Chapter Nine
I was strangely nervous when I walked into the bar. The girls had bought me a sexy little dress that told me (as the entire contents of my suitcase had) that my girls knew what I liked to wear and what suited me. It was pink because it was still summer, but a deep magenta because I didn’t do pastels. It had thick straps, a sweetheart neckline that showed off my impressive cleavage, and it nipped in at the waist and then flared out so it wasn’t clinging to me and showing all my problem areas. It was also short, sitting just above my knees, because my legs were one of my best features and I liked to get them out every now and then.
I’d paired the dress with the high gold wedges they’d also bought for me, and let’s just say those shoes made my legs look pretty kick-ass. After sitting in the sun for two days, I was already a nice, light golden color because I had naturally olive-toned skin. Nate just had to look at the sun for his skin to quickly darken a shade or two.
As soon as I thought of my husband by name I threw him out of my head. Tonight, I wasn’t to think of him as Nate. Nate had taken a walk down the beach while I was primping so he’d be surprised by what I was wearing when we did eventually meet up.
He was going to be the stranger from the bar.
And I was Olivia, a lonely wife whose husband had grown emotionally distant from her, and although she wasn’t looking to make a connection, a stranger from the bar was going to be her escape from reality.
So okay, I should have given myself a back story that wasn’t so close to the bone, but hey, it was what I was feeling, and it was fueling the need and hurt and desire and longing swirling around within me.
After I got a drink at the bar, I saw a couple get up and leave one of the high round tables in the middle of the place. There were only two high stools at the table. Perfect. I grabbed the table before anyone else could and tried to get up onto the stool as elegantly as possible in my dress. I was five foot seven, just shy of six feet in my super high wedges. How anyone shorter than me was supposed to get up onto these things without assistance was beyond me.
Settling in, I stared around at the low-lit room. Purple strip lights had been placed behind the bar shelves so the ceilings glowed purple there, and the floor beneath the bar did, too. This effect was used throughout. The music was loud but not too loud, which was a relief, because a lot of places back home got that wrong. You could barely hear yourself think in a lot of the so-called trendy bars in Edinburgh. Not that I would know if that was still the case, since I didn’t go to bars much anymore.
There were plenty of couples here, plus groups of girlfriends, all guy friends, mixed groups, and singles eyeing each other up. The bar staff were young and attractive, flirty and fun. The music had a thrumming dance bass, electronics and no heart, making me long for the stunning, dark, ethereal storytelling of my favorite band.
As my gaze drifted through the crowds and back toward the bar, it stuck on a guy who looked an awful lot like my husband. He wore a dark shirt, either black or navy—it was hard to tell in the light—and dark suit pants. His shirt was rolled up at the cuffs, showing off his forearms. He had strong, sexy forearms. Forearms could be so sexy.
Seeming to sense my gaze, he turned his head as he took a sip of his beer, and our eyes met. He immediately lowered his drink, his gaze traveling down the length of me as I sat back in the stool, the table far enough away from me that it didn’t block his view of the dress.
When our eyes finally met again, I inhaled sharply at the hard look that crossed his features. It was like I pissed him off and turned him on all at the same time.
That look hit me right between the legs.
Trying not to squirm, I reached for my drink and calmly took a sip, but all the while I felt like the bar was just getting hotter and hotter, and the cold beer I was drinking wasn’t doing anything to cool me off.
This scene wasn’t me. If it had ever been me, it had been the me of yesteryear.
The trendy bar. The low lighting. The sexy dress.
The man across the bar who was currently eye-fucking me.
Yes, eye-fucking me.
I could be ladylike and come up with a far sweeter descriptor, but really no other word could describe the heat in the stranger’s eyes as he looked at me.
If my husband knew what I was thinking right now . . .
I felt more than a pang of guilt that this stranger was the one making me feel this way: like the dress I was wearing was too tight, too everything, and I couldn’t wait to be naked. Naked and slick with sweat as my body writhed with the man who was staring at me like I was the very embodiment of sex.
Staring at me in a way Nate hadn’t looked at me in so long.
At the reminder of the disconnect between me and my husband, I threw away my guilt and finally gave the stranger the small smile of encouragement he’d been waiting on.
He crossed the room with his drink in hand and gave me the sexiest smile as he settled on the stool next to me. Our fingers grazed as he put his glass on the little round table and I felt the hair at the nape of my neck stand on end.
Our eyes met and locked.
Suddenly it felt difficult to breathe, there was so much tension coiling around my body. The only man who had ever made me feel this needy was my husband, and this stranger had the same magnetic, sexual ability.
Of course he did.
