Coming Home to Roost

Mallory chose not to panic. Despite the fact that she was sitting completely naked in her guest bedroom with her ex-boyfriend, who was equally undressed, and her husband was just outside the house, Mallory did not panic. It was her nature, to repress, to bury it deep and show only a grave outer appearance. But more than that, she was resigned. She had been caught. The act of infidelity had been fun, but this is where it ended, with him finding her in the aftermath of sex, her skin still flushed from the second orgasm. This was where her marriage ended.

Though Mallory had accepted this apparent fact, Monica refused to do so. She shuffled up to her sister and grabbed her by the shoulders. Mallory felt herself be shaken and heard her sister’s voice in the distance, dull and awash with white noise. But Monica didn’t give up, instead she shook her sister harder and firmly cried her name over and over, while remaining quiet enough that Dario outside wouldn’t hear his wife’s name being shouted from within. Still slightly dazed, Mallory turned to face Monica, as the words became clearer.

“Mallory, can you hear me?” Monica growled for the fifth or sixth time. “I can get you out of this, but you have to listen to me.”

“I’m a cheater, we’ve been caught, my marriage is over, just like yours,” Mallory inhaled and closed her eyes. “It’s what we deserve.”

“Maybe but not yet,” Monica insisted, talking quickly with an eye to the door. “It’s too late for me, but you-”

“He’ll probably kick us both out. Not that I blame him. We’re gonna have to find somewhere to stay.”

“Mallory! Listen to me.”

“Can’t move in with Dom or Mia. Guess it’ll have to be our parents. Back home at our age, god, is that a sign that we made some bad decisions or what,” Mallory joked, as she considered what she might need to pack. “Could be worse. Misty would have a field day if we showed up at her door. If we could find her door.”

“I offered to let Monica stay in a room, free of charge, in the Ravers Palace hotel before,” Robert interjected since he did hold some responsibility for their current circumstances. “The offer still stands and is open to both of you.”

“No one is moving in with anyone,” Monica shot a look over her shoulder at Robert, his helpfulness unwanted. “Listen to me.”

She shook her sister once more.

“Run now, to your room, and take a shower. Whatever Dario asks, agree and tell him what he wants to know. Don’t pretend.”

Mallory leapt up from the bed and hurried to, Monica hoped, do exactly what she had been told. Remembering one last detail, Monica called after her.

“And leave the door open.”

First, he heard the sounds. Unmistakable moaning, loud and impassioned, coming from deep inside his home. The voice was familiar, but he’d never known it to make these kinds of noises. An image of his wife masturbating formed in his head, although it was pure imagination. In all their years, he’d never known Mallory to touch herself, and it was difficult to even picture, given her usual frosty and serious outward demeanor. Even when she orgasmed during sex it was restrained. But this…these screams were the outcries of a woman who was enjoying herself in body and soul, who simply couldn’t hold back her lustful joy. And worse, they were tainted by the subtle groans of a man.

The smell struck his nose at almost the same time he heard the sex noises. As he stepped inside, he felt the living room heavy and humid with sweat and arousal. The air had turned syrupy, so sticky and muggy that it stung his eyes. His lips parted slightly as he breathed through his mouth and accidentally tasted the salty sweetness, the kind that made him recoil while his cock hardened in his trousers. His nostrils flared at the sultry aroma. How long had they been at it, whoever they were, he wondered, that they had turned his house into a sauna of sexual heat?

It was obvious, wherever the couple were now, they had started here. Displaced cushions from Mallory’s immaculately kept couch lay instead on the floor, and next to them were all manner of clothes. A shirt here, jeans there, men’s boxers and then, the dread appearance of a pair of plain, cotton panties. His heart sank when he saw those. While he couldn’t be certain that they belonged to Mallory, he thought they looked like ones that she wore often. He looked around for more clues, three, four times, **** for something to tell him he was wrong. But the living room was littered with their breadcrumbs, leading to the hallway, where the exaltations of lust and pleasure grew louder with every step he took.

