Desire Renewed (Happily Bedded Bliss) (2 page)

Stepping off my front porch I made my way across both driveways to Megan and Trevor’s side yard.

“Going somewhere, Cassie?” Gail rang out, leaning against the siding. Gail’s a little nosy for my taste, but living on the other side of Megan she has just as much right to bum cigarettes as I do.

“It’s supposed to be date night, but Craig’s parents are late.” Megan held open the gold box of cigarettes and smiled. I thanked her as I plucked one from its bed, and again as she handed me the silver lighter.

“I thought you both were quitting?” Of course she would. Gail smoked like a chimney when we went out, but was self-righteous whenever her husband was in a one-mile radius.

I pulled the nicotine deeper in my lungs, waiting for the calm.
Not yet
. I took another long drag.

“Deadline?” Meagan asked, flicking her ashes into the manicured lawn. What I wouldn’t give not to have to mow my own lawn. What I wouldn’t give for a night of inspiration with Megan’s husband.

“Monday. But I get to email in the revisions so I have the weekend.” I motioned to her shrinking smoke. “Depositions?”

Megan laughed, long and full, throwing her head of chestnut curls back. She never recognized herself in my romance novels. Either that or she never read the copies I gave her.

“So, a date night huh?” Gail always changed the subject whenever we talked about work. I’m home with the kids all day too, yet she’s still obviously intimidated No one but another writer seemed to understand I write for my own sanity. “Lucky you. Or maybe you would get lucky if it weren’t so damned hot.”

“We have air conditioning,” I said automatically.

“You’re so lucky. It’s an oven in our place.”

“Come over and enjoy the refrigeration any time you need. As long as you don’t mind tripping over fire trucks and trains.”

“Uh-oh,” Gail whispered, jerking her head in the direction of my house. I instinctively dropped the cigarette and covered it with my sandal.

“Cassie?” Craig called from over my left shoulder. Gail did come in handy every once in a while.

I turned and smiled. I’d say I smelled like smoke because Megan was smoking. “What is it?”

“Highway 82 is closed. My folks are turning back around.” He looked sorry. Was he sorry? We’d only been out twice since January, when I stated I needed more from him. Dates once a month and sex once a week. Neither happened with any consistency. I even bought a book of sexual fantasies with a different fantasy each week, but my husband had the lowest libido of any man on the planet.

“You should go,” Megan offered, nudging me in the shoulder. “Trevor and I will come over and chill with the boys.” She laughed at her play on words.

“Are you sure? You don’t have to.” Please say you’ll do it. I’ve been storing up my courage to do fantasy twenty-six all month.

“Your boys love Trevor. And besides, you have cable. The boys will go to bed in an hour and Trevor will be glued to the tube all night. Stay out as long as you need. I’ll be working in air conditioned comfort.”

“I’m bored.” Trevor rose from the sofa and came into the dining room where I had everything organized. The boys went to sleep without incident twenty minutes ago. Not that I’d seen much of them. They adored Trevor, and he was better with kids than I was anyway.

“I’m busy.” I answered him without looking up. This toxic mold case was so tedious. Trevor cocked his hip against the table, right next to my laptop. “I’m only going to warn you once. Knock the papers off and I’ll be a widow.”

“You’re so feisty tonight.” He was smiling that broad, dimpled smile that heated my blood…and it was hot enough. “I need to work. Go watch television. They have cable.”

“How late are they going to be?”

Very, I hope
. They needed the alone time and I needed the cool to help me concentrate. “I’m not sure. I told Cassie to take as long as they need. They’re having trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Bedroom trouble.”

Trevor grimaced at the thought. “He can’t…”

I smiled. Men always went there. “No, he can. She just wants to be more creative to get inspiration for her books, and he’s not interested lately.”

“Oh, I get it.”

He got it? “Fill me in, oh wise one.”

“He doesn’t want his every move chronicled for the world. It is weird. I mean, you’ve read her stuff. Don’t you think about them acting it out?”

Not once.
“It’s fiction, Trevor.”

“It’s porn, Megan.”

“It’s not porn. It’s romance. Sensual romance, but still.” Have to clue Cassie in on his theory tomorrow, omitting his opinion of her career. She was more than touchy about people reducing her novels to smut.

“It’s hotter than Penthouse letters.”

“You still read Penthouse?” My temperature rose and not from the smile he gave me. Like I could compete with airbrushed teenagers.

“No, because it bothers you. But if I catch you smoking again I’m going to get a subscription.”

“Trevor, you can’t tell me what to do.” One cigarette a day. One. It used to be two packs. What more does he want from me?

“You need to stop. Especially if you were serious about being pregnant earlier.”

“I’m not.” Back to work. Not getting goaded into this conversation with the world’s cutest, best-behaved kindergarteners upstairs. “I’m not ovulating until next week. We’re in the clear.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

Because it never leaves my mind, not even for a second. But now I wish I hadn’t. “Trevor I need to get through these files before they get back and I have to move them. Just go watch TV.”

You can do this.
You can do this
. No I can’t. My stomach clenched nervously as I made my way back to the table.
Could I really
?

I slid into the booth next to Craig. “What are you doing?” He killed what little confidence I had with that annoyed look of his.

Still, I was going to do this. Even though the first twenty-five fantasies in the book had only marginal success. I was determined. I would save my marriage, no matter what. Even reach into my bra and pull out the panties I’d just removed in the ladies room. I handed the scrap of purple lace to Craig under the table.