“I haven’t seen you around here before,” the stranger said, his eyes dipping to my mouth and then to my chest, visible in my low-cut dress.
When his gaze came back to mine, I raised an eyebrow as if to say, Are you done?
The stranger laughed softly, and the husky sound shot tingles between my legs. Not to mention the dimples that popped in his cheeks were incredibly goddamn sexy.
“I’m not from around here,” I replied.
He cocked his head to study me. “Your accent . . . it’s hard to place. East coast, though, right?”
What he was hearing was the little Scottish inflection I’d picked up in my American accent over the years. I’d always had it what with my dad being Scottish, but living in Edinburgh for years had made the inflection more pronounced.
“Arizona, actually.”
“I would never have guessed that.”
I gave an insouciant little shrug and he grinned, his eyes roaming my face.
Years ago I would have squirmed under his perusal, geeking out and stumbling over my words. Nate had changed me.
Doubt stopped me from returning the man’s smile.
My husband had done a lot for me. No, he wasn’t perfect and he’d hurt my feelings deeply of late . . . but I knew I should be giving my come-hither smiles to him and not to this guy. Pretending might not be what was best right now.
For either of us.
“God, you’re sexy as fuck,” the stranger said. “I’ve been fantasizing about you since the moment you walked into Germaine’s.”
And as shallow as that was, the hoarse sincerity in his words gave me pause. Nate wasn’t here. It wasn’t Nate who wanted me like this. It was this stranger.
Stop thinking so much. I actually heard Nate’s voice in my head. Play a little, Liv.
At the perverse imaginary encouragement of my husband I leaned a little farther over the table, giving the stranger a better look down my dress. “Tell me.”
“Tell you?”
“About this fantasy of yours.”
His lips curled at the corners, as though he was surprised by my request, but pleased. Leaning toward me, he said, “Shouldn’t I tell you my name first?”
“I don’t want to know your name, or why you have an accent, where you come from, who you are. And I don’t want to tell you my name.”
His gaze darkened as it dipped to my lips. “Then I’ll tell you what you do want to know. Since the moment you walked in, I’ve been picturing those long fucking legs of yours wrapped around my waist as my cock thrusts into you.”
My breath stuttered.
“I want to pull down that sweet dress you’re wearing and see for myself if those tits of yours are as beautiful as I’m thinking they are. And then I want to wrap my lips around your nipple and suck it while I put my hand up your dress and under your knickers. I’d finger-fuck you and play with those perfect tits until you came. Hard. Quick. Fast. Good but not nearly satisfying enough. For either of us.” His chest heaved a little as he leaned even farther into me, until our faces were only inches apart. “You would be soaked and swollen and I’d be so fucking hard, I’d be in pain. Then I’d take out my cock and I’d fill you, babe, until all you could feel and hear and smell is me as I fucked you.”
I almost breathed out his name, I was so lost in his erotic description. My hands were trembling with want, until my nipples were tight and my breasts swollen, and I was seconds away from tearing off my dress and throwing my body at this potent man.
“What do you think?” the stranger said. “Sound like something you might want to make a reality?”
The part that was warring with me, the guilt and worry, I shoved to the back of my mind. “Yes.”
The stranger’s eyes darkened with pleasure and he slowly, gracefully stood up from the stool and held his hand out to me.
I knew there was a possibility this was the wrong road to take, that pretending might make things worse. But right then, I was so overwhelmed with desire I couldn’t see sense.
I just wanted satisfaction, and I knew that was something this guy could give me.
I just knew.
So I took his hand, slid off the stool, grabbed my purse, and let him lead me through the youthful throngs and out into the dark sea air of Main Street. We were silent as we walked, me hurrying to keep up with him as he took long-legged strides away from the beach. He led us right off Main Street, and I followed him for two blocks until we were in a quiet area. There were still mostly stores here but they were all closed; the street looked like a ghost town. I had just opened my mouth to ask what we were doing here when he suddenly pulled me down an alley between two stores. The farther he led me, the darker it got, until my heart started to pound in trepidation.
But I didn’t have time to grow overly concerned because suddenly I was pushed roughly up against the cold wall of a building. His body was pressing mine hard into it, so I could feel the slightly jagged scrape of the brickwork at my back. He captured my wrists in his hands and pinned them, holding me completely captive as my eyes adjusted to the dark, and I could just make him out from the little light still shining down on us from the street beyond the alley.
Breathing heavily, his face but an inch from mine, he stared into my eyes and said hoarsely, “Last chance to change your mind.”
