A Roll of the Dice Read online

  Maybe it was time to start living for themselves.

  * * * *

  A couple of hours later, her husband and son had gone to pick up the trailer with Michael’s SUV, had loaded everything, grabbed their showers, and now the three of them were on their way up I-75 to Tampa.

  She’d opted to let Mikey ride shotgun while Mike drove, so they could talk more easily.

  There wasn’t a lot of talking she wanted to do. Too many emotions swirling around inside her. Too much that lurked too close to the surface.

  There was a rawness in her soul that she hadn’t felt before.

  A rawness she thought might mean she was close to crying.

  And that was something she didn’t want to do if she could avoid it. This was supposed to be a great time for Mikey, an achievement. Something for him to rightfully be proud of.

  She didn’t want to spoil this big day for him by crying.

  * * * *

  Other than getting Mikey checked in and then going to look at his room, there wasn’t a lot for Jenny to do, other than sit out at the SUV and guard their stuff while Mike and Mikey did the unloading.

  Mike had worn a pair of running shorts for the job, something cool and easy to move in.

  They also accentuated his ass.

  She didn’t miss that more than a couple of other moms, and even some students, glanced her husband’s way.

  That made her proud, that he was her guy. Had been for a quarter-century.

  That made her feel even guiltier, in some ways, that she wanted to broach the subject of kinky sex.

  She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. She definitely didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, to think that she was bored with him or with their marriage.

  Nothing could be further from the truth.

  She just wanted a little…more. A little spice in the sauce, so to speak.

  After unloading everything, they all went to lunch together before taking Mikey back to his dorm. There they hugged him in the parking lot. He’d been texting back and forth with another friend who would be moving in the next day. She could tell her son’s attention was more on that than on saying good-bye.

  “Well, we’ll be heading home, I guess,” she said, trying not to choke up over the words.

  He smiled, a younger version of his father, only with her green eyes instead of Mike’s brown ones. “Drive safe. Text me when you get home.” Then he smiled.

  She laughed. “Yeah, that’s my line, kiddo.”

  Mike draped an arm around her shoulders as they watched him walk back to the dorm building. “He’s grown up,” he said. “We can be proud of him and everything he’s accomplished. He’s got a good, solid head on his shoulders.”

  “Yeah.” She tried not to sniffle, but it escaped anyway.

  He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “I’m going to miss him, too.”

  She blinked away tears and quickly nodded. “Yeah.”

  He led her to the passenger side and opened her door for her. “M’lady.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  It was an old exchange between them and never failed to make her smile.

  And, for the first time, she realized how easily the word “sir” rolled from her lips when addressing her husband.

  * * * *

  The ride home felt…lonely, in a way. Even as she sat in the front passenger seat and held hands with Michael while he drove, she couldn’t help but notice the little emptiness inside her.

  “You all right?” he asked as they neared Sarasota.

  “Yeah. Just…I don’t know.”

  He gently squeezed her hand. “We’ll drop the trailer off, head home, grab showers, and I’ll take you out to dinner. How does that sound?”

  She didn’t want to pull her focus off of the road ahead of them. She knew if she looked up and saw the concern mirrored on Mike’s face that she heard in his tone, she’d start crying. And the last thing she wanted to do was start crying.

  Again.

  She forced a smile. “Okay. That sounds good.”

  “He’ll be all right. Countless kids go through this rite of passage. And countless parents survive it, too.”

  She risked a glance and spotted that playful smile of his.

  “I know.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m going to miss him.”

  “Me, too.”

  They rode in silence for another couple of miles. “Whole new stage for us,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I know we’ve talked about this before,” he started, “but if you wanted to think about retiring—”

  “No. I’d rather keep working.” She finally made herself steadily stare at her husband. “But thank you. I appreciate it. I’d rather keep banking the money. Or even use it on something for us, if we decide to do that. But not working…” She shook her head. “Not an option for me.”

  Not if I don’t want to go totally stir crazy.

  * * * *

  After a nice dinner at a restaurant on Siesta Key, they headed home. It felt odd to be able to spontaneously decide to go out to dinner without checking her phone three times to make sure she wasn’t missing something on the calendar.

  He playfully smiled. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, just having to keep reminding myself I’m not missing anything. I don’t have to get up tomorrow and do chores I’ve put off all week before getting ready to go somewhere or do something.”

  “That’s right. We can sleep in.”

  “You can sleep in. I think my body will need a lot more training before I can sleep in.” She’d always envied her husband’s ability to easily fall asleep, or to sleep late on the weekends without waking up with a headache later. She couldn’t. Her body, trained for early mornings, wasn’t that flexible.

  When they returned home, she had to fight the urge to call out to Mikey.

  Mikey’s not here.

  Rationally, she understood she’d need a little time to adjust. Just as that old joke said, she wanted serenity now, dammit.

  They locked the front door behind them and headed for the bedroom.

