The Houseguest: A Novel About Sharing (and) Temptation Page 8

  I had to wonder if Ethan knew that.

  Another chill went through me. Maybe when he had looked into her jeans just moments ago he had seen for himself that she was going commando.

  Natalie stretched out on the chairs again, and Ethan came back like a loyal puppy to steal glances at her crotch. She drew her fingers up and down the neck of her bottle of beer, feigning absent-mindedness.

  It was almost too much for me to watch.

  I stood there, staring at the two of them. Their mouths moved, forming words for one conversation, but Natalie's fingers and legs and Ethan's eyes were having a completely different conversation at the same time.

  They were unmistakably interested in each other, and unmistakably trying to show it to the other.

  And hiding it very, very poorly.

  I smelled the unpleasant odor of char.

  “Shit!” I said.

  The burgers were burning.

  “Need some help, buddy?” Ethan called.

  The spell was broken. Ethan came over with a plate, and we sat down to have burgers, and both Natalie and Ethan went to great lengths to tell me they were not that burnt, and not to look at each other all through dinner.

  “So?” I whispered, when the door to our bedroom was finally closed later that night. I wasn't interested in small talk. I was interested in extracting every possible detail of the day from her.

  Natalie pressed her body against the door and smiled at me, biting her lip. She shrugged.

  Her eyes were a little frightening, a bit like a buzzard's, at that moment. She was enjoying my pain immensely. Enjoying teasing me.

  But then she seemed to take pity on me, and her eyes softened. She stepped forward and reached for my tie, which I had, almost hilariously, still not taken off. She played with it as she spoke. “Well,” she said. “The morning started out slow.” She smoothed the tie down my stomach, and her hand kept going, down to my pants and over my burgeoning erection. Then back up. The feel of my hard cock made her eye twitch a little in delight, but other than that she kept a sort of strange poker-face. She let me simmer with the idea of her “slow morning.”

  “I asked Ethan if he would work on the shed, and he said, 'sure thing, pretty lady,'”

  She did a very good imitation of Ethan.

  “And then... he went out there, and I went to my studio.”

  My mouth was open, and I was breathing pretty heavily. I felt like a rabid dog, almost.

  Natalie watched me for a while, and then she smiled again, a little more comically. She patted my tie. “That's all.”

  There must have been a look of crushed disappointment on my face. “And?”

  She shrugged. “Look, I have to be honest, I think maybe Ethan just... isn't that kind of guy anymore. You know?”

  I looked at her. “How'd you end up in your swimsuit? You didn't go to the pool.”

  She looked down at her body, as if it surprised her that she was wearing it. “Oh. That. It was hot.”

  I cocked an eyebrow.

  “I was painting in it.”

  “You didn't want to turn on the AC?”

  I wasn't sure what was in my voice; I sounded almost accusatory. As soon as I said it, I felt like a dick, and Natalie folded her arms over her chest, equally annoyed by the embedded insinuation. It was, after all, ridiculous to chastise her for wearing a bikini around when I'd asked her to experiment with my fantasy.

  I shook my head. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said -”

  “See, this is the thing I'm worried about, Erik.”

  “I'm sorry. I can't... it's just an instinctive thing.”

  “Well,” she said, flouncing past me and sitting down on the bed. “It may not even matter, he doesn't seem to be taking the bait.”

  I turned to look at her. She had her arms folded over her chest again.

  “That... are you disappointed?” I said. And then, branching off on a different thought, I added: “That doesn't seem like Ethan.”

  Could it be? I knew I should be sort of happy that Ethan was respecting my marriage enough not to actually hit on my wife, but I had gotten my hopes up so high that he wouldn't.

  Respect my marriage, that is.

  She looked up at me quickly. Then she shrugged. “I guess it's for the best,” she said.

  A shiver went through me as I realized that she sounded... disappointed.

  I sat down next to her. “It is only the first day you guys are here alone,” I said, and I put my hand on her knee. “What if... what if you sort of stepped it up a little? I mean, a bikini is nice, but maybe you have to be a little more... forward, you know?”