My skin was flushed. In fact my whole body was alight with constant, chaotic heat. I could feel my breasts swell up against the tight confines of my dress, and the tingling between my legs had increased to an insistent throb. My breath hitched as I felt his erection pushing against my belly.
“I’ll fuck you right here and now if you don’t say otherwise.”
My knees trembled but somehow, my breathing harsh in the quiet air, I managed to move my feet, widening my legs in invitation. I whispered, “I’m not saying otherwise.”
And just like that I had his mouth, while his hands unintentionally pressed mine harder into the wall. The brick scratched against my skin but I couldn’t complain. It spurred me, it made me hotter, letting him take control and give us what we both wanted, what we both needed.
His lips were hot against my lips when his tongue slid against mine as he deepened the kiss and ground his lower body against me. My nipples instantly hardened. The stranger kissed like Nate used to kiss. Ferocious. Like he couldn’t get enough of me.
I let out a little gasp of excitement as he released my lips to trail his down my throat, traveling lower to the rise of my breasts. He squeezed my wrists as I arched against his mouth. In answer, he released his hold on my hands and pulled back to stare at my flushed face. My skin felt enflamed and much too tight.
My lower belly flipped at the hunger I felt pouring off him as he slipped his fingers under the straps of my dress. With a deliberate slowness that caused my breathing to grow more erratic, he lowered the straps of my dress, tugging on them until the front of it was bunched under my bra. The stranger groaned as he pushed my bra down and cupped my breasts. They overflowed in his hand and I felt his dick strain even more against me.
It didn’t surprise me that the stranger loved my breasts as much as my husband. His head descended and I cried out as his mouth wrapped around my nipple. Hands free of his, now that his were full of other endeavors, I reached for him, my arms curling around his neck, drawing him closer. I moaned, my head falling back against the brick wall, feeling my hair catch on it and not caring as he licked and sucked and tormented before moving on to my other nipple. My senses were overwhelmed by his scent, his heat, his hardness and strength. I was surrounded. Just like he promised.
I writhed against him and felt his groan against my breast, the sound reverberating through me deliciously. In answer, he pressed his body deeper into mine and lifted his head to kiss me again. This kiss was harder, wetter, voracious. I instantly wrapped myself around him, and my fingers curled in the hair at the back of his neck as I licked and sucked and flicked my tongue against his, our kiss so deep I wasn’t aware of anything but him. I forgot where I was entirely.
My hands tugged at his shirt, pulling it out of his trousers and slipping underneath the fabric so I could trace his hard stomach before sliding down to his pants. I fumbled for the button, got it, and then began unzipping him.
He gently brushed my hands away and slipped his own hand under my dress. As his fingertips trailed along my inner thigh, he said against my mouth, “Let me feel how wet you are first, babe.”
I huffed impatiently. “I’m soaked. Fuck me already.”
He groaned again, his fingers pushing under my knickers and inside of me. Easily. “So bloody wet. Christ, you want this.”
No shit.
I whimpered as he slid two fingers inside of me and I pushed my hips into them.
He pulled back to stare into my eyes as he fucked me with his fingers. “You’re a mystery.”
“How?” I voiced hoarsely.
“So classy, babe. Didn’t think a woman like you would get off this much from fucking a stranger in an alley.”
“I’m full of surprises.” I gasped, urging him with my body not to stop.
“I wonder what your husband would think.” His lips skimmed my jaw until his mouth stopped at my ear. “I saw your ring, babe, know you’ve got a man out there somewhere. Would he care that I’m about to drive my cock into you? Would it kill him with jealousy?”
“I don’t think so.” I shook my head, wanting to rile him. “He wouldn’t give a shit.”
He pulled his hand out from under my dress in punishment and I opened my eyes to find him glaring at me. “Wrong answer.”
His mouth slammed down on me, hard, bruising, and I matched him for fierceness as I sucked on his tongue. It descended into the dirtiest kiss we’d ever shared. Ever. Surprise and excitement burned through me.
I felt his warm, rough hands on my outer thighs as they brushed my skin, pushing my dress up to my waist. The stranger gripped the fabric of my knickers and tugged, and they slid down my legs. The sudden air between my legs increased the throbbing need he was building in me again.
We both reached for his suit pants and we shoved them and his boxers down, freeing him.
Gripping my legs, spreading them, the stranger thrust into me.
Hard.
I cried out in pleasured pain, wanting to say his name, and just stopped myself in time, the pulsing heat of him overwhelming me. All of my focus was on the sensation of his thickness inside me, and I struggled for breath as I fought the desire to take control.
I didn’t want to take control.