A strange mixture of emotions washed over him when he looked in the open door to the guest bedroom. For a moment, his eyes played tricks on him, and rather than Monica, he thought it really was Mallory riding Robert Ravers, a foot planted on either side of his muscled body, hands on his chest to support herself as she repeatedly, vigorously and desperately squatted down on his thick cock. Then relief, as his eyes adjusted and he saw that it really was Monica. Of course, it was Mallory’s sister. He felt suddenly stupid for even doubting his wife.

No longer worried about his marriage, other feelings began to dominate his body and mind. As he stared at his wife’s sister bouncing atop her lover, he felt his cock twitch, the soft curves of her figure her thick round ass and jiggling, heavy breasts all causing his erection to swell and harden uncomfortably within his work jeans. Unconsciously he allowed himself to touch his length through the clothes as his eyes roamed back and forth over her naked body. God, she was hot. He flashed back to the few times their combined families had gone to the beach, remembering Monica in a bikini. But even that thin, flimsy material hadn’t done justice to the firm, tight figure underneath.

Following the lines of her body, his eyes moved once again to her smooth, round ass as it bobbed up and down on Robert’s lap. With her legs up, and bending her knees every time she wanted to drop herself down on him again, he was afforded a completely unencumbered view of the man’s thick, long dick. It had to be the fattest, lengthiest cock he’d ever seen. Not that he’d seen a lot, but glimpses in the gym locker room, or on the occasion, when he was home alone and googled some porn. But Robert’s manhood didn’t look real. It was almost cartoonish, and completely inhuman, a thing of myth and legend. Suddenly he felt another rush of relief. While Dario didn’t consider himself to be small, anything that came after that monster would have been diminutive by comparison. Thank the heavens he and his wife never actually made it to the bedroom.

Anger rose up next. He’d been so distracted by what they were doing that he completely overlooked who Monica was doing. Robert Ravers wasn’t supposed to be in their house. Mallory hated him. Hated him with a fiery passion ever since they dated as teens. He completely unaware that his darling wife had found a different outlet for her emotions, choosing lust over hate. So, he stood in the doorway, incensed on her behalf, oblivious to her unfaithfulness. Or at least he was until Monica flicked her hair out of her face and turned her head to see him, standing there, watching.

He felt guilt and shame, realizing that he must look like an absolute pervert because he hadn’t spoken up sooner. And because his fingers were currently rubbing the bulge in his trousers. Quickly removing his hand, he played it off as simply adjusting himself. Strangely, Monica didn’t seem to mind. In fact, when she saw him, she grinned, or what amounted to a grin on her gasping, open mouth. She didn’t even stop. Knowing her sister’s husband was watching, she continued riding Robert, and even slammed herself down harder on him, filling the air with slaps of flesh and creaking bed frames.

“Hiiiiii, Da-AH-rioooo,” she cooed as she again filled herself with cock.

“M-Monica…” His throat felt dry but he managed to get the words out. “W-what’s going on here? What is he doing here?”

“He’s here…huff huff…to ask…huff huff…a favor,” Monica panted heavily as she tried to speak while maintaining her current pace, not content to let up her riding even for a second. “We…got to…talking and…huff huff…well, you can…mmmm…see….”

Dario scratched his eyebrow and stared at their union through the gaps of his fingers. “Monica, he can’t be here. You know how Mallory feels about him.”

“Soooorrrreeee,” she apologized, although it sounded insincere when half moaned. “I just can’t…huff huff…help myself…but…Mallory…Mallory already knows.”

“Mallory was okay with this?”

The news was so surprising he took a physical step back from the scene. When he saw his naked sister-in-law riding atop her old lover, Dario had assumed that Mallory wasn’t home. Surely if she was anywhere in the house she’d have heard them, since they were nearly bringing the house down with their combined noises, and his tough but fair wife would have stormed out to reprimand them. He could almost hear her voice in his head, telling Monica and Robert that they weren’t young adults anymore, and that they should think of the others in the house.

“Oooooh, yeah, Mallory was…huff huff…more than happy. When she heard…the offer…she asked him to stay. She was so…excited. Robert waited…for you…mmm…but, I guess…we…just couldn’t wait…to celebrate…”

He couldn’t even begin to imagine what this offer might entail, his mind was still lingering on Mallory consciously allowing Robert Ravers, the most hated man of her life, to even step inside her home.

