Madeleine Wakes (A Wife-Watching Romance): Book One of the Madeleine Trilogy Read online

  Madeleine Wakes

  Copyright © 2014 by Max Sebastian

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by Kenny Wright

  Cover Design by Kenny Wright

  Cover image © Arman Zhenikeyev | Dreamstime.com

  First digital edition electronically published by KW Publishing, February 2014

  First print edition published by KW Publishing, January 2014

  Printed by CreateSpace, Charleston SC

  This is a work of fiction, any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or events, organizations or locations, is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or in part of this publication without written consent is strictly prohibited, other than limited quotes for purposes of review.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read this book, please do consider leaving a review wherever you bought this title, to help others find this story.

  Contents

  Cover

  Copyright Information

  Madeleine Wakes

  Foreword

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One of Madeleine Plays

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Other books by Max Sebastian

  “I had to touch you with my hands, I had to taste you with my tongue; one can’t love and do nothing.”

  - Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

  Foreword by Kenny Wright

  If you like wife-watching romances, then you are in for a treat. The book that you hold in your hands—or on your screen, or e-reader, or whatever—is the most thorough telling of the fantasy that I’ve ever read. If there are such things as epics in this genre, then Madeleine Wakes surely classifies.

  I’ve been involved with this project for many months, watching it grow, watching it evolve, watching as Hugo himself watches his wife undergo her powerful transformation. Max wanted to tell the story of one man’s desire to watch his wife with other men from the very beginning. Madeleine and Hugo come into this story as clean slates, and walk out of it awoken to the sexy—sometimes uncomfortable—but always loving—adventures of wife-sharing.

  I’m lucky to count Max not only as an author I can trust, but as a friend. He’s a guy who really gets this subgenre. He understands that even though these stories introduce sex outside of marriage, it’s the relationship between husband and wife that is central to the story. That relationship is the central character, and it’s that relationship that we see challenged, conflicted, evolving, and finally resolving.

  And if you like this story and are looking for more in its vein (shameless plug incoming), Max and I have teamed up with authors Kirsten McCurran and Ben Boswell to create a new site: eroticaformen.com. You won’t simply find wife-watching books there. You will find character-driven, plotted books—many of which are written from a male perspective, but not all—where relationships are central and HEAs are plentiful. Despite the name, the books aren’t for men alone, but they appeal to me, and since I’m a guy, I can only speak for myself.

  But first things first, sit back, grab your beverage of choice, and enjoy Madeleine Wakes. I’m envious that you get to experience it for the first time.

  Kenny Wright

  kennywriter.com

  One

  Hugo awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of Madeleine crying, and as ever it made his blood run cold. She wasn’t lying in the bed next to him—it sounded as though she’d gone out into the living room. He waited a moment, cautious, pausing to determine that he wasn’t mistaken.

  The quiet, plaintive noise continued.

  He had no doubt what she was doing. Trying to hide her sadness from him, just when he’d been so hopeful she was in full recovery. It made him feel as though his insides were being eaten away by acid.

  Ever since they’d moved to a new city, starting afresh, Madeleine had seemed to be getting better, happier, leaving the past behind. It was a bitter disappointment to find this wasn’t the case. After everything she’d been through, and all the effort she’d put in to haul herself out of the condition that had plagued her for so long, now it looked as though she’d been putting on a happy face all along.

  He loved her for her selflessness, but keeping the bad feelings to herself wasn’t a healthy way to deal with it.

  Her crying wasn’t particularly loud—he was surprised she’d woken him at all. During their last year or so in Boston, his senses had become so dulled to his wife’s tears that it had no longer woken him. Now it seemed he was back to the old pattern, from the early days, of waking up at the slightest sign of distress.

  How blissfully happy she’d been in recent days, after getting her new job. Had none of that been real?

  “It’s nothing really,” she’d said modestly when she’d revealed the news. But he’d seen in her face how important it was to her, and the simple fact that she’d come to meet him after work to go for a celebratory meal showed how significant it was to her.

  “It’s fantastic, honey. I’m so pleased.”

  “It’s just working in a bookstore. I mean, it’s not even writing anything.”

  “It’s perfect—you always loved hanging out in bookstores. And when you’re ready, maybe it’ll be a platform to build on.”

  “It will, won’t it?”

  Then her face was breaking out into that pretty smile, the brightness in her whole demeanor making Hugo feel slightly weak at the knees, offering him a glimpse of the Madeleine he had married before things had turned so bleak.

  They’d gone out to celebrate—mimosas at Benji’s. And she’d been so cheerful, so up-beat—had all that been put on for his benefit? Was she secretly gloomy that her new position didn’t have the same kind of status as her old reporting job at the Globe?

  In the darkness, Hugo now hauled himself up from the mattress, trying to keep positive. Maybe some isolated incident had upset her. Something tangible, something he could contend with in cheering her up. They could sort this out, they could cope with whatever it was that had caused this setback. They had to.

