Tired after the twelve-hour day he’d put in, Dax answered with an absent-minded reply. “Not yet. I’m just glad I’m not on call this weekend. You?”
“I made sure I wasn’t put on the rotation. It’s Krista’s birthday and I want to surprise her with something different.”
Dax’s gut clenched, like it always did whenever Kurt talked about his wife. “You’ve been together for a while. I’m surprised there’s still anything left for you two to try.” That was a lie, as there would always be something new with a woman like Krista, but he had to do something to dampen his interest, didn’t he?
“Yeah, I’m a lucky bastard. She not only loves me despite our twenty-year age difference, but she’s the sub I’d all but given up hope of ever finding. Which is why I want to give back to her with a ménage tomorrow night. But in private, at our home, not the club. You in?”
Because of how badly he wanted to say yes, Dax hedged. He’d been trying to fuck out the image of Krista kneeling as Kurt’s submissive for months now, and nothing and no one had worked. He knew if he touched her, there would be no way to get over his unholy obsession. Kurt must’ve seen the denial on his face as he paused, because he stripped Dax of his refusal before he could even come up with one.
“I wouldn’t trust my wife’s well-being or her pleasure to anyone but you. I know your reputation, Dax, and I think she’ll be comfortable with you, more so now that she’s assigned only to the orthopedic cases.”
Dax had been both relieved and disappointed over Krista’s promotion to first-scrub on the orthopedic team. He rarely saw her now, and then just in passing. Out-of-sight-out-of-mind had been working to assist him in getting his priorities straight and his dick under control, and now this. But he couldn’t let Kurt disappoint Krista, or risk asking someone who would take advantage of her willingness to please.
Knowing it would be yet another mistake, but unable to stop himself, Dax agreed. “I’ll be there. What time?”
“Thanks. See you at eight?”
“That works.”
Dax had no one but himself to blame for getting in over his head. As he parked in the Matthews’ circular drive the next evening, he’d had twenty-four hours to change his mind and come up with an excuse not to show up tonight. His blood rushed through his veins, spiking his adrenaline as he walked up to the front door. Mistake or not, right or wrong, he couldn’t turn down this chance to be included in giving Krista a special birthday treat. Following Kurt’s invitation to enter, he strolled into the large den thinking he was prepared to see her in her submissive role again. He was wrong.
Krista knelt on the braided throw rug in the middle of the room, naked, with her wrists bound together between her breasts and attached to her collar. Dax tamped down the compulsion to stride over and lay claim to her. Not mine, he reminded himself as Kurt entered from the hall carrying a multi-strand flogger.
“There you are.” A look of relief passed over the other man’s face, making Dax wonder if he’d thought he wouldn’t show.
“Sorry I’m a little late. Your sub looks pretty in that pose.”
“She’s attractive in whatever position I instruct.” Kurt ran his hand down her long, mahogany hair, this time a flicker of profound sadness flashing in his eyes. “I thought we’d start with a little warm-up. She likes a touch of pain, don’t you, sweetie?”
“Yes, Master.” The small smile trembling on those lush lips stirred Dax’s imagination as he pictured them wrapped around his engorged flesh.
“She might need a little assistance with balance,” Kurt prodded.
“Wouldn’t want her toppling over, would we?” Dax strode over to the couple and clasped Krista’s smooth, round shoulders in his large hands, tightening them just enough to exert his authority. She whipped drenched blue eyes up to him, her pale cheeks turning pink as her husband snapped the flogger across her ass.
“Eyes on me, little one,” Dax instructed when she closed her lids. Small white teeth bit into her lower lip as she gazed up at him, her slim body jerking with the next slash. Her berry nipples tightened around the dainty gold hoop piercings, and he couldn’t resist releasing one shoulder to flick them. Her quick, indrawn breath could’ve been from the stroke of leather against her ass again, or the way he pinched one nipple between thumb and forefinger.
Tearing his eyes away from her attractive, expressive face, he encountered Kurt’s knowing look. “You’ve noticed how responsive she is.”
“Hard not to,” Dax said.