  Natalie looked at me, and her look was almost venomous. Then she put her hand in her face and started laughing. “I can't believe we're having this conversation.” Her cheeks flushed again.

  I moved my hand up her thigh.

  Beyond the door, we heard Ethan moving around. He was a bit of a night owl. It sounded like he was planning to go out again.

  “I have an idea,” I said. “What if... you went out there in your underwear or something. And just... you know, ran into him? Maybe when he comes back from the bar?”

  Ethan had advised us shortly after dinner that he was going out. He’d invited us, and we’d declined.

  Natalie's mouth dropped, and she laughed at me again. “How am I going to know when he comes back from the bar? Set an alarm? No way,” she shook her head.

  But I could see the idea was getting to her. I could see that she was sort of picturing it.

  “If you wore that shirt out, with no bra on... and maybe your little pink boy shorts? Then, look, if he's totally resistant to that we know he's reformed, right? And that's that.”

  We were whispering, like we were planning a train robbery or something. Natalie slid her fingers along her scalp and into her hair, and then pulled her head back, holding onto one of her silky locks. “You're kidding,” she said, but she was smiling. She was making a face like she was aghast, but she really wasn't. I could see it in her face.

  She wanted to try it.

  “How am I going to know when to go out there?” she said. She was grinning.

  I tapped my fingers on the bed. I shrugged. “I could go out with him,” I said. “And text you on the way back.”

  We stared at each other. “This is fucking crazy,” she said. “It's a Wednesday. You can't... go out every night with him. I'm sure I don't like that idea.” She pressed her lips together. “This is getting too... silly. Look, I'll just try to listen for him tonight, and then... I'll try to be a little more... direct tomorrow.”

  “It'd be better to hit him when he's got a little less inhibition,” I said.

  Part of me couldn't actually believe that I was having this kind of conversation with my wife. The other part of me was strangely comfortable with it.

  “You're evil.” Natalie shook her head.

  I moved my hand up her leg and leaned in to kiss her. “We could always... stay up a little later... do something to keep our minds busy while we wait...”

  I was fully expecting for this idea to get turned down.

  But Natalie grinned. “Okay.”

  If there's one thing that all of this had done for us, it was to add the spark back into our private love life, at least for now.

  I woke up because it seemed like the power had gone out. The sudden silence of the appliances turning off was deafening. But I looked around, and everything was on. The alarm clock was flashing though, meaning there had been a surge of some kind.

  It took me a moment to orient myself in time. I moved my hand over to Natalie's side of the bed. It was empty.

  And cool.

  I sat up.

  Our plan hit me in the face, and I was instantly awake. Wide awake. My eyes adjusted to the light, my ears seemed to prickle, listening for any sound beyond the bedroom.

  The door was closed. I stood up, scanning the shadows of the bathroom for any sign of Natalie. There were none. I crept across th
e plush carpet and stood next to the door.

  Nothing.

  I leaned my ear to the wood.

  I knew it was going to be impossible to hear through the door, but I tried anyway.

  Nothing.

  My heart was beating furiously now. I put my hand on the doorknob and started to turn it.

  What if they were right out there, or in the hallway?

  I froze.

  No. I would hear them, right?

  Had Natalie really gone out there in nothing but her teeny-tiny pink pajama bottoms and her white t-shirt with no bra? To “run into” Ethan?

  I had hoped she'd do it, but I hadn't really expected her to.

  I pictured her gliding into the kitchen, her big pink nipples pressing against the fabric of the t-shirt. She had big aureole, light pink but starkly contrasted with her porcelain skin. Ethan would be able to see the full shape and coloring of her breasts through that shirt, even in the dim light. He'd know that her pajama bottoms served as underwear, that the only thing between his fingers and her pussy was the thin pink fabric.

  I shuddered.

  Then I kept turning and pulled the door open an inch.