  He padded silently over the carpet to the bedroom door, his heart aching at the soft sound of sorrow from his wife, wondering whether this was the first time she’d snuck out of the bedroom to vent her pent-up feelings like this—or whether this had happened many times before.

  Hugo paused in the small hallway that led from the bedroom through to the cramped but open-plan kitchen-living area. Hearing her like this always brought back the sharp bite of guilt. It had dogged him all through his wife’s illness, from the very beginning. On the surface, he knew he’d done everything he could to help her, but deep down, he’d never been able to shift the feeling that he was a husband who couldn’t manage the most basic thing in a marriage—to make his beloved wife happy.

  From the hallway, he could hear her heavy breathing—irregular, ponderous and constantly interrupted by sobs and sighs or the occasional quiet moan. She was so clearly trying to contain her noise, to keep from waking her husband. She knew he had to get up early to go to work in the morning, he needed his sleep. She didn’t want to weigh him down with worries about her condition.

  A series of staccato breaths made him certai
n she was really sobbing. This was truly another step back in their long, arduous journey together.

  He stood still for a moment, frozen to the spot as though needing to build up his strength before he laid eyes on her. Before he saw her back in the tight grip of profound misery. A quiet sigh escaped his lips as he racked his tired mind for something to say that might calm her down, distract her even momentarily from the darkness.

  We’ll find a new therapist, he might suggest. I mean, from what you were saying, this Dr. Simeon has some fairly strange ideas, right?

  Or perhaps something more positive for her to focus on: Why don’t we plan a vacation somewhere?”

  Or more drastic: D’you think maybe New York’s just not the best place for us just now?

  He always felt so useless when his wife was upset. He could embrace her, hold her tight, but he never felt he was doing much good. She always told him it helped, but really, he was sure it did nothing for her, nothing to tackle the cause of the pain that had seized hold ever since that awful day three years ago when their pregnancy had turned sour.

  He felt so exhausted standing there listening to her. There was no inspiration coming to him, he was out of ideas.

  I’m sorry, honey, it’s just the way it is.

  He slowly drew in a lungful of oxygen, gearing himself up for the effort it was going to take to calm her, to apologize for everything, to assure her it would get better, they’d find a way. But then, just before making a move, something held him back.

  He couldn’t pin down what it was at first. Was there a slightly different tone, a different cadence to her crying compared to what he remembered from those years of depression? Some kind of subtle disparity from her usual bout of melancholy. Perhaps fatigue was playing tricks on his mind.

  More heavy breathing, and another few soft sighs.

  Hugo felt his ears prick up, along with something else down below as he started to consider an alternative hypothesis concerning her cries. Madeleine emitted another little sigh, and it sounded somehow...beautiful. Melodic. Delicate, sweet—but not necessarily miserable.

  He waited, listening.

  And it slowly dawned on him exactly what Madeleine was doing all alone sitting on the window seat out in the living room.

  Jesus.

  It was perfectly natural, of course, that she might want to relieve some pent-up desire. But Madeleine had been so desexualized ever since the condition had taken hold, it was a shock to Hugo to hear her now expressing herself in this way.

  Considering the fact that the condition and its debasing affects had robbed their relationship of any real intimacy, it couldn’t be a surprise to Hugo that Madeleine should now be taking care of herself like this. But it still seemed somehow startling to him.

  He’d never really challenged the loss of their sexual connection—he’d always felt it might come across to Madeleine as though he was complaining that she wasn’t servicing him properly as a wife should, when it was quite clear she just wasn’t ever in the mood under the brutal yoke of her depression. He hadn’t really thought about it much since they’d come to New York, even as she had started to move back toward some kind of normality. He’d always figured that when she was ready, she would make it clear enough she wanted to rekindle things. Perhaps that time was drawing near. It was an exciting prospect.

  Hugo felt his manhood thicken dramatically as he continued to listen to her.

  He felt strong temptation to just go straight out there and pounce on her, hoping she was game for their first real liaison in years. Yet for some reason he kept back, fearing how she might react. She might be frightened by his sudden appearance, she might reject his overtures. She might not be ready.

  She might even feel he was invading her privacy, in knowing what she was doing, and any resulting anger could kill any hopes of a rekindling.

  However, understanding he was of her need to take things at her own speed, Hugo found his respect for her personal space totally overwhelmed by his formidable curiosity. He might be able to hold himself back from jumping her bones, but he couldn’t tear himself away from those sweet sounds she was making. He wanted to see.

  His heart was pounding as he detected the slight hint of spice in the air from her arousal. Her soft sighs, quiet moans, the sudden gasps for breath, the constant deep rhythm as her chest rose and fell, it was like music to his ears, truly bewitching.

  She was giving pleasure to herself, and in doing so it gave pleasure to him.