“Where is Mallory?”

“Shower…bedroom…” Monica monosyllabically cried between moans.

As he turned to towards the Master Bedroom at the end of the hall, Dario paused and looked back into the room. One last look at his sister-in-law’s tight, naked body, bouncing and jiggling, her skin tinged slightly pink with arousal, slick and glistening all over from sweat that flew from her body in droplets every time she moved up and down on the other man’s thick cock. She noticed him watching again and smiled, knowing and temptingly.

He swallowed hard as he reached out for the door handle and said, “Let me close this for you.”

“If that’s what you want…” she sang breathlessly.

His cock throbbed. Want wasn’t something he could think about right now. Ignoring the desires of his lower half, he pulled the door shut and walked dizzily towards the bedroom he shared with Mallory. Some of the light-headedness he came from the blood rushing south, but it was partly also from how surreal the night had become. Perhaps he’d had one too many drinks with his workers and this was all a strange, drunken dream.

“Mallory?” He called out as he stepped inside his bedroom. “Honey?”

Just as Monica had said, the shower was running in the en-suite. The rest of the room was empty, and so meticulously neat and tidy that it seemed more spacious than it really was. While he waited for his wife to finish, he took off his jacket and immediately hung it up in the wardrobe, acutely aware how Mallory would feel if he even messily draped it over a chair. Then came his boots, which he sat on an upholstered bench at the bottom of the bed to remove. In truth, he should have taken them off at the door, but he had just been so distracted by the smells and sounds of sex. Below, his cock twitched again.

While he was still unlacing his second shoe, the door to the bathroom opened and steam billowed out. Through it stepped his wife, her skin just as flushed as Monica’s, and covered in a wet sheen, all he assumed from the hot shower. She was almost as naked as her sister too, except for the large blue fluffy towel wrapped around her abdomen. Her body stiffened when she saw him, and her eyes watched him for a moment before quickly looking away.

“Oh, D-Dario,” she said woodenly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

A loud moan drifted through the walls.

“I would be surprised if you heard anything over…that.” He blushed too, realizing that Mallory probably didn’t want to talk about her sister having sex. “What’s been going on here? Monica said you let Robert into our house?”

“She said that…because I did, yes,” Mallory replied, remembering Monica’s orders.

“I thought you never wanted to be anywhere near him ever again, never mind allowing him into our home. Your sister told me that he had a favor to ask me, but I can’t imagine what could possibly be so good to make you change your mind about him.”

“A favor…right. He came to offer you a job,” she revealed, emboldened by the fact he hadn’t caught her out yet. “He wants to work with you.”

“That’s it?” Dario pulled off his other boot and set in in line with the first. “I already have a job, and my own company. I don’t much feel like being employed by your ex-boyfriend.”

The idea of her husband working with a man who’d had his cock inside her only fifteen minutes earlier didn’t exactly warm Mallory’s heart either. However, this offer was apparently the reason she’d invited Robert inside her home, and allowed him to stay. She had to sell it. She had to make him believe it was worth the trouble.

“This is a great opportunity for you, and your company, Dario. Your work was drying up back in Black Well, and there hasn’t exactly been a stampede to hire you out since we came to Azure Rocks. If you get in bed with Robert…”

It was a slip of her tongue that made her **** momentarily. Luckily her husband assumed she had frozen because of what was happening in the bed next door, and didn’t suspect that her body was currently nursing two creampies.

“If you agree to work with Robert, there could be more work later. This could be the start of a productive, lucrative relationship between the two of you,” Mallory rephrased and continued. “A relationship that could last onto the next generation too, between Dominic and Heather.”

“I had some work back in Black Well,” Dario grumbled. “It was your idea to move closer to your family.”

“So, it’s my fault your business is struggling?”

She put her hands on her hips and glared coolly at him. The last thing she wanted was to be so callous to cheat on her husband and then make him feel bad with an argument. But she couldn’t let a comment like that slide. And he might even be more suspicious if she didn’t get angry. Predictably, he backed down immediately.