  There was definitely movement in the kitchen. The stove night-light was on, but the faint shadows cast on the living room wall, which I could see through the entrance to the hallway, shifted with the movement of someone.

  Maybe it was just Natalie. Maybe she just needed some tea, or an aspirin.

  Then I heard the voices. Whispers.

  Two people talking in whispers.

  And not, I thought with a shiver of delight and horror, because they just really wanted me to get uninterrupted sleep.

  They were whispering because they didn't want me to wake up.

  What were they doing?

  Unable to take it any longer, and imagining the most filthy things I could, I crept into the hallway and pressed myself up to the frame of the entrance.

  Still, all I could get was the whispering.

  I turned my whole body very slowly, and peered into the kitchen.

  I could see Natalie's round bottom and part of her legs. The pink nightie was hiked up – it seemed to me – especially high. She was leaning on the counter, her whole body practically lying on top of it, and one foot perched on her other calf. The wall between the kitchen and dining room blocked my view of her from the waist up, and I couldn't see Ethan at all.

  I almost couldn't believe what I was doing, and the plan I was making in my mind, as I dropped to my knees and crawled over to the low wall with an arched open-window between the kitchen and the dining room. I was well into the shadows, and the dining room was one that hardly anyone used, so I wouldn't be seen if they went to bed or even went to the living room.

  But I might be seen, if I did the thing I felt myself doing: I rose up to peek over the overhang and into the kitchen.

  The scene was hardly sexual, but that almost made it worse. Natalie was, indeed, in her tight pink pajama bottoms, and her tight white see-through t-shirt. Her hair was down, and she had it off to one side. Her shirt had pulled down, tight over her breasts, and I could see her hardened nipples through the fabric, even from where I was.

  Ethan was also leaning on the counter, and their hands were very close in the center of the table. There was a phone there, as if they had shared something on it, but no one was looking at it now. It seemed to have served as an excuse to put their heads close together, and remain there after seeing whatever they had looked at. Natalie was tapping her fingers very close to his. Not yet touching, but you could almost feel the desire for them to do so.

  Natalie was shaking her head. They weren't really saying much anymore, and I couldn't hear what they did say. It went on like this for a torturous five minutes. I didn't know if i was relieved that it was nothing more than this, or disappointed.

  But then Ethan spoke in a low murmur. “I know it isn't right to say that,” I heard him say distinctly.

  It felt like a hot knife was punched through my chest.

  Natalie looked up, and gave her hair a little shake to get it from her face.

  She was about to say something when Ethan reached out and slid his fingers down the neckline of her shirt, until he reached the bend in the v-shape. Natalie remained as she was, mesmerized. He hooked his finger on the “v” and pulled on the shirt. He pulled until it snapped back onto her skin.

  Natalie stayed as she was for just moments too long. Then she stood up, pushing away from the counter. “I... uh...” she said.

  She moved around the countertop, toward the kitchen doorway, and Ethan stepped into her path. “Hey, Natalie,” he said. He held a hand toward her. “I'm sorry. I didn't... I wasn't thinking. I'm just a mess. I just..”

  There they were, just a foot away from each other. Ethan hardly looked repentant, if you looked at his body.

  I silently urged Natalie to moved forward. Put her hand on his chest, or maybe let him take her up in his arms right there.

  “I can't do this,” she said.

  It felt good to hear her say that, but it was also a squeeze – and not a good one – on my balls. So close. I wanted her to take it just a little bit further...

  “Natalie, Natalie, Natalie,” he said. He moved a tiny bit closer to her.

  Like every woman Ethan went after, my wife seemed to get sort of intoxicated by him. She closed her eyes, and her body swayed a little, as though she a losing her balance. “I can keep a secret, if you can,” he said.

  What a motherfucker.

  After all, I'd known that about him, it's the whole reason I'd put him in my house with my wife, but seeing it play out like this you had to give credit for being a dick where credit was due.