“What are you doing?”

“If you don’t know, I must be doing it wrong.” I was even batting my eyelashes and twirling my fingers in my hair. Come on. Give me something.

“Would you like to see the dessert menu?” I jumped at the sound of the chipper voice, and cursed the twit and her perky breasts.

“We’ll split the strawberry shortcake. Extra whipped cream.” Craig smiled at her over my shoulder. Hello? Panty less woman more than willing to fuck you two inches away, and you want the bimbo with the fake boobs?

“She probably has no sensation.” I sat so that one leg was on the floor and the shin of the other rested between us.

“Who?” He twirled the ice in his empty water glass, finding it so much more fascinating than fantasy twenty-six.

“The waitress. When you have a boob job it can damage the nerves on your nipples, leaving them in that permanently hardened state.”

A low chuckle rumbled through me as his head slowly nodded. “Good to know. Did you find that out in your research?”

“Yes.” The last heroine was a former stripper. I love researching my stories.

“Is that what this is?”

“What?”

He pulled the panties from his pocket and set them on the table between us. On the table! I grabbed them and shoved them under my leg.

“No. This is me trying to have an affair proof marriage. Pretty hard to do with a guy who refuses to have sex with me.”

His knuckle rubbed at my chin. “I’m not going to cheat on you. Why would you ever think something like that?”

I looked deep into those gray blue eyes. The ones I was so happy both boys got. Hazy, calm, sweet and loving. “Lack of intimacy is one of the first signs.”

“Here you go!” Miss Perky Tits was back. She should be working at the colorful restaurants we took the kids too, not a high dollar place like this. Craig thanked her and she mercifully went on her way. But Craig seemed to be done talking. He dug right in to the strawberry shortcake. Of course food would be more important than me trying to fool around in a public place.

“You want some?” He had the nerve to ask, waving a forkful of whipped cream in my face.

That’s what I needed. Sugar laden fat calories. I shook my head. What I wanted was for him to want me, like he used to.

Again with the fork in my face. “You sure? It’s good. Not as good as yours, but good.”

Backhanded compliments were as good as it got lately. Might as well give up. I turned and started to slide my other leg to the floor. His icy fingers held my knee at the back of the booth. Hard.

“These strawberries aren’t as sweet as the one’s you grew.” He spoke calmly; as if his fingers weren’t pressing so hard into my thigh they were leaving marks. “Your cream is better too.”

He ate the dessert coolly, as his hand traveled further up my thigh. I smiled, realizing what he was doing. So this was how he wanted to play. He didn’t need to be so secretive; my back was to the dimly lit restaurant. I swiped my finger through a mound of whipped cream and looked into his eyes as I licked at the dollop with my tongue once, twice, then plunged the finger between my tight lips.

He licked his lips and went back to the shortcake. What the hell did I have to do to get a rise out of this man? Most women had their husbands begging them for sex as often as possible. I couldn’t get mine to – Hello! His hand slid to cup my mound with his palm. He held it perfectly still, except for his thumb stroking my curls as if petting a cat. Thank you number twenty-six.

My pussy had been humming ever since I decided to go through with the plan and remove my panties in the ladies room stall. I never expected him to go through with it. It. Whatever it was. What did I want him to do? In the book they went so far as to actually have sex. I tried for the life of me to remember how, where, but my brain stopped caring as his hand slipped further down, his middle finger sliding effortlessly between my moist lips.

“We should go.” Now.
Now.

“I’m not finished yet.”

He acted as if nothing was going on, as if his fingers weren’t centimeters from being inside of me. Please be talking about me. Please.

“Do you want more or should I finish it?”

Yes on both counts. How to answer? I clenched my muscles, praying he could feel my need, my desperation. I dragged my finger across the whipped cream. I offered it to him, but he grinned and shook his head. I licked at it with the tip of my tongue, but he seemed to find the plate of shortcake oh so interesting. I plunged my finger into my mouth and froze as his finger did the same in me. Yes. I pulled my finger from my lips only to gasp as he followed suit.

“What did you do that for?” I hissed at him. This was no time to tease. When he wanted to, he could get me off with his fingers in two minutes. His dexterity was spectacular. All day long his fingers danced over the keyboard, and once upon a time they danced over me all night.

“More whipped cream?” How could he sound so damned nonchalant with his hand between my legs? I dipped into the foam anew. Was this what he wanted? Easy enough. I didn’t want to be teased. I wanted to go back to the time when we were hot, when I didn’t go to sleep alone, wondering what he was doing, and with whomI opened my mouth, showing him my tongue as I laid my finger flat against it, closing my mouth slowly. The pad of his thumb pulsed against my clit as a finger slid inside. It was fantastic. The thrill, the sensation, the tensing beginning deep inside.

My head snapped up as he stopped. Stopped? What the – oh. My finger came out of my mouth. His eyes were trained on the plate. He stabbed a strawberry, then bit into it. I know he purposely closed his lips around it as he pulled away. Just to remind me of what he withheld. He hadn’t gone down on me in a year.

I dragged three fingers across the plate this time. He wanted me to show him what I wanted. Fine by me. No one could see what I did, no one but him. Spreading my fingers I used the tip of my tongue to slowly lick up each finger. His thumb pulsed insistently in time with my ministrations. The thrill of being out in public coupled with the wonderful sensations had me on the verge of an orgasm. What brought me there, as I sucked the sweetness from my fingers, was that he wanted me. Wanted me badly enough to play games in the booth of a restaurant.