“Pretty.” The lights reflected on Leah’s face, green and blue and red. She was smiling at the scenes in front of them.
“You’re prettier,” he said into her ear.
She looked at him. “Oh, am I?”
This time, he slipped his hand into her lap and pressed gently. He grinned. “Uh huh.”
He thought she’d shake her head or simply push his hand away, but to his delight, his wife just shifted on the seat, opening her thighs a little wider. There wasn’t much he could do through the denim of her jeans, but…well…he sure could try.
“Oh. Elves,” Leah murmured, her gaze on the first display they’d finally pulled up in front of. She rocked her hips just enough against his hand that he knew she wasn’t paying one damned bit of attention to the elves. “Look at the elves, Brandon.”
He did, not because he was worried the driver could see what was going on beneath the layers of quilts, but because Leah had told him to. Because it was sexy this way, something forbidden, something he was doing that normally she wouldn’t allow but he knew she really, really liked.
The next display was of a house with Santa’s sleigh on top and a fat Santa in front, waving in a steady metronome. The music had changed to a chorus of what sounded like castrati singing “O Tannenbaum.” Leah wrinkled her nose but didn’t look away from the lights and music. Didn’t look at him. She drew in a breath as he watched her.
With his fingers inside her, his mouth on her pussy, Brandon could usually tell what was working for her. But here, with the barriers of clothing between them, unable to sink into her heat or even able to tell if he was pressing her clit or some random spot, all he had to go on was the subtle shift of her expression.
Making his wife come was always a challenge, not because she had a hard time achieving orgasm but because, in purely feminine fashion, there was way more to getting her off than hitting the right spots. He could go down on her for an hour, and if she was worried about paying the mortgage, she might never come. If he switched up the pace too much, if the phone rang, if something on the television sounded too loud, she could lose her concentration. It seemed to him that a haphazard pressure against her clit through her jeans, jostling by the sleigh hitting bumps in the snowy path—hell, the entirely unsexy sound of adolescent boys with their nuts cut off singing about a Christmas tree—all of that should probably have made it really difficult for him to make her come.
But something told him she was getting close, anyway.
His dick was pressing almost painfully against his zipper, but he didn’t care. He’d get his later or suffer the ache of blue balls, it didn’t matter. For the moment, all Brandon really cared about was seeing if he could pull this off. Get her off. Make her lose a tiny bit of the control she so prided herself on keeping.
She wasn’t stopping him, but she wasn’t helping. Hadn’t unzipped her jeans to let him slip his fingers inside. Unspoken, she’d made rules he had to follow. Brandon bit the inside of his cheek against his grin. He could do that. No problem.
The people on the hay wagon ahead of them were cheering at something but had stalled again. The sleigh wasn’t moving. The driver stared ahead, maybe sullen or bored, maybe just discreet. All around them the music went on and on while Santa waved in a steady tick-tock.
Tick, tock. Press, release. Over and over, Brandon pushed his knuckles against her.
Her lips parted. Just slightly. She didn’t say anything, didn’t look at him.
It was enough to tell him he was on the right path.
Leah let out a tiny cry when the sleigh started up again, and it sounded like it could’ve been because she was startled by the sudden jerk. But Brandon knew better. He didn’t change the pressure, though, or the pace. They passed by the Santa and on to the next display, but he kept up the same steady tick-tock of his knuckles against her.
The ride was, as the driver had predicted, closer to an hour than forty-five minutes. By the end of it, Leah’s eyelashes had begun to flutter in a familiar way and, when she forced herself to focus, her eyes had a certain glaze in them that Brandon loved. She stumbled getting out of the sleigh, and he caught her, but he was pretty sure this time it had nothing to do with her sore ankle.
“Get me home,” she muttered into his ear as he helped her stand upright. “As fast as possible.”