“One more, Krista.” Kurt aimed the flogger at her quivering thighs, drawing a low moan before tossing it aside and reaching for his zipper. “She likes it all ways, so I’ll give you a choice between her mouth or pussy. I’m in an ass mood tonight.”
Dax feared dipping inside that damp pussy this early would be his undoing for the night, so opted for using her mouth. Maintaining his strained control, with those blue eyes pinned up at him as he felt her pouty lips wrapped around his hot flesh, would be difficult enough. Trailing his hand up her neck, he pressed his thumb against her soft, plush, lower lip, then almost came undone when she flicked her small tongue over the fleshy pad.
“Be careful, Mrs. Matthews,” he warned, using her title as a reminder to himself that she would still be off-limits after tonight. Unzipping his loose, summer khakis, he let his thick cock spring into his hand and he gripped the hot, steel-rod of flesh with his left as he stroked down to her damp labia with his right. “It’s a good thing I’m ambidextrous, isn’t it?”
Krista nodded, her eyes lighting with excitement as he spread her slippery folds. It was Kurt’s turn to cup her shoulder, bracing her for the invasion of two lubed fingers. Entering simultaneously, they filled her two orifices to the hilt, her small whimper and reddening face beautiful to hear and see. She held her pose like a pro as they treated her to a rigorous finger-fucking. Thrusting in tandem with Kurt, Dax worked her vagina as he stroked his dick, building heat in both sexual organs until they threatened to singe his hand and fingers. Through it all, her eyes remained on his, her look conveying a need he couldn’t pinpoint yet, but he would.
“Krista has a tendency to push buttons when she’s in one of her needy moods.” Kurt smiled at Dax over his wife’s kneeling posture. “She’s generous to a fault at putting my desires before or above her own, but occasionally her mischievous streak takes over. After two years of marriage, it challenges me to come up with ways to torture her delectable body.”
“You’re a lucky man.” Dax spread his fingers inside her snug sheath, stretching the muscles and adding a bite of discomfort. He could feel Kurt doing the same through the thin layer of tissue separating them. She moaned, thrusting her hips forward, and earned a sharp slap from her husband.
“Be still and tell Dr. Hayes how much you’re enjoying his fingers in your cunt,” Kurt ordered.
Krista’s pink face turned a darker red, but Dax thought the deeper flush was due more to escalating arousal than embarrassment. “Thank you, Doctor. I—” She ended on a sharp cry when he tugged on her clit, his intention to stop her from verbalizing her appreciation. He didn’t want or deserve gratitude for participating in giving her pleasure tonight. If she knew how much he wanted this—and her—she most likely would have refused this birthday present. From what he could tell, the twenty-year difference in their ages hadn’t stood in the way of her constant devotion to her spouse.
“You’re welcome, and happy birthday, Krista.” Keeping his fingers embedded inside her, Dax thrust the seeping crown of his cock against her lips. Those bright blue eyes lit up with pleasure as she opened her mouth. “Sorry, Kurt, I can’t wait forever for you.”
“No sweat, I’m on board.”
Kurt entered her back channel with a slow push as Dax slid past her lips and her warm, damp mouth took him in. She closed her eyes at the dual penetration, her slender frame shuddering in delicate acceptance of their possession. He didn’t reprimand her, figuring she needed a moment to adjust to this new experience. If she we
re his sub, he’d have the option, and pleasure, of punishing her later, but she wasn’t, and he didn’t. Besides that, her face suffused with bliss as soon as she opened for him, her look one of total concentration on servicing rather than on receiving. One fucking big turn-on.
Dax’s abdominals tightened into a solid knot with that thought, and an urgency to end this as strong as the desire to take part took hold. Torture, that’s what her silken mouth, soft lips and stroking tongue felt like as she laved his girth with damp caresses around and around, then, as he pulled back, up and down. Her lips compressed around his root, her cheeks going hollow as she sucked even harder against his withdrawal, that appearance of deep, concentrated pleasure damn near ball-busting. “Shit, you could’ve warned me how good she is at giving head,” he growled, flipping his friend a stern look. “Your fault if I don’t wait for you.”
“Krista, do not come until I say. If you do, you’ll get five strokes with the cane.”
