Mindgasm - A Bad Boy Romance With A Twist (Mind Games Book 3) Read online

  I slammed the closet door and went downstairs again to check on Matilda, who was laying on her quilt, happy as a little slug, sucking on her teething ring.

  These are the dark thoughts that keep me company when it’s just me and Matilda at home, and the work day is over and there’s no more shopping to do.

  Ladies and gentlemen, I used to run a successful business of my own. I used to rake in the money, and I had full, exciting days. And now I was a stay at home mom, waiting for her husband to come home so she could titillate him with overpriced underwear she’d wear once and then never again.

  I sat with Matilda a little, rubbing her plump belly and smiling and cooing at her, half wishing she’d fuss a little so I had something to do, but she just smiled contentedly as she looked around, alert and unbothered. I sat in the playpen with her, kissed her feet, and stared up at the ceiling, framed now with the pink, padded edges of her playpen. Then I sat up, painting. Painting always cheered me up.

  I went and hauled out my paints, brushes and paper and set myself up next to Matilda, who was now hiccupping and gazing at me with calm, unfocused interest. Yes, that was the solution. I could still be artistic. Art and music had always saved me, I was sure they could do it one more time.

  I kneeled before the blank page, hands on my knees, eyes closed, and tried to find the inspiration I needed. Dean’s face came to mind. Sweet, wonderful Dean who was too good to understand the dissatisfaction in my heart, too sweet to know just how fucked up I was. Lovely, gorgeous Dean with his kind smile and sparkly eyes and the most photogenic cock in the known universe.

  I sprang to action and grabbed some paint. Blue, red and white. I had gotten rid of all my swirl artwork from my past life, maybe I could start again and paint some new ones. I used to paint what I thought others felt when they experienced that coveted moment of bliss that had evaded me. I painted what I had read people describe orgasm as, tried to capture that bursting, that swirling sense of things about to come happily undone.

  I pressed the wet tip of the paintbrush down into the center of the page and waited for it to guide itself over the dry paper. I thought of Dean again. Of how he had fucked me over and over, more and better than anyone ever had, of how well-worn those paths were to us now, of the countless times he had been inside me. The paintbrush began to move. Eyes half closed, arm limp like I was channeling a spirit, I let the brush go where it wanted, to carry that smear of blurred purple over the white.

  I tried to remember how it felt to have the thick weight of him inside me, to feel his breath on my neck and to hear his voice, coaxing me on, teasing me, soothing me even as he stroked harder and faster.

  The paintbrush moved. I began to trace tight circles that then opened up and swirled outwards, picking up more paint as I went, blending red with blue, and pressing the oily colors into the grain of the paper. He had fucked my ass. My mouth. Everything. There wasn’t a part of me that he hadn’t thoroughly kissed and stroked and loved and taken…

  Yes, I just had to remember… just had to find again that sweet, crazy thing he knew how to do to me, those scary delicious places we had visited a lifetime ago before weddings and babies and laundry. My hand moved more quickly. I did love him. More than anything. I picked up more paint and swirled faster round that center.

  Burp.

  I looked over to Matilda, the paintbrush frozen in my hand and hovering over the paper. A translucent white liquid dribbled out her mouth and over her cheek. She began to cry.

  I dropped the paintbrush and went to pick her up. I wiped her down, rocked her in my arms and tried to soothe her. When I looked over to the painting I had made I was shocked to see how bad it was. Just an amateurish looking blob that was nothing like what I had created before.

  Scowling, I jostled her in my arms a little more to get her to stop crying, but the mood was spoiled. Not only did I have to suffer the inability to come, I apparently also couldn’t even paint that suffering anymore.

  Chapter 2 - Dean

  It had been a good day.

  I had just that morning successfully concluded negotiations on a new manufacturing deal that would bring in millions for the business in one or two years, providing the commercial property market held for just a few months after the election. By sheer luck, the pharmaceutical giant I had been investing in for seemingly eons had finally developed a drug so marketable it made winning the lottery look like finding spare change down the back of the sofa. Being the only group capable of manufacturing their chemo alternative at that volume in the time frame they’d need, my own factories would have to evolve almost overnight. Now the only problem was to expand gracefully, making sure that Nora and I were positioned perfectly to take advantage of the new exciting directions the company was going.

  Though it had taken me more than a year, I had successfully extricated myself and my partners from anything remotely connected to Portal, and could begin building up again, without him. After some scary flops and near-misses right around the time of the trial, I was finally beginning to feel that life was good again, and that I was on top once more. Where I belonged.

  I slid a finger into the knot of my tie, yanked it a little looser and took a deep breath as I walked out the boardroom. Ginny came in with a stack of folders and had on the exact face she always does when she has a whole long story to tell me.

  “Mr. Cane!” she said and raced over in her heels.

  “Ginny, I have a seriously important meeting coming up, can it wait?” I grabbed my briefcase and set off for the elevators. She followed.

  “A meeting? I didn’t schedule you anything for this afternoon,” she said, hugging the folders.

  “Department of home affairs,” I said with a cheesy smile. “An evening at home with a certain Mrs. Cane, who’s quite particular about being on time.”