Twenty minutes later he was up to his balls inside her, both of them not even undressed. They hadn’t even made it more than a few feet past the front door. Pants around his ankles, her jeans undone and shoved to her thighs, he lifted her, hands under her ass, and used the wall behind her to steady himself as he fucked deep inside her. It always worked better in the movies, but for right now, this moment, these three minutes, it was fucking magic.
“I’m going to call you Fuckmachine from now on,” she said to him on a gasp that became a giggle as he started to slip out of her when they’d both come within seconds of each other. “Oh…oops.”
He put her down gently, holding her carefully because neither of them was too steady on their feet. “Fuckmachine, huh? It’s better than Bingo.” Or Band Boy, which was what Leah’s friend Kate liked to call him.
Leah pushed up on her good set of toes to kiss his mouth. “Yes. Fuckmachine. ‘Dear Fuckmachine, please pick up the dry cleaning on the way home.’ It has a ring, doesn’t it?”
“If I’m Fuckmachine, what do I call you?” This was a game with them. She’d told him long ago she would never make him call her Mistress or anything like that. Usually he stuck with honey, baby, sometimes a sweetie if he was feeling particularly smooshy.
“Hmm.” She kissed him again and then pulled her panties and jeans up before limping toward the kitchen. “Right now, how about Gimpy.”
“Fuckmachine and Gimpy. Sounds like a really bad porno movie.”
He heard her laughter from the kitchen, then the sound of the mini-fridge opening, the crack of a cola tab. He found her pouring them both glasses of soda. She tossed a bag of chips on the table, too.
“Aren’t most porno movies bad in some way or another?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Brandon said self-righteously. “I don’t watch them.”
“Ha. Only the free ones on Youporn. I have your number, Fuckmachine, and your internet browsing history. Don’t even try to tell me otherwise.” She handed him his glass and stole another kiss. “Unless you want me to put the parental blocks on the internet or something.”
She paused, looking into his face, her lips brushing his again. “Hmm…would that be considered a disciplinary action?”
“Maybe if I don’t scrub the floor good enough, you can cut off my porn privileges,” he offered with wide eyes, putting on the innocent face he knew she loved.
Leah tweaked his nose and kissed him again, then hugged him hard and unexpectedly tight. “God, I love you.”
He hugged her back, pulling her onto his lap for a cuddle. “I love you too.”
She buried her face into his neck, her breath warm on him. He thought she might say something else, but Leah stayed quiet. And for just then, Brandon was content to sit there and hold her without saying anything either.
* * *
Two days before Christmas, four into their vacation, and they’d eaten at every restaurant within walking distance of the condo complex and taken every tour offered that didn’t require a lot of walking. Snow had been falling steadily since the night before and, though Leah was pretty sure Vail had more than its share of snow, the people here were acting like it was some sort of magic.
It was pretty, she thought with a glance out the window. But nothing special. Nothing here felt that special, not the lights, the music or the Dickensian carolers on the street corner. Her husband, on the other hand, still felt and looked and smelled and tasted special. This vacation had been fantastic for their sex life, which, to be fair, was pretty spectacular anyway but had fallen into a regular once or twice a week rut over the past few months.
“This game is ridiculous. What, Pa
rcheesi would’ve been out of the question?” Brandon gestured at the game board of alternating blue and red spaces and the two stacks of cards.
They’d found the game in the closet. Truth or Dare. The premise was simple but “sexy times for couples!” had been imprinted on the front of the plain black box in swirly hot pink letters. Brandon had made fun of it at once, but Leah had teased him into playing.
“You say that because you’re losing,” she told him.
“I’m saying it because it’s lame.” He shook the dice in the cardboard tube and let them roll, then moved his marker four spots.
Leah pulled a card from the Dare pile with a smirk. Dares were worth ten points, but so far all of them had been either slightly humiliating or stupid. “Blow your own horn,” she read, then flipped the card to show him the genderless stick figure illustration of a person, legs over its head, face buried in its crotch. “If you can do that, Fuckmachine, I will divorce you.”
