I Asked My Husband to Find Me a Stranger

James sat in the armchair with his legs crossed, the lamp behind him catching on the gray threading through his hair. He looked up from the page, smiled at her without speaking, and returned to the novel. The small sound of paper turning was the loudest thing in the room. Eleanor’s needle moved through the hem she was mending, each stitch precise, the cotton warm from her fingers. She loved this hour: the hush, the shared breath of two people who had done this for twelve years and still wanted to be in the same square of lamplight.

Then the needle snagged. While she eased it free, a picture opened behind her eyes: a stranger’s chest slick with sweat, shoulders blocking out the light, a thick ridge of flesh shoving into her so hard her feet left the sheets. The image arrived complete—salt smell, the grunt that wasn’t James’s polite cough, the raw stretch she had never actually felt. Her stomach hollowed. She looked at her husband’s familiar hands, the wedding band glinting as he turned another page, and felt the first needle-prick of guilt, sharp as the one in her thumb.

She pushed the thread through again, tighter, as if the small pain could cancel the other. It didn’t. The fantasy man grew clearer: cropped dark hair she could grip, weight pinning her wrists, a cock she could taste in the back of her throat. She shifted on the couch; the seam of her jeans pressed exactly where she suddenly needed pressure. Stop, she told herself. She had baked scones that morning, had kissed James goodbye at the exact angle that avoided lipstick on his collar. Good wives did not inventory the veins along imaginary forearms while their husbands read Booker long-listed novels within arm’s reach.

Yet the want kept swelling, stupid and bright. She pictured herself on all fours, breasts swinging, James’s startled face in the doorway while someone else drove into her again and again, balls slapping her clit until the sound filled the house. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted iron. When James looked up, she smiled the same mild smile she gave the neighbor’s children. He nodded, satisfied, and kept reading.

Eleanor set the needle down. The room smelled of bergamot and laundry detergent, the small empire they had built together. She imagined striking a match, letting the curtains catch, and watching the tidy flames race across the carpet. She could love the life she had—did love it—and still feel the draft of something wild rattling the windows, asking to be let in.

The glass was slick with soap, and when it slipped, it seemed to fall in slow motion. The sound when it hit the porcelain was explosive, a bright shattering that made Eleanor jump back, her hands flying to her chest. Shards scattered across the sink, some skittering into the drain, others catching the overhead light like tiny knives.

"Shit," she whispered, her heart hammering. She hadn't meant to let it go. Her fingers trembled as she reached to turn off the tap, water still running over the broken pieces.

James appeared in the doorway, his book closed against his chest. "You alright?"

She nodded too quickly, not looking at him. "Just being clumsy."

But when he stepped closer, she felt something

The sheets were cool against her calves, but her chest burned. James had turned off his bedside lamp; the only light came from the streetlamp outside, striping the wall in thin gold. She listened to his breathing level into sleep-rhythm and felt the same restlessness claw. The glass had been swept up, the cut on her thumb plastered, but the inside ache had widened all evening.

She rolled onto her side. “James?”

A soft grunt.

“Are you awake?”

“Mm.” He shifted, hand groping for her hip. “Everything okay?”

She swallowed. “I keep thinking about…the glass. And why it broke.”

He waited. He was good at waiting.

“I wasn’t thinking about dishes,” she said. “I was thinking about being…taken. Like, really taken. By someone who wouldn’t ask first.” The words felt obscene, hanging there in the ordinary dark. Her pulse thudded in her ears.

His fingers tightened, not comforting now, more like anchoring. “Taken how?”

“Pinned. Hard. No room to decide.” She forced a laugh that cracked. “I know it’s awful.”

“It isn’t awful.” His voice was low, steady. “Tell me what he looks like.”

She hadn’t expected that. “Taller than you. Bigger. Shoulders that—” She stopped, ashamed of the comparison.

“Keep going.”

“He pushes me against a wall. My feet barely touch. I can feel him…everywhere. And I’m scared, but it’s the kind of scared that feels like being alive.” She was breathing through her mouth, as if she’d run upstairs. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He drew her hand under the covers, laid it flat over the fly of his pajamas. He was erect, heat pulsing through the cotton. “Feel that?”

