Turning the Tide (Eastern Shore Swingers, #5) Read online

  “No, that’s different. Those women weren’t naked for me. Please, let me savor this.” He didn’t want to admit he was trembling—and not just with desire, but with nerves. He hadn’t been this nervous to make love to a woman his first time, on his wedding night, or when he and Barbara were trying to conceive. He’d experienced less anxiety than this while performing his first ever surgery. He was certain, because if his hands had been shaking as badly as they were right now as his eyes swept up and down her body, he might have sliced his patient’s nose clean off.

  Her expression softened. “Okay...” A tiny smile curled her lips as she relaxed. “I’m sorry—I’m nervous too. It’s been a long time since I’ve been naked with a man.”

  “We’re both nervous,” he assured her, “so let’s go slowly then, shall we?”

  She smiled as he gently lowered himself until their torsos met, his firm, well-sculpted chest meeting her soft, inviting skin. His eyes closed as he felt the sensation of his cock pressing against her fleshy thigh bolt through him. Other than her lips on Sunday afternoon, this was the first contact between his cock and another human in a decade.

  He scooped his right hand under her head, lifting her mouth to his so he could sample it again. Her lips were already warm and swollen from the attention he’d paid them earlier. He felt like he’d mastered the fine art of kissing this beautiful woman and now wanted to perform all the notes of this sensual overture before moving on to Act 1 of the show.

  Her lips parted, and he swallowed the moan that rose from deep in her throat when he shifted his hips and allowed his erection to spear the space between her thighs. The searing heat from her pussy wrapped around him, and he had another momentary pang of panic. His worries seemed to oscillate between a fear he’d finish too fast and the fear he wouldn’t be able to perform at all.

  But when she arched her back, trying to position herself to receive him, he knew right then and there that everything would work perfectly.

  How could it not?

  She was everything he had fantasized about having for days, weeks, months, years. A decade. She was a miracle in the flesh, and—even more miraculous—she seemed almost as desperate for him as he was for her.

  As he traveled down her body, wanting to prolong their lovemaking as long as possible, he planned to pay homage to every part of her that played a role in making his cock ache with need. The tiny mole on her neck, the way her collarbones rose from her freckled chest, the perfect strawberry-colored nipples that crowned her beautiful breasts. He spent extra time there, reveling in the way she cried out when he teased them into hard tips. He wondered if her ache for him could be even half of what his was for her, the way, deep in his balls, he felt he might implode if he didn’t claim her soon.

  “Oh, god, Luke, please...” she implored as she arched her back again. She wrapped her legs around his backside and pressed his body to her core, yearning to feel his hardness inch ever closer to the center of her need.

  She groaned in disappointment when he broke out of her hold to continue his path down her body. He was dying to taste her, even if it meant torturing her with a longer wait to feel him inside her.

  “Do you have any condoms?” he asked as he traveled down her stomach planting tiny kisses in his wake.

  “What?” She began to sit up, but when he pressed a kiss right beside her clit, she was forced to brace herself against the bed.

  “Condoms?” He licked again before glancing up to meet her gaze. Her face was a mixture of anticipation, frustration, and desperation.

  “Shit...no. I told you I don’t do this. Besides, I can’t get pregnant. One advantage of being old!” Her giggle morphed into a squeal when he licked her clit again.

  “I don’t do this either, so that makes two of us.”

  “Then I think we can forego the condoms, don’t you?” Her voice wavered with her hope that he would agree.

  “Only if you’re absolutely certain you’re okay with that. If not, then I will happily feast on this beautiful pussy.” He licked her again as he let the shock that he just used the word “pussy” rocket through him. “On second thought, I’m going to do that one way or the other.”

  Any reply she might have had was swallowed up by another moan as his tongue drove between her wet pink lips. He eagerly lapped up her juices as he devoted himself to learning what kinds of pressure, rhythms and sensations she liked. It was like learning to play an instrument, and he intended to master it, just like he had kissing her.

  She seemed to be holding back at first, but once he found the right notes, resistance became futile. She fell over the edge, her hands fisting the sheets and her hips bucking against his mouth as she rode the waves of ecstasy under his tongue. I haven’t lost my skills, he thought, giving himself a little virtual pat on the back.

  He might have been able to stop there. Knowing she was lying beneath him, a quivering mass of orgasmic bliss, was one of the most satisfying goals he had ever achieved. But his cock was still rock-hard, throbbing with need as it pressed into the mattress, craving the warmth and wetness of her sex.

  And though she’d come so hard under the direction of his tongue, it appeared her own hunger was not completely sated. She wasted no time grabbing his arms and trying to pull him back up her body. “I still want you,” she assured him. “Now. Please.”

  He licked his lips, still tasting her on them as he slid up her body and once again braced his erection against her inner thigh. A few inches and a thrust was all it would take to claim her, and judging by the way she was grabbing his ass and pushing him down onto her, she was at least as ready for it as he was. He fisted his organ and placed the tip of it against her still-throbbing clit. Her sigh made a bolt of desire rush through him. “Please,” she reiterated. “Please, Luke...”

