Husband Sit (Husband #1)

by Louise Cusack

  “Stay here until I’m gone, then wash up. I might want your ass again later.” That didn’t sound comfortable, so I was formulating a Can we wait until tomorrow reply when he added, “You seem to like pain, so we’ll do more of that. It makes orgasms stronger, yes?”

  He slapped me hard on the ass and it hurt. A lot. With no arousal to buffer it, pain was just pain, and I didn’t want more until this lot had settled down. Not tonight. Maybe not for the rest of the week.

  I opened my mouth but he kept on talking.

  “I can see why my wife does this. It makes you feel powerful.” He slapped me again, cruelly. Then he squeezed my ass, digging his fingernails in. “I must find her crop. You’ll like that.”

  I swallowed and kept my mouth shut. There was no point arguing with him. I’d acted as if I loved every minute of it. The spanking. The whipping with his belt. Of course, he’d think I wanted more. I’d acted like a complete slut when he’d had his cock up my ass. And it didn’t matter that it was the best orgasm of my life. I couldn’t take any more. My butt cheeks were burning, and because my pussy hadn’t recuperated from last night, both my nether orifices hurt.

  I needed time out.

  In fact, maybe I needed this whole experience to be over.

  “I’ll be back by midnight.” I heard his footsteps walking away. “Wait in my bed.”

  I lay listening to soft sounds from the other end of the apartment, knowing I should get up, should go to my own bathroom and clean myself up. But my brain was flipping from an angry Get out of here. Forget the money and find a normal husband, to a more placating Ask him for the night off. You’re sure to want sex again tomorrow.

  In the end, I waited until I’d heard him leave, then I pushed myself off the table and wobbled to my shower with seriously shaking knees. I washed myself twice, rubbed body lotion gently onto my bright red ass, and cleaned the dining table up by rolling everything into the Irish linen tablecloth and putting it all into a cupboard. Let the cleaning lady work it out.

  By then my emotions had settled down and my ass was only excruciating if I tried to sit. I was erring on the side of Ask for the night off, and decided to order in a pizza so I could think about options after dinner. Twenty minutes later the intercom buzzer went off and the delivery guy asked to be let into the building. I pressed a button to unlock the street door and told him I was on the tenth floor. While I waited, I turned the latches but for some reason the apartment door wouldn’t unlock. By the time the delivery guy was outside the door, I was completely flustered.

  “Hang on,” I called through the door, turning the latches first one way and then the other.

  “Do you want me to leave it on the mat out here?” He sounded like he was in a hurry, and I’d paid for it on credit card, so there was no need for him to stay.

  “Sure. Thanks,” I called back weakly, feeling like an idiot.

  Then it was quiet outside and I continued fiddling latches until something cold settled on my entrails and I suddenly knew, without a doubt.

  Damien had locked me in.

  I took my hands off the door and stepped back from it as though it was poisonous, my scalp prickling with apprehension. Every fear I’d harbored in the last two days came rushing back and I hugged my shoulders, not able to fight them anymore.

  This was wrong.

  This was very wrong.

  And I had to leave. Now. But how could I?

  I turned and ran into my room, grabbing my phone out of my handbag. Four missed calls. All of them from Finn.

  I didn’t think. I just hit redial, and three rings later his warm and completely reassuring voice said, “Jill, I know I should be—”

  “Shut up. I’m in trouble. I need your help.” My voice was shaking uncontrollably.

  He must have heard it, because all he said was, “Where are you?”

  “I’m locked into an apartment. I don’t trust the husband. I think he’s going to hurt me.”

  I heard his sharp intake of breath down the phone line. “Can you ring the police?”

  “They won’t believe me.”

  Somehow, I was sure of that.

  “Let me think.”

  God, it was good to hear his voice. I completely forgot all my stupid angst about liking him too much. Physical danger does marvelous things for your clarity of mind.

  At last he said, “What’s your address?”

  I rattled it off and he said, “Sydney.”

  I’d forgotten that he’d have no idea I’d travelled five hundred miles from him.