“No, no, honey, I’m not saying that, it’s just…I’m surprised is all; surprised that you want any kind of relationship with Robert Ravers,” he hastily replied. “And there’s all this news about him and his company right now. Do you really think the best thing for me to do is to hitch my ride to a sinking ship?”

“However I might feel about him, I know better than to count him out. Even when you think that he’s gone, he finds a way of coming back. He’s resilient and determined, and his ambition means he never satisfied. It makes him a bad boyfriend, but a remarkable business man.” And a fantastic lover, she thought to herself. “It was only a few years after we broke up that Robert ousted Malcolm from position atop of Ravers Enterprises. My father investigated the accident, and in the aftermath, Ravers Enterprises profits were dropping and their reputation was in tatters. That’s the situation Robert inherited. Despite everything, he turned it around, and rebuilt the company’s image from scratch. And I have no doubt that he can do it again.”

“The job security would be nice. I wouldn’t have to worry about where my next project was coming from all the time. That is, if he can do what you say.” Dario stood up and approached his wife. “And if you’re sure that you’re really okay with all of this. That you can handle Robert being part of your life again.”

This was her opportunity. All she had to do was say it would complicate their lives too much. That wouldn’t even be a lie, having fucked her ex-boyfriend right before her husband came home did make her life more difficult. Even if it was a one time thing, it was now a dark cloud hanging over her marriage. But it would only be a one time thing if she could successfully convince Dario that Robert being in their lives now might drag up too many bad emotions. She thought about Monica’s words; how it would never be over. But she had to try, didn’t she? For her husband’s sake. For the sake of her marriage, she had to.

“Yes,” she heard herself speaking while she was still thinking. “I can handle it.”

“What did I do to deserve such a strong-willed, emotionally secure wife?” he asked rhetorically as he took her face in his hands, then leaned down to kiss her.

Her lips parted to allow his tongue to explore her mouth in a warm, familiar kiss that made her feel safe and content, despite the guilt his words had provoked. The celebratory kiss deepened as he drew her in closer holding her body against his in a tight embrace. The kiss continued soft and slow, but Mallory found that she missed the illicit urgency of Robert’s mouth on hers. Dario’s kiss was that a man casually laying affection upon a woman he intensely appreciated, but Robert’s kiss had been the **** passion of a man who needed to taste her right that second. But she hated that she was comparing them, as soon as she realized it, she broke the kiss.

If he noticed her shame, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he just kept holding her in his arms.

“I think I’ll wait until morning to tell him I’m accepting his offer. They still seem rather busy…”

Perhaps in response, they heard Robert roar from the other room and everything else went quiet. Monica’s screams died down, and the bed stopped squeaking. Mallory had already heard that same cry twice, and knew that Robert had ejaculated again, although this time inside of her sister. A warmth spread out from her core as she remembered how the gooey, hot cum had felt when he creamed her earlier.

“Oh, maybe I spoke too soon…”

Again Robert proved him wrong as barely a minute had passed before the bed started rocking and Monica’s moans filled the house again. Mallory wouldn’t have doubted that making so much noise and continually fucking was her sister’s idea of a prank, enjoying the idea of making them feel uncomfortable just by having to listen. But Robert’s words also echoed in her mind. ‘I never leave a woman until she’s been completely and utterly satisfied’, he’d said, and Monica, much like Mallory, was likely unsatisfied to be fucked by his thick, hard cock just once.

“They’re at it again?! So soon?!” Dario said to no one in particular, unable to hide his surprise.

“Robert already ‘finished’ twice already,” she informed him quietly. “So, this is really like the fourth time tonight…”

“No way,” Dario whispered in awe before quickly clearing his throat. “That’s got to hurt. It’s got to be raw and numb, and all the chaffing…I can only imagine. Not a pretty sight. He can’t possibly be enjoying himself. I guess it really is just a kind of addiction.”

Words said to make him feel better, and if she hadn’t been fucked by that same cock earlier, Mallory might have agreed. But she’d felt his manhood and seen his face; he enjoyed every minute of it. If he was addicted to anything, it wasn’t the sex, it was the power of holding a woman’s pleasure in his hands.