Her fingers curled instinctively. “You’re—”

“Because of you. Because you’re telling me.” He kissed her temple, lingered. “Does he finish inside you?”

The question shot straight between her legs. “Yes. No protection. Just…spills.” She heard herself moan, small, mortified.

James pushed her palm harder against him. “And me? Where am I?”

“Watching.” The word tore out. “Tied, maybe. Or told to be still.”

He exhaled, shaky. “Christ, Ellie.”

She slid her hand inside his waistband, found the slick tip, spread it with her thumb. “I don’t want to lose us.”

“You won’t.” He kissed her, open-mouthed, tasting of toothpaste and urgency. “Tell me the rest. Every bit.”

So she did, whispering how the stranger would flip her onto her stomach, fist her hair, drive into her so deep she felt the thud in her throat. How James would be made to see every thrust, every gleam of wet on her inner thighs. How she would come screaming a name neither of them knew yet. While she spoke, James rocked into her grip, breathing hard through his nose, until he shuddered and spilled over her fingers, silent except for a cracked sigh.

After, he cleaned her hand with his T-shirt, pulled her close. “Thank you,” he said into her neck.

She waited for shame to crash, but it didn’t come. The room smelled of sex and laundry, the same as always, yet the air felt newly porous, like anything might pass through.

The silence after felt like a held breath. Eleanor lay rigid beside him, her palm still damp from him, the sheets twisted around their knees. James’s heartbeat thudded against her shoulder blade. She waited for him to speak, to laugh, to recoil—anything. Instead he traced idle circles on her wrist, as if mapping a route he hadn’t decided to take.

Gratitude surged first, hot and helpless; then came the darker swell, the same throb that had pulsed while she described being slammed against plaster. Without planning, she rolled to her knees, swung one leg across his torso, and settled her weight above his chest. The cotton of her nightshirt bunched at her hips. She felt the cool air hit the bare skin of her thighs, then the warmer gust of his exhale against the seam of her panties.

James’s hands found her immediately—palms sliding under the elastic, fingers spreading her wider until the damp panel of cotton stuck to her folds. He didn’t ask; he simply tugged the fabric aside, exposing her completely. The first lap of his tongue was slow, deliberate, from entrance to clit, gathering the slick that had already gathered while she talked. She jerked, knees clamping his ears. He answered by pulling her down harder, nose pressing the hood of her clit, tongue stiffening to push inside.

Her mind split. Part of her registered the familiar scratch of his evening beard, the way he always started gentle and waited for her cue. Another part shoved that knowledge aside and inserted the stranger: thick neck, calloused thumbs digging bruises, a mouth that took because it could. She pictured those phantom hands yanking her hair, forcing her to look back at James tied to the chair, forced to watch her cunt being devoured by someone bigger, meaner, louder.

She rocked forward, grinding shamelessly, smearing herself across his chin. A wet sound filled the room—tongue, lips, her own dripping arousal dripping down to the sheet. James groaned, vibration buzzing through her core. She braced one hand on the headboard, the other slipping under her shirt to pinch her nipple hard, the way the stranger would, without courtesy. Her thighs trembled; the coil wound tighter.

Was this betrayal if he welcomed it? Was it still faithfulness when she stared at the dark ceiling and saw another man’s shoulders blocking the light? She didn’t know, and the questions only spiked her higher. She rolled her hips faster, fucking his face in short, jerky strokes, feeling her climax build at the base of her spine, hot, filthy, unstoppable.

When it hit, she clamped his head between her knees, a strangled cry escaping as pulses of pleasure throbbed against his relentless tongue. He kept licking through the aftershocks, gentle now, cleaning her, owning her, until she sagged sideways, lungs heaving, nightshirt stuck to her sweat-damp skin.

James wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes glittering in the low light. Neither spoke. The room smelled of her, of them, of a door cracked open. She knew, with terrifying clarity, that walking back through it was no longer an option.

