Best Erotic Romance 2014 (7 page)

Flipping the lid off the box she was looking for, she snorted at the few miniskirts and other paraphernalia she'd kept from a time in her life she'd almost forgotten about. They seemed so ridiculously out of place in her life now. She didn't even know
why she'd kept them. There were just a few things she hadn't wanted to part with and thought might be handy for Halloween or something sometime.

It hadn't lasted very long, but she had gone through a bit of a goth phase during her later teenage years. In addition to the purple hair, fishnets, spiderweb tights, patent-leather six-inch platform boots, striped wristbands and approximately a complete pencil of black eyeliner per week had all been part of the picture. She'd had no idea Pete would have any interest in it, so she had never mentioned it to him.

She found the item she was looking for and shook it out. The crunched-up vinyl made a snapping sound as it creaked apart. She set the miniskirt on the bed and smoothed it. The silver zipper that ran the entire length of the front had dulled a bit with time.

She stared at it and was startled by the visceral memory the garment elicited—like a song, or a smell. Instantaneously she was launched back to her Floridian studio apartment and the achingly long nights on her feet in a hot, loud, crowded bar. She'd sometimes found it fun at the time, which was hard for her to imagine now.

She reached for the box and lifted out what had been one of her favorite corsets. The center and back panels were black vinyl, joined by a pattern of horizontal black-and-white stripes on the sides. Three chunky silver buckles ran up the center.

Shedding her blouse and slacks, Joyce wrapped the skirt around her waist and zipped it up. A little more snug than she remembered, but it still fit. Maneuvering her hands under it, she grasped at her panties and pulled them off. That particular skirt had never gotten along with underclothes. She wound the corset around her torso and struggled to get the side zipper all the way up. When she was finally into it, she fluffed her cleavage and
pulled out her black-and-white-striped wristbands.

How funny that she and Pete had been married three years and had never known of this commonality between them. Joyce reached back into the box and, one by one, pulled out the black, knee-high, lace-up boots. She looked at them warily.

At one time, she had known how to walk in them. Gingerly she lowered her foot into one and zipped it up. She repeated with the other foot, and after adjusting the laces, stood. She was surprised by how natural they felt—appearances aside, their familiarity was unquestionable.

Joyce picked up the bag from Spencer's Gifts. She hadn't entered a Spencer's in years, and being in there had reminded her why. The only patron there that appeared older than twenty-two, she had maneuvered her way through the tight aisles to the back wall and been relieved to see that it was close enough to Halloween for the wigs to be in stock.

She pulled her shiny new costume accessory now from its see-through bag. The style wasn't the same: it was thicker than her hair and had a dense fringe of bangs. But the shade of royal purple was almost identical.

Joyce carried it into the bathroom and brushed it out. It really was a beautiful color. For just a moment she missed wearing it every day, and she smiled at her silliness. Twisting her fair hair up and pinning it as flat as she could against her head, she lifted the wig and carefully maneuvered it over her scalp. Then she began to meticulously outline her eyes in a way she hadn't for more than a decade, smearing jet-black around her eyelids until her eyes somehow gave the impression of a pouty glare regardless of her actual expression. She slathered black mascara over her upper and lower lashes and had to rummage through her makeup drawer quite a bit to locate a tube of blood-red lipstick.

When she was done, she turned to look at herself in the full-length
mirror. Her immediate response was to laugh. Head to toe in gleaming black, reams of shining purple polyester framed her face, the bangs almost reaching her eyelashes as her heavily outlined green eyes blinked back at her. Her lips were the color of ripe cherries.

Wow, I used to look this way all the time on purpose
, she thought as she left the bathroom. She made her way down to the basement—carefully, given the six-inch platform heels—and pulled the photo from the top of the box.

She was smiling; she did look happy in the picture. The assertion of Joyce's perceived independence hadn't come with just a hair-color change, though Pete was right: it had represented something for her. Her parents never stopped forbidding her to dye her hair, but she had been well aware that their orders and prohibitions would see a hard and immediate end when she turned eighteen. That was the age at which, by law, they didn't get to tell her what to do anymore.

It was one she'd looked forward to for years.

By the end of the summer the picture was taken, Joyce was a couple thousand miles away from the home and family with which she'd grown up. She'd taken off and found refuge on the western coast of Florida, eschewing college and falling into making her living as a bartender in the warmth of the state's coastal sun.

Years later, she would go to college because she wanted to, not because she was told she had to.

Joyce looked at the picture, searching for what her husband had seen. Searching for who she'd been back then. Was it different from who she was now?

Of course, life had been different then. She hadn't understood yet what it meant to live on one's own, support oneself financially, do things her parents, however great their
ideological differences, had always taken care of for her. Joyce didn't feel, however, that the rebelliousness she'd exhibited and felt so strongly was naive or without worth. Far from it. What she'd done then had been important.

She looked into the beaming gaze staring back at her. Then she saw it. She saw what her husband had seen when he looked into the same eyes.

It was joy. Pure, simple joy.

She heard Pete come home and tossed the picture back into the box. Lurching toward the stairs, she made her way up them as fast as she could and paused to compose herself at the top. Then she started toward the kitchen where she heard her husband stirring.

PVC creaked as she walked through the house. An involuntary smile lifted her lips; she had forgotten what dressing like this felt like. Her body felt like a pillar, strong and straight, encapsulated snugly in the corset, miniskirt and boots. The purple wig swished as she strode forward.

Pete did a double take when he saw her. The mail in his hand hung limp as he stared.

It had been a long time since Pete had looked at her like that, since she'd had that kind of effect on him. Joyce was surprised by the rush of arousal that lit up her system. She watched her husband's eyes as they traveled slowly up and down her body, his lips parted in surprise.

He finished and met her gaze again but appeared at a loss for words. Joyce smiled, and a soft “Wow” finally emerged from his lips.

“Ready to go?” she asked as she stepped forward and linked her arm through his.

“Where?” he managed to get out, showing no inclination to move.

She laughed. “Somewhere we can cause trouble.” She winked and pulled him toward the garage door through which he'd just come.

Pete, still staring, didn't answer, and she turned and bent over to pick up her purse. She heard him swallow.

“I don't know what to wear,” he said finally, his eyes still on her outfit.

“You wear that,” she said, grabbing her coat as she pulled him out the door.

She wound the three-quarter-length trench coat around herself and tied the belt before climbing into the car. As her husband settled into the driver's seat, she noticed the bulge in his pants. He was hard. The revelation took her breath away a little, and the heat she'd felt since he'd caught sight of her surged through her system. She supposed she could have expected it, but she didn't know the last time Pete had gotten hard just looking at her.

“Where do you want to go?”

Where did she want to go? The idea of actually going to a bar, as she would have wanted to back then, brought a slight grimace to her face. She considered. Then her eyes lit up. She bit her lip, sending Pete a shy sidelong glance. “How about McKinsey's?”

Pete's eyebrows raised. “The hotel?”

Joyce batted her eyelashes a bit and smiled innocently at him. “They have a nice bar there. We could have a drink.”

Pete's eyes ran up and down her again in the dark. “Yeah. A drink.” He shook himself and started the car. “Works for me.”

When they pulled up outside the upscale hotel, a valet opened Joyce's door, and she arranged her coat carefully as she stepped out. Pete walked around to meet her, and it occurred to her that he seemed literally unable to take his eyes off her. Excitement fluttered low in her stomach.

“We're going to skip the drink,” Pete murmured as they
stepped into the high-ceilinged lobby. Joyce looked at him, secretly thrilled, as he slanted a smile down at her and led them toward the counter that ran along one side of the elegant room. The