He was laughing and shaking his head. “Why?”
“Because you won’t have any need for me anymore.” She tossed the card down. “Let’s see it, bendyman.”
“Nope. No way. Not even gonna try it.”
“Fine.” Leah rolled, got a six, landed on a Truth spot. “Five points for me!”
“You have to answer the question first.” He pulled a card and read, “What sexual act have you wanted to do but never did?”
That wasn’t a bad question, actually, not like some of them had been. “Hmm. Nothing.”
“Oh, c’mon. Really? Everyone has something they wanted to do but never did.”
Leah thought quickly about her sexual history. Most of it had been good. There’d been some bad times, most notably with Mike, her ex, but even that had been more about doing things she didn’t want to do. And since meeting Brandon… “Honestly, baby, anything I’ve ever really wanted to do, I’ve done. With you. I can’t think of anything I’ve wanted to do that we haven’t done.”
He looked pleased. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious!” She leaned across the coffee table to poke him, but he captured her hand and kissed the fingertips. “I am, Brandon.”
“Well. Good.”
She eyed him. “What about you?”
He let go of her hand, studiously writing down her five points on the notepad that had come with the game. “Hmm?”
“Look at me.”
He did, but this time she wasn’t interested in a fake-innocent look. “What sexual thing have you wanted to do that you haven’t?”
Brandon shrugged. “Umm…nothing.”
“Uh-huh.” She fixed him with a steady, stern look. “Spill it.”
“Two women at once?”
“That sounded like a question, not an answer. You can tell me, you know. I mean, it’s not like we can’t be honest with each other.” Leah swallowed, a little uneasy. What on earth could he want to do that they hadn’t already done?
There was a list seven miles long, actually, of places they’d not yet gone. She knew her sweet-faced choirboy of a husband wasn’t nearly as innocent as she liked him to pretend to be. He was curious, open-minded and, frankly, spent a lot more time on the internet than she did. There was no telling what he’d stumbled across in some of those forums she knew he’d joined.
For Leah, it was not about lingerie or binding his hands, or leaving him lists, or making him obey. Those were the little kinks they both enjoyed, things that got them hot and bothered. But her need to top him was deeper than that. It was not about making him obey her, but about triggering something in both of them, mentally and not just physically. The sex was great, yes, but she gained just as much pleasure from knowing Brandon hung her laundry in color-coordinated rows because he knew how much she hated doing the laundry. It was about letting him take care of her totally and completely, which was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do—allow him so close to her she didn’t have to worry he’d ever let her down. They had a life together. Not a “lifestyle.”
“Every guy wants to be with two women.”
“I’m sure every guy does, which is why I know you’re full of shit,” she told him. “I mean, I’m not saying that you wouldn’t love it. But I don’t believe that’s what you’re really thinking about when you jack your cock in the shower.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “Sometimes it is.”
Leah didn’t laugh. “What about the other times?”
“I’d like to tie you up. Use a blindfold.”
Of all the things he could’ve said, it wasn’t exactly the most shocking, and he’d said it hesitantly. Gently. There was no reason for her to recoil, but that’s what she did.
“Leah. I’m sorry. I didn’t…”
“Shh,” she told him, her brow furrowed. Mouth sewn tight to stop herself from saying something she didn’t want to say.
Brandon went quiet at once. He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. He kissed her palm as she cupped his cheek. He closed his eyes, breathing, and his shoulders rose and fell.
Before Brandon, Leah had spent too many months with Mike, who’d been all too happy to fulfill what had been her misunderstood desire. With Mike, Leah had been the submissive one, but—unlike the relationship she’d built with Brandon upon mutual desire and respect, not just top and bottom—Mike had taken advantage of Leah’s willingness to serve him. He hadn’t abused her. Nothing like that. He’d used his neckties to attach her hands to the bedposts not because she liked it, but because he’d read about it in a men’s magazine and had thought it sounded “kinky.” Mike had turned out to be an enormous, arrogant dick and Leah had walked away determined never to let another man dominate her ever again.
