Isabel
My husband looks unhappy. Actually, I take that back. He looks happy because Hunter is good at putting on a smile and faking it for me when he needs to, but I can tell these things. I can see the subtle glances of regret and sorrow on his face.
“Are you sure you like your steak?” I ask.
“Yes, baby. I love it.” He reaches across the table and takes my fingers in his hand, stroking my knuckles gently. I smile back at him.
I’m not the kind of woman to devote myself to being what society would consider a good wife. I don’t even know what that means. In my younger days, I was so opposed to marriage. The idea of devoting my life to one relationship seemed irrational and daunting. How could I promise one person that I would love only them for the rest of my life? How on earth could anyone make that promise? Like we can see the future. Like any of us knows what’s waiting around the corner.
But then I met Hunter Scott.
Hunter makes loving him easy. He worships me, makes me better in every way, encourages me, inspires me, and makes me fall in love with him a little more each day.
So, naturally, I want him to feel that same radiating happiness he makes me feel, but I can tell by the way he’s twisting the wedding ring on his finger and chewing on his lower lip as he stares down at the red wine in his glass that something is up.
“Should we have invited him?” I ask.
His gaze dances up to mine. “No. It’s our anniversary. He understands. Plus, I’m sure he’s already shacking up with someone at the rental right now.”
I swallow down the unsettling feeling that image brings. Drake is a grown man, single and gorgeous. He can do whatever he wants. But is he really going to screw his way through our cross-country road trip? I’m sure it doesn’t help that we are touring four different sex clubs on our business trip-slash-mini-vacation. I feel like we’re taking our little boy to Disneyland.
An image of Drake in a hat with black mouse ears and his name embroidered on the back makes me giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh nothing. Just wondering why we brought Drake, of all people, on this trip. There’s a good chance we will lose him somewhere along the way.”
“He always does this on our vacations,” he replies with a laugh.
“We should know by now not to share a rental with him,” I reply playfully.
“We really should.” His fingers squeeze mine.
“You know…we should have brought him to dinner. Since he was there the day we met.”
“Was he?” Hunter replies. “I only remember you.”
I roll my eyes as I try to hide my blush. “Stop.”
“No. Isabel, that was the best day of my life—the first of many. Seeing you on your way to the library, carrying that stack of books while your glasses started to slip down your nose.” He’s smiling, and it’s infectious.
“You’re mocking me,” I reply.
“No, I’m not. I remember the exact thought that went through my head at that moment.”
“Was it ‘who still goes to the library?’”
“No. It was… ‘I wish I could get a girl like that.’”
Leaning forward, I meet him halfway before our lips meet. “And somehow you got a girl like that.”
When he sits back again, he’s wearing another serious expression. “Because I changed.”
“No,” I argue. “Because I love you unconditionally.”
He fidgets with the sleeves of his shirt, tugging them down as a habit to hide his tattoos. They crawl all the way up his arm from his wrist to his neckline. My husband seems to think that making certain choices from sixteen to twenty-three makes him undeserving of love. And I see the self-consciousness.
When I met him, I was a doe-eyed seventeen-year-old virgin. He was a twenty-three-year-old tattoo-covered criminal who did what he had to, to survive. We came from two different sides of town, two different worlds, two different paths. But those paths became one, and although our histories were different, our futures were the same.
Suddenly, Hunter was everywhere I turned. Afraid he would scare me, it took him months to gather up the courage to even talk to me. He figured out pretty fast that I could be found at the public library at least three days a week. And when he finally did approach me, he was so nervous, I could see him trembling. It was adorable.
But Hunter never scared me. Even with the tattoos and the reputation, there was a soft kindness in his eyes. The truth was…I saw him long before he saw me.
Ironically, I always told myself—I could never get a guy like him.
“I love you,” I mumble softly as I rest my elbow on the table, placing my chin in my hand like a lovestruck teenager. In some ways, I guess I still am.
He smiles, those bright white teeth making my insides turn all gooey and hot. Why does he have to be so handsome? So charming and fun to look at.
“I love you too, Red.”
