Wives with Benefits: Volume One (2 page)

She’d said: “I can’t be with you right now.”

He’d merely nodded, said: “Okay.”

“You can spend a little time, decide whether you want to tell me what happened.”

“Honey…”

She’d waited, his tone suggesting he was preparing to actually tell her what that stripper underwear was doing in his pocket. But then nothing came out of his mouth. His voice petered into nothing after.

Alice had turned on her heals, walked upstairs and packed a bag.

In the taxi she just about held it together, even when she’d called Jess and Sarah to demand an emergency Girls Night Out, explaining to them what she’d found in Mark’s jacket pocket. Neither of them were doing anything that couldn’t be rearranged in favor of last-minute heavy drinking and commiserating with Alice. Sarah’s husband could have his birthday dinner another day, another week.

She’d checked into the hotel, changed into the going-out clothes, the only things she’d really shoved in that overnight bag — a ridiculously short dress made of sequins that could not be creased no matter what you did to it.

Jess and Sarah had been there within the hour, ready to start a To-Hell-With-Men tour of the bars downtown. They knew what she needed — some strong liquor and reassurance that all men were crap, marriage sucked balls.

“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for any man’s commitment drops to zero,” Jess had said, paraphrasing some smart line from a movie.

They’d cursed all men, toasted the possibility that one day the whole gender would get their comeuppance, preferably in some tar pit in the depths of Hell.

Then as the alcohol had continued flowing, they’d ended up in some club somewhere, and some of the men in there actually didn’t seem so bad. They were pretty, they had nice sparkly eyes, their rippling muscles made a girl wonder what they might be packing down below.

It had felt faintly naughty that she had an anonymous hotel room to go back to. Almost an obligation to take advantage of it.

Sarah was joking that one of the blonde college guys they’d been twirling with had his eyes on her, thinking about snapping her up, married or not.

“So? Are you married or not?” she’d asked Alice, her voice slurring like a bad actress trying to affect a Southern drawl.

Alice had looked across the dance floor at the blonde guy in question, and quietly removed her wedding band from that middle finger, tucking it inside her purse.

“Well, I warned him what would happen if I ever even thought he was cheating on me,” she said with a wry grin.

That had provoked a wild hollering from the girls.

Alice had actually been disappointed when all was said and done to end up in a taxi alone on the way back to her lonely hotel room. It was three in the morning when Jess and Sarah had gone their separate ways, and they did have some wild adventures to add to the anecdote pile.

But not Alice had the reality to cope with again, after that cab ride back had such a horrific sobering effect on her. The reality of Mark caught red handed with a tiny piece of buttfloss he’d no doubt peeled from some floozy’s hips.

Sarah’s half-joking question popped back in her head: “So, are you married, or not?”

Alice found herself irritated that the general assumption — at least, as far as the expressions on her friends’ faces, and that stupidly neutral expression on Mark’s features — was probably that she had no other option but to forgive and forget. Go home, accept that men would be men, husbands would occasionally be wayward.

Jesus. Did she want to be married? Their sex lives hadn’t exactly been on fire for a while. They seemed to argue every other time they were together.

But it was so daunting to think of declaring independence from a life she’d led for seven years. Maybe she just needed a break.

The hotel concierge tipped his hat at her as she headed into the lobby. She received a nice smile from a young dark-haired guy rolling out of the hotel bar — another late-night reveler.

He was going her way, it seemed. Held open the elevator door for her once she’d finally decided to go straight up to her room, and not find a seat somewhere to delay her journey back to that desolate room of hers, the room that stank of broken dreams.

She offered him a warm smile now, reward for his minor gallantry in holding the elevator for her. She also saw how his eyes subtly took in her little dress, and the way she squeezed into it, a glimmer of something there that suggested lust.

It surprised her — not only his barely-concealed desire, something she hadn’t seen much of in seven years of marriage, but also the tickle of wicked arousal that he now sparked deep within her.

Jesus, now she was beginning to think her dress had been a little daring.

And God, she had no wedding ring on. He probably thought she was some single girl on the way back from a night out…

Alice felt a little self-conscious waiting in the elevator with him, occasionally catching him looking at her, if not directly then via the mirrored walls. She found that she was trying to hide her own wandering gaze as she checked out his pleasantly masculine frame — he was slightly taller than she was, with broad shoulders and an understated athleticism. He looked friendly, somehow, his slight tan easy on the eye, but his dark eyes held a glint of the devilish in there that made her feel slightly fizzy inside.

Once their eyes connected, and they were both forced to smile.

She noticed that he did not select a floor — was he staying on the same floor as she was?

“Looks that way,” he said with another of those melting smiles, and she realized she’d blurted the question out loud.

Then the elevator was opening, and she felt slightly unsteady on her high heels as she pitched forward into the hallway, eyes meandering around the walls to look for that little sign pointing out the direction to her room.

Her elevator companion followed her, but as she worked out in which direction she ought to be going, she saw to her disappointment that he was venturing the opposite direction.

“You’re going that way?” she asked, feeling her voice slurring, surprised that there was still alcohol in her system to affect her.

Embracing the hint of confidence that the booze was now lending her again.

“You’d prefer me to go that way?” he asked, clearly a little surprised to receive some kind of proposition at this time of night in the middle of the week.

“Might be nice to have company, don’t you think?” she found herself giggling, and tried to hide the fact that she needed to briefly clutch the wall with her fingertips to keep from toppling over.