  After a few seconds of silence at my end, he said, “Can you call an emergency locksmith?”

  “An emergency…what?” My teeth chattered and I couldn’t think.

  “I’ll ring them,” he said. “I’ll make up a lie. I’ll tell them my wife locked herself in, and has to catch a flight. I’ll pay them from here. They’ll open the door for you.”

  “Won’t they want ID? You could be a burglar—”

  “The locksmith will be letting you out, honey,” Finn said slowly, as though explaining to a child. “That won’t look suspicious.”

  “Okay.” I was too frightened to worry about how stupid I sounded.

  “When you’re free, you need to leave—”

  “But my car is across town in a long-term car park.” A wave of panic rolled over me, pulling me down. “I don’t know how to—”

  “Do you have money for a taxi?”

  I caught my breath, forced myself to think. “I…yes. I do.”

  “Somewhere to go?”

  Not in this condition.

  Missy Lou and Angela both lived in Sydney, but I’d have no chance of keeping my activities secret if I went to one of them. My mind was horribly blank and I was suddenly terrified that I’d be dithering around and Damien would come back. “I don’t know what to do.” I couldn’t breathe.

  There was a two second pause before he said, “I’ll catch a flight. I’ll come to you.”

  “Will you?” I sounded so pathetic I didn’t recognize myself.

  “You catch a taxi to the airport and wait for me there. I won’t be long. I’ll help you work out what to do.”

  My galloping heart-rate steadied.

  “Alright.” Taxi to the airport. I could do that.

  “Good. And call me if you’re scared. I’m on the way, honey.” I wanted to cry for how reassured I felt. I had zero resistance, so when he called me honey, my heart melted. Unfortunately, I was so distracted by that, I almost missed him saying, “If he comes back before you escape, you’ll have to bluff. If you’re not at the airport, I’ll come to you. We’ll tell him that I’m your husband, come to take you home. He won’t argue with that.”

  I sniffed back tears. “I’m…thank you.” I wanted to say I don’t deserve your kindness but I wanted it anyway.

  “Go and pack, Jill. I’ll text you when the locksmith is on the way. Ring a taxi when he gets there. With luck you’ll be out quickly and I’ll see you at the airport.”

  “Okay.”

  He hung up then, but I wished I’d said more. I wished I’d said, Katinka doesn’t deserve you because that was the truth. Instead I stopped blubbering and packed. Half an hour later the locksmith arrived. Twenty minutes after that I was in a taxi on my way to the airport to meet Finn’s incoming flight, trying not to cry, but my emotions were all over the place and my ass hurt like hell on the hard leather taxi seat.

  To add insult to stupidity, I’d changed into a tight red cocktail dress and heels, as though I was going to a party! If my boobs had been pushed any higher, they’d have choked me. In my hysteria, it had seemed like a good idea, as if I was rewarding Finn for coming to my rescue, which was ridiculous. He’d made it very clear that he regretted what we’d done. The last thing he’d want was thank you sex. I had to get that out of my head.

  Didn’t I?

  CHAPTER SIX: Finn Again

  I had no idea which terminal Finn would come into, so I teetered around looking for
a locker to store my bags, then I scuttled into the back of a dimly-lit bar to wait, standing up because my ass hurt, feeling ridiculous in my red cocktail dress. I texted to let him know where I was, and three whiskies later he walked in, looking anxious and gorgeous and warm and delicious in jeans and a black sweatshirt with some sort of computer code on it.

  His blond dreads looked like pale butterscotch in the dim lighting, and they were endearingly tousled against his shoulders, as though he’d rushed to me without caring what he looked like.

  He took my cold hands in his and I felt warm all over. “Are you alright?” Even his frown was sexy.

  “I’m fine.” I tried to smile but it didn’t stick. “No, actually. I’m not fine. I’m shaken and aching, and my ass burns.”

  I’m not sure what I expected, but he blinked. Several times. Then he said, “Pardon?” His gaze strayed down over my red cocktail dress, scoping the length of my legs in high heels, before settling onto my pushed-up boobs. At last, he managed to drag his attention back to my face. “Your ass…burns?”