My cheeks blush, and I know my neck and chest are brighter than my hair. “Hunter…” I say in a low whisper as my foot rubs softly against his leg.
His spine straightens and his head tilts, giving me that lust-filled gaze.
“Let’s go back to the rental now.”
“Check, please,” he calls to the waiter, and I’m smiling so hard, it hurts my cheeks.
We both hear the moaning before the front door even opens. It’s just a small two-bedroom condo in downtown Phoenix, near the club we’re touring tomorrow night. It was the smartest option since there are three of us. Instead of getting two hotel rooms, for the same price, we could just rent a small place.
But as I set my purse down and hear what sounds like a woman in the throes of a very intense orgasm, I’m starting to reconsider our options.
“Cancel the rest of our reservations,” I joke.
“Jesus…I’m sorry.”
I laugh. “Hunter…stop apologizing. You own a sex club. Do you really think this even affects me anymore?”
He corners me against the counter, placing both hands on either side of me, blocking me in. “Are you sure it doesn’t affect you at all? Not even a little bit?” His lips land gently against the skin of my neck, just under my ear, and I hum in response. He knows all of my weak spots.
“Okay…maybe it does…a little.”
His hands wind their way around my waist as he squeezes me closer. Pressing his mouth against my ear, he mutters darkly, “Should we give them a little stiff competition?”
“Oh, baby. You know I can do way better than her.”
At that moment, another female voice whimpers in the next room, and Hunter pulls back as we stare at each other wide-eyed.
“Them,” I correct myself.
With that, Hunter hoists me over his shoulder and carries me squealing into our bedroom. As he slams the door closed behind us, the moaning and groaning in the next room is suddenly louder. I guess we share a wall…wonderful.
Quick to distract me, Hunter drops me onto the bed and yanks me to the edge. My legs quickly wrap around his waist as he pulls his jacket off and then starts unbuttoning his shirt while I watch.
Licking my lips, I feast on the sight of my husband slipping the white cotton from his shoulders, revealing black, white, and red ink covering his skin like a second suit. Then, with a rough jerk, he yanks my dress up to my waist and tears down my panties.
Growling, he drops to his knees and nibbles his way up the insides of my thighs. I’m squirming with anticipation by the time he reaches my center, lapping and licking in fierce strokes as I moan loudly.
“Come on, Red. You can do better than that.”
On that note, he plunges two fingers inside me, and my back arches with a guttural cry. His mouth is rough, and his fingers brutal as he sucks and nibbles at my clit.
The blankets are clenched tightly in my fists, and my heels fall with a clunk against the tile floor while my husband wears my thighs like ear muffs, not even coming up for air until I’m screaming.
My orgasm is fast and fierce, but before I’ve even recovered, he’s flipping me onto my knees and crawling onto the bed behind me.
Grabbing onto the headboard, I brace myself for the impact as he slams home.
Hunter is rough in bed. It’s probably my second favorite thing about him—just after that kind heart of his. And it’s probably the dichotomy of his personality that makes the sex so delectable. He is warm and kind and quiet in person, but in the bedroom, he lets loose. He’s wild and rough and almost primal. He growls and commands and dominates in a way that lets me know he wants me and only me. That he needs me.
“Louder,” he grunts.
I cry out again, our bed smacking against the wall, and I swear I hear the cries on the other side get louder. Then, for some reason, I imagine what he’s doing to them in that room. I picture Drake pounding into that girl the way Hunter is me. I picture sweat dripping across his bare pecs and over the ridges of his abs. I picture his dirty blond hair barely touching his shoulders. I picture his face and wonder what it looks like when he comes.
My body is flooded with heat and pleasure as I come again, my fingers straining in their tight grip around the headboard as I scream.
Behind me, Hunter pounds into me two more times before he groans through his own orgasm. And when I open my eyes again, I breathe through a wave of shame with the image of Drake still frozen in the forefront of my mind. And feeling for one second like the hands currently gripping my hips are his.
Quickly, I reach back and latch onto Hunter’s hand. Turning toward him, I shake myself out of my imagination and feel relief when I lock eyes with my husband. The only man I should be thinking about when I climax.
So…what the hell was that?