I wanted him to be beyond all reasoning and take me how he wanted to take me. No thought. No care. Just fuck me like he couldn’t breathe another second in this world if he didn’t.
The stranger eased me up against the wall so I could wrap my legs around him. It shifted him deeper inside me, and my fingers bit into his shoulders.
His mouth tugged on my nipple and my inner muscles clamped around his dick and snapped what little control he had left.
Yes!
He pounded us into the wall, thrusting into me hard, gliding in and out of me with increasing frenzy.
He lifted his head and our eyes met in the darkness. As he watched me, something changed in his expression, and somehow his thrusts grew even faster, deeper, and out of control.
I felt his thumb press down on my clit, and the combination of his cock inside of me and him rubbing my clit blew me apart. My release triggered his as my inner muscles rippled around his dick. His body locked against mine, his muscles strained, and he let out a deep grunt as his hips jerked against me in climax.
The world slowly came back to me as the euphoria of my orgasm faded. Suddenly I was painfully aware of the cold brick wall at my back, of Nate’s chest rising against mine as we struggled to get our breath back, of his heavy weight against me, of his lips touching my neck.
Fear slithered through me.
We hadn’t had sex like that, passion between us like that, in a long time.
And it hadn’t really been between us.
It had been between me and the stranger at the bar.
Did Nate and I have to pretend now to get each other off?
And what did that mean?
Was our emotional connection so screwed that we needed this?
Part of me knew I was being overly concerned. Nate and I had used fantasy in our sex life for a long time. Why was it bothering me so much now?
Because that was before he pulled away from me.
Did he now need the anonymity? Did he need to pretend I was someone else so he could fuck me wildly?
Nate must have sensed the change in my body because he lifted his head and whispered against my mouth, “Are you cold?”
I nodded, not wanting to speak the truth, and my husband gently slid out of me and lowered me to the ground. A minute ago I hadn’t been aware of the chill in the air in the alley at all, but now that Nate mentioned it, I shivered as I listened to him zip up his trousers.
“I lost my knickers,” I whispered, feeling stupidly vulnerable as I pushed my hem down and then pulled my bra and dress up.
“Do you want me—?”
“Forget them.” Who knew what was on the ground.
As reality came flooding back, I just wanted out of there.
Thankfully, Nate didn’t waste much time moving us along. He grabbed my hand and led me out until we were back on the quiet street, this time heading toward the boardwalk, toward the inn.
After a few moments of silence, my husband squeezed my hand. “You okay?
I gave him a bland smile, not missing the concern in his expression. “I’m good. You?”
His eyes narrowed. “Well, I was a few minutes ago, after having the best fucking orgasm I can remember having. But now . . . not so much. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing,” I tried to assure him. “That was great.”
“We’ve been together for fourteen years, babe. I know when you’re lying.” He let go of my hand and came to a standstill in the middle of the tree-lined street. “What is going on?”
My stomach dropped at the thought of confronting him about the distance between us. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” He suddenly got in my face. “Was it nothing when you told me that you thought your husband wouldn’t care if a stranger was fucking you? Because the answer there, Liv, was supposed to be, ‘Yeah, baby, it would drive him over the edge,’ and I was supposed to answer in kind by fucking you hard to illustrate the fact that the thought of any other man touching you would drive me over the fucking edge. Instead you said I wouldn’t care. What the fuck was that?”
He was saying fuck a lot, which meant he was really mad.
“I was just changing it up. It got the same result, didn’t it?” I gave him a cocky smile I didn’t feel. “You screwed my brains out, as promised.”
Nate’s gaze sharpened with concern as he reached out to cup my cheek in his hand. His thumb caressed my cheekbone as he stared deep into my eyes. “Then why do you look like you want to cry, babe?”
And just like that, my tears spilled over. I yanked my head away and made to move but he wouldn’t let me. “Olivia?” Nate pulled me back toward him. “Jesus, you’re scaring me.”
I tried to push out of his arms, but his hold around my waist was solid. My vision blurred as I attempted to blink away the tears and failed. “Let’s just go back to the inn.” My voice sounded shaky.
“Not until you tell me what’s going on.” He gave me a little jerk, forcing my gaze up to his.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” I blurted.
“Done what? Sex in an alley?”
I shook my head. “No. Pretend to be strangers.”
His features hardened. “Why not?”
I thought about lying again, about keeping this to myself and burying my head in the sand. But I realized that would make me like Nate, and if the two of us stopped communicating, it was surely the end of the road entirely. “Things aren’t right between us, and pretending to be other people in order to get turned on by each other was stupid and damaging.”