Her shudder and the quick way her rosy face paled told Dax how much that threat worried her. “Not a fan of the cane, I assume?”
“She’ll take it if I’m in the mood, but I save it to use as leverage as she enjoys everything else too much.” The first part of his reply was another hint Krista was a sub who ached to please, the second part was responsible for the wicked twinkle in Kurt’s eyes that held a wealth of pleasure over her acceptance of his other, punishing tools.
Picturing the different implements available to torment a sub’s ass with urged Dax to fuck her mouth faster. Still working her pussy, Kurt’s deep, pummeling thrusts added to the pleasurable torture they heaped upon her. Her berry nipples had darkened to a crimson hue and her cream gushed over his fingers, proof of how much servicing their two cocks excited her. A fucking wet dream. Desperate now for both relief and to put space between him and an unattainable temptation, Dax commanded an end to her tortuous teasing.
“Suck me, Krista.”
He almost withdrew that order when she pulled up with a tight draw, her tongue tracing over rigid veins, setting off hot licks of pleasure that threatened to sear his shaft. He noticed Kurt tightening his hold on her shoulder as his surges into her ass increased. Her eyes flew open when Dax’s cock jerked, then filled with satisfaction and longing when she stroked under the rim of his head and pressed her tongue against the most sensitive area on a man’s penis. Gritting his teeth, he released the base of his cock and reached behind her head to grip her hair.
“Now,” Dax snapped, his tone a guttural whiplash. Keeping her head immobile, he fucked her mouth with steady dips, the slurping sounds from her busy tongue and lips drawing a smile of satisfaction from her husband he would later question. His balls drew taut and he could see the frustration crossing her face as she jerked her bound hands. She wanted to touch, but Dax was glad she couldn’t. He could only take so much. That fact proved true when she nipped at his flesh, tiny pinpricks of pain that forced his climax to erupt in a fierce torrent of heat.
Krista moaned, the low sound vibrating up and down his length as he rode out the pleasure, stilling his fingers inside her for a moment, just until he could get his bearings. Dimly, he heard Kurt’s shout of pleasure followed by the tight grips of her convulsing sheath around his fingers. Drifting down from the incredible high, he slid from her still suckling mouth, marveling at the way his and Kurt’s climaxes had seemed to set off her own.
Krista’s inner muscles continued to grip his fingers as she orgasmed, her keening cry shaking her entire body. Pearly drops of his come decorated the corners of her mouth. Eyes glazed, face flushed, she gazed up at him and licked them off. Hours later, that one expression on her face followed him home, and he knew he wouldn’t soon forget it.
Kurt’s diagnosis of ALS just a few weeks after that night had enabled Dax to keep up the friendly, supportive relationship at work he’d always enjoyed with Krista. But even knowing the hell in store for his friend, and watching the toll it took on her over the past year, he hadn’t been able to forget the sheer satisfaction of fucking her, or to stop from wanting her. Opening his car door, Dax slid out, shoving aside memories best shelved and forgotten. He’d pay his respects and pray he could keep his guilt well-hidden and his hands to himself. There would be no welcome here if Krista knew what he’d done, so it would be best all around if he stepped out of the picture after today. It would mean breaking his promise to Kurt, but better that than adding to the grief she already suffered. The tour with Doctors Without Borders Dax had signed on for would take him far away from temptation for a long enough time to hopefully earn forgiveness and, with any luck, give him a chance to get over the one woman he could never have.
Chapter 2
Krista breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Dr. Dax Hayes pull up in front of her home. As odd as most people would find it, the dominant doctor was an anchor to the life she’d had with Kurt, a life she couldn’t bring herself to admit was over. Reaching up, she fingered her bare throat, missing the snug fit of her Master’s collar as much as the pleasure of knowing she belonged to a special man. The past week had flown by in a whirlwind of grief-stricken struggles to get through the shock of her husband’s suicide. The peaceful look on his face when she’d returned home and gone straight to their bedroom to check on him hadn’t registered until she’d touched his cold, clammy skin. Drawing her hand back in shock, she’d noticed the empty pill bottle on the nightstand and gone into full panic mode.