The spasms kept rolling, each one smaller, meaner, until she felt hollowed out and refilled at the same time. James’s breath cooled the wetness he’d left on her skin; his fingertips stroked the crease where thigh met hip, the way he always did when he thought she might drift off. She didn’t drift. She counted heartbeats—hers, his—while the ceiling fan chopped the silence into pieces.

He kissed her knee, murmured, “Okay?”

She nodded because words felt dangerous. Inside, the stranger still loomed, shoulders blocking every exit. She could almost smell him—motor oil, cheap cologne, the sweat of a man who owed nothing to anyone. Her pulse quickened again, a second wave building before the first had fully receded. Was this how addiction began, one hit and the body rewired?

James shifted, easing her down so she lay half across his chest. His skin was familiar, the scatter of hair, the small scar from the chicken-pox vaccine. She traced it, pretending that anchor could hold her. He tucked her hair behind her ear. “Where’d you go?”

The question cracked her open. She swallowed the taste of herself on his lips. “Nowhere.”

“Liar,” he said, soft, almost proud.

A tear slipped, hot and ridiculous. She wiped it fast, but he caught the motion, folded her hand inside his. “Tell me the rest.”

She shook her head. Speaking it would make it real, make it required. Instead she pictured the alley again—brick scraping her shoulder blades, the stranger’s belt clinking open, the blunt head of him shoving inside with no ceremony. Her thighs flexed involuntarily; James felt it, pressed a calming palm to them. Calm wasn’t what she wanted.

“I need—” she started, then stopped. What did she need? Forgiveness? Permission? Another body slamming her into tomorrow so she could forget the woman who baked scones and labeled spice jars in neat cursive?

He waited. He was good at waiting.

She drew a breath that tasted of sex and panic. “I need it to happen. Not just here.” She tapped her temple. “Out there. Flesh. Risk.” The confession hung, ugly and alive.

James’s eyes closed for a count of three. When they opened, the hurt was there, but underneath it something steelier: resolve, maybe, or resignation. He brushed his thumb across her swollen lower lip, still tasting of both of them. “Then we’ll plan,” he said, voice steady. “Concrete. Safe words. Limits.”

She stared. He was offering to build a bridge to the place that might destroy them. Was that love or insanity? Did the distinction even matter anymore?

He kissed her forehead, then reached for his phone on the nightstand, thumb hovering. “Industrial district. There’s a bar—warehouse converted. Rough crowd. Friday nights.” He glanced at her, seeking consent she hadn’t yet voiced.

Her stomach lurched, but her nipples tightened, traitorous. She pictured neon reflecting off sweat-slick skin, music loud enough to drown second thoughts. One nod and the fantasy would step into the world; there would be no reeling it back. She nodded.

James set the phone down, exhaled like a man who’d just signed a treaty with an enemy he couldn’t name. He pulled her close, spooning her, lips at her nape. “We’ll sleep first,” he whispered. “Then we hunt.”

She lay awake long after his breathing evened out, the room spinning slowly around the axis of her thudding heart. Tomorrow, she would wear a dress she didn’t own yet. Tomorrow, a stranger might grip her hips hard enough to leave fingerprints she’d still see in the mirror next week. The thought should have terrified her. Instead it felt like the first honest thing she’d touched in years.

Morning light flattened everything. Eleanor sat across from James in the small kitchen, toast between them growing cold. The butter knife lay untouched, its edge catching the sun like a threat. She couldn’t lift her gaze past his collarbone; anything higher might demand words neither had rehearsed.

The coffee maker hissed, finished, and still neither moved. She listened to the refrigerator cycle on, then off. How long could two people who’d shared every secret keep pretending breakfast was ordinary? She spread jam anyway, red sliding across bread the way her mind slid toward tonight—toward brick walls, toward a stranger’s belt buckle clinking free.

James cleared his throat. “We should talk logistics.”

Her pulse stuttered. Logistics sounded like shipping containers, not sex. She nodded, mouth full of sweetness that tasted metallic.