  “He whipped it.”

  “Fuck.” His eyes widened.

  “I know.”

  I loved that he swore. Like me.

  He let go my hands and gripped my upper arms, his frown deepening. I suddenly realized his eyes went darker when he was upset. They were a deep green now. I hadn’t noticed that before. “I think we should go to the police.”

  I was so lost in his eyes, it took me a second to comprehend what he’d said. Then I was shaking my head. “I can’t.” Part of me was standing outside myself, wondering how much I was going to tell him. It was a sordid story.

  “What did he do to you?” He looked so anxious I wanted to throw myself into his arms.

  Instead, I took a breath, and for better or worse, I said, “He tied me up, whipped my ass, and then he fucked it. My ass,” I clarified, lowering my voice in deference to the couple who were walking past us to the next table.

  “Jesus.” He looked so stricken I couldn’t bear it. I had to come clean.

  “I liked it while he was doing it. But I didn’t want any more. And I got scared when he locked me in.”

  “He fucked you up the ass?” Clearly, he was stuck on this point.

  “Yes he did. Among other things.”

  “And you liked it?” Finn couldn’t have looked more incredulous if he’d tried. In fact, for a split-second I wanted to slap the expression off his face.

  “Does that make me a dirty girl?” I snapped. The couple beside us glanced over so I lowered my voice to hiss, “Don’t tell me you didn’t want to do that with me.”

  He shook his head. “I never imagined.” And just when I was feeling like the trollop of the century, he said, “But I’m imagining it now. Jesus! You liked it?”

  My cheeks flushed, and it wasn’t embarrassment. Despite all that had happened, and my various aches and pains, I could feel my girl bits waking up to the familiar warmth of arousal—as least, familiar around Finn. I looked him square in the eye and said, “I loved it, and I want it again.”

  I saw him swallow, then his hands came off my arms. “Jesus,” he said again softly and glanced away. “What am I doing here?”

  “Rescuing me from bondage-gone-wrong.”

  ‘Why would you tell me that?” He shook his head. “I’ve already fucked you once. I can imagine the whole…ass thing in glorious detail.”

  I loved it when he talked dirty. And I double-loved the fact that he was now fantasizing about my back door. “So does that turn you on?” Rhetorical question. I could see the heat in his gaze. “Are you imagining doing it to me yourself? Whipping my ass?”

  He shook his head, but there was something dark happening behind his eyes, and I just knew he was visualizing that, whether he wanted to or not.

  So help me, I was visualizing it too, but it wasn’t all slutty like it had been with Damien, because with Finn it would be the two of us exploring, ramping up the heat, taking turns to tie each other up, pushing each other to bigger and better orgasms. It would be mutual and safe, and when we’d sexed each other senseless, we’d laugh about how crazy it all was.

  Staring into his eyes, I could see it all so clearly, could imagine it all in wonderful Technicolor. Except for two tiny details.

  His wife. My job.

  Damn reality. Life would be so much easier without it. But there was no point pretending it didn’t exist. So I pasted on a fake smile. “Did you tell her we had sex?”

  He stared at me as the seconds ticked over, but eventually he nodded.

  “Good.” I’d wanted her to be jealous so she’d appreciate him more. It also helped to imagine someone hurting the way I was in that moment—a terrible ache of longing for what I couldn’t have—knowing it was wrong to want him, but wanting him anyway.

  I tilted my chin up. “Then you’re not rescuing me so you can fuck me yourself.”

  He shook his head, and actually took a pace backwards as if he didn’t trust himself to stand so close.

  “Then why are you here?” Lord knows why I asked that. I was scared of the answer.

  “You rang, and…I came.”

  He said it as if it should be self-explanatory, but clearly, he hadn’t thought it through either.

  “And you’re determined to be faithful to your wife, despite the fact that she’s been cheating on you for years.”

  “With a girl.”

  “That makes it okay?”

