by C. C. Piper
But, honestly, I didn’t care why my mom had turned over a new leaf. I’d give being a closer family a try as long as she would.
“We’re saving the big reveal for the delivery, you know that,” I told Trevor. Since I hadn’t been there for Callie’s birth, we wanted to make this experience as memorable as possible. The joy of finding out the baby’s gender would only make those moments more special.
“I just…want to know, you know?” he said, grinning sheepishly. My friend had always been the curious type. Well, nosy would probably be a more accurate description. Also, he had even less patience than me. Instant gratification had been a staple of his life.
I smiled under my hand. I hated to say it, but I enjoyed tormenting him with this. He’d certainly annoyed me plenty of times, and payback was a bitch.
“I don’t see any reason why anybody would need to know even then. I mean, an infant’s an infant, right? Diapers and bottles. Maybe we’ll continue to keep it a secret. Bring the baby home in a gray onesie or something.”
Trevor gawked at me with his mouth open. He looked horrified. “That’d be atrocious.”
“What would be atrocious?” Roxy asked as she returned from the restroom. Again. These days it felt like she needed a pee break every fifteen minutes.
“Concealing the sex of the baby even once we’re home from the hospital.” I grinned at her, feeling mischievous. The sparkle in her eye told me she’d immediately caught on.
“Well, it would make a nice statement for gender equality. Why lock our child into a role it might be uncomfortable with? We’ll adore him or her no matter what.”
“Butbut…” Trevor sputtered, and both my wife and I burst out laughing. An expression of understanding crossed his face at last. “You know what…” Then he mouthed with his back to Callie, “Fuck you. Fuck you both.”
Roxy and I only laughed harder.
The day had been pretty much perfect. Callie had blown out all six of her candles with a single breath, everyone had smiled while they hung out and had cake and ice cream, and there was no tension of any kind. If someone had told me two years ago in London that my life would look like this now, I never would’ve believed them.
So much had changed for the better, it kind of blew my mind. Something else that blew my mind was Roxy’s wandering hand as we laid there under the covers. She’d been asleep next to me a half hour ago, so I thought her down for the count tonight. I knew being with child sapped her energy sometimes. But it also had another added benefit, and this was it.
My wife was almost perpetually turned on.
Roxy snaked her hand inside my pajama bottoms and shuddered with desire as she felt me rise to the occasion for her. It didn’t take much for this to happen. My arousal seemed to escalate hers and vice versa. I didn’t know if was because of our long separation or just because we were hornier than the average couple, but we could never seem to get enough of one another.
The phrase “fucking like bunnies” came to mind.
I’d feared that this pregnancy might hinder that a little, but it didn’t. If anything, we were worse. Or better, depending on how you looked at it.
You certainly wouldn’t ever hear me complaining, one way or the other. Her doctor had explained that hormonal changes were to be expected, but I hadn’t imagined those hormones manifesting in such a blissful way. It was almost as good a gift as the knowledge that she carried my second child.
I groaned when she went from light caresses to firmer strokes. Yes.
“You sure you’re not too tired?” I asked her, receiving a nip to my collarbone in response. She’d told me more than once that this baby had made me into a mother hen, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t been there the first time to nurture and spoil Roxy, and I’d be damned if I let this opportunity to offer the mother of my children extra TLC pass me by.
This also meant our dom and sub status in the bedroom had altered for now. Not that we didn’t still engage in sex with Roxy being submissive and me being dominant, but I kept things much gentler. Even though her obstetrician had told us that unless a problem cropped up, making love while expecting was no problem, I wanted to be safe rather than sorry.
“Take off my pants,” I told her in the voice that let her know we’d just switched over. She shivered again with anticipation, her seafoam green eyes darkening in the soft illumination of my bedside lamp. Sometimes, I ordered all the lights in the room to be on so I could see all those sublime visuals, but the lamp would do for now. I was commando under my pajamas, so her stripping me left my body nude.
“Lay on your back,” I demanded next, watching as her breathing accelerated.
I lifted her nightgown – a pale green that matched her eyes – to find her panty-less and so wet she glistened, which made me suppress a loud moan. We both needed to stay quiet tonight. Though the size of our house usually meant we had some leeway in this area, Leona was currently sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms two doors down.
Also, Callie had made a lot of friends in kindergarten and ten of them were staying over as well. We always kept our bedroom door locked so we’d have some warning if we were about to receive a visit from our daughter. Roxy and I had weighed our options on this subject and decided that having her outside the door crying for a second would be preferable to her walking in on us while her mother lay blindfolded and tied to our king-sized bed.
“You’re going to lay there and take this without making a sound. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she sighed out, but I knew better. Of the many things I loved about Roxy, how vocal she was in the bedroom had always been one of my favorites.
Laying on my side, I leaned on my elbow and took the time to simply study the magnificence of her. Her body had become rounder and fuller with her pregnancy, and I loved everything about it, from the new curviness of her hips to the full cup increase of her bra cup size. I pressed a light kiss to her blossoming stomach over her silky nightgown, amazed at the miracle growing within.
Then, I switched gears.