He folded his hands, knuckles white. “Industrial district. Bar’s called The Iron Spur. No sign, just a red bulb.” His voice stayed flat, as if reading inventory. “I’ll drive. You pick the outfit. Something you can walk away in.”

Walk away. The phrase thudded. Was that the goal—an exit she could survive? She set the toast down, appetite gone. “And you?” she managed. “Where will you be?”

“Close enough to see. Far enough to give you space.” His eyes finally met hers, bloodshot yet steady. “Unless you want me closer.”

The question floated, dangerous. Did she want her husband watching while another man pushed inside her? Would his presence anchor or burn? She pictured James leaning against a steel pillar, face unreadable under neon, and felt an unexpected jolt—part protection, part performance. Her thighs pressed together involuntarily.

He noticed, of course; he always did. Color touched his cheeks, shame or excitement indistinguishable. “We set a word,” he continued. “You say it, everything stops. No discussion.”

“Red,” she whispered, the first word that surfaced.

“Red,” he repeated, testing its weight. “And after—however it ends—we come home together. That part isn’t optional.”

Home. The syllable sounded fragile, like glass she’d already dropped. Could they really return to this kitchen, these chairs, after she’d been marked by someone else’s teeth? She swallowed. “What if I can’t look at you?”

“Then we’ll close our eyes and keep talking until we can.” He reached across, brushed a crumb from her lip, touch trembling yet tender. “We built twenty years on words, Ellie. We’ll find new ones.”

Tears pricked, unexpected. She blinked them back, focusing on the practical: dress, panties, shoes she could run in if running became necessary. Her stomach flipped again, half terror, half fierce, bright hunger.

James stood, carried plates to the sink. Water ran, soap foamed. Over the spray he said, almost casual, “We leave at nine. Don’t shave. Let him feel what’s real.”

The directive struck low, a throb between bone and blood. She nodded, though he wasn’t looking. When he turned off the tap the silence returned, thicker, now shaped like a door opening onto night air, music, strangers’ hands. She pushed back her chair, heart hammering Morse code against her ribs: yes, yes, yes.

The zipper caught for a heartbeat on the silk’s hidden seam, then slid home with a hush that sounded, to Eleanor, like a lock clicking shut. James’s thumbs settled on the bare wings of her shoulder blades, warm, steady, the same pressure he used to steady her when she backed his car out of a tight spot. She watched his reflection watch her: eyes dark, mouth unreadable. The dress—black, sleeveless, cut high at the front so she could still breathe—clung to the dip of her waist as if it already knew what would happen later.

How many times had he zipped her into cocktail dresses, into wedding-guest frocks, into the midnight-blue gown she’d worn to the charity auction where they’d first danced? Did he remember those nights now, or had they been overwritten by this one? She felt the question pulse behind her sternum but didn’t give it voice; some equations had no solution.

He smoothed the fabric down to her hips, palms lingering a fraction longer than necessary, a silent inventory of territory he was about to share. The mirror returned the image: her collarbones sharp with nerves, his jaw flexing like a man clenching against seasickness. She lifted her hair so he could fasten the tiny hook at the back of her neck. His knuckles brushed her nape; she shivered, and the shiver traveled straight to the place the dress deliberately left bare—no tights, no slip, only the small lace panties she’d bought that afternoon while he waited in the car, engine idling like a getaway driver.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, voice low enough to be meant only for her skin rather than her ears. The words landed anyway, a soft bruise. Beautiful felt like a password tonight, not a compliment.

She met his eyes in the glass. “Ask me if I’m sure.”

He shook his head once. “You’ll tell me if you’re not.”

Would she? Or would pride bolt her mouth shut at the critical second? She didn’t know, and the uncertainty tasted metallic, like the sip of blood she’d drawn from her lip in the afternoon while choosing shoes. She slipped her feet into the black heels now, straps thin as lies. The mirror elongated her legs, showed her the angle a stranger would see when she stepped out of the car: calf muscle, ankle, the promise of thigh if the dress rode. She pivoted, testing the sway, and caught James’s inhale. Arousal, pain—same chord, different key.

