Isabel
I’m half asleep on the couch when I hear what sounds like a grizzly bear entering the apartment. A drunk grizzly bear.
“Drake?” I whisper, just as he loses his footing and stumbles into the doorframe of his room. He lets out a groan as he melts onto the floor.
“Go to bed,” he mutters.
“Come on. Get up.” My tiny frame is nothing against his giant drunk one. But he finally manages to get back on his feet and shuffle to his bed, where he lands against the mattress. I watch him struggle to pull off his shoes, but he’s clearly a lost cause, so I swat his hand away to help him.
“Stop. Don’t be nice to me,” he says with a harsh expression on his face.
“I’ll be as nice to you as I want.” I pull one of his shoes off and drop it onto the hardwood. Then I work on the other. I think for a moment that he’s fallen asleep, but as I pull the second shoe off and gaze up at his face, I see him staring back at me.
“Where have you been?”
“I had to get drunk.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because…your husband is an asshole.”
Well, shit. Despair gnaws away at my gut as I move to unbuckle Drake’s pants. When Hunter came home, he didn’t say much, but I could tell something was up. He’s usually so open with me and after the talk we had this morning, I was anxious for him to report back. Clearly, whatever went down at the club between him and Drake didn’t end well.
“Lift,” I tell him as I shimmy his jeans down his hips. Tugging them off each leg, I discard his jeans on the floor and climb over his body to help him pull off his shirt. His hands slide up my thighs as I do, but I glare at him. “No funny ideas, mister. You know the rules. Plus…I’m on my period and no living thing is allowed near this.” I gesture toward my cramping, aching belly.
“I’ll make you feel better,” he says in a teasing tone, and I just shake my head.
“I think you want to have sex with me to get back at Hunter for whatever he did.”
“I would never do that to you,” he grumbles. He pulls me down until I’m lying in his arms and my heart aches a little as I snuggle against his chest. I’ve wanted this for so long, but now I’m afraid everything we do is crossing a line that’s going to get us all hurt. But this familiarity between us is too pure and good to ignore.
“Tell me what happened at the club,” I say.
He moans. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll be mad at me. And him.”
“He already told me about the kiss, Drake. And I gave him permission to do anything he wanted at the club—with you, of course.”
There’s a delay in his reaction because of the alcohol, but he does eventually lift his head to glare at me. “You did?”
I nod.
“You guys have the weirdest fucking marriage.”
“I know…” I reply.
“What did he say about the kiss?” he asks.
“Not much. But he liked it. And he’s just really confused.”
“Yeah, well…me fucking too.”
“So tell me what happened.”
When he finally relents to talking to me, he shifts to his side and pulls me closer. It’s intimate and making me want so much more with him. In true Drake fashion, his hands never stay in one place. He’s constantly rubbing my back, my hip, my cheek. He does not rest, ever.
“I sucked his dick.”
Gotta love how blunt and shameless Drake is. But I keep quiet for a moment because I need to explore my own reaction first. At first…it’s shock. Maybe a touch of jealousy. And then I imagine it. Drake and Hunter in a club together…Drake’s mouth around Hunter’s dick. I can’t help the way that image makes me feel—hot and excited and very, very turned on.
“Isabel…” he says, gauging my reaction.
“I just need a minute. This is all so hard to get used to.”
After a few minutes of letting this new information sink in, giving myself enough time to check in with how this is all making me feel, I tap Drake’s chest.
“Okay…” I reply. “What happened after the blow job?”
“He barely put his cock away before ditching me there. On the fucking floor.”
Goddammit, Hunter. My emotionally-stunted husband can be the most affectionate, tender-hearted sap sometimes, but then other times…he’s so flighty and irrational, it makes me crazy.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. Tilting my head, I gaze up at Drake. I realize in this moment that Hunter and I are just a blip on the radar of Drake’s love life. Soon, he will be back to his old ways, living his life as freely as he wishes and doing it mostly alone.
His eyes find mine, and he touches my cheek, stroking softly before finally pulling my face up to his for a tender kiss. He’s playing with my heart when he does this, making me think I can have things that I know I can’t. Like him.
After a soft pressing of our lips, he pulls away and kisses the tip of my nose. “Don’t apologize, Iz. It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but I don’t want you fighting with him either. He needs to apologize, but I also think you have to remember…Hunter’s father was a cruel bigot who ingrained some nasty stuff in Hunter’s head. Obviously, he knows it’s all bullshit now, but those cruel voices are still there. He just has to overcome them, and he will.”