“Company is a nice thing to have,” he smiled, his eyes now roaming her body again, sensing that he was permitted, Alice feeling herself warming up as his gaze dwelled on that little dress of hers.

He stepped up beside her, and she apologized, said: “I don’t normally do this, you know.”

“Of course,” he said, polite, friendly. “But tonight is a special night.”

“Something like that,” she giggled again. She never giggled, particularly for the benefit of men. Jesus. She felt curiously light-headed.

She was playing with her hair now, as they wandered the long halls. God, this hotel was a labyrinth. What was she doing? She was a married woman. Or was she?

Well, to Hell with Mark and his stripper underwear.

“Do you think I’m awful?” she asked.

“Not at all,” he said, laughing himself now.

She paused in the hallway, as though momentarily lost, but as he was about to quietly ask her room number, she surprised both of them by stepping in front of him, so that she had to walk backwards a few steps to keep him from knocking into her — and then she was pulling him into her, kissing his mouth. Tasting the bourbon on his breath, which made him seem so very exotic somehow, not at all like beer-drinker Mark.

They were laughing like teenagers fooling around under the bleachers.

He was kissing her now, and they were whirling around and around in the corridor as though they were waltzing to some unheard music.

Jesus, what was she doing?

She didn’t even know his name. He was stepping up behind her, snatching little kisses on her shoulder, the side of her neck. Oh, was this the biggest mistake ever? He was so hot. And he wanted her!

She skipped a couple of steps forward again, then paused, forcing him to knock into her this time, so she could fling her arms around his neck, suck on his lips, feel that dangerous tongue of his slip inside her mouth — the wet feeling of his mouth on hers, so real somehow, and so wicked.

Jesus, they were at her room now. This was huge.

“I’m not normally like this,” she said, unable to keep from beaming so broadly it hurt her cheeks a little.

“No, me neither,” he smiled that wonderful sugar smile again, and his friendly countenance suggested he accepted her word that this was a chance in a million thing, that this was totally out of character for her.

She already had her room key in her hand — it had appeared as if from nowhere, her hands retrieving it from her tony purse on autopilot, willing her to get inside that room without hassle, to get her companion in that room.

Door opened, and even before they were inside, he was pushing up against her, pressing her to the door itself, molding his mouth to hers.

Then the door was closed, and she was a married woman in a hotel room with a stranger, and his hands were all over her body as she kissed him, both of them panting as they locked lips.

Oh God, she was on fire, her whole body ablaze, the focus of the inferno lying clearly between her thighs.

She pushed him over to the wall, pressing herself on him now, raising a knee to rub it up his thigh, inviting his hand to check out her curves, sweep around to her rear as she continued to kiss him.

Then she was stepping away, letting herself be led by her body, ignoring the clamor in her mind that said this was all wrong, that she hadn’t even tried to talk things through with her husband, that revenge sex could solve nothing.

Well, if he could have his little indiscretion, she could have hers. Why should she be the only one that had to forgive and forget?

She was falling back onto the bed, letting him crawl over her.

“What’s your name?” he asked her now, and she wanted to tell him, but what came out of her mouth was:

“Natalie. And you?”

“Ethan.”

He was a forceful kisser, compared to Mark, at least, and that was her baseline for any comparison. Forceful was good — she needed a little energy, a little short sharp shock to her system. Perhaps she needed a little punishment, too, for what she was doing to hubby. Judging him and sentencing him without even hearing his side of the story first.

Oh, but she needed this, now.

Ethan kissing his way up her stomach now, breathing her in, putting his strong hands all over her breasts. God, she’d always had a thing for strong hands. Ethan’s were all over her — holding her, fondling her, caressing her, squeezing her.

He wanted her, he appreciated her.

Ripping her dress now, he was so desperate to free up her breasts.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh I don’t care. Rip it.”

His fingers on her bare breasts, his hot mouth on her impossibly stiff nipples, flicking his tongue over her sensitive buds, sending little electric shocks directly from her chest straight down to her pussy.

She let out a long moan. It had been so long since anybody had touched her like this. She couldn’t take too much of it though, not in one dose.

Alice pushed him back, sitting up, tasting his mouth again, sucking on his tongue, breathing in that hint of underlying bitterness that suggested he was a light smoker — again, so different from Mark, from clean clinical Mark.

Pulling off Ethan’s shirt now. Figuring: hey, we’re in a hotel room alone. If anyone found out about this, they’d assume the worst, they’d never believe she had stopped this whole thing before it went the whole way, even if she did. So she might as well keep going anyway.

His bare chest smooth, waxed or shaven, shapely and not overly sculpted, the gentle tan and his neck chain making her think he was a surfer, perhaps, though he’d been too distracted by life recently to ride many waves.

Then he was falling on her, his hand falling on her panties, her mound, showing her that her dress seemed to have ridden up past her hips all on its own.

She gasped as she felt that strong hand on her soaking pussy, pleased this all happened on the day she decided to wear the smallest panties she owned. His fingers slipping under the skimpy piece of black satin to find her slippery folds as he moved up to kiss her mouth, touching her just where she wanted, spreading her wetness all over her mound.

Pinching her clit and its protective hood between his fingers even as he continued to stroke her, pushing the tips of his fingers inside her.

He was owning her pussy with that hand. His enthusiasm made her forget that hint of insecurity over the fact that she hadn’t shaved down there, though it was trim and tidy enough to cope in a bikini.

God, she was going to come soon if he wasn’t careful.