeremy had two fully scripted fantasies about Emily and both were probably pretty condemning. One began with a tragic car crash that left her a vulnerable widow in need of a thoughtful man’s comfort. The other started with her announcement that her divorce had gone through, and ended in Jeremy stepping in to satisfy her in all the ways her ex-husband had refused to.

  Egomaniacal or not, those dream scenarios were sweet and gentle by most men’s standards, Jeremy’s included. Pure as the movies liked to make romance out to be, candles an
d slow sex. What women were told their fantasies ought to look like. Funny how Emily’s fantasy looked a lot different. Insane that Jeremy managed to figure into it…as a prop, perhaps? A toy?

  She hadn’t denied that his role was to get used. As much as it bothered him—being so unlike the script he’d composed in his head, should he ever get a chance with her—it also turned him on. That she had a secret kinky side turned him on, at any rate. The idea of getting bossed around by her brute of a husband was sobering, to say the least.

  But one thing was certain. There’d be two men in the room, one she loved, one she liked. One who got to keep her, and one who got dismissed at the end of the festivities. He didn’t yet know if this was a watered-down wish made real, or the death of his favorite pipe dream.

  He had a fuck of a lot of thinking to do before Tuesday.

  Chapter Four

  On nights when Emily worked, Rasul normally got into bed around ten and read until she was safely home. Tonight was different.

  It was past midnight and he’d been nursing a beer in the kitchen for an hour, idly researching contractors online. Emily wanted a deck put in that summer. Rasul couldn’t go upstairs without checking the doors twenty or more times and compulsively touching each burner knob just so, performing the tasks perfectly not to feel secure, but to simply feel a lack of terror. No way in hell he’d ever be able to hand over a set of keys to strange men and let them come and go all day while he was at work. If he had the job done by pros, he’d take that week off and watch them like a hawk, then replace all the locks as soon as the project was done, whether they’d been given keys or not.

  Fuck that. He’d just have to teach himself carpentry.

  Terrible things had happened to Emily as a child when she’d been left alone with strangers. Back in the camps where Rasul had grown up, terrible things had happened to his sister and their mother after his father died when Rasul was eight. Terrible men did terrible things when the opportunity arose—that was the way of the world, the nature of human beings. But if anything terrible ever happened to Emily on Rasul’s watch, he’d get sent away for cold-blooded murder, no doubt in his mind, and then there would be no one around to keep her safe.

  He shut his laptop. No contractors. No fucking way. He got another beer from the fridge and sat at the table, staring out the window into the dark backyard for a long time.

  So odd that he could be on board with inviting a man directly into their bed. That was the difference…an invitation was under his control. An invasion wasn’t. A guest he could issue orders to. Emily’s kinkiness was strange, but not surprising. Rasul didn’t care to overanalyze it. She’d been hurt when she was helpless, now she craved that illusion with him for whatever reason. She trusted him, and trusted that she was really the one in control of the brutality, and he thought that helped her in some way. It got him off to please her, so he wasn’t about to complain.

  Headlights splashed across the adjacent den and he stood. The lights flipped off and a door slammed, and soon Emily’s key sounded in the lock. He met her at the front door.

  “Hey, you,” she said. Same tired smile as always. Perhaps she hadn’t had that talk after all.

  He kissed her. “Welcome home.”

  She pushed her flats off by the door and walked to the kitchen, setting her purse on the counter. She turned and opened her arms. “Hug me. I’m wiped.”

  He did as commanded, embracing her tightly. His eyes darted to the front door but he tried to keep his attention on her. On the present. He must have stiffened in some incriminating way, since Emily murmured, “Go on. Do your thing.”

  He released her and crossed the den, twisting the deadbolt six times before the tone of the click was to his satisfaction. He turned the knob’s lock six times also. The numbers had to match. Then he doubted his count and started over, fifteen twists until the bolt snapped just so, fifteen turns of the lock. Doubt. Repeat. Eventually he was able to back away and trust that the door was secure, that he and Emily were secure, another two minutes of his life lost to those hateful impulses.

  He met her at the bottom of the steps. “You too tired to talk?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  They went upstairs and brushed their teeth side by side in front of the wide bathroom mirror. This house and this life, this woman…it all still struck him as odd, even four years after he’d moved to Virginia, to the States. So tidy and organized, Emily so gentle after everything he’d seen in his old life. He watched her wash her face, scrubbing until her cheeks burned bright pink, the image of childlike wholesomeness. She left the bathroom. The impulses were bad tonight, and he pressed his thumbs to the window locks forty-eight times—a tidy, highly divisible number—before flipping off the lights and following her to the bedroom. She’d changed into her pajama bottoms and a tank top, and she sat cross-legged on the bed and watched him strip. They climbed under the covers together and he held her, her clothed body a tease against his bare skin, as always.