  She nodded and smiled.

  “Ah, I see. Good old Netflix and chill.”

  “Something like that,” I said, and inwardly cringed at why my PA was hiring them so young these days. Or maybe it was just me getting old.

  I raced into the elevator before someone else wanted to grab me.

  She’d have seen the lingerie I bought her by now, and the flowers. Now I only had to pick up her favorite Vietnamese takeout on the way home, maybe some wine, and let nature take its course.

  Life was good.

  Fucking good.

  I was killing it at work, I had a hot wife at home with a beautiful baby who was getting bigger every day, and dinner was going to be amazing.

  I bounced out and into the parking lot, got inside the car and turned on the radio for an earful of Spirit in the Sky, like a musical omen sent out on the airwaves just for me. I turned it up really loud, buckled in and pulled off, loudly singing what lyrics I knew.

  Before Nora, life had seemed pointless. Filled with stuff in all directions, but lacking a certain depth, and height, like I had expanded out only on two dimensions, but was empty above and below. Nora had broken me wide open, and I had been on a high since our dusty red wedding day where I said my vows before god and the clucking chickens and told her that she was it. Life had begun now, and there was nothing we couldn’t do together.

  We communicated so well. I knew she was feeling overwhelmed with the little one, and a little out of her depth with the new moms in the area and the house and the new routine… But there was nothing I wouldn’t give her. I loved her, and she loved me. So what could hurt us now?

  An hour later I was pushing open the front door with my hip, paper bags of takeout in my hand.

  “Nora! Guess what I brought?” I yelled into the quiet house.

  I looked up to see her on the staircase, Matilda wriggling in her arms. With the tiniest smidge of disappointment, I realized she wasn’t wearing what I’d bought for her.

  “Hello beautiful. Ask me if I’ve brought our favorite junk food for dinner this evening,” I said, and went to lay it on the counter and then open my arms to give her a hug.

  She h
anded the baby to me.

  “Oh shit, really? I was feeling really bloated today actually, I wish you’d stop trying to fatten me up already,” she said, and went to pick at the package a little.

  I kissed Matilda and swivelled her round to balance on my hip.

  “Come on with that, you’re gorgeous, and this is your favorite. I thought you deserved a little spoiling.”

  She didn’t seem to be in the greatest mood.

  “Hey, let me take that from you. Why don’t you just relax? I’ve got this,” I said, and handed Matilda to her then went to dish up the food.

  But she didn’t relax. She watched me fuss with the food with Matilda in her arms, but winced when I dished her up a plate.

  “Dean, wait, that’s way too much food.”

  I smiled and shrugged.

  “I’m serious, I’m stuffed already. And especially if you wanted to…” here her eyes shot up to mine and she suddenly looked uncomfortable.

  “Wanted to…?” I teased.

  “Nothing. Just… I’m tired, let’s just eat.”

  I frowned and carried the food to the sitting room. This was exactly why we needed these little moments of quality time – the poor woman was clearly frazzled.

  “We should have just gone to a restaurant,” she said and watched as I started eating.

  “I’m at client meetings all day, at these business lunches all the time. I’m sick of restaurants. And we’ve just dropped a fortune getting the sitting room done up, so let’s enjoy it. Besides, if we went out, then little miss couldn’t join us, now could she?” I said and squeezed Matilda’s chin, making her laugh up at me.

  Nora was at least smiling now, but it was a worn-out smile. She nibbled listlessly at her food and we sat in silence for a moment, Matilda in her lap and clutching at Nora’s chest in tiny fists.

  Nora’s body had certainly changed with pregnancy and birth. She was softer. She was breastfeeding now, and where each of her breasts had once been firm and a little …snobbish, they now seemed sleepier somehow, fuller and swollen and heavy and delicious in a completely different way. She got uncomfortable whenever I reached over and tried to slip a hand into her shirt, but holy hell, it didn’t stop me from admiring them every chance I got.

  “It was such a good day today. Put the finishing touches on those last few niggly contracts I told you about.”

  “Great.”

  “And the new contractors are optimistic. I was speaking to Richard Buick this morning and he’s resolved that little licensing glitch we had.”

  “Nice.”

  “I’m feeling really good about it actually. If things go to plan on that front I was thinking we should start looking again at a bigger place for when Matilda starts running around.”

  “Remember when we got thrown out of that movie theatre one time? When you were trying to kiss me in the back row and they kicked us out like a couple of horny kids?”

  I put down my fork.

  “Yeah, of course remember.”

  “That was so hilarious,” she said, a distant look in her eyes.

  “You and Matilda should go to the cinema… I hear they have these mom and baby things where they show kids films…”

  She shot me a poisonous look.

  “Ok, Nora, spit it out. What’s up with you? You’ve been sulking all afternoon.”

  “Sulking? Just because I was remembering something awesome we did in the past?”

  “You’re doing it a lot lately. You’d swear all the best things were in the past the way you talk sometimes.”

  She pushed her plate away.