  His name on her tongue was the last bit of motivation he needed before pushing into her pussy. She cried out his name again as he found passage, his cock buried to the hilt in only a few firm thrusts. He hesitated as he got his bearings.

  He’d built up this act, this moment for so long, put it on such a high pedestal that he was petrified the reality would never be able to live up to the fantasy he had created. But that worry was completely obliterated as her legs wrapped around his hips again and her fingers dug into the flesh of his backside, urging him to move, to give in to the passion coursing through him.

  “You feel absolutely amazing,” she whispered as they found a slow, driving rhythm. She rocked her hips upward with each stroke to take him as deep inside her core as possible.

  “Likewise,” was the only word he could manage before capturing her lips again with his own.

  This not only lived up to his wildest fantasy—it far exceeded it.

  Because it had always been a faceless, nebulous ghost of a woman in his fantasy. It was more about the act. He had never imagined the fantasy would come true, would come to him in the form of a living, breathing woman who was far more than the sum of her parts. Connie was smart, compassionate, wise, giving. He couldn’t imagine any other woman embodying more wonderful qualities in such a seductive, alluring package. She was everything he hadn’t even hoped to dream of.

  And just like that he knew his equipment was not only functioning at least as well as he hoped, but the culmination of his passion could not be avoided for very much longer. Defying every law of physics in the universe, his cock hardened even more as the beautiful creature below him fell over the edge into pure, unadulterated bliss, screaming out his name again as her orgasm overpowered her. During her fall, she took him with her, spinning and succumbing, liberating each other and reaching their zenith in all its majesty...together.

  TEN

  An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is so private it does not seek applause. –John Updike

  Never before was Luke so grateful to have a dog than he was when he pulled into the garage after spending most of the early evening with Connie. He hated to leave her, but he knew
there would be hell to pay when he got home—and the longer he stayed, the more excruciating it would be. His routine was always to come in, get Alfie leashed up, and head out for a walk. Barbara let the dog out into their fenced-in backyard a couple times a day, but other than a dog walker coming by around lunchtime, Alfie’s evening walk was what he looked forward to the most in life.

  Luke’s phone was blowing up his whole drive home, not to mention the eight or ten texts and calls he had received while he was actually with Connie. He had told his wife he had an afternoon surgery—not a lie—but she had been expecting him by six. It was now eight. He’d spent two glorious hours making love to Connie, and most of him felt absolutely zero regrets.

  Taking Alfie the long way around the block afforded him an opportunity to collect his thoughts. Despite his still-racing heart, he knew he needed to present his findings to his wife in a calm, non-accusatory way. He would pretend he didn’t suspect she was part of it. He didn’t want to give away too much before Calvin Sr. had the opportunity to uncover more details. It had been two hours since he’d left their meeting, and he wondered if the detective’s son had connected to their wi-fi yet. He looked up and down the block for any strange vehicles. He saw a silver SUV and a gray van he didn’t recognize but wasn’t sure if either of them could be Calvin Jr.

  Alfie pranced up the stairs to the deck after doing his business in the yard. He always seemed particularly proud when it became necessary for his owner to stoop down to collect his droppings. Luke disposed of them in the trash can outside before opening the door from the deck into the house. Barbara was on the sofa with her feet propped up on the ottoman as if she’d had a trying day.

  “It’s about time you got home. Why didn’t you return any of my calls or texts?” She was already deploying that tone he hated. As much as he would try to keep the accusation out of his tone when he confronted her, she seemed to have an endless supply of it, which she generally sprinkled over all of her words.

  “Hi, sorry,” he began. He tried to relax his shoulders, but he was afraid they were still hunched up and betraying his nerves. He looked at his wife sitting there with her dyed platinum blonde hair cut blunt on the ends and grazing the edge of her chin. Everything about her was sharp. Her nose, her jaw, the angles of her bones. The only softness was a pooch around her middle she’d gained after bearing their children. Other than that she had long, bony limbs, collarbones that jutted out like the frill on a dinosaur, and shoulders that looked carved from stone. He wanted to find something beautiful about her, something redeeming, but in the past few years she’d become a bitter, sunken hull of the vibrant woman she was when they met more than a quarter of a century ago.

  More than half my life ago, he realized. But there was something about her I loved back then. What happened to that part of her?

  “Sorry is not an explanation,” she said as she glanced up from the book perched on her lap. “Where have you been?”

  “Surgery ran late,” he lied, “and we had trouble getting the patient stabilized. I couldn’t get to my phone.”

  “Well, you could have called before you left the hospital,” she fired back.

  “Yes, I could have,” he agreed with her. Sometimes agreeing with her could prevent an all-out attack.

  She slowly swung her legs over the side of the ottoman, braced herself on the arm of the sofa and pulled herself to standing as if it required every ounce of her strength. “However, I know you’re lying because I called the hospital, and you weren’t there.”

  Her voice was surprisingly calm now, eerily so. The times before when she’d caught him in a lie, it was like a volcano erupting in her throat; the words she hurled out were magma violently spewing into the sky.

  “Oh.” He tried to breathe, tried to fill his lungs with enough air to keep his heart from panicking. “I had an appointment after the surgery.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” She moved closer to him.