Dario held onto his wife tighter, inadvertently poking her with his trouser bulge through the folds of the towel. She smiled as she looked down between them and confirmed that her husband was sporting an erection beneath his work jeans. When she looked back up to his face, he mumbled an apology and turned away.

“Has hearing them going at it gotten you feeling frisky?” she teased her husband.

“No…not hearing, but…” He didn’t want to admit that the visual of his thigh bodied sister-in-law riding Ravers’ big dick was still replaying in his mind, keeping his blood flowing south.

“It’s okay. It’s got me feeling adventurous too,” she said before kissing his cheek, also neglecting to mention that it was the lingering memory of how the big cock had felt imprinted upon her pussy that had her raring to go again.

“Really, honey?” he glanced to the door as she began unbuttoning his shirt. “They could hear us.”

“I don’t think they’ll mind. We can hear them, so fair’s fair, I say.”

To quieten any more protests, she reached up and pulled her husband’s mouth into a deep kiss. He tasted of beer and salted nuts. Her other hand kept undoing his shirt, prying the buttons out with nimble fingers. The movement of her body against his destressed her towel, causing it too to come undone. As it slipped off her chest and crumbled on the floor, she pulled his shirt off his shoulders. Next came his jeans.

They seemed to undress in a whirlwind. Not passionate, just fast, almost ****. Their lovemaking had always been regimented and methodical, scheduled between laundry and flossing. Not that Dario minded an organized sex life, it was better than some of his buddies who got nothing from their wives. But tonight was something completely different for both of them. He had something to prove, to himself and to his wife, after seeing his sister-in-law stretched out by Robert’s cock and moaning as she rode him. Mallory wanted to see if Monica had been correct. After cheating, could she go back to Dario like nothing happened?

As it turned out, for Mallory there was no problem in pretending. She stripped her husband and pushed him back upon the bed. Turning around, she bent over and lowered her ass to him. Instinctively he reached for his shaft, holding his member steady as she guided her pussy onto him. Her entrance made a wet sucking noise as he slipped easily inside. He thought he was the only one turned on but he’d never felt his wife this aroused before.

“You’re so wet,” he grunted as she began to slide her pussy lips up and down along his shaft.

She was very turned on, that was true, but most of what he was feeling was the two previous loads Robert had dumped inside of her. She chose not to tell him that. With her back to him though, she could close her eyes and remember how that bigger cock felt without fear of him reading it on her face. Her silky, nude back reminded him of Monica, the sister’s naked bodies being remarkably similar, but he pushed that thought out of his head, and focused only on his wife. Mallory did not restrict herself in the same way though, slamming herself down harder on his dick as she thought of another man’s cock.

Size or girth had never much mattered to her before. She loved Dario, and his cock, although average, never failed to bring her pleasure. And she could live with that. Or she thought she could, until tonight. Even though Robert’s cock was so thick it hurt her to accommodate it, she found she missed that slight ache. Despite the fact that his cock was so long that two inches remained outside, she found that she missed that deep penetration. She still loved Dario, but his cock, being completely average, now failed to bring her pleasure.

Not that Mallory didn’t try though. Determined to extract at least one orgasm from him, she began to ride him faster and harder, bouncing her ass up and down on his lap over and over, as she drove his dick as deep as it could go. She felt a tingle and a twinge, as a shiver almost ran up her spine. Maybe it was from the cock inside her, or maybe it was the cock inside her head, but she didn’t care. So long as one of them got the job done.

“Mallory…” Dario groaned behind her.

Another tingle, and the beginning tremors of an oncoming orgasm.

“Fuck…Mallory...slow….or I’m gonna…”

His words sounded distant and meaningless as she pushed herself onward to her climax. She could feel it building up inside her. It was going to be a small one but it was so close.

“Mallory…”

The sounds of a bed creaking filled the room, although it could have been from next door. The squelch as she drove herself down upon him relentlessly was definitely coming from between her legs though. The sounds turned her on even more as the sensation of her impending orgasm intensified.