Pulling the fabric against her so that it fit like a second skin, I focused on her breasts. I took the left nipple into my mouth, suckling it through the material and leaving a damp spot behind when I next lavished equal attention on her right. Roxy moaned deep in her throat, and I cast a warning glance at her, reminding her to maintain her silence.
Not that I minded if Leona heard us, to be fair. We were two full-grown and married adults, for Christ’s sake. But telling my wife what to do in bed was part of the game.
Not to mention so ridiculously pleasing to my libido that I had to close my eyes and grit my teeth so I wouldn’t come too soon.
Concentrate, Liddell.
I kissed Roxy then, a long, languorous melding of my lips to hers. Opening my mouth wider, I tasted her, my tongue meeting hers in a rhythm as much dance as anything else. Using my thumb to draw a lazy line from her cheekbone down the collar of her throat and downward, I watched as each inch that I touched came alive with goosebumps.
Lowering my hand to the cleft between her thighs, I traced along the place where her leg connected to her sex. She locked gazes with me as two of my fingers then drifted to brush across the outside of her folds, the insides of her folds, then the raised nub of nerves at the top. Her entire body juddered as soon as I made contact with her clit, her eyelids drooping into narrow slits.
“Keep your eyes open,” I ordered her, nudging her knee with my own, and she did, her eyes staring into mine. I continued to massage and tease her until she was a writhing mass of arms and legs, her chest heaving. She’d scrunched her features into a warped expression of desire and need, but I wouldn’t give her what she wanted so easily. “No coming until I say.”
With excruciating deliberation, I dropped my body into the juncture between her hips, letting the tip of my tongue do what my fingers had been doing moments before. Even with her mouth clamped shut, high-pitched hums of need escaped her, their frequency speeding up to reflect my incre
asingly fast pace.
“Not yet,” I reminded her. “Don’t come yet.”
And then, I attacked her unrelentingly, my mouth lathing her center while each hand anchored itself by thumbing the peaks of her breasts. Roxy sighed and couldn’t seem to suppress a series of cries, the sounds inciting my own passion to a level I could barely control.
Jesus Christ, the warm feel of her combined with the deliciousness of her taste was too much.
With a quick and admittedly shaky movement, I climbed on top of her and slid my erection home. We both moaned noisily, losing ourselves to one another. Pistoning my hips into hers, I entered her over and over, my pleasure matching hers as we chased the summit together. I could feel all of her surrounding all of me, and just as I felt her body clenching down on mine, I gave her one last command.
“Now.”
We surged upwards, united in mind-bending ecstasy as I emptied myself into her, body and soul. She was still throbbing around me as I came back down, and I watched the stages of her pleasure and satisfaction skidding across her face. Smiling down at her, I nuzzled her flushed cheek with mine.
“Think I may have failed to obey your quiet mandate,” she said a few minutes later, once I’d rolled off her so I could hold her from behind.
“This is true.”
“If you really love me, you’ll punish me for it.”
I couldn’t help smiling at her, even though she couldn’t see it. The woman was insatiable, but then, so was I. So, we went for round two. And after that, round three.
“Think you’ve been punished enough?” My voice came out as a gasp, and with absolute adoration in her eyes, she cupped my cheek and kissed me again.
“Never.”
Accidental
1
James
I was thirty years old when one of my closest friends informed me I needed to “live a little.” So I did the only logical thing I could do: I got married. In retrospect, that might have been a bit of an extreme response, but if you’d seen her, you would’ve lost your head too.
Lithe, graceful, long hair pulled up into a messy bun. The sloppy updo was a sharp contrast with the classy yet sexy full-length dress she wore with mermaid-like charm. The deep neckline of the bodice showed off delicate collarbones with the swirly edges of a black tattoo whose full design remained hidden by the fabric.
For jewelry, she wore a long silver chain with two golden bands dangling from around her neck while a leather bracelet with a thin brown strap curled around her wrist.
She smelled amazing, like she’d been dipped in some sort of citrusy sweet cocktail. A daiquiri, maybe. Or a pina colada. I knew she’d taste delicious either way.
I remembered thinking how much I envied the umbrella in whatever brand of cocktail she might drink.
Drunken ideas. Half-formed and silly, but consuming.
Her eyes were doe-like, the dark brown speckles in a hazel shade brought out by the deep plum color of her dress. Oddly enough, she wore little to no makeup. Not that she needed it. She was striking just as she was, perhaps because of her naked complexion. I adored the simplicity of her look, the raw honesty of it.
And wasn’t that the irony of all ironies?
Honesty. Ha. What a joke.
Anyway, she was different. And it wasn’t just about her appearance. It was about her mind.
You walk into a Vegas casino, and you’re likely to find two main types of women: the blue-haired ladies with their plastic cups brimming with change and the young vixens trying to seduce you with excessively long eyelashes and high-pitched giggles. The latter will have a coy hand that’ll sneak up your thigh. She’ll laugh at your jokes, no matter how pathetically contrived they are.
This woman wasn’t like that. She ripped into me. She had grit and would take absolutely none of my shit. She wouldn’t have been caught dead giggling at all, much less at something that wasn’t funny. Maybe that was why when she did laugh, it made one hell of an impact.