  “It’s our first night together without Mikey living under the same roof.” Michael smiled as he pulled her against him. “We can get as loud as we want.”

  She draped her arms around his neck and tried not to let her thoughts wander once more to the books she’d recently read.

  It was too easy to think about ball gags and blindfolds. “So what are you going to do to me, huh?” she asked.

  He started nibbling on the side of her neck. “Well, I was thinking, before we both collapse from exhaustion, we could see if we can’t finish wearing ourselves out in bed.”

  “That sounds like a plan.”

  He brushed a kiss across her lips. “You pick the music. I’m going to use the bathroom.”

  Aaaand there goes the romance.

  Well, after twenty-five years together it wasn’t like it was a mystery to either of them what happened in that room. He’d suffered through her insisting on eating onion rings sometimes despite what they did to her intestines, just as she’d suffered through him creating his own bio-hazardous cloud after eating baked beans, one of his favorite foods.

  They were under no illusions that either of them magically poofed sweet-scented, rainbow-colored unicorn farts when on the toilet.

  A few minutes later, they were snuggled in bed together with some soft jazz playing. Mike rolled on top of her and in the dim light from the bathroom nightlight she saw him waggle his eyebrows.

  “You can’t complain I’m making too much noise tonight,” he joked. Then he worked his way down her body, pushing her thighs apart with his hands before settling there. “And you’re going to make even more noise.”

  Her heart sped up, not just from his words, or even his actions. But the tone he’d used, sweetly seductive with a hint of being in control.

  That melted her.

  So much so that
by the time his lips touched her clit she was ready to let out a loud cry of pleasure. He didn’t take long to get her over the edge, knowing exactly how to tease her body, how to draw pleasure from her, how to make her moan.

  How to quickly make her come.

  And then he was up on his knees and sliding his cock inside her, smiling down at her.

  I wish he’d pin my wrists down.

  The thought of that made her gasp a little, even as one last tiny ripple of pleasure skipped through her body.

  “Sweetheart, I love you so much,” he said. “You’re a great wife and an even better mom and I’m sorry I don’t tell you that enough.”

  Okay, buzzkill. “I love you, too.”

  Not that she didn’t want to hear those words from him, but what she wished was coming from his mouth was a lot…dirtier.

  Like what a hot slut she was for him.

  That kind of thing.

  Not that she could imagine her sweet husband talking like that.

  Maybe I can teach the old dog a few new tricks.

  It didn’t take him long to come. He relaxed on top of her, sweetly kissing her. “Maybe tomorrow should be nakey day.” He grinned.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly her fantasy, but it was a step in the right direction. “Nakey day, huh?”

  He rolled onto his side, his arm draped over her even as he was already yawning. “Sure. Why not?”

  Within minutes, he was drifting to sleep.

  She lay there, staring at the ceiling and wishing that nakey day meant he’d order her to run around naked, wearing nothing but his collar and a smile.

  I have to make myself have the talk with him about it if I ever want to do it.

  Chapter Four

  Sunday morning, Jenny pulled on her robe and quietly slipped out of their bedroom, carefully shutting the door so she didn’t awaken Michael.

  She was used to getting up early every morning, no matter how hard she tried to sleep in. It just didn’t work for her. She’d end up with a headache if she tried to stay in bed. Whenever possible, she tried to let her husband sleep late on weekends.

  I hope Mikey’s getting settled in.

  She knew fixating on him and how he was doing wasn’t healthy. He was an adult.

  Sort of.

  Technically.

  Even if in her mind she was never more than a memory away from holding him in her arms for the first time after he was born.

  She started a pot of coffee and retrieved her laptop from the den, taking it over to the couch. After finding a Sunday morning news show on one of the networks, she pulled up Facebook while she sipped her brew.

  She’d started joining more groups on Facebook. If nothing else, it helped her fill her increasingly large amount of free time. There were tons of book and readers groups, and she’d started making more online friends.

  Maybe I could start attending book conventions. That could be fun. She’d seen discussions about them online, and it looked like something she might be interested in.

  It was in one of these newly joined reading groups she’d been perusing when she stumbled across a posting for another group about BDSM fiction.

  Her finger hovered over her laptop’s touchpad as she tried to make up her mind about whether or not to join.

  It would be nice to be able to have the kinds of discussions online with people that she was hesitant to have in person.

  Especially when it came to BDSM.

  She clicked on the link to the group and then on the Join button before she chickened out.

  It looked like a moderator had to approve all requests, so she checked her e-mail, read more group postings, and surfed news sites. All the while, she hoped someone was up and around and able to approve new memberships before she logged off and started on her morning chores.

  Wait a minute. I don’t have any morning chores.

  Sundays, if they didn’t have to be anywhere for Mikey’s events or sports or whatever, were her days to get the laundry caught up, clean the house, empty the old food from the fridge—all the stuff she didn’t have time to do after work, or was too tired to do when she finally got home from her evening activities and volunteering.