  Natalie's eyes opened. She swayed a little in front of him. He lifted his hand and put it in her hair, on the side that was down, running his fingers through it. His fingertips rested on her shoulder, and then trailed down her arm.

  Then Ethan sort of shook himself. “God,” he said. “You're right.” He held his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose and inhaled and exhaled sharply. “I'm... going to bed.”

  And he did.

  I watched Natalie. She kept her eyes on him, and she let out air that she had kept trapped in her lungs as soon as he left.

  Oh Natalie, Natalie, Natalie.

  The one thing that was not going to be a disappointment: I would be able to find out just exactly how much Ethan's charms had worked on Natalie.

  And there was this: I didn't believe for a minute he really wanted to stop there. Ethan was in for the long game. He had walked away to keep her hungry, make himself look good.

  And judging by the way Natalie was still swaying, her hand to her chest and her mouth open? He was doing a good job.

  I snuck in after Natalie. I didn't want to come out of the shadows and scare her half to death.

  She was sitting on the bed, the light on, one long leg crossed over the other.

  She didn't seem at all surprised when she saw me come in and close the door quietly behind me.

  “And where have you been?” she said. She leaned back on her hands, thrusting her breasts forward. Her hard nipples poked through the fabric.

  She really was spectacular-looking, especially in that just-barely covered getup.

  She twisted her ankle in a circle. “How much did you see?” she said.

  It suddenly occurred to me that Natalie had been very sneaky. Very sneaky indeed. Why hadn't she woken me up? Had she wanted to hide that she was out there with Ethan? Would she have told me about any of this if she had come back and found me asleep?

  “Why didn't you wake me up?”

  She shook her hair behind her. “I tried to,” she said, with a smile.

  I was a notoriously hard-to wake sleeper.

  “How much did you see?” she said.

  “Just the end,” I whispered, and I walked toward her. She was being one sassy little girl, for someone who just flirted with another man. And now I wanted to kno
w exactly how it had affected her.

  I stood next to her and looked down at her. She looked up at me with the same surprisingly wicked grin.

  “Scoot back on the bed,” I said, and this elicited an even more excited grin from her. She obeyed me, crawling backwards on her elbows until her feet were at the edge of the bed. I reached down and yanked her pajamas off, and then I pushed her legs open.

  The scent of her excitement confirmed what I had suspected, but I looked down to take it in with my eyes: her pussy was glistening with her juices. I reached down with my fingers and slid them between her folds, feeling the slick evidence of her arousal.

  You little slut.

  “It looks like Ethan's slick, Southern charm has had quite an effect on you,” I said. “Maybe you should have taken him up on his offer.”

  Natalie looked at me. “Maybe,” she said softly, with a grin. “But I think it will be so much better if we all have to wait a little bit, don't you?”

  I was sliding out of my boxers and pulling my shirt over my head.

  When I got the shirt off, Natalie had moved to the edge of the bed again. She was seated now, and she reached for my cock. She held it with one hand and put the tip on her lips, rubbing my shaft over her wet mouth. Then she began to work on the glans, licking around it, trailing the tip of her tongue along the ridge, pressing her lips together to warm the whole of it in her mouth. She lifted her eyes to me. “I'm sorry I was such a bad, naughty wife,” she said.

  My cock flopped so much it slapped against her face. She steadied it with her hand, but her face revealed her delight with the reaction that I had. She rubbed the tip of my cock over her lips. “I hope I can make it up to you,” she purred.

  My mouth fell open.

  “What can I do to show you how sorry I am?”

  Jesus fuck.

  I put my hands in her hair, and pushed her down the length of my shaft. She sucked on my cock, taking me all the way to the back of her throat until she gagged.

  “Good girl,” I said. When she came up for a breath I lifted my shaft and stood on tiptoe to drop my balls on her lips, and she took the cue marvelously and dropped to her knees on the floor, opening he r mouth to let me drop my sack into the open hole of her mouth. “Show me how you're going to suck on Ethan's balls. Show me what a dirty little slut you can be.”