He picked up her clutch, opened it, tucked the spare key to their house inside, plus a folded twenty and the condom they’d bought in bulk like optimists. “Anything else?”

Eleanor touched the hollow at her throat where a wedding ring would have hung if she’d worn one on a chain. Instead she slid the gold band off her finger, set it on the dresser. The absence felt lighter than the ring itself. “That’s everything,” she said, though her voice wobbled on the second syllable.

James offered his arm, old-fashioned, as if they were headed to prom. She took it, fingers curling around the inside of his elbow where the pulse beat hard against her thumb. Down the hallway, past the photographs of vacations and anniversaries, past the dog they’d never replaced, out into the garage that smelled of cut grass and motor oil. The night air hit her collarbones first, then the backs of her knees, cool confirmation that she was already exposed, already halfway to the alley.

The Iron Spur looked nothing like the bruised warehouse of her imagination. Polished concrete floors reflected indigo track lighting; glass panels etched with abstract gears divided the room into intimate pockets. Music pulsed—low, synthetic, expensive. Men in tailored jackets leaned toward women whose laughter sounded rehearsed. Eleanor’s heels clicked too loudly as they crossed the threshold, each step announcing new meat to anyone listening. James’s hand settled against the small of her back, thumb tracing the ridge of her spine through silk, a silent metronome: I’m here, I’m here.

The hostess—platinum bob, earpiece—guided them to a half-moon booth upholstered in charcoal leather. James slid in first, trapping Eleanor on the inside, shielding her from the aisle yet giving her the full view. A votive candle flickered between them, its glass holder smudged with someone else’s fingerprints. She rubbed at one with her thumb, wondering whose sweat had dried there, what confessions had been traded in this same half-light. Was that residue intimacy or just biology?

She ordered a double vodka from the server before James could choose something gentler. When the drink arrived she drank half in one swallow, the burn threading down to the hollow where anticipation lived. Her gaze drifted, cataloging: silver fox conducting business with two younger men; couple arguing without moving their mouths; bartender flipping tins like a juggler. Then—him.

He sat alone at a high-top, one foot on the rung of the stool, the other planted on the floor as if ready to launch. White shirt, sleeves rolled exactly to the elbow, veins pronounced under low wattage. Shoulders filled the cotton without straining it; the fabric tapered to a narrow waist, a visual comma that made her pause. Light from the bar caught the angle of his cheekbone, carved a shadow along his jaw. Clean. Purposeful. When he lifted his glass—whiskey, neat—tendons shifted beneath skin, and Eleanor felt the echo in her thighs.

He felt the stare. His eyes lifted, found hers across thirty feet of curated noise. Green, she thought, or hazel flecked with something metallic. Instead of looking away—polite, predatory—he held the line, let the corner of his mouth curve upward, not smug, simply acknowledging the current that had already snapped tight between them. Her stomach flipped, a slow barrel-roll that left her light-headed. She inhaled through her nose, tasted cologne she hadn’t yet smelled.

James followed the wire of her attention. His knee brushed hers under the table, pressure light but unmistakable: decision point. He didn’t speak, only slid his hand to her bare knee, fingers splayed, thumb drawing a small circle on the inside. Permission, anchor, countdown. The young man’s gaze flicked to that hand, then back to her face, smile widening by a millimeter—he’d read the arrangement in one sweep. He tipped his glass in salute, set it down, and stood.

Eleanor’s pulse hammered so hard she felt it in her ears. He moved toward them, unhurried, weaving through bodies that might as well have been smoke. She shifted forward on the seat, spine straightening, breasts lifting against silk as breath stalled somewhere between lung and lip. James’s fingers tightened once, then relaxed, surrendering the steering wheel. The stranger arrived at the booth’s edge, palms resting on the curved back, eyes only on her.

“Caleb,” he said, voice pitched low enough to slide beneath the bassline. “And you’re looking for something tonight.” It wasn’t a question; it was an open door. Eleanor felt the vodka blaze back up, tasted the yes before she spoke it.

