"Ok, Pete, I'm off," Paige said, giving him a half-hearted peck on the cheek.
She stopped in front of the mirror in their foyer and examined herself closely to ensure she had not smudged her perfectly applied lipstick. Pete watched as she tugged at her tennis skirt, making it just a little shorter, revealing not just more thigh but almost the bottom of her ass cheeks.
If not for the tennis outfit, you might think she was on her way to an expensive restaurant for a special occasion. Her hair and makeup looked as if they'd been professionally done, her hands manicured perfectly. She looked stunning, just as she always did, which made Pete anxious knowing she would be spending the afternoon with her handsome young tennis instructor, Gavin.
He walked up behind her and began to wrap his arms around her waist but she immediately shrugged him off.
"Pete, stop," she said, sounding more than a little annoyed. "You know Gavin's waiting for me."
Her words cut through him like a knife, turning his momentary lust into stinging jealousy. She caught his gaze and sighed, before carefully running her fingers through her long hair.
"I may be a little later today," Paige continued, reaching out and tracing Pete's jawline with an index finger. "Gavin said I may need some additional coaching."
She gave him a sly, seductive smile before turning around and grabbing her tennis racket from the nearby table. She strutted to the door, and her ass in that tiny skirt brought Pete's thoughts to something far from tennis.
Just as she was about to leave, she turned around, a wicked glint in her eyes.
"If you're a good boy, maybe I'll let you watch next time I... " Paige paused for effect. "train... with Gavin."
She bit her lip and batted her eyelashes one last time before heading out the door, leaving Pete to his swirling thoughts and the all-too-visible bulge in his pants.
He watched as her car pulled out of the driveway, sitting down heavily on the off-white sofa. Her insinuations had left him frustrated and confused, not knowing if she was just teasing him or was actually planning on messing around with her instructor and felt no shame in flaunting it in front of him.
He found the mind-games were escalating with every passing week, leaving him feeling tormented and confused. And yet in spite of his agony, he was as usual, very hard as he sat there imagining her athletic figure in motion, wet from the exertion, maybe even from Gavin's touch. The images in his brain left him in a miserable mix of jealousy and arousal.
There are moments in life that every man wishes he could take back. Something said or done that may not seem overly consequential at the time but ends up changing the entire trajectory of one's future.
Pete certainly had a couple of such moments, both of which he wished to god he could go back in time and change.
The first was with his first wife, Stephanie. They'd been married for just over 10 years when one random evening after several drinks, and a lot of teasing and prodding from his wife, he shared a fantasy that he'd kept secret since they'd been together: how he'd fantasized about her being with another man.
She was shocked at first but it eventually led to some exciting role playing and dirty talk in the bedroom and a few months later, with increasingly relentless persuasion by Pete himself, finally evolved into her actually going through with it. With Pete's blessing, she left to meet some guy at a hotel. And a month after that she filed for divorce and left him for her co-worker that she'd had the fling with. It was mind boggling how badly he'd fucked up, looking back on it.
Pete had been devastated. In the year that followed the divorce, he'd buried himself in his work, rarely socializing with his friends, never dating. And what was most baffling to him in that year is that he was still constantly aroused when he thought about her fling with the other man. He imagined it often and in great detail when he masturbated on the many lonely nights that followed. Each time, the moment his climax ended, he would feel disgusted and heartbroken all over again.
And then he met Paige.
He had been at a work function, an awards banquet for the law firm he worked for. As he leaned against the bar and ordered his third martini to help him get through the boring event, she'd bumped against him almost causing him to spill it all over himself.
He was immediately taken by her beauty and raw sex appeal. She was much younger than he was, just 27 years old to his 42 years. But she flirted with him and he felt flattered. He was hooked immediately.
She said she'd just finished her Master's Degree in Psychology and had actually done some work on a case for his firm involving the use of sex through cyberbullying. Pete only heard half of what she said, as he found himself trying not to stare at the front of her deep V low cut dress that showed off her magnificent breasts.
Unfortunately, 10 minutes into their conversation, she admitted she was actually there on a date with a young intern at Pete's firm, someone Pete couldn't stand to begin with, but from that moment, hated him even more.
The intern, Darren, interrupted their conversation shortly after, clearly inebriated and drug her away from Pete like a caveman. She turned and winked at him as she left and as ridiculous as it sounded, Pete thought he may be in love.
Two weeks later, she came by the office to surprise Darren with lunch but he'd left with a female co-worker (whom Pete was sure he'd been sleeping with) so Paige asked Pete if he wanted to grab lunch with her.
They ended up at a little bistro down the street and talked for the next two hours. She shared that she came from a wealthy family, that her father wanted her to become a doctor but she was fascinated with sexology and how it drove human behavior. For now, she was freelancing while she determined her exact path, which meant sometimes being called on by firms like Pete's as expert witnesses or helping with background research.
What Pete found most refreshing, if not a bit shocking, was just how open she was in talking about sex. She shared that she enjoyed being both submissive and dominant, depending on the situation and the guy. That she wasn't 100% sold on traditional marriages. And as casually as explaining her favorite food, confessed that she had, in her words, 'dated a LOT of guys because she just loved having sex'. Pete almost choked on his drink at her candidness which made her giggle in a way that made his heart swoon.
To his surprise, in spite of their age difference, she agreed to a formal date shortly thereafter and in just two whirlwind months, he was on one knee asking her to marry him. She was out of his league and he was honestly skeptical if she would say yes, but she did and just 4 months ago they were married on a beach in Barcelona.
Since that time there'd been many nights when Pete had laid in bed staring at her as she slept beside him and questioned how the hell he'd gotten so lucky? How could someone as young and gorgeous as this woman have ended up with him? It wasn't that he was ugly, in fact he considered himself handsome, was in decent shape for someone his age, and he made a good living, although he had paid half of his life savings to his ex-wife during the divorce for some ridiculous reason. Even for a lawyer, the laws often made no sense.
But Paige was in an entirely different league, there was no question. When she walked into a room, heads turned, and she could have picked any man she wanted to. Saying she was beautiful didn't do her justice, because it wasn't just a natural beauty kind of thing. It was a raw sexual magnetism, a combination of her stunning looks and her care-free attitude toward all things sex.
And when he thought about all of their dates and times together that led up to him proposing to her, there was one specific evening that stood out for him, when he saw some spark of electricity in her eyes at something he'd said that he felt was the turning point, that he suddenly became much more intriguing to her.
And that became the second event in Pete's life that he wished he could go back and change. The conversation, or confession rather, that would change his future in ways he couldn't have imagined.
They'd been on a dinner date, had a wonderful meal and were sharing an expensive bottle of wine. Paige had asked him about his first wife and specifically, why they'd gotten divorced. Pete had tried to skirt around the details but she was having none of it and continued to probe until he finally told her the truth.