  He edged toward the corner, one eye creeping out to see the kitchen area, and over toward the windows where Madeleine was sitting.

  The blinds were drawn, but in the darkness enough amber light filtered through the slats from the street to reveal her stunning beauty as she sat there, up against the far wall, her long dirty blonde hair flowing loose down her back, one leg lodged against the window, the other hanging off the edge to expose her little white panties. Her nipples were rock hard under the thin pink t-shirt she’d worn to bed, jostling against the material as she stirred. There was no sign of the sweatpants she’d also worn to bed.

  Hugo had to stifle a groan as he watched her fingers move under the thin cotton of her underwear, her body undulating to the rhythm of her caresses.

  God, she was so sexy.

  There had been a time when they’d first been dating, that she’d let him watch her touching herself. It had never been long stretches, never through to orgasm, but it had been a serious turn-on at the time. Seeing her pleasing herself, her body responding with such grace to her expert ministrations. Was it inevitable that that kind of naughty little playfulness had disappeared from their relationship? Even before their long sexual hiatus, marriage had turned their love-making into a shorthand abbreviation of what it once was.

  Madeleine now raised her hips to slip off her panties, revealing the soft patch of fair hair nestled between her thighs, a sight that made Hugo let out a quiet gasp. She turned her head sharply, angling her ears toward him, freezing as she strained to detect any threat, or any suggestion that her husband had awoken.

  Hugo slipped back behind the corner, heart thumping, fearful of discovery.

  He could only wait, heart beat after heart beat, focused on breathing as quietly as humanly possible. His silence stretched out, long enough to reassure his beautiful wife that her privacy was still safe, that her innocent husband remained shut away in their bedroom.

  He risked another glimpse, slipping one eye back out into the open. In the street outside, a particularly loud vehicle driving by seemed to offer some kind of explanation for anything that had disturbed her, making her visibly relax so she could finish dragging her panties down over her knees and off past her feet.

  Hugo took more care to control himself as she now dropped her underwear on the floor beside her, and in the dim orange-hued light he could see her thighs open up to reveal that exquisite little flower, her fingers splaying out through her soft down toward her dewy lips.

  Oh, she was such an exquisite creature. Was it morally wrong to watch her like this?

  Hugo wanted so badly to just go over there and join her now, to touch her as she was touching herself, feel the softness of her skin, the heat of her body, the wetness of her sex. But if he did, he felt sure she would be embarrassed, awkward, and even guilty that she’d been touching herself in secret rather than initiating anything with him.

  He also suspected that if he suddenly appeared and she did accept him, her attention would turn to pleasing him, ensuring he had a suitable orgasm, sacrificing her own pleasure in so doing. Hugo wanted her to come, he really needed to see her fulfill her own conclusion, as though to verify it was still possible. The only real guarantee he had was to leave her be—she was the best qualified for that particular task.

  So he merely stood back and quietly teased himself with his craving for her.

  What was she thinking about while her hands glided over those wonderful curves, her fingers slipping over her mound and into her soaking pussy?
Women were such a mystery, even when you married them. Was she imagining him in some way? Some passionate experience from the past?

  It was glorious to see her giving herself such pleasure, such a searing sight to see her moving with such poise and finesse, her fingers sinking inside her slippery folds, teasing out those wonderful little moans, those sexy little gasps.

  The longer she went on, the more she seemed reassured by the continuing stillness of the night, that her actions were not encroaching on her husband’s sleep. Yet he could still hear that cute little nervous tremor in her breathing as her fingers danced over her curves and between her thighs.

  Her body slumped down on the window seat so that she was almost horizontal, her eyes closed, focused on only the sensations from her touch. She began to suck her breath through her teeth as her fingers stirred her sex in continuous circles, and she now seemed resolved to go all the way.

  Hugo marveled at her flowing, elegant motion, her body writhing and rocking almost as though liquid, those curves so eloquent in expressing the sensations she felt as she moved, her hands building up the pace toward her imminent climax.

  God, she was the sexiest creature he’d ever known.

  She had such an enigmatic glint in her eye, he wished he had a window into what she was thinking. Were women like guys, picturing some hot model or celebrity when they touched themselves? Fantasizing about some movie they’d once seen. He’d never really raised it with Madeleine, the subject of masturbation seeming inappropriate even between a married couple.

  What do you think about when you stroke yourself, Madeleine? Are you imagining me? My hard cock sinking into your tightness, filling you up, stirring inside you? Or are you dreaming of some unattainable fantasy hunk?

  He’d never really thought about the prospect of Madeleine fantasizing about models or actors, but it was only natural if she did. As a younger man, he supposed it would have made him feel jealous, though the reality was he himself lusted after models and actresses from time to time. Tonight, he found he didn’t mind if she was dreaming of some poster boy or other. He was ecstatic she was getting back in touch with her sexuality at all.