Rule #5: Why be jealous when you can be turned on?
Hunter
The car rideto the rental from the club is quiet. Isabel is next to me in the passenger seat with her hands folded in her lap, and her eyes are glued to the passing city through the window. Behind us, Drake is brooding. Every time I glance in the rearview mirror, I catch his eye contact for only a second, before he looks away in a rush.
I find their strange sense of shame amusing. They look as if they’ve both been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and maybe if I was an insecure man, or thought for one moment that these two would ever even think about betraying me, I would be more worried. But I’m not.
What happened on stage was just a demonstration, and the presenter, Maxwell, clearly misjudged them as a couple. The little show they put on was entertaining, more so to me than anyone else, since I was the only one in the audience who knew just how uncomfortable that was for them.
Seeing them up there, my half-naked wife in the hands of my best friend…didn’t quite have the effect on me I expected. When I walked back into the main showroom, I paused at the door when I recognized the two people under the pink light. And while my mind echoed a cadence ofwhat the fuck,my body didn’t react the same way.
Maybe I should have wanted to charge the stage and tear my woman out of Drake’s arms. I probably should have been boiling with anger at the sight of his fingers running the length of her spine, brushing over her barely covered breasts, and tickling the underside of her rib cage. But I didn’t hate it.
I didn’t hate it at all.
Isabel looked so small next to Drake’s six-three frame. Her warm copper hair shone even brighter under the rose-colored lights. And I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his head during their little rope-tying exploration. I didn’t have to wonder long because the moment Isabel moved to the side, everyone in the room, including me, got a view of his impressive reaction.
He was hard. Very hard, if I was judging correctly from my vantage point.
My best friend was visibly aroused while touching my rope-bound and scantily-clad wife.
I should be fucking furious…but I’m not.
“What did you and Mirabel talk about?” Isabel asks in a meek voice as we pull up to the rental.
“Cross-promotion. She told me a little about how they handle their contracts and freelancers.”
“Oh. Good,” she replies, and then goes quiet again. She’s acting strange.
“Did you like that demonstrator? We can talk to him about coming to Salacious.”
“He was too formal and stuffy,” Drake grumbles from the back seat.
“Never mind then,” I joke.
“I don’t know… I sort of liked him,” Isabel adds with a sweet smile. My wife likes everybody, making her judgment a little hard to trust sometimes. But it makes me love her that much more. She doesn’t have a vicious or cruel bone in her body. Reaching across the console, I squeeze her hand.
Once we get back to the rental, it’s after midnight, and we should probably be exhausted, but the three of us have spent the last year adjusting our schedules to accommodate the late hours of the club. Isabel even hired staff to open her studio and switched to teaching the sunset classes instead of the sunrise ones.
So when we enter the small living space, none of us move toward the bedrooms. Instead, Drake pulls out the bottle of tequila he bought at a local shop today and pops it open with a determined look on his face.
“I’m going to get in my pajamas. Maybe take a bubble bath,” Isabel says, eyeing Drake’s sour mood at the kitchen counter.
“Sounds good, babe,” I say, kissing the back of her hand before she disappears into the bedroom.
Returning to the living room, I watch Drake skeptically as he pours himself a glass.
“Better make that two,” I say, and he does so without a response.
After handing me the glass, he throws back his shot, then lets out a weighted exhale and slams his empty glass on the counter. “Can we talk, please?”
“You okay?” I ask, swirling the golden liquid in the glass.
“No, I’m not okay. I tied up my best friend’s wife in her underwear, and I feel like an asshole for it.”
For the first time tonight, he finally looks me in the eye, and his expression is shrouded in remorse.
“Drake, it’s fine. Relax. It was just a demonstration.”