Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 100466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
She rolls onto her back and shoots me a wicked smile.
Hazy bliss and anticipation.
She wants to touch me.
Is it all sexual, or is there a romance there too?
Usually, I'm the first person to say there's intimacy to all sex. There's trust, especially when we play with control.
Right now, I want more than that.
I want to make love to my wife.
Have I ever made love?
Or even said make love without laughing in my mind?
Daphne is not confused about what she wants. She looks at me with conviction. "You owe me." There's need in her voice.
Enough to send blood racing south. My heart cares about closeness. My dick, not so much.
Well, not the same kind.
A teasing tone drops into my voice. It's sexual, yes, but it's more too. I'm playing with her because I like her. Not just because I like fucking her. "I don't remember making any promises."
"Jackson." Her voice rises to a whine. She holds my gaze for a moment, waiting, begging even. Then, something else spreads over her face. Epiphany.
Then rebellion.
She's not taking this lying down.
My dick likes it as much as my heart.
She notices my pace. Decides something about it. Some way she's going to tease me back. "Is that how it is for you?" She rises from the couch and takes a step toward the bedroom. "The ends are the means?"
"I tease because I like to tease." And fuck, how I like to tease her. For every reason. "That's the key to good sex, isn't it? Do what you want, in the moment, because you want it. Not because you expect some future outcome."
"Don't trigger Daphne Webb, sex researcher." She doesn't stumble over her last name for a moment. Married or not, she's a Webb.
That isn't how I imagined my marriage. Even with my outspokenly progressive siblings, I always imagined my wife would take mine. Or hyphenate.
But I like that she didn't.
I like that she's a Webb.
She continues, "She'll run an experiment on orgasm denial on you."
"Was that supposed to discourage me?" It's too much fun teasing her. I want to do it forever. In every way.
She smiles, shifting into her fully playful mode for a minute. "Don't even."
"Don't even what? Dare you to tease me?"
She presses her lips together. "No. I'm not a tease. And I won't take this lying down." She shifts into that other mode. Still playful. But sexual. Teasing here instead of elsewhere.
I could stop her. Ask to talk about this. What it all means.
But I know what it means.
I know where we stand.
I might not like it, but I do know.
Better to savor everything I can.
I submit to my desire to toy with her. I let the complaints of my heart fade into the background. I let my body take over.
"No?" I hold her stare.
"No. If you won't deliver, I will." She gives me a second to object. When I don't, she takes another step toward the bedroom. "Can you really do all that teasing without any release?" Her eyes move over my body, stopping on my crotch.
I'm hard, yes, but if she thinks that means I'll give in, she's wrong. I'm good at waiting. Very fucking good at waiting. "Most of the time."
"Other times?"
"I fuck myself." I still make my partner wait. I still know how to draw it out as long as I want.
Daphne's pupils dilate. She holds her pose, considering her options, then she takes another step toward the bedroom and releases her stare. "Is that fair?"
"Life isn't fair."
"And neither are you?" She finishes my thought. "Then I won't be either."
Without another second of hesitation, she fully turns her back to me, unzips her dress, lets it fall to the ground.
"I'd rather come with you inside me." She unhooks her bra and tosses that on the ground too. "But I'm coming one way or another." She does away with her underwear too. The pin holding her hair together.
The light strands fall over her shoulders and back.
She stands there, letting me take her in for one glorious moment, then she saunters into the bedroom in nothing but her silver high heels.
She goes straight to the bedside table. Not for condoms. For a toy. A vibrating pink dildo and lube.
She tosses both on the bed, slides onto the soft comforter, and spreads her legs.
"Where did you get that?" Curiosity drips into my voice. I can't predict her. And I like it. With other women, I've hated it. I've tried, too hard, to hold on to stability and control.
A side effect of growing up with my father on the road and my mother working all the time. That's what one ex-girlfriend said. She was right, no doubt, but the knowledge did nothing to change the pattern.
I tried to hold tighter to control.
The harder I grasped, the more it slipped through my fingers.
With Daphne, it's different. I don't want to push her into a box. I don't want to order her to stop. Or go. Or do something else.