Suddenly, he lifts up and stares at me as if he’s surprised by something. “How are you not mad, Isabel? Your husband got a blow job from someone else—and don’t say it’s okay because you and I have been having sex because he’s there for that, and you know this is different.”
I stare up at him, searching for the words to describe how I’m feeling. I am a little jealous, but not because he cheated on me, but because I wasn’t involved.
Finally, I force out an answer that I hope makes sense. “It’s not cheating to me, Drake. Not when it’s you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he mutters, his drunkenness peeking through.
“None of this makes any sense…but also, being with you like this makes more sense to me than the way we were before.”
“What?” His face contorts, as if trying to wrap his head around that notion actually hurts his brain. I let out a little laugh as I pull him down for a kiss.
“Never mind. My point is…if it had been anyone but you, I’d be out of my mind with anger and jealousy.”
He takes my lips again, shifting his weight, so he’s half on top of me and half beside me. “I know how you can get him back for it,” he whispers against my mouth. His hand is drifting toward my panties, but I quickly snatch his wrist.
“Just kiss me,” I say, placing his large hand against my lower back instead. And he does kiss me. He kisses me for so long I think he’s starting to sober up. We take our sweet time with each other, like teenagers making out for the first time, we lie there, exploring this new thing between us.
I briefly wonder as he massages my back and hums against my lips if he shows all the girls he’s with this much passion and attention. I want to be someone special to Drake. I don’t want to be just another girl he’s hooked up with.
With his thick erection pressed up against my hip, a flash of heat is shot to my belly every time he grinds it on me. And although I said we’d only kiss, I can’t take it anymore. It feels like torture to do this to him, especially after what Hunter did to him tonight.
So I rub the thick mound through his shorts and he lets out a heavy groan into my neck. He doesn’t ask me to, but I know he wants me to touch it, so I reach under the elastic band and wrap my hand around his smooth, rock-hard length. It’s so hard it feels like it must hurt.
“Isn’t this against the rules?” he whispers.
“Fuck the rules,” I reply as I start to stroke him.
He groans loudly again, and I almost hope he wakes up Hunter. Let him see us like this. Let him see me finish what he started.
Drake’s hips jolt and shutter, and I know it won’t take him long.
“Get on top of me,” I whisper, rolling him so he’s between my legs. I quickly lift my shirt, exposing my breasts as I continue to work his length, moving faster and faster, reading his expression until I see he’s about to come. And I aim the head at my chest, letting him cover me with it.
“Oh, Isabel,” he grunts as he watches the cum paint my breasts. Then he just sits there for a moment, staring at the mess he’s made. Reaching out a hand, he massages one side, seemingly rubbing it into my skin.
“I love this,” he whispers. “Seeing you covered in my cum.” When he leans over me to plant a long kiss on my mouth, butterflies erupt in my stomach. “You really are the best. You know that?”
I don’t reply, but I give him a tight-lipped smile and kiss him back.
He reaches over to the side table to grab a handful of tissues and takes his time cleaning me up. When he’s done, he collapses next to me, pulling out the covers and burying us both beneath them. I curl up against his chest, and we lie like that for a while. Just when I think he’s asleep, he starts talking.
“Hunter doesn’t remember that green dress, but I do. And you looked at me.”
“I looked at you?”
“Yeah, you looked at me first,” he replies carefully, as if it’s hard to admit.
I remember that, and I’ve never told Hunter that. When he asks, I tell him I don’t remember him standing there staring at me, but I do remember part of that day. I remember Drake. But Drake never pursued me. He barely even looked at me once Hunter started talking to me.
Tears prick my eyes at the memory. But the next words out of Drake’s mouth cut me like a knife.
“I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, but I would have never gone after you. Not because of Hunter, but because I didn’t go for girls like you.”
“Girls like me?” I ask, keeping my voice steady.
“Too good for me. Too smart and pretty and nice.”
“Drake,” I say, looking up at him with tears filling my lashes.
“I’m glad he did. I’m proud of him for doing right by you.”
I believe his words, but I see a pain behind his eyes as he whispers them. And I don’t know what to say. I want to tell him that I love him—that I’ve always loved him, just as much as I love Hunter and in the same way, but I’m not sure that admission would help anything right now.
“I know you think I’m just a man whore who never wants to settle down, but I’ve always wanted a wife like you, Isabel. And recently, I’ve realized that I just want you.”
Another tear rolls down the side of my face, landing on his arm. I’m still speechless as I gaze into his eyes. It’s clear there are no words left to say, so he kisses my forehead and closes his eyes, drifting off to sleep quickly as I lie there and let his drunk confessions seep in, committing them to memory, where I will keep them forever.
