Page 7 of Tempt Her

It’s like Mateo and Ford are aligned. Without a word, they get each other’s back, and is it for my sake, their ease, or just coincidence?

I don’t know these men. Janice Middleton just raved about them last month at a Thanksgiving get-together. It helped me to convince Gentry to refresh the walls of our first floor with a fresh coat of paint before our big New Year’s Eve party in a couple of weeks. It’s one of the few things he cares about, relying upon me to impress everyone.

And here, I assumed Janice was satisfied with the quality of their work. Clearly, Janice was satisfied with more than that.

“What do you think, Luke?” Mateo nudges the young man on his right, and my eyes follow.

And like rays of golden sunshine breaking through storm clouds above, Luke dares to address me, casting his huge smile like I’m the only one in the room.

“Whatever makes you happy, ma’am. I mean, I’d sure want to makemywifeveryhappy,” Luke answers with a coy grin. And either he’s so young, he doesn’t know better. Or he’s so goddamn built like a brick shit house that nothing scares him, not even Gentry, who’s glaring at him for acknowledging me.

“It’s a nice color, ma’am. You’ve got pretty taste.” Luke doesn’t stop. “It’ll brighten the place up.”

No,hebrightens my places up.

His wide, shimmering smile and bright white teeth. His lush, full lips and face tan by hours outside. His shaggy brown hair is painted blonde by the sun. The thickest eyelashes I have ever seen on anyone frame his big, bright green eyes that shine my way, and he’s so young; evil doesn’t color his world yet.

How old is Luke? Nineteen? Twenty maybe?

The intensity in Ford’s eyes tells me he’s in his late thirties, but no one informed his body; it’s perfection.

Mateo seems to live between Ford and Luke; his forearms are corded and strong, his shoulder muscles are honed, and damn, his ass in jeans.

What do these men do? Work at a peach farm on the side?

I can imagine what all three would look glistening and naked above me.

Because that’s what I’ll be doing tonight. Like I do every night. Imagining...

On some lucky nights, Gentry isn’t here. He claims he’s spending the night alone on his yacht moored in the harbor by the golf club, and I’d rather he sleep at the bottom of the ocean, but as long as it’s not with me, whatever.

But on the nights I have to suffer him. Either his biting comments about my thighs. “You’re getting that cottage cheese shit on your legs.” Or when I take off my makeup, and he looks disgusted. “You need more Botox,” he sneers, and I’m only thirty.

It’s either that or he brings his golf club, a condom for its grip, and lube to our bed with a look in his eyes.

If the man wants to be assfucked, fine. Buy me a strap-on or fuck a real man; I don’t judge.

What repulses me is the glare in Gentry’s eyes. He relishes my disgust because he knows I loathe touching him. He delights in making me do something I can’t stand. He even taunts me. “You hate this, don’t you?” He bends his knees toward his chest to watch the frozen look I try to keep on my face. “You hate that you’re a woman. That you don’t have a dick. You don’t have any power. You’re the one getting fucked like this.” He jerks his little pecker off the whole time, his sneer turning into a snarl. “Because I make you fuck me,you dirty little bitch.”

Those words make him come every time, and my numbness is profound. Nothing beats through my veins, emptiness filling my heart.

Once the lights are off. Once he’s cleaned his golf club and safely set it by our bedroom door for tomorrow’s game. Once he’s finally snoring by my side, I look for the moon outside our bedroom windows, hoping her light will bring me some company.

Then, when I close my crying eyes, I imagine the kind of man I wish I had married. The kind of man I thought I was marrying.

But what do you know at twenty-one? What do you know if you’ve only been with one man, and he rules your little world like a tyrant?

Behind my eyelids, I dream about a man who’d make it all better.

A man like Redix Dean, the hot Hollywood actor who did those romantic, male-stripper movies. They’re my favorite because any man who can dance like that has got to have a good soul. He’s got to make you feel so damn good; like a queen, I bet he worships you until you come so hard.

A while back, I met Redix.

He grew up here on Hilton Head Island and was back, having dinner with his childhood sweetheart, our local legend, Sergeant Cade Bryant.

That woman intimidated me. More than Redix’s orgasmic smile, Cade greeted me with genuine concern, and it touched me.

Women are rarely nice to me, but she is.

---