Abruptly he let me go and I tottered on my wedged heel. Anger darkened his gaze. “You needed to believe I was a stranger to get turned on?”
“No. You did.”
“Who fucking says so?” he yelled.
I glanced around, making sure we were alone, and then hissed, “Keep your voice down.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Nate stormed away from me, heading toward the inn. For a moment I could only watch him, my heart pounding and hurting in equal measure. Finally, I got myself together and started to follow, wondering why I ever opened my mouth in the first place. I should have kept this shit locked up tight until we were home in Scotland so we could deal with it there.
I was so busy looking at my feet, buried in my pain, it took me a minute to realize Nate was striding back toward me. I jerked to a halt as he came at me. Even if he hadn’t looked as furious as he did, I would have felt the lash of anger in his tone. “Explain yourself. Now.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Liv,” he warned.
I glared at him so he would know I was pissed too, but I gave him what he asked for. “You haven’t touched me like that in over a year. You haven’t wanted me so badly that you would lose control like that with me. And back there”—I gestured behind us—“didn’t feel like you were losing control with me. It felt like you were getting off on pretending you and I didn’t even exist and that I was just some random woman you got to fuck in the dark.”
He just stared at me.
So I said, “It used to feel like a game. A game we were both in on that excited and amused us. That didn’t feel like a game back there, Nate. It felt real.” My tears began to fall. “I felt like you were a stranger who looked at me the way my husband used to look at me. And all I kept thinking was, ‘Why doesn’t my husband look at me like that anymore?’ and ‘Why won’t he talk to me like he used to?’”
“Because I’m terrified,” he bit out immediately.
I grew still, wary, and unsure. “Terrified?”
“Peetie died so suddenly—“ His words were so coarse with pain, they hurt as they met my ears. “Just fucking died, Liv. One second here. The next gone. We’re not getting any younger. And everything he was . . . it just doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve tried so hard to get over my shit that started when Alana died, and I thought I had. Until Peetie. After he died . . . after he died, I couldn’t . . . I kept having these dreams that it was you in his place. You kept dying in my fucking nightmares and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. You were just gone . . . everything you were . . . gone. What if I lost you, Liv?” My husband’s lips trembled, his eyes wet, and he looked away, blinking fast, trying to mask his emotion that pierced my heart. “How do I go on? How would I know how to breathe in and breathe out in a world where you didn’t exist?”
My tears fell fast and free now, the pain in his words causing my throat to close. Somehow I voiced my reply. “So you thought putting distance between us would make it easier?”
He looked back at me sadly. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I really don’t. I didn’t even realize I’d been doing it until I overheard you talking to Jo. Then I was terrified of losing you in a different way.”
“So you booked this vacation?”
He nodded. “I can’t lose you, babe. You’d take my soul with you.”
I burst into harsh sobs and immediately found myself wrapped in my husband’s arms. He held me so tight, it was almost painful, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was that he was finally talking to me, and the distance between us was because he loved me too fucking much!
I lifted my head and kissed his throat, before moving up to his mouth. He kissed me back with as much fervor, probably tasting my tears on his lips.
When I finally pulled back, I stared into his beloved face and whispered, “You can’t live your life in fear of something bad happening to me, Nate.”
“I know that.” His fingers bit into my hips. “I’m trying.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me this? Instead of making me go crazy, and then imagining you needed to get off to the idea I was someone else entirely while we have fantasy sex?”
He grinned at my angry question, which did not help with my anger.
“Nate.” I slapped my hand down on his shoulder.
Finally he stopped smiling long enough to give me an answer. “I didn’t want you to think we were back to where we once were. Like how I was about Alana.”
“I don’t think that,” I promised him. “It’s not the same. At all. But . . .”
“But?” He looked wary.
“Maybe it would be a good idea for you to talk to someone.”
“Do you mean a therapist?”
“Maybe, yeah.”
Nate shook his head. “I know you mean well, babe, but I’m not talking to a therapist.”
“But maybe you should tell someone about these feelings.”
“I just did. I told my wife.”
That was true. I leaned in to kiss him. It was meant to be soft, quick, and sweet but Nate held me closer, turning it deep, drugging, and needy. When I finally came up for air, I said breathlessly, “Fine. But you have to promise to keep talking to me. Anytime you feel those fears overwhelming you, baby, I want to know. I want to know so I can screw those fears right out of you and remind you of what we have right now.”
His fingers bit into my hip again as his eyes flared. “Have I told you lately how perfect you are?”
I smiled. “Don’t tell me. Show me.”
My husband accepted that challenge, grabbing my hand and marching us back to the inn so he could show me just how freaking perfect he thought I was.