  “Tell me,” he whispered, and kissed her neck.

  “I talked to him. I told him what we’re after.”

  “And how did he take it?”

  She sighed. “I couldn’t tell, really. He didn’t run away screamin’, but he didn’t jump all over the offer, either. Which seems rational, considering.” She laughed. “He thought maybe we needed a sperm donor.”

  Rasul laughed too, though the thought chilled him. How selective his male ego was that he could make space for another man in his wife’s sexual fantasies, but that innocent wrong guess felt like an invitation to duel.

  “I told him, you take all the time you need to think about it, and if you decide you’re interested, let me know. If not, we pretend I never even brought it up. Who knows? Maybe I’ll never see him at the bar ever again.”

  “Well, good work. I’m proud of you.”

  Another laugh. “Proud of your wife for findin’ the balls to solicit another man for a three-way.”

  “It was brave. I’m proud,” he repeated.

  Her voice turned quiet and small. “Thanks.” She was as bad at receiving praise as her mother had always been at offering it. Rasul wanted to change that. He wanted her to believe she was strong and courageous and perfect, as surely as he knew these things.

  He slid his hands lower and tugged at the drawstring of her pajamas.

  “I’m awful tired.”

  “That’s fine. You don’t have to do a thing. I’ll put you to sleep.”

  He heard a warm hum escape her lips, an annoyed but permissive noise. He slid her bottoms down her thighs, relocating his body and the covers as he eased the garment all the way off. Propping himself on his hip and elbow and laying her thigh across his shoulder, he brought his face close, breathing her in. As his tongue traced her pussy lips, he fisted his cock. A cool, smooth hand grazed his scalp. He slid his bracing arm beneath her butt and tasted her, lapping deeper as he stroked himself.

  “That looks good,” she murmured.

  He propped his leg wider to let her see. Then he let the fantasy loose in his head, those thoughts that preoccupied him so thoroughly the last couple of months. His beautiful wife on her back, welcoming another man into Rasul’s rightful territory. But he wanted to spoil her so much worse than he wanted to own her. And he would. He’d tell and show this other man exactly how to fuck her. He’d give his wife what she desired in her darkest, most selfish fantasies—two cocks. Two sets of eyes on her wickedness, two impatient bodies desperate to use her in those ways she wanted so deeply. Anything she wanted, he’d be the one to make it happen.

  Against his tongue he could taste her excitement growing. He freed his mouth. “He’ll be different than me.”

  Her reply was spacey with distraction. “Probably.”

  Rasul returned his mouth to her pussy, changing everything about the way he gave head. He offered her deep, slow licks, the opposite of the rapid, aggressive assaults he’d been so ably trained to give her. How would this other man try to pl
ease her, he wondered? Their visitor? He made his caresses hesitant and exploratory, to remind her how exactly he knew her needs and how clumsy a stranger would feel. The hand on the back of his head clenched and released, nails scraping. That warm weight could be his own hand on the other man’s head, rough and bossy.

  “Want you,” Emily said.

  He took the order, giving her pussy a final lap before climbing on top of her, sinking in deep. “Fuck. Take your top off.”

  She peeled her camisole away and tossed it aside. “Talk to me,” she said, code for talk to me in Arabic.

  He dutifully turned into what she wanted—some illusion of foreignness, a stranger. As he took her roughly, he spoke everything he was thinking, dirty and fond thoughts alike that to Emily must sound like the exotic threats she craved. He planted his knees wide to spread her open. In English he commanded, “Look at me.”

  She did as she was told, attention locked on his ramming cock. Soon there might be someone else’s attention on such a sight. He imagined an audience and adrenaline shot through his body, a strange, pleasurable hatred for the man who might be deemed worthy to watch this.

  She clawed his arms. He repaid her with more orders in his native tongue then punished her with redoubled aggression when she failed to follow them. He wished the mirror were at their side, so he could see all their contrasts. Hard and soft, dark and pale, mean and sweet.

  She huffed, “Baby,” breaking her own character. The hold she had on his arms went from false resistance to greedy appraisal.

  He issued a final order, a snatch of Arabic she could translate—touch yourself. He watched as she obeyed, slipping a hand between their bellies to rub her clit. Would he let her come with another man inside her? Perhaps. But before or after Rasul made her groan and twitch this way? Uncertainty usually filled him with dread, but this was Emily’s adventure, and he’d keep it free of his overwrought male politics.

  “Think he’ll be able to make you come the way I can?” he asked.