Madeleine Wakes (A Wife-Watching Romance): Book One of the Madeleine Trilogy Page 11

  “I’m sorry,” she said in barely more than a whisper.

  Hugo shook his head. “No,” he said, leaning forward, eyes blazing as he added quietly: “I like that you drive them crazy.”

  “You like it?”

  There was that crinkle in her brow again, like she thought he was nuts. She probably did.

  “Does it turn you on, when they look at you?” he said in a low voice, fire continuing to flicker in his eyes. “I’ll bet it does. When they see your thighs. Look down your top. Must like those lacy bras you’ve started wearing.”

  He saw her fidget, adjust her posture, squeeze her thighs together as though she was having a hard time suppressing arousal.

  Beautifully shocked, she said: “Are you trying to drive me crazy now?”

  He gave her a devilish grin. “I bet you got a real rush out of it at work, huh? No wonder you’ve been so on edge at night after you get home.”

  “Wait, what—?”

  But the waiter was there again, taking the card sitting on the check. Madeleine held her tongue, though she had questions all stacked up and ready to land.

  “Bar’s open until midnight,” the waiter said to them, cocking his head towards the smart-looking but largely empty granite-topped counter running along the far wall. Subtly lit, comfortably laid out with leather-topped bar stools.

  “Thanks,” Hugo said. “Sounds good.”

  He rose to his feet, and gestured for Madeleine to follow suit. “Shall we?” he asked her.

  She looked uncertain, turning to assess their surroundings, concerned their privacy would be somehow compromised by the change of scene. But with his outstretched hand sitting there, not budging, she relented, placed her delicate hand in his, hauled herself up.

  “What do you mean I’m on edge after I get home?” she whispered as he kissed her on the cheek, breathing in the subtle floral top notes and cherry-vanilla baseline of her signature fragrance.

  “I may have seen… a little more than I was supposed to,” he said, his tone becoming apologetic. The shoe on the other foot now, time for his own confession. The alcohol was making it easier for him to say what was on his mind, but Hugo suddenly worried that it would spoil things, make her angry. But this had to come out sooner or later.

  “I don’t under—”

  “What you do sometimes when you think I’m asleep?”

  She caught her breath, shot him a sharp, startled look, realizing what he was alluding to—but now she couldn’t respond, couldn’t say anything, because he was leading her through the tables to the bar.

  “Here okay?” he asked her, drawing out a barstool for her.

  “Sure,” she said, feeling her throat running dry. Lifting the liqueur she’d failed to finish at the table, using the sharp but smooth, faintly chocolatey Irish cream almost as a mouthwash.

  The barman topped up Hugo’s single malt, and Madeleine found to her surprise that her own glass was also now empty. How much had she had to drink that evening? Was that risking an argument? A drunken fight?

  Madeleine clearly didn’t know what to say after his little revelation.

  Hugo tried to explain. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I… it caught me by surprise to start with. I guess after everything that’s happened to us… well, I wasn’t expecting you to be so… well, sexual.”

  “Sexual?” Madeleine raised an eyebrow.

  He said: “I guess with everything that happened, we just got used to not being physical together. Kiss on the cheek, quiet hug, maybe the occasional complement on the current outfit. I see you’re not wearing makeup, you don’t put perfume on, you cover up in baggy sweatpants—I assume you’re still off sex, you know, from before. I don’t want to force the issue, I don’t want to spoil your recovery.”

  “Oh, sweetie, it’s not…”

  “Only, there you are after dark, quietly finding your own little place on the window seat for a little private time.”

  Madeleine looked at him, her dark eyes flickering around his face, examining every detail, assessing every nuance of his expression for clues about whether he was mad at her.

  He sighed, and it seemed to defuse her fear a little. He said: “I guess it just surprised me a little, caught me off guard. I didn’t know how to react, so I just froze. Then I saw you, and I couldn’t stop watching. I didn’t want you to stop.”

  She was silent still, gazing at him. Only now he was worried she was going to be angry at him.

  Then she said coolly: “So you like watching, huh?”

  With a somewhat sheepish smile, he said: “You were so beautiful, honey, I couldn’t help myself.”

  “You were asleep,” she insisted, in mild protest. “You were snoring.”

  He shrugged. “I guess you thought so.”

  She flushed again, deeper than ever, startlingly, scarlet spreading down to her chest. So sexy. But beyond the blush, there was a glimmer of something there... She liked it that he was watching.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  “Sorry?”

  “For going it alone.”

  He shrugged. “You deserve a good sex life,” he said.

  “I have a good sex life.”

  “Not with me you don’t.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re just not ready yet.”

  “I’m serious. It shouldn’t be this way—you need release. It’s only human.”

  He felt suddenly afraid the evening was going to turn into an ugly argument. But things needed to be said. If only he could figure out how.

  “It’s only occasionally,” she insisted with another small white lie. “You know… when things build up.”

  Hugo smiled, “I don’t have a problem with it. I love that you do it.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Why do you think I like watching you?”