  “I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m just …I get bored here you know? Days are long. Matilda’s great, but Jesus, I miss adults, you know? I miss having stuff to do.”

  “We’ll go on a holiday then. Let’s go somewhere nice, just you and I.”

  “We’ve just been on a holiday.”

  “Ok, fine. Take up a hobby. You always say you wanna try pottery, so let’s get you a wheel and you can go for lessons, that’ll be fun.”

  “I don’t want to do pottery,” she said, saying it like it was a swearword.

  “Then what? Just say it and I’m on it.”

  “You can’t just buy solutions to everything, you know.”

  And there it was.

  I could feel an argument coming on.

  “Dean, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, it’s just…”

  “Then don’t be ungrateful then,” I snapped.

  Shit. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.

  “I want another job,” she said, voice cold.

  “Great,” I said. “That’s great. Matilda’s old enough, she’ll go to daycare in a few months, that’s a great idea.”

  Nora had despaired finding work before, so it was great to see a little defiance, a little energy in her voice again. I had hidden from her just how many strings I had had to pull to get her set up as the art teacher at Rainbow House, but whatever. We could try something else. People wouldn’t remember the epic Mistress Morgan saga forever.

  “Maybe I should go back to domming.”

  I cleared my throat.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Aren’t I? It’s an option.”

  “Nora, for god’s sake, how in hell is it an option?”

  “I’m good at it. I know what I’m doing. Plus, I can make money. A lot of money.”

  “What do you need money for?” I said before I could stop myself.

  She shifted Matilda on her lap and looked somewhere off to the distance, avoiding eye contact.

  “The same reason you need money, Dean. Because it sucks having to depend on someone else.”

  “You’re not dependent on me. Jesus. We’re a team. Baby, I’m not going to stop you doing what you want, ever. But why that? There are millions of other jobs you could do…”

  “I know, but I’d hate them. The job at the school is fine, but I’m going stir crazy in there.”

  “Then don’t work then. Quit tomorrow. You don’t need to work at all.”

  “God, Dean, that would make things worse, not better.”

  I didn’t know what to do other than greedily swallow a few mouthfuls of soup and try to make sense of why Nora was unhappy. As usual.

  “You’re making me feel like shit for talking to you about this,” she said quietly.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly hating how badly this night was going when only an hour ago I felt on top of the world, sure that my beautiful wife would wear something silly, just because I wanted her to, and lay back and just let me fucking love her for a change. But I took a deep breath and tried to keep it together. She had been through a lot. Much of it my fault. She had just had a baby. She needed my support, I knew that.

  “I don’t mean to make you feel like shit. But come on, Nora. You want to go back to doing that when …you’re a mother. You’re my wife. And on top of it we’re not even…” I gestured to the sad, empty air between us.

  “Not what? Just say it.”

  I scowled at her.

  I didn’t want to think that Nora could be fulfilled some way that had nothing to do with me. That there was some form of her happiness out there in the world that I couldn’t understand or be a part of. Worse than that, I didn’t want to imagine that she still wanted to do that grisly job while at the same time turning me down night after night. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

  “You know what, you’re right. I guess I’ll just have to pay you then for an appointment, huh? Since you won’t give me any of your time here at home, just because you want to?”

  Her eyes grew wide.

  “Ugh, Nora, forget I said that,” I said and stood, yanked my tie off and paced the room. Before I could think of what to say though, she had taken Matilda and stomped out of the room. It took everything I had in me not to kick the damn table over.

  “Nora, this isn’t fair!” I yelled after her, but I knew she wasn’t li
stening. I slumped down into the seat and took another few mouthfuls.

  How the fuck did any of this happen? We weren’t supposed to be this couple. Nora was my little firecracker, the unbreakable girl with a voracious libido and killer wardrobe and a stare that could drop a man at twenty paces. We had spoken about everything. We adored one another. We had had the kind of sex I had to believe very few people in this world are lucky enough to experience. And yet here we were, squabbling over takeout, our arguing about sex and money, making our new baby cry.

  God. I tried to think but I could literally not imagine a more stereotypical situation. I tried to gather myself and pinpoint the source of my anger.

  I hope you’re ready, because I’m about to tell you something that’ll make the situation look even worse.

  Nora… faked it.

  The last time we had sex, it was plain as day, and she closed her eyes and did this little thing and pretended, right there in my arms, that she was coming when I knew that she wasn’t. I hadn’t said anything at the time. I was embarrassed for her. And for me. I didn’t know whether the insult was because I was that bad in bed or that she thought I was stupid enough to buy it.

  Didn’t I know her body better than anyone? Wasn’t I a seasoned expert concerning all those little shivers, those little changes in tone and temperature, the quality of her breath, the feel and taste and even the smell of her coming? Did she think so little of us that she didn’t believe I could spot a faked orgasm in a heartbeat? Did she think that I was some kind of douche who would get mad at her if she was just honest with me? I had never given her reason to think that. In fact, I had given my life to Nora on a platter. I was one of the wealthiest men in the country, I was fit and damn if I say so myself, good looking enough. I was a good guy. I didn’t deserve a fucking faked orgasm.