  In the past week, she’d not only caught up with all of that, she literally had nothing to do, unless she wanted to tackle stuff out in the yard, or honey-do projects that weren’t critical.

  Crap.

  This was her first Sunday in as long as she could remember that she didn’t feel guilty about keeping her ass planted on the sofa in front of the TV and she wasn’t even sick.

  As she sat there and contemplated that little factoid, she realized she had new alerts on Facebook.

  Including her membership to the BDSM book group being approved.

  Okay, answers that question.

  After reading the group’s rules, which were in a pinned post at the top of the page, she quickly dove in and started scrolling. Some of the posts were about books and authors. Then there were the usual promo posts by authors.

  And then…

  Then there were questions from group members about the BDSM lifestyle.

  From what Jenny could tell, the group’s admins and some of the members appeared to be actually involved in the BDSM lifestyle. She found questions about floggers and piercings and subspace and all sorts of things that she’d read in books. While she knew people actually did some of these things in real life, now it felt more real to read their take on the topics.

  Someone referenced the group’s files in one post, and Jenny scrolled back to the top and found the tab.

  Inside, a whole host of reference materials, including fellow members’ FetLife.com IDs, websites about BDSM, where you could get BDSM implements, conventions—more than she’d ever dreamed.

  Before she could lose her nerve, she opened a new browser screen, typed in the FetLife URL, and hit enter.

  This was real. This was…

  Terrifying.

  She quickly created a new Gmail account with a made-up name to use to join FetLife. Following the advice she’d seen on the Facebook group, she set her location as Antarctica and started looking for members from the Facebook group. She sent private messages and friend requests, as per instructions.

  And then she started looking up local events and groups.

  It turned out there was one group, called the Suncoast Society, in Sarasota.

  As she scanned their member list, she didn’t see any pictures that looked familiar, although many of the people used cartoons or other kinds of pics that weren’t face shots.

  Feeling like she had crested a mountain and was now running at full speed down the other side, she joined that group, too.

  It turned out they also had a website. With yet another browser window open, she visited that as well.

  In fact, a week from that night, they were having a munch at a restaurant in south Sarasota.

  At war within her, the sudden, desperate need to find out more about this lifestyle, to talk to real people, in person, without worrying about judgment or derision.

  And then there was the fear. About all of that, and of how to talk to Michael about it.

  Mikey won’t be home. No excuses about why we couldn’t go out to dinner.

  The mental conversation seesawed in her brain.

  He won’t want to go.

  You won’t know unless you ask him.

  How am I supposed to ask him?

  If you’re really curious about this, you’ll figure it out.

  She heard the toilet flush in the master bathroom and realized Michael was awake. Well, vertical, at least. She quickly closed out the browser windows, even for Facebook, leaving just the news sites up on her screen.

  Pulse racing, she waited, her heart skipping when he opened their bedroom door and emerged in a pair of shorts.

  “Good morning!” She hoped she didn’t sound too…guilty. Manic.

  Exposed.

  He nodded and slowly made his way over to her, leaning in for
a kiss. “Good morning. I thought I was going to mow this morning, but my back’s killing me. Mind if I just be lazy today?”

  She smiled. “I kind of had a lazy day planned for myself.”

  There was that handsome smile she absolutely fell in love with. “Couch cuddling?” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  “What about your back?”

  “I can lie on my back.”

  Little tingles swirled through her body at his playful tone. “Make me do all the work, huh?”

  “Not all the work.” He kissed her again. “But I can’t deny I’ve had some naughty thoughts the past couple of weeks.”

  I’m a horrible mom. Here Mikey had been gone less than twenty-four hours, and already she was more worried about her love life than how he was settling in.

  “Maybe I should call him this morning and check on him,” she said.

  “I’m sure he’s fine, babe. He’s a smart kid.”

  “What if he forgot something and we need to take it up to him?”

  “Then he’ll have to wait for us to have time to get up there, or to mail it to him.” He studied her for a moment before sitting next to her on the couch. “You okay?”

  She let him pull her into his arms, her head tucked against his chest. “I don’t know. I thought I was. Would be. Maybe I’m not.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Is there anything I can do to make this easier on you?”

  This was her chance. Her absolutely perfect opening.

  Aaaaaand I’m a nutless chicken.

  “I guess I need to just get used to the new world order around here,” she said.

  He stroked her back. “Guess I wasn’t thinking about the other end of it as much. I was so looking forward to our time together that I wasn’t thinking about what a huge adjustment this was going to be for you.”

  * * * *

  Aaaaand now he felt guilty. Jenny seemed to be taking this a lot harder than he originally thought she would. From her various comments over the past couple weeks, about looking forward to having free time and getting caught up on things around the house, he thought she’d be blissfully happy.

  I’m an idiot.