  Madeleine’s dark eyes blazed like never before. “You’re such a bad man, Hugo Finnell,” she said, but did not seem to object to the idea. The way she was looking down at him, her chest rising and falling so noticeably, Hugo wondered if he’d accidentally stumbled onto a particular fantasy of hers.

  Watching her.

  “You used to let me watch you,” he said. “You know, before.” Before. Her condition was like some kind of historical milestone. Before Depression, Anno Depression.

  “I liked it when you watched,” she said, and her suddenly sad eyes told him she regretted their lost connection, that until this evening, she might even have imagined that they might have been finished sexually as a couple, that her condition had taken too much out of them both to bring back any kind of erotic interest.

  “And you still like it?”

  She took a swig of her Baileys, gave him a dark look.

  “I’d have to see when it next happens.”

  Hugo felt a shiver pass over him at the thought she might give him another sexy show.

  He swallowed. Said: “You will.”

  “Maybe next time you’re watching me, you could join in.”

  Thirteen

  It had been a wonderfully cathartic evening together, but then they arrived home only for the usual domesticity to kick back in. Madeleine was quickly dressed down into her sweatpants, and both of them latched into the same old process of preparing for bed.

  Well, they were both tired, they’d both had a bit to drink.

  Hugo felt slightly frustrated, though. Their clear-the-air talk after dinner was supposed to lead naturally on to their first sexual encounter for many months. But after a cab ride home in which they were both battling sleep, the golden opportunity seemed lost.

  God, was he supposed to initiate things right now?

  It felt strange, he didn’t know how to seduce his wife any more—anything he wanted to do seemed inappropriate now that she was getting ready for bed, clearly not in the mood.

  He felt he had no other choice than to just go to bed, more than a touch disappointed that they weren’t just engaging in some kind of ma
rathon session already.

  He just had to hope that it hadn’t just been the drink talking when Madeleine had said that sultry line.

  “Maybe next time you’re watching me, you could join in.”

  *

  He woke from a short sleep, and it was three in the morning, and there was Madeleine sitting in the window.

  This time she was in the bedroom.

  He was surprised at first to see her there, just a few yards away. Was it really her? Or was he dreaming? If she was there, touching herself, did it mean she wanted him to join her?

  “Maybe next time you’re watching me…”

  Hugo smiled, propping himself quietly up on his elbows. Her fatigue when they’d come home, her quick change into sweatpants—that had all been intended, to let him fall asleep so she could wake him in the same way it had happened when he’d watched her before.

  She wanted him. God, it felt good to know.

  He swore he could smell the slight mustiness in the air from her arousal, and he could certainly detect her delicate perfume in the air, even after an evening’s date—although he suspected she’d reapplied.

  Silent, at first, he merely watched her.

  Filtered by the blinds, the streetlight drew horizontal orange lines across her body as she gazed out at the distant glimmer, one hand pushing out the front of her halter top, the other sunk inside her little white cotton panties.

  As if she was in some kind of trance, her eyes were wide, mouth open. The only movement was a slow undulation between her thighs as she looked out at the windows across the street.

  He felt a stabbing heat inside his stomach. What was she thinking about while she was looking out the window? Was she watching somebody? Or was she merely teasing her husband because she knew him to be watching her?

  They hadn’t talked about the revelation that Madeleine had a crush living across the building. Dinner had been totally consumed by Madeleine’s kiss, and his own confession that he’d watched her masturbation.

  Hugo felt the need to raise the issue with her—he needed reassurance that it was just a harmless thing.

  He kept silent a while, merely enjoying her personal exploration. Lit by the street, she was quite beautiful, and the slow, constant refrain of her breathing was like sensuous music to his ears.

  Hard from watching her, he didn’t even need to look through the windows to know there was some kind of party going on over there. Late night pounding music could be heard, hardly dampened at all by windows, the air conditioning or the street at its traffic.

  Who was she watching? The party as a whole or someone in particular? Could she see her crush? He couldn’t make out much from the bed—the apartment in which the party was going on had windows stuffed full of people, and any of the guys might have been of interest to Madeleine, although they were on the young side—college students, Hugo would have said.

  His gaze turning back to the more interesting sight in front of him, Hugo felt strangely calm, though he suspected as a married man he ought to feel different. A married man would not be so damn erect like this as he caught sight of his wife fantasizing about another man, or other men.

  He couldn’t help but recall Madeleine’s phone conversations with Lucy, the ones he’d overheard when she had thought him asleep. The shock of that word: cheat. Madeleine had insisted she would never cheat. But the fact they’d discussed it...

  Did he even care if she wanted to stray? As long as she didn’t decide to leave him, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? It was only sex. Only a physical connection. She didn’t need another man’s emotional support, another man’s company. After years with little or no sex, and even longer with nothing but Hugo, she was going through some kind of sexual re-awakening, and that had to be exciting.

  He wanted her to continue this sexual re-awakening, didn’t he? Almost as much as he wanted her to continue her recovery from such a debilitating illness. Yet there were risks, there was danger.