  The couple beside us had gone silent again, but I didn’t care. I wanted Finn to admit that there was something happening between us, beyond sex. I wanted him to tell me he cared about me, even if he never left Katinka. Surely I could have that.

  At last he said, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  “Oh I see. I’m a ‘wrong’ now?”

  He shook his head again, and I could see my antagonism was hurting him, but I couldn’t stop. The longer we were together, the more I suspected he was the honorable man I’d been waiting for, the man who wouldn’t cheat on his wife even though he clearly wanted to—the sexy, kind, thoughtful man I wanted to have naughty and normal sex with for the rest of my life.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  I thrust out a hand. “Thank you for springing me from lock-down, but I’ve got work to do. I’d better keep moving.”

  His incredulous expression returned. “Pardon?”

  “My next husband sit.”

  He made no move to shake my hand, so I dropped it. “I need to ice this ass and get myself back into shape by the weekend. I’m booked back-to-back.” I smiled as though that was innuendo.

  Finn shook his head. “You’re going to keep doing this?”

  I parroted his rising tone, “You’re staying married to Katinka?”

  “Please don’t do it, Jill.”

  He said my name so softly it made me ache, but I shook my head. “You don’t get to ask that.”

  I wanted to say worse but he looked so upset, my conscience was stung. I forced myself to say, “I do appreciate you helping me when I was desperate. That means a lot.”

  He nodded. “You’re welcome.” But he didn’t seem ready to end our interaction and I started to feel anxious. If he kept standing there looking sexy and rumpled, I might not be able to control myself. If I wasn’t careful, I’d be begging him to stay.

  I slipped some dismissal into my tone and said, “Maybe you can catch a flight back before she misses you.” Laying down the guilt card.

  He didn’t flinch. “She’s away for the week.”

  “With her girlfriend?”

  I’m such a bitch.

  “Probably. She took off rather than stay and talk to me about us.”

  Hearing him talk about his marriage as us pushed my jealousy buttons, but I ignored that. He looked hurt and betrayed, as you’d imagine he would, but instead, I wanted him to be angry. With her, or with me. I didn’t care which.

  I raised an eyebrow. “So you could stay. She’d never know
.”

  He stared at me for a long time. Then he shook his head. “You said you were sore.”

  He probably meant that as a joke, but I saw it as an opportunity. “My ass must be raw. You should see it. It’s probably got belt marks all over it.” I watched his eyes darken. “Does that excite you? The thought of another man whipping me before he fucked me. Would you like to do that?”

  “No,” he said softly, then just when I expected him to say I’m married, he added, “I’d rather kiss it better.”

  My animosity slipped away and I caught my breath. Dear God. Was this it? Was he going to pick me?

  “Then do it,” I blurted. “Take me to a hotel and make the pain go away.”

  “Why?” he said simply. “Why do you want to? You could fuck anyone. Why me?”

  Because I think I’m falling in love with you.

  No. I wasn’t saying that.

  Once those words were out, you couldn’t recall them, and I didn’t even know if he liked me beyond sex. Let alone that he could love me. Add to which, no man is going to want to be with a woman who fucks husbands. It was never going to work.

  I settled on smiling guilelessly. “I said I’d teach you cunnilingus. Don’t you want to please your wife?”

  No. No. NO! That’s not what I wanted—for him to go from my bed to hers. That would kill me. I was such a fuckwit! And so caught up in my own stupidity it took me a moment to realize something was happening behind his eyes.

  At last he said, “This man who beat you. Did he also lick you out?” He said it as an accusation.

  Uh-oh.

  “Pardon?” I stalled for time and glanced to my side. The couple at the table beside us were eavesdropping avidly, their eyes wide.

  “Jill? Did he?”

  Fuck. “Yes?”

  “Was it good?”

  It was spectacular, but I wasn’t telling him that. Unfortunately, the delay between his question and my response was too long, and by the time I was stammering, “Well it was quick, and—”

  “Good? It was really good? And you loved that as well? Along with the whipping and being fucked up the ass which you adored?”