“Mallory…”

Almost. Almost. Her entire body grew warm, radiating out to the tips of her fingers and toes from her core, anticipating the wave of pleasure that would soon be washing over her. Soon. Soon. Just another minute. Another thirty seconds. Another…

“Fuuuuuuuck.”

Dario came, and the spell was broken. Even though she kept bouncing on him while his cock kept spurting out its seed, it felt different. That he hadn’t been able to hold on until she came was a tremendous disappointment. And as soon as he stopped coming, his dick immediately began to soften. Of course, it was unfair to make the comparison. Dario was the normal one. This was the normal reaction. But, having had better, she couldn’t help but want it again.

Behind her, he began to draw long, panting breaths, punctuated by a groan when his dick slipped from her sodden hole. Letting him lie there, she moved to the dresser and cleaned between her thighs with a tissue while her mouth became tight and thin, as smileless as normal. Almost two minutes later, he lifted his head and apologized.

“Sorry, I couldn’t…but you were like a woman possessed…the ****, probably…I’ve never seen you so wild…”

She almost felt sorry for him as he fritted from one excuse to another, although not as sorry as knowing that he really was blameless. It wasn’t his fault. It was Robert’s, and hers. But that didn’t stop her from being angry, though mostly at a world so cruel as to make the man she loved so inadequate compared to a man she begrudged for years. And at herself, for allowing herself to discover that fact firsthand. She had opened pandora’s box, and now her world could never be the same.

“Maybe in half an hour, we…I mean, I could,” he began.

“It’s fine,” she put him off, knowing that within fifteen minutes Dario would be asleep and snoring.

“So…so long as you’re not upset,” he said, clearly fishing.

“No,” she lied, and paused when she heard another cry rise from her sister’s lips next door, accompanied by a loud grunt from Robert. The ear piercing satisfaction made Mallory’s muscles tighten with envy. “Why would I be upset?”

Panting, sweaty and tingling all over, Monica rose her body just enough to allow his cock to slip from her hole, before laying herself down with a sigh. She rested at his side, draped partially over his body, her naked breast pressed almost flat against his bare chest while one long leg entwined with his. A murmur formed on her lips as she contentedly sighed again, having felt all the tension of the day melt away, leaving her as she was now, floating somewhere between pleasure and dreams.

“I didn’t expect my day to end like this,” she whispered to him, more out of exhaustion than any obligation to be quiet. “But I needed it.”

“It was a nice distraction,” he agreed and stretched out his arms on either side.

“A distraction?” she teased him in a feinted huff. “That’s all I am?”

“No, you know I love you, Mon.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead, immediately tasing the salty residue of sweat. “Maybe not as much as I love Brooke. Probably more than I ever loved Mallory. But my problem has never been that I didn’t love the women I was with, It’s that I couldn’t only love the woman I was with.”

“And where does Heather fall on that scale?”

“What? Well…Heather’s my daughter,” Robert looked at the doctor with wide eyes, but her intense return told him there was no point in bluffing. “How do you know about that?”

“I overheard Heather and Zack talking.”

“That girl,” he growled. “She’ll be the ruin of me. Well, if I don’t ruin myself first…” He looked again at Monica. “You must be disgusted with me.”

She shook her head. Normally her hair would bounce along, but it was so heavy with sweat that it barely moved.

“I should be, but then I’d have to be disgusted with myself too. I kind of am, but not enough to stop myself from playing out the same acts with my own son.”

“You and Zack?”

Monica grimaced to hear it said aloud.

“It hasn’t quite gone this far yet,” she noted, referring to their current pillow talk. “But that bothers me. I’m like an alcoholic standing outside the bar. I want to go in. But I can’t. Or I shouldn’t. I know what I’ll be losing if I give up that control. I tried just keep my distance, and he wound up coming to me. So, I asked Melfina for help.”

“Are you sure that was a good idea? I know that she’s your friend, but she also has a professional obligation…” Robert swallowed hard, while he wondered if he had to prepare for yet another scandal. “Did you tell her anything about me?”