James’s thumb stopped circling. The weight of his palm became a brand through silk, a quiet deed transferring ownership for the night. Eleanor didn’t look at him; she couldn’t break the thread Caleb had looped around her. Still, she felt the nod more than saw it—one shallow dip of James’s chin that shifted the air, a silent clause added to their marriage.

Caleb stepped closer. Up close the green wasn’t green at all; it was storm-water gray shot through with gold flecks, bright as sparks off flint. He smelled of cedar and whatever heat the bar kept trapped under its low ceiling. One corner of his shirt had pulled free at the waist, revealing a strip of flat stomach and the faint line of hair that disappeared beneath leather belt. Eleanor’s mouth went dry; she licked vodka from her lower lip and tasted copper where she’d bitten earlier.

“May I?” Caleb asked, gesturing at the empty half-moon beside her. The courtesy felt absurd after the stare-down, yet it steadied her—he would observe the rules even while preparing to break them.

James answered for her. “Sit.” One syllable, rougher than she expected, as if dragged across gravel. His hand stayed on her knee, claiming neutrality and complicity at once.

Caleb slid in, the leather sighing under his weight. Thigh brushed thigh; the contact shot straight to her clit, a clean electric line. She shifted, dress riding another inch, and felt James’s grip tighten in warning or encouragement—impossible to tell. The candle guttered between the three of them, throwing shadows that merged and separated with each flicker.

“Your husband tells me you’re hunting,” Caleb said, voice pitched for her ears alone. He rested his forearm on the table, fingers inches from her breast, close enough for heat to radiate. “What’s the prey?”

Eleanor swallowed. The honest answer—myself—felt too large for the booth. Instead she leaned forward, letting the neckline gape just enough to show the inner curve of one breast, the edge of a darker areola under lace. “Something that scares me,” she whispered.

Caleb’s pupils dilated; the gray irises almost vanished. He traced a fingertip along the back of her hand, light enough to raise gooseflesh. “Safe word?”

James spoke again. “Red stops everything. Yellow slows. Green—” He paused, looked at her, waited.

She met his eyes—husband, anchor, witness—and said clearly, “Green.”

The word hung, pulsing, until Caleb nodded once. Then he slipped out of the booth, stood, and extended his palm. “Alley’s private enough. No cameras.” His gaze flicked to James. “You coming, or watching?”

James removed his hand from her knee, the sudden absence cold as ice lifted. He slid from the seat, came around, and placed that same hand at the base of Eleanor’s spine. “We’re both coming,” he said, voice steady, but she felt the tremor in his wrist, the minute quake of a man stepping off a cliff with his eyes wide open.

Caleb’s smile widened, showing teeth. “After you.”

Eleanor stood. The dress clung to damp skin; her thighs slid together, slick already, the evidence probably staining silk. She didn’t care. She led the way, hips rolling, heels clicking a countdown on polished concrete, aware of two sets of male eyes tracking every sway. Ahead, the emergency exit sign glowed red above the push-bar— EXIT, single syllable, final invitation. She pressed, cool metal against her palm, and stepped into the alley’s waiting dark.

The alley air was cooler than the bar, tasting of damp brick and distant rain. A single security bulb cast a cone of jaundiced light over the dumpsters, leaving everything beyond it charcoal. Eleanor’s heels sank into a crack in the asphalt; she wobbled, and both men reached for her at once—Caleb’s fingers closing around her wrist, James steadying her elbow. For a second the three of them made a crooked triangle, pulse points touching, no one letting go.

Caleb released first. “You two do this before?” he asked, tone neutral, like he was asking about frequent-flier miles.

James shook his head. “Never.” His voice scraped, rawer than it had been inside. “She needs…something I can’t give her alone.” The confession fell between them like a cracked bottle, sharp and irreversible. Eleanor felt it slice her open, too—was that pity or gratitude darkening Caleb’s eyes?

Caleb studied James, then her. “And you’re okay watching me fuck your wife?”

James flinched at the blunt word, but his gaze stayed level. “I’m okay being whatever she needs while it happens.” He sounded like he was reading from a script he’d memorized in the dark, each syllable costing him. “If that means lying under her, holding her hand, cleaning her up after—then that’s what I do.”