  He felt a curiously giddy sensation, as though he had to make a bold decision, had to take action, it was inevitable. Fate was pushing him up off the bed now. He couldn’t afford to deny her, if she was expecting him to join her. Not when other suitors waited in the wings.

  He had to just go for it.

  Maybe next time you’re watching me...

  Hugo pulled back the covers with enough ruffling turbulence to be clear he was getting up, wanting her to be aware of his waking presence without saying a thing.

  Madeleine just continued to watch, giving no sign she detected him, though there was no way she could fail to see him slip off the bed, stand and walk over to her.

  “He’s having sex with two different women at once,” she said, her voice small, barely more than a whisper, yet shocking to Hugo.

  He peered across the street, eyes flicking from one window to the other, scouring the congregations of college students in the hope of seeing what Madeleine described.

  “At the party?” he asked her, his voice a little hoarse after his premature waking.

  It seemed odd to Hugo to stand so close to his wife now, and she was masturbating. Running those graceful fingers of hers over her open pussy as she held her white virginal panties aside. Her spicy feminine scent was strong, exhilarating. And she was doing it right next to him.

  Well, he had said he’d like to see.

  “Not at the party,” she said. “Down a floor.”

  He craned his neck and gently kissed her cheek as his eyes flicked from window to window down below the party apartment. Below, and a little to the left, he saw exactly what she was looking at. Wow.

  “They been doing it long?”

  “A while.”

  The apartment at the focus of Madeleine’s gaze looked well fitted out—luxurious. The furniture was designer, the decor spartan and stylish, the place completely free of clutter. Whoever lived there obviously had money, but considering what was happening in the bedroom, they also clearly had a fairly wild lifestyle.

  There on a massive bed, sprawled over pure white bed linen, two beautiful young women appeared to be taking turns going down on a single athletic-looking, well-groomed man. Not a college student. Perhaps a year or two younger than Madeleine and Hugo, but not a decade younger like the college students.

  Hugo found himself shocked once again. It was the young man from the bookstore, the one he had seen hounding and irritating her just before he’d left. The one he thought she hated. Madeleine’s crush was not a harmless young thing who could never be a threat to her marriage—he was practically their age. No shame for her to date publicly. The jealousy took his breath away—though he knew it was ridiculous, he had to trust Madeleine, she wasn’t the divorcing type—yet it also further strengthened his desire for his wife, somehow.

  “You like watching them?” he asked, wanting her to open up, tell him what she was thinking.

  “I think so.”

  She looked nervous at her admission, though her eyes did not budge from the view.

  She said: “You’re not angry I’ve been watching?”

  “No, I think it’s hot. How could it not be?”

  Looking down from that angle, the high ceilings of the apartment across the street meant they could see almost the whole bed. The three occupants of the bed hadn’t even tried to conceal what was going on, but then their confident display suggested they probably got off on the prospect of being watched.

  Hugo watched briefly as one of the women, who appeared to be of Indian descent with her lush black hair and golden skin, passed the man’s huge cock over to her brunette friend, who lay next to her on the bed. As the pale brunette took him into her mouth, the Asian girl languished long, slow licks up his extensive shaft.

  “They seem happy to share,” he said to Madeleine quietly.

  “They’re very close friends, apparently,” she replied, her voice sounding a touch more confident now somehow.

  As the girls switched places once again in sucking the man, they were a
lmost kissing each other.

  It was a sizzling display, but although it was a scenario he’d fantasized about many times as a young man, now it was happening in front of him for the first time ever in the flesh, strangely Hugo found himself more interested in watching his wife, and how she was responding to it.

  She was magnificent, her fingers circling her pussy, which was so wet it made his mouth water.

  “Do you wish one of them was you?” he asked her, surprising himself with how bold his question was.

  She paused, and he thought at first his question had gone too far. She said: “I’m curious what it’s like.”

  Then she turned her head, looked directly at him for the first time. Hugo saw through the window that the three occupants of that huge bed were moving over each other, the brunette straddling the man’s waist, sinking down on his massive erection.

  Madeleine was moving too, turning to him, pulling his boxer shorts down so he was as naked as the people they were watching.

  She stood up, then turned back to the windows, only flicking her head round to him to encourage him to do more than just stand there behind her.

  He felt her tremble in his embrace. Holding her tighter, he squeezed his rigid cock against her, nestling in the valley between her cheeks, feeling the heat through her thin cotton panties.

  She smiled, relaxing.

  “I thought you’d never wake up,” she said, emitting a sweet little moan as one of his hands touched her breast, the other slipping down to find the front of her panties absolutely soaking. “I thought I might have to jump on you.”

  “I thought you were too tired for any of this, after our night out.”

  “Not so much tired—I had to think about things.”

  Her own hand gave way to allow him access beneath her underwear, his finger tips wandering through her soft triangle of hair, seeking out the source of her copious moisture and the center of her inviting heat.

  They were both watching as, across the street, the tawny skinned woman positioned herself over the man’s head, forcing him to eat her pussy as the brunette continued to ride his cock.

  Then the brunette leaned slowly forward, and managed to join her male friend in licking the Asian girl’s pussy.