Eye Candy

That’s her Reed smile. She calls it that, so it’s not weird that I call it that. And fuck anyone who says it’s weird.

I get that smile. Not them. Never them. So fuck off. I’ll call it what I want.

“Cleaning off the apples for the party,” she answers with a sweet tilt of her head.

I chuckle. “I think that one you got there’s good. You can probably move on.”

Beth blinks, looks down at her hands, and then quickly drops the apple into the large tin bucket on the bar. She huffs out a breath.

“You all right?” I cross the room and stop in front of her, folding the rope and setting it down between us on the bar top. I keep my hands wrapped around either end. “Beth . . .”

Lips parted, cheeks flushed, eyes wide and glassy, she stares at the rope.

I can hear her breaths leaving her. Ragged. Wanting.

Hungry.

“Uh . . .”

“I miss getting tied up,” she shares, lifting her chin to look at me.

My eyes widen.

She clears her throat, pausing for a breath. “Not that the sex we’re having now isn’t amazing, because it is,” she continues. “But it’s not you, Reed. You tie me up and you spank me and you do really dirty things, freaky things, awesome things, and you’re not doing them anymore. We’re having Beth is pregnant sex. And I miss Beth is just as much of a freak as I am sex. Because I am. I mean, you know, with you I am. And watching you with that rope is driving me crazy. Because I know what you can do with that rope, Reed. I know exactly what you can do with it. And I want that. So, yes, I agree with you. Hanging nooses from the ceiling is a bad idea. But you tying me up with that right now is not a bad idea. It’s a great one. It’s an idea that needs to happen before I explode.” Her shoulders sag. She places her hand on her swollen belly and nods once. “There. I said it.”

Eyebrow cocked, I look from her face to the rope in front of me and back up again.

Jesus. That shit almost sounded rehearsed.

“You been wanting to say that to me?” I ask, needing to know if it was.

“Yes.”

“For a while?”

“Yes.” She drags her teeth across her bottom lip. “I know you’re worried, but I checked with my doctor and she said we’re fine. A lot of pregnant women spot in the beginning. It had nothing to do with you restraining me the way you did that night. She said it didn’t.”

What the . . . “You told your doctor about the way we fuck?”

“I needed to make sure it wasn’t what caused the bleeding. And it wasn’t.”

I run my hand down my face, a heavy breath leaving me.

Jesus Christ. I suspended Beth from the ceiling that night and took her ass while she rode a dildo. Now the entire Obstetrics department at St. Joseph’s Hospital is probably aware. News like that travels.

I’m sure my name will be mentioned in textbooks now.

Reed Tennyson—the man who took his kink too far. Don’t do what he did.

I exhale slowly. “Beth—”

“I miss you.”

Her whispered confession lowers my hand and presses a heavy weight on my chest.

“I know you need that stuff,” she continues, her shoulder lifting with a jerk. “I know you love doing it. And . . . well, I need it too.”

“I need you,” I correct her, needing this to stick since she’s obviously questioning it. “I don’t need to tie you up to get off, Beth. I feel like I’ve made that point pretty damn clear. You smile at me and I’m like . . . fucking there, just from that. You know how you get to me. I’ve told you. It doesn’t take much.”

“I know. But it’s not the same.”

“Sweetheart . . .”

“Reed, please.”

“What if I hurt the baby?” I throw my fear out into the open between us. “What if I go too far with it and something happens? The last time we played, you started bleeding, Beth. I can’t . . .” I shake my head as that same worry forms a knot inside my stomach. “I can’t stop picturing that. It scared the fuck out of me. I didn’t know what the hell was happening. I thought I was losing you both.”

The sound of Beth calling out from the bathroom—I can still hear it. The panic in her voice. The fear. I can still see the tears in her eyes. I can’t do it.

“I can’t,” I tell her.

She pulls her lips between her teeth and looks away, blushing in her embarrassment for bringing this to my attention. For wanting it, maybe.

I frown.

She’s disappointed now.

Fuck though. Not as much as I am.

My wife needs something and I can’t give it to her.

My hands grow tighter and tighter around the rope as I take in a deep breath, thinking, weighing the consequences. I play devil’s advocate with myself.

I could do this with Beth and everything could be fine. That incident was a one-time thing. It wasn’t even related to what we did. Listen to the doctor. Doctors know everything.

Or . . .

Fuck that doctor. She doesn’t know shit. I was too rough with my wife and nearly cost us our baby. The best thing to do is wait the five months we have left. What’s wrong with regular, standard-issue sex? With Beth? Nothing. That shit’s fantastic.

But she’s right. I do love the really dirty things we used to do. The freaky things. Awesome things. God, do I love it. She’s so right.

The act of sex isn’t the only thing that gets me off. It’s the lead-up with Beth. The prolonged, almost agonizing wait. The way she looks with her hands above her head or behind her back. Her skin—wrapped in rope. Glistening with sweat and red from my mouth. How she quivers and drenches my hand the second I touch her. The begging. The begging. How we’re both shaking and panting when I finally . . . finally take.

Okay, so maybe we don’t go all in.

Fifty percent kink. Fifty percent normal fucking. That might work.

“Maybe we just don’t involve any dildos,” Beth murmurs, her eyes slowly meeting mine again.

I laugh under my breath, feeling lighter, like she somehow plucked the worry right out of me. And when I open my mouth to tell her “Okay,” or “Maybe, we can try it,” she cuts me off.

“It isn’t me, right?”

My brow furrows. “What?”

Hands resting on her belly, Beth looks down at herself. “I know this gets in the way a little,” she says. “I already look so different. My face is rounder and God, my butt—”

“Don’t even finish that thought, ’cause that’s fucking crazy,” I interrupt, lifting her head. “Your ass could be the size of this room, and I’d still want to do you at all times. You being pregnant, Beth? I am into that. I am into that in a big fucking way.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Are you kidding?”

She blinks, and I can see on her face how much doubt she’s holding onto.

I could tell Beth anything right now. I could say how unbelievably attracted I am to her, looking the way she does. I could tell her she’s never looked more beautiful to me, and it wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t hear it.

I look down at the rope again and run my thumb over the harsh fibers. “Fuck,” I groan, pushing it aside. “I can’t use that. It’ll hurt you.”