Yet it had taken meeting Brandon for her inherently dominant side to emerge, and even then she’d fought what it meant to be on top. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to taste it, now.
“Not because I want to boss you around,” he said quietly. “But because I think you’d like it.”
“I’ve been tied up. I don’t like it,” she said bluntly, not wanting to remind him she’d fucked other men, that he wasn’t her first kinky relationship, but saying it anyway.
“Because I think you’d like it if you could just…enjoy it.”
She looked into his eyes. “I enjoy being with you. Like we are.”
He smiled. “I know. But you’re always thinking. You’re always, you know…in control.”
Leah swallowed, seeking words and not finding the ones that made the best sense. “I thought you liked that, too.”
“I do.” He shrugged a little. “Fuck me, I really do. But sometimes, you know, when you give me a list, when you tell me what to do, how to stand or what to wear, or how long to lick you…it’s so easy to just get all caught up in that. A little bit lost, in a good way. A great way. I don’t have to think about anything. I don’t have to wonder if I’m going to make you come, because you tell me just exactly how to do it. I…well, I fucking love it.”
“Good,” she breathed.
“I want to do that for you. That’s all. I want you to sometimes just not have to worry about anything. Not be in charge. Just…” He looked uncomfortable. “Give up to me. Just a little.”
Leah took her hand from his and tucked both of them against her sides while she thought about this. She felt hot, a little shaky…but not entirely repulsed. “Brandon, you know I trust you.”
“I hope so.”
“Is this what you really want?”
He nodded, no longer looking hesitant or uncomfortable.
Leah sighed, swallowing again, her throat a little tight. Their relationship had never been about one of them forcing the other into something. It wouldn’t be, now. “Okay.”
She blew out a breath, expecting her gut to get tight but, instead, giggling at the look on his face. Brandon blinked rapidly, then burst into one of those brilliant smiles she found so incredibly lovely. He leaned across the table to kiss her.
“I love you. You know that?” he
said. “You’re awesome.”
“You’re horny.”
“Well. That,” he said and kissed her more slowly. “But you’re still awesome.”
She took his face in her hands. “Now?”
“It doesn’t have to be now.”
She wiggled to reach around and cup his crotch. “This says now.”
“I’m not going to turn it down,” Brandon said. “But I want you to be sure this is okay.”
She tilted her head to study him. “You know when we play, I never do anything you don’t want, and all you ever have to do is tell me to stop, and I will. I trust you.”
He nodded. Then he pushed the table out of the way, scattering the game, and bent to scoop her up. Leah let out a breathless flurry of nervous giggles and clung to him. He was so big, he always made her feel tiny and precious.
But never small.
“Do what you want to me,” Leah whispered and was rewarded by the flash of desire in his dark eyes.
In the bedroom, he settled her on the same chair she’d been on a few days ago. There, her husband slipped her T-shirt over her head and unhooked her bra. He eased her jeans over her hips, shifting her to lift her ass so he could get them off. Then her panties. Then he wiggled her into position on the chair and put his hands to his waist.
“Oh,” Leah said.
One of the first times they’d ever fucked, she’d bound his hands behind him with the belt he now pulled inch by slow inch from the loops. The sound of it, that thwack, thwack of leather against denim, tightened her nipples and sent a pulse to her clit.
She put her hands behind her and he slid the loop of leather over her wrists. Not tight enough to hurt or even really tie her—at any moment she could move if she wanted to.
She didn’t.
Brandon pulled a hand-woven silk scarf from her suitcase. He’d bought it for her from an arts festival. She usually wore it in her hair or draped lightly around her throat. Now he doubled the fabric and tied it over her eyes. The darkness wasn’t complete and, in fact, if she tipped her head she could see beneath it. She closed her eyes instead.