For the last seven days, she’d sobbed and raged in heartbreak as she tried to come to terms with the fact that her husband, whom she’d given everything to, had chosen to deprive her of what little time they had left together, leaving her desolate and alone months before he had to. Since he’d been diagnosed with ALS a year ago, they’d both worked to stay positive during the slow depletion of his strength. She hadn’t cared when they’d had to alter their sex life, or when his weakened body forced him into a wheelchair. In her eyes and in her heart, he remained the husband and Master she loved, and she still couldn’t reconcile with his choice to deprive her of whatever time left to them.
“Krista, you okay?” Turning from the window, Krista worked up a tired smile for her best friend, Alessa Alexander, then glanced at the large den filled with people, some of whom she didn’t even know.
“I need this to be over, you know?”
Dax entered the front door, drawing her swimming eyes to his large frame and chiseled face. Her heart leapt when his enigmatic green gaze sought and found her, the same response she’d had the first time she met him—and every time she’d been around to see him enter a room since. She didn’t think anything of her reaction. As Alessa continued to bring up, just because Krista was happy in her marriage and with her husband didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate other men, especially one as compelling and panty-dampening as Kurt’s colleague. Every female who worked in the operating wing drooled over the tall, ebony-haired doctor. What did surprise her was how often the memory of that one night popped up to invade her thoughts, and that she could feel anything beyond mind-numbing sorrow right now.
“See,” Alessa teased when she noticed who had snagged Krista’s attention. “You didn’t die with Kurt, like I’ve been telling you.”
Krista released a despondent sigh as she watched Dax stroll over to a small group of hospital employees. “I may as well have,” she muttered, dragging her eyes back to her well-meaning friend who’d been a rock all week. “I’m lost without him, Lessa. He anchored me in more ways than one. I honestly think it would’ve been easier if I’d never known a Master’s control. He saw to my needs, both physical and emotional, for over two years, and now I have to go back to floundering through life. God, that sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?”
She barely registered Alessa’s wince as she scanned the room again, wondering if Dax would speak to her or continue ignoring her as he had throughout the service and at the cemetery. After making a frantic call to 911 when she’d found Kurt unresponsive and likely already gone, she
’d been surprised when Dax had arrived shortly after the paramedics, but grateful for his take charge, no-nonsense control of both her and the situation. But in the week since that awful day, she hadn’t seen or spoken to the only other man who knew about and understood the special, Dom/sub bond she shared with Kurt. She hadn’t realized how much Dax’s silence hurt until now. In the year since Kurt’s diagnosis and rapid decline, several of his colleagues, including Dax, had taken it upon themselves to offer their services or their company. She’d gotten used to having someone drop by the house to spend time with both her husband and her, but it didn’t take her long to realize Dr. Hayes usually stopped by when she had to be gone. She’d had to cut back on her hours at work, but he’d maintained a subdued version of their friendly mien after their ménage, and Krista had taken heart they hadn’t lost that notable connection. Whether his visits to Kurt these past months were purposely timed to make sure she wouldn’t be around, she didn’t know, and she’d tried not to feel hurt by it, instead concentrating on her gratitude for the pleasure their company gave Kurt.
“No, it doesn’t,” Alessa replied. “I don’t think you’re the only person who benefits from giving herself over to a man, or vice versa.”
“You sure know a lot for someone who has refused to even visit a club as a guest.” Krista had met Alessa at the hospital during orientation week a few years ago, and she and the new nurse had hit it off way before they discovered they shared an interest in dominant, sexual control. But unlike Alessa, Krista had been testing the waters in Miami’s BDSM club for a few weeks before falling hard and fast for Kurt and accepting his proposal a few months after she’d agreed to be his sub. “I never have been able to get you to join us, and now it’s too late. If you’ve decided you’re ready to give it a go, I can try and find someone to look out for you.”
“No, I haven’t changed my mind, and won’t until I’m sure what it is I’m looking for. And it’s way too soon for you to decide whether you’ll return to the clubs, or the lifestyle, or not. Kurt’s only been gone a week, Krista.” Alessa squeezed her hand then said, “You have enough food to feed an army, so I put a few casseroles in the freezer. Anything else I can do?”