Wicked Bet: A Bad Boy Romance (5 page)

“Pretty much the same thing. It sounds bad.”
 

“Yeah,” he agreed, laying what was left of the sandwich on his plate.
 

“I just can’t imagine what happened.”

“Maybe one of them cheated.”
 

“I hope so,” I said, without thinking.
 

Ian looked at me like I was insane. “You what?”
 

I flushed under his incredulous gaze. “I just mean ... I hope that one of them was an idiot. That one of them messed up big time. I’d hate to think neither of them screwed up but that this happened anyway.”
 

“Why’s that?” he said, studying me closely.
 

“Because I’m afraid it could happen to us.”
 

He reached out and took my hand. “It’s not going to.”
 

“You can’t know that,” I said, squeezing his hand harder than I meant to. We couldn’t let things continue on as they were, and I wished I knew how to make him see that. “Don’t you think that if someone had told Lori and Dan that they’d be separating soon, they wouldn’t have believed it, either? Yet they did.”
 

“That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to us.”
 

“Yeah. But it could.”
 

“We won’t let it,” he said firmly. As a lawyer, I knew all about using a firm, strong voice. And I also knew that I often employed my firmest voice for my shakiest cases.
 

“Things are already not so great, Ian. Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve spent any time together? Since we’ve really talked about anything except work? Since we’ve had sex? If we’re having problems now, how do we know we won’t end up like them?”

“I just know. I love you. You love me.”
 

“And Lori loved Dan, and Dan loved Lori. Love’s not a bullet-proof vest that can protect us from harm. I wish it could, but it can’t.”
 

“There aren’t any guarantees in life, Lyss. You know that. But for what it’s worth, I think we’re going to make it. I want us to.”
 

“Me too. But ... is ‘wanting’ enough? I can want to look like a supermodel, but if I don’t put in the time at the gym and eat healthily, it’s not going to happen.”
 

“Not such a great analogy. You already look like a supermodel.”
 

Rolling my eyes at him, I shook my head. “Be serious.”
 

“Okay,” he said. “I’m being serious. So what do we do, seriously speaking? To put in the time, as you say? Seems like time is the one thing we can’t put in. Unless you know how to create more hours in the week.”
 

Damn, I wished I did. Wouldn’t that be great? About ten more hours for sleep each week, five for downtime, and five for sex. Maybe ten for sex. What good was a ripped, shirtless husband if I never got to touch him? “We can’t free up much time, I agree. But that doesn't mean we can’t free up
any
time. We both managed to keep this Saturday free—for all the good it did us.”
 

“Yeah, but that was for a special occasion.”
 

“A honeymoon is a special occasion.”
 

“So, what ... should we try to set the date for that?”

“It would be a start,” I said, my fingers crossed. “I’m worried that five years from now, we’ll still be looking for the perfect time to go.”
 

“Even if we can carve out a week, we still don’t even know where to go. You want Europe, I want the Caribbean.”
 

“So? That doesn’t stop us from putting in for the vacation time.”
 

“It does if we don’t know what part of the world we’re going to. These places have seasons. They have weather. I’m not lying on the beach during a monsoon.”
 

“You’re not lying on the beach at all unless you can find one in Rome, Vienna, or Prague.”
 

“See? Impasse.”

 
“No, it’s not. We solve problems all the time at work. We can figure out where to take our honeymoon. And then we can get it on our calendars.”
 

“Lyss, we’ve been arguing about this for over a year. Are we really going to make this decision when we’re exhausted after a long day at work?”

“No,” I said, inspired. “We’re going to make it on Saturday.”

“What?”
 

“Saturday. We actually have the entire day off. Let’s spend it together and figure this out.”

“Our first day off together in forever, and we’re going to spend it hashing this out? I bet that’ll be fun.”
 

“You bet ... you
bet
... you know, we could make it into a bet,” I said, remembering the bartender’s advice about figuring out what motivates us. I was rewarded by seeing Ian’s eyes darkening with excitement. He really was an adrenaline junkie for this kind of thing—thank god he didn’t have a gambling addiction.
 

“What kind of bet?”

“The winner gets to choose where we go on our honeymoon.”
 

“But what’s the game? More laser tag?”
 

I snorted. “Yeah, right. We go back to that place and you’ll instantly go into marketing mode. It needs to be something where we can spend some quality time together. Something where we could reconnect a bit.”
 

“Something involving sex, you mean,” he said, a gleam in his eye.
 

“I wouldn’t say no to that.” Actually, I’d say yes, yes, yes, yes, YES.
 

“Me either. Okay so, Saturday evening, we fuck like bunnies. But during the day … maybe we could engage in some protracted foreplay. Each of us will try to get the other all worked up until we’re begging for it.”
 

“You mean see who can get the other turned on the most? How would we decide who wins?”
 

“Hmm ... ” he said, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. “We divide the day in half. One of us gets the morning, the other gets the afternoon. We each plan our half day, plan something we know will drive the other person wild. But no sex, and no orgasms until the evening.”
 

“And whoever comes up with the best, sexiest, most fun half day gets to decide where we go on our honeymoon?”
 

“Exactly.” His eyes were sweeping over my body now, and I wished I were wearing something sexy instead of the suit I’d worn to work. “Oh, and one rule. If either one of us gets the other too worked up—like if I get you so hot and bothered that you beg me to fuck you right then and there, then you lose. If one of us breaks down and can’t wait until the evening, it’s an automatic loss. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” I said, my mind already swirling with erotic possibilities.
 