  It was actually a reasonable question. It wasn’t like her to be so...reasonable.

  “I’m sorry.” He scrubbed his hands down his face as he tried to access the script he’d written for this conversation. “I’ve noticed a few issues with a credit card and a couple of bank accounts. I was meeting with my accountant to move some funds around. I didn’t want to worry you about it. It’s all taken care of now.”

  Though he wasn’t able to meet with his accountant until the following day, he was able to stop by the bank on his lunch hour and move funds into a new account where she wouldn’t be able to touch them. He’d put on a freeze on any credit cards she had access to. He’d figure out the rest of it as soon as possible, but he wanted to see how she would react to knowing he’d noticed the missing money.

  Her face was frozen. There wasn’t even a flinch or a blink.

  “Oh, that’s odd,” she said smoothly. “Hope you got that all figured out.”

  She lurched toward him a few more steps. “It still doesn’t answer the question of why you left your office at five and now it’s eight. You didn’t even have a surgery this afternoon, did you?”

  Though her voice was still calm, her jaw clenched as she stared at him expectantly. Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe. You can weather whatever storm is brewing.

  “You really think I’m a complete idiot, don’t you?” Her voice finally rose, though it was still measured compared to where it normally was when she hurled accusations at him. “You think I don’t know what’s going on?”

  He shrugged. He always denied and lied. He always came up with a story. Not that he ever did anything to betray her trust before two weeks ago; it was just that anything other than him being at work or being held captive in the house was unacceptable to her. He wasn’t allowed to have a social life because it meant he didn’t care about her pain. If he wanted to go out on the boat with Cap—that usually required a lie. If he wanted to hang out with Jim and grab drinks after work, that usually required a mistruth about it being a work meeting. She’d always guilt trip him. She’d always say he didn’t care about her health or her feelings, that he didn’t want to take care of her. That he didn’t believe she was sick.

  Well, maybe I don’t. It’s been ten years, and they still don’t really know what’s wrong with her. Fibromyalgia was the leading diagnosis. He supposed there was some merit to it, but he honestly didn’t know. Seeing the way she feigned ignorance when he brought up the bank accounts and credit cards made him wonder if she was capable of faking everything.

  “Well, are you going to answer me?” Now her voice reflected her anger. Finally. This is what he was accustomed to. He could deal better with this beast—a known beast.

  “What are you implying?” he fired back. He wanted to cross his arms over his chest so badly, force her to go head to head with him. But he was going to make her work for it. He wasn’t going to back down like he normally did, come up with some way to appease her just to have this happen again in a couple weeks.

  If Connie had taught him anything in the short time he’d known her it was that sometimes it’s worth it to pursue what makes you happy—even if it means taking a risk. Even if it means some temporary pain.

  “You know damn well what I’m implying,” she snapped. “You’ve never been able to keep it in your pants, so I’m sure you’re out fucking whatever young, starry-eyed slut stupid enough to fall for it. You sure the missing funds aren’t from you financing your infidelity?” Her eyes were now laser-focused on him and practically beaming out death rays in his general direction.

  “You always accuse me of cheating, and I always deny it.” This time he took a step toward her instead of a step away. “I’m tired of playing your stupid games. We’ve been doing this for ten years.”

  “Because you don’t give a shit if I’m in pain! You think I’m proud of the fact that I can’t satisfy my husband? NO!” she seethed. “I’m not proud of that! But you don’t even care. You’re so damn selfish that all you care about is your stupid dick and whether
or not it’s getting wet. I hope it rots and falls off! What kind of slimeball would treat his disabled wife that way? Only a monster!”

  “You know what? I used to care what you think,” he said, “but I’m over that now. You can believe whatever you want about me. There are plenty of compromises we could have come up with through the years, but you were never willing to do anything that wasn’t in your own best interest.”

  It was like she had a whole warehouse full of missiles to launch at him. He doubted she’d ever run out. “Just wait until your children find out these horrible things you’ve said about me! Your own daughter told me last weekend she thinks you’ve been a horrible father, and she’s close to cutting ties with you because of the way you treat me!”

  He huffed out a breath, about to fire back that his daughter only said that because he’d already paid for her wedding. Now she couldn’t get anything else from him. Sometimes he thought Chloe was just as manipulative as her mother. But he was able to rein in that accusation.

  Why was he doing this? Why did he keep coming back for more of Barbara’s bullshit?

  “You can tell Chloe and L.T. anything you want, Barbara. I’m tired of your threats. I’ve wasted ten years of my life trying to make you happy, and the only thing I’ve gained is the realization it’s an impossible feat.”

  Her eyes flared with even more rage, which he didn’t even think was possible. She staggered toward him, shaking her fist. “You’re going to regret all of this—fucking your nurses, cheating on your wife, never doing a damn thing to take care of me. When everyone sees the way you’ve behaved, you’re going to have everything you own, everything you love stripped away from you. You know how small of a town Ocean City is, don’t you? The whole Eastern Shore, really. It’s like one of those tiny high schools where everyone knows each other. Two degrees of separation. Everything you’ve built over the past decade is going to crumble at your feet, and I’m going to be the one laughing at you, Luke. Just you wait and see!”