“No, it was strictly about me and Zack, and I trust her. She won’t tell anyone, so long as it’s consensual and we’re not endangering ourselves or others. There was no judgement, just advice for how to stop, if that’s what I want.”

“And is it?” Robert remembered how he had resisted for so long, not because he didn’t want it, but simply because he knew that he shouldn’t. When he stopped caring about what someone else said was right or wrong, all he was left with was desire.

“I don’t know. Yes, because I can’t stop thinking about it, but also no, because it terrifies me to imagine what that will do for our relationship, and for the future. Zack is a young man with the rest of his life to go. He deserves to be able to spread his wings and fly, rather than be tethered to his old mom.”

“So, what did Melfina suggest?”

“To reassert that I’m off limits. There’s been a kind of transference, for both me and him, of my feelings towards you, to him. And since learning about my past and my affairs, he’s been awakened to his mother as a woman, and a sexual creature, a confusing realization at an already confusing time when he’s realizing who he really is, along with the typical development of his male body. So, he needs to see me with another man. He needs to see us together. It’s not going to immediately snap everything back into their rightful role, but it will, in time, show him that I’m not just another woman in his expanding world of sexual prospects.”

Robert raised an eyebrow, somewhat incredulous, as he simplified her words. “That’s the solution. That we should date?”

“We don’t really have to date. I don’t expect you to be a one woman man. You can keep fucking whoever you want. It’ll be completely open and casual. Just that, maybe we should spend more time together, and not just in bed. That’d be good for your and Heather too, right? Our kids grow up and stop seeing us as parents and see us instead as people. Let them see us as adults with our own lives.”

“It’s probably not a bad idea. Heather has always been my weak spot, and I let her get away with too much, I know, but it would be a problem if Brooke found out what we’ve been doing. Heather says she already suspects.”

“Then it’ll kill two birds with one stone. Brooke will be thrown off the scent and it’ll cool relations between you and Heather. That’s good for everyone.”

“Heather’s holding a party at the cabin tomorrow. She invited me. I think she just wants to show off in front of her friends, and to enrage her mother, but maybe we should go together,” Robert suggested. “Or maybe she’ll just see it as a challenge.”

“No, that’s perfect,” Monica smiled to herself, the plan giving her strength and resolve that she’d been missing for a few days. “We’ll make a statement to both Zack and Heather by showing up at the party together.”

“If everything doesn’t fall apart before then, yes.”

Monica sat up slightly and Robert had to **** himself not to stare hungrily at her suddenly bared breast fully in view.

“Fall apart? Why? What happened?”

“Everything.” Robert said cryptically. “You know I’ve never really considered myself to be a good man. Not bad either, on scale, but I know my faults and failings. Ambition. Lust. Greed. All accusations that have been thrown at me over the years, and all with some kernel of truth, I’ve never denied that. But I’ve always tried to do my best for my family, and our business. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done with them in mind. But there have been mistakes along the way.”

“Not being a man and telling Mallory the truth led to her resenting me for years until tonight. Our affair led to a son I didn’t even know about and broke up your marriage. Sleeping with my daughter almost cost me my family business. Installing Zack as my replacement did cost me my business. And now, Daniel…Every little failure I’ve ever made is coming back to haunt me. How many good years did I have? These two weeks feel like a punishment for how good I had it.”

“I want to persevere. Every time I think I can knuckle down and rebuild, there’s another artillery shell that throws everything into disarray. Throughout it all, I’ve had the people close to me, helping me, working for the goal. Even when it seemed like they weren’t, my family have had my back. But if Zurbrugg releases what he has on me…they’ll all abandon me. They’ll hate me. I won’t be able to look Daniel in the eye ever again.”

“That’s not true. It can’t be possible. There’s nothing you could ever do to make them hate you. Not Daniel, and especially not Heather. Maybe Brooke won’t be happy, but even at your worst, she never left you. Not completely. It’s just not possible.”

Robert didn’t answer.

“Robert…”

His silence condemned himself.

“Robert!”

He raised his eyes to meet hers, his electric blue pupils unusually filled with uncertainty.

“What did you do?”