Eleanor’s breath hitched. She hadn’t said the last part aloud yet; hearing it from James made her thighs press together, shame and heat twining. Did that make her monstrous, or just honest?

Caleb exhaled through his nose, a long, considering stream. “No cameras back here,” he repeated, softer. “And I’ve got condoms, but I’ll use yours if it matters.” He palmed the foil square from his pocket, held it up like evidence. “Tested last month—clean. I’ll show you the app if you want.”

James glanced at her; Eleanor nodded. She didn’t care about the app, but the offer steadied the wobble in her knees. Rules, proof—something to keep the night from tipping into chaos.

Caleb stepped closer, boots crunching grit. “Last chance to call red.” He spoke to her, but his eyes included James. “Once I touch her, I don’t stop unless she says it.”

Eleanor’s heart slammed against bone. She thought of the ring left on the dresser, of the glass she’d shattered in the sink, of every safe Wednesday night that had brought them here. “Green,” she whispered.

Caleb’s shoulders loosened, a fighter accepting the bell. He unbuckled his belt one notch, not to undress yet—just a promise. The leather hiss echoed off brick. “Turn around,” he told her, voice thickening. “Hands on the wall.”

She pivoted, palms meeting cold stone. The dress rode up automatically, cool air licking the backs of her thighs where silk stuck. Behind her, zipper teeth opened—his or hers, she couldn’t tell. James moved into her peripheral vision, kneeling without being asked, settling onto the grimy asphalt. He looked up at her, eyes glassy but certain, and patted his chest. Here. An anchor, a mattress, a vow.

She lowered onto him, knees bracketing his ribs, her weight pressing the scent of cedar and vodka from his shirt. His heartbeat drummed against her pubic bone, fast, faster than Caleb’s boots approaching. She felt James’s erection strain against his fly, trapped but present, a silent yes beneath her.

Caleb stopped behind her, heat radiating. “Tell me when you’re ready,” he said, voice lower, almost tender.

Eleanor looked down at James, at the man who’d carried her groceries and her secrets, and realized she would never be ready—only willing. She rolled her hips once, grinding her clit against the hard line of James’s belt buckle, letting the small pain sharpen her breath. “Now,” she said, to both of them, to the night, to whatever came next.

Caleb’s hands found her hips, thumbs sliding beneath the silk hem, calluses catching on lace. The heat of his palms branded her skin, and she felt the thick ridge of him nudge the cleft of her ass through denim. He bent, breath hot against her nape, and for a heartbeat she smelled cedar over asphalt, testosterone over fear. His lips brushed the top of her spine—soft, almost reverent—then tracked upward, seeking the corner of her mouth.

The alley tilted.
Was this the moment she’d craved, or the one she’d regret until her last breath?

His stubble scraped her cheek, cologne—something citrusy and foreign—flooded her nose, and the wall grit bit into her palms. Every muscle locked. Panic surged, sharp and metallic, chasing arousal out of her veins. She jerked her face away so hard her temple knocked brick.

“James—” The name tore out, raw, not a plea for permission but for presence, for the only anchor she’d ever trusted.

Caleb stilled instantly, hands lifting an inch, breathing hard.

She twisted, knees grinding into James’s ribs. He lay beneath her, eyes wide, reflecting the yellow bulb like wet glass. His mouth was open, inhaling her terror. She saw love there, yes, but also the gouges her nails had left the night she’d first whispered this fantasy—tiny half-moons of guilt carved into his skin.

“I can’t,” she rasped, tears blurring Caleb’s silhouette. “Not without you inside it.”

James’s throat bobbed; he nodded even before she formed the rest.

“Under me,” she managed. “I need to feel you while he—” The sentence fractured.

Caleb exhaled a shaky laugh that wasn’t amusement. “You want him between you and the ground?”

“Between me and everything,” she corrected, voice cracking.