I’m not exactly sure what it was we discussed, hunched over our drinks with our heads close together, but I remember it made me feel light. Unburdened. More importantly, it made me feel like I was truly being heard, like she was truly listening.
At some point, she let down her hair releasing wave after wave of chestnut and gold.
Maybe it was the number of drinks I had in me. Maybe it was the rarity of the connection we shared, as vibrant as it was unexpected. Maybe it was just the way she glowed in the dim light of the lounge.
But she let down her hair, and I said, “Marry me.”
She blinked at me, and then she laughed out loud. It’d been a sound I wanted to hear again. I got the feeling she didn’t get to laugh that often.
“What?” she asked, incredulous.
“Marry me,” I said. “Right now.”
Part of me, the part that was still somewhat lucid, was shrieking at me. I could hear insults ringing in my head warning me off. The rest of me was also screaming. It was screaming that this was crazy, but also that it was right.
She goggled at me, her big eyes dancing and warm.
Then, she leaned close to me and said, “Yes.”
Her name was Emma Morris. She made me feel more alive than I ever had in my three decades of existence. And she was about to become my wife.
I didn’t question any of it, but of course I should’ve.
I should’ve known that such an impromptu marriage would be iffy at best and a straight-up scam at worst. Yet, nothing would prepare me to learn that the woman I found would be conducting a con job epic in scale.
When I woke the next morning, I was a married man and electrified by the idea. I suppose I should’ve been shocked I even remembered getting married, but my choice from the previous night had stayed at the forefront of my brain.
Consciousness came back to me slowly. I found myself sprawled on my stomach in my own bed, face half-smushed into the pillow. Sunlight streamed through the tan curtains, turning everything amber and surreal.
Once I could focus, a look at my alarm clock informed me of the time, which was far later than I’d anticipated. Eleven in the morning. I never slept half the day away like this. Even as a child, I’d required less sleep than others. Yet, here I was being lazy.
I sat up gradually, but the room still tilted on its axis.
It took a couple of tries, but eventually, I regained my bearings and the fog cleared, leaving behind a pounding headache that experience told me I would carry with me all day.
But I was married and in love, and that made everything worth it.
The logical, business-minded portion of my psyche reminded me I should be panicking. It insisted I should be jumping up and calling my lawyer for an annulment. It demanded that I freak out.
I waited for the rampant anxiety to come, but it never did.
Instead, I was… relieved. I felt more joyful than anything else. Downright jubilant.
I didn’t know Emma Morris, not really. But what I’d seen of her convinced me I’d done the right thing, as crazy and completely irrational a move as it’d been.
Emma wasn’t in bed with me. We’d fallen asleep together, but she wasn’t here now. I pictured her downstairs in the kitchen, or better yet, out on the terrace overlooking the red hills of the Las Vegas desert, nursing a cup of coffee and wearing nothing but my shirt from the night before. Making herself at home. Our home.
It’d been a long time since I’d even stopped to entertain the fantasy of sharing my house with anyone, but I’d wanted it. Even if I hadn’t planned for it to happen in a Las Vegas casino chapel, sometime between the hours of three and four-thirty in the morning.
My parents were going to question my sanity. My best buddy and business partner, Mauricio, would totally lose his shit, even though in a way, this could be seen as all his fault. And Richard, a friend of mine since my Harvard days, was going to have a coronary.
Not that it mattered. All that mattered to me at that moment was locating Emma.
I wondered if she was panicking? Or if she was having a similar reaction to mine?
I took care of my business in the bathroom at record speed. I didn’t even bother throwing on a t-shirt as I rushed out of the room, wearing only my pajama bottoms from the previous night.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I found myself in the kitchen, but it remained pristine and the terrace empty. I explored every room, which took little more than a minute. The villa had three floors, each story of which had wings that expanded around the central structure. Here in the quiet of the Nevada desert just outside the city of Las Vegas, I had everything I could wish for.
There was a gym. A pool. Numerous guestrooms. Bookshelves crammed full of vinyl LPs, floor-to-ceiling soundproofing, and a top-notch sound system that helped me to shut the world out.
What I didn’t have, it seemed, was a wife. Emma was nowhere to be found.
I went back upstairs, all the while telling myself this was fine, she’d probably stepped out for a stroll to explore her new surroundings.
I wandered back into my bedroom and pulled open the curtains As I stood there, one detail caught my eye.
I’d given my blushing bride a ring because, even drunk out of my mind, I liked to think I was still a gentleman. It’d been a four-carat diamond set in a platinum band. I’d bought it at one of the jewelry stores in the casino.
Yet instead of residing on her finger, there it was on the nightstand, glimmering in the sunlight.
My stomach gave a nauseating lurch.
I sprinted back downstairs. I didn’t know what prompted me to make a beeline for my office, but I all but raced to it. The glass desk appeared untouched; its gleaming metal drawers shut. The books and folders on the dark wood bookshelves didn’t seem to have been tampered with. But the large print depicting the Las Vegas skyline that adorned the wall to the left was…