Ian stood up and took his plate into the kitchen. He returned and got out his laptop.
 

“Time to work?” I said, knowing I should go check my e-mail.
 

“Yeah,” he said. “Time to work ... and time to start planning. Saturday’s in three days. That’s more than enough time to figure out how to bring you to your knees—literally.”
 

“And after Saturday, I’ll buy you a nice travel guide, so you can research all the European cities we’ll visit.”
 

“We’ll see,” he said, and I didn’t like his smug, arrogant smile. Well, my mind didn’t like it, but my body liked it just fine judging from my quickening pulse and the warmth spreading across my skin. But I needed to start figuring out how to get
his
blood boiling and rushing away from his brain. If I could get him to beg to take me on Saturday, then I’d get the honeymoon of my dreams
and
a sexy encounter with my husband. I had a lot of planning to do, but I couldn’t wait for Saturday.

Chapter Eight

ON THURSDAY, FOR the first time in a long time I had trouble concentrating at work. Usually, I was in lawyer-mode the second I walked through the door, but my attention was split between my cases and my husband.

Specifically, how I could get my husband so turned on that he couldn’t keep his hands off me. I was really looking forward to that part. Ian sometimes did this thing where it felt like he had ten hands roaming wildly all over my body, touching me everywhere at once. It’d been way too long since I’d experienced that.
 

Further hindering my concentration was the fact that every time I got truly focused on my case, I’d get a text from Ian. Normally, we were too busy to text much at work but we sure did that day. He kept up a steady torment of texts all day, some trash talk, some erotic. And I made sure to respond in kind. He wasn’t going to get me so hot and bothered that I couldn’t come up with a sexy agenda for Saturday—though he was sure trying.
 

After lunch—or, rather, after tearing through a packet of cheese and crackers at my desk—Ian sent a text that was neither bragging or sexy:
How are we going to decide which itinerary for Saturday is hottest?
 

Hmm ... good point. Obviously we wouldn’t be impartial judges. Employing one of my favorite lawyer techniques, I stalled with a flippant answer:
I know a few sitting judges. Maybe one of them would adjudicate.
 

His response:
Sure, but pick a male one. Any hetero male judge is going to be pitching a tent under his robe when he hears what I have in store for you.
 

Okay, now I really wanted to know what he was planning. But I refused to beg for a hint or even hint for a hint. So I steered us back on track:
Seriously, how are we going to decide who wins?
 

His response:
You’re the legal eagle. How do two parties decide something if they can’t go to court?
 

I replied:
They use some kind of alternate dispute resolution, usually in the form of a neutral third-party arbitrator.
Damn, why did I have to be in lawyer-mode when all I wanted to do was to pin my husband down and torture Saturday’s details out of him?
 

His response:
Then that’s what we’ll do.
 

I replied:
But who could be an impartial arbitrator? I can’t think of anyone we know who could do it.
 

His response:
If what you’re planning is so tame that you’d tell someone you know about it, you might as well just forfeit now.
 

I replied:
Tame, my ass!

His response:
I intend to.
 

Oops, I’d walked right into that one. Still, his message sent a delicious little shiver of anticipation through me. I replied:
Funny. If we need to stay anonymous—maybe put something online? We could each summarize our Saturday exploits and somehow let people vote for the sexiest plan? Not sure where we could post it, though. If we had more time we could maybe make a simple website.
 

He replied:
If we had more time, we’d be having sex every day and we wouldn’t be doing this. Anyway, I might know a website that would work. I’ll tell you about it tonight.
 

I got back to work after that, but I was curious about what website he might be talking about. And after all the trash talk, I was also weirdly charged up. Too bad we couldn’t text—or talk—more often during the day. It was distracting, but fun.

* * *

Ian was already there when I arrived home that evening a little before nine. I found in him den working on his laptop. Naturally.
 

I kicked off my shoes and padded over to his side, giving him a kiss. “What time’d you get home?”
 

“About thirty minutes ago. Wanna see the website I was talking about earlier? I think it might work.” He tapped on his keyboard and a moment later the login page of some kind of web forum appeared. The page was almost all black with an illustration in the corner, a close-up of a man’s vivid green eye, complete with a black craggy eyebrow above it. Somehow, the piercing eye seemed to be watching me. I peered closer. The fine print under the eye read ‘Green-Eyed Master.’ Clever.
 

“What is this?”

“It’s a forum for people interested in dominance and submission, BDSM, stuff like that.”
 

“And you’re a member?”
 

“Yeah,” he said, typing in his login and password.
 

“Wait ... how come you never told me about this site?” I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. Before we were married, Ian and I occasionally experimented with him tying me up, spanking me, and things of that nature. It had been fun and had always kicked the excitement level of our sexual encounters up a notch or two. Or three. But we hadn’t played that way in a long time. It bothered me to think that he was still exploring that side of his sexuality without me.
 

“I don’t know. Technically, anyone can apply, but it seems like most of the members are dominant, usually men. I joined about a year ago. I guess I just never thought to tell you.”
 

“What do you do there?”
 

“There’re discussion boards, and threads on different aspects of BDSM. The guy who runs it says that he founded it to help people figure out how to incorporate aspects of dominance and submission into their relationships. It’s not for people who are into really strict stuff.”
 

“I wish you would’ve told me about it.”
 

“Lyss, it’s not a big deal. It’s a discussion board, not an online playroom.”
 

“Yeah, but ... if you’re still interested in that kind of thing, why haven’t we tried it in so long?”