James already shifted, sliding his shoulders flat, arms outstretched like he intended to catch a falling beam. His belt buckle pressed her clit when she settled back, the small pain centering her. He smelled of home—laundry soap, the faint peppermint he chewed after coffee—an olfactory lifeline she wrapped around herself.

Caleb hesitated, glancing from husband to wife. “You sure this works logistically?”

James answered, steady now that purpose replaced shock. “We’ll make it work.” He cupped Eleanor’s jaw, thumbs wiping tears she hadn’t realized were there. “I’ve got you, El. Always.”

She leaned down, kissed him hard, tasting salt and vodka and the metallic tang of her own fear. When she pulled back, Caleb’s eyes had softened, something like respect replacing lust.

“Tell me how,” he said quietly.

She guided James’s hand to the hem of her dress, pressed it against her bare thigh. “Stay touching me,” she whispered. Then, over her shoulder to Caleb, “Come in when I breathe green again.”

James spread his legs slightly, creating a cradle. She sank onto his chest, ear over his thundering heart, and closed her eyes. The alley, the stranger, the cold—all receded until only that drum remained.

She inhaled, exhaled.
Was bravery the same as surrender if you chose them both?

“Green,” she said, voice small but clear, and felt James’s pulse leap against her cheek.

Caleb’s hands hovered, uncertain, above her hips. The alley felt suddenly colder, the brick wall leeching heat from her palms. Eleanor’s chest heaved against James’s, her nipples hardening against the silk of her dress, not from desire but from the chill of exposure. She could feel Caleb’s confusion radiating behind her, a third wheel in what had been their carefully choreographed fantasy.

James’s fingers found the bare skin of her thighs, tracing upward until they met the edge of her panties. His touch was feather-light, reverent, as if she were made of spun glass. “Like this?” he murmured, his voice muffled against her collarbone where she’d buried her face.

She nodded, the movement rubbing her cheek against the stubble of his jaw. “I need to feel you inside this,” she whispered, the words tasting of copper where she’d bitten her lip. “Not just watching. Part of it.”

Caleb shifted, his belt buckle clinking. “So I—” He stopped, cleared his throat. “I take her from behind while you—”

“While I hold her,” James finished, his hands sliding to cup her ass through the silk, lifting her slightly so her knees no longer bore her weight. “While I feel every thrust you give her. While I taste her tears when it gets too much.”

Eleanor’s sob caught in her throat. Was this what she’d wanted all along—not the stranger’s cock but her husband’s complete surrender to her need? The thought sent a fresh wave of wetness soaking through her panties, mixing with the fear-sweat between her thighs.

Caleb’s fingers returned to her hips, more tentative now. “You’ll need to—” He demonstrated, guiding her knees wider until she straddled James’s ribs, her dress pooling around his waist like a curtain. “Like this. I’ll enter from behind, but you’ll feel him under you the whole time.”

James’s erection pressed against her through his trousers, a hot brand against her lower belly. She could feel it twitch when Caleb’s hands settled on her ass, could feel James’s heartbeat accelerate against her breasts. The intimacy of it—her husband’s arousal at another man’s touch on her skin—made her dizzy.

“Tell me if you need to stop,” Caleb said, his voice rougher now, stripped of its earlier confidence. “Both of you.”

James’s hands moved to her face, thumbs wiping tears she hadn’t realized were falling. “We won’t stop,” he said, eyes locked on hers. “This is us, El. This is what we are now.”

She felt Caleb’s fingers hook into the waistband of her panties, the elastic snapping gently against her skin before he drew them down. The cool air hit her exposed flesh, and she shivered, pressing closer to James’s warmth. His hands moved to her hair, cradling her head as she lowered her face to his, their breath mingling.

Behind her, the sound of a zipper. The rustle of fabric. The tear of foil. Each noise a countdown to the moment when fantasy would become flesh, when her husband would feel another man take her while he remained her anchor, her home, her heart beating against his chest.

“Ready?” Caleb asked, his voice closer now, the heat of him radiating against her exposed skin.

Eleanor’s answer was to kiss James deeply, tasting the salt of her tears on his tongue, feeling his hands tighten in her hair as she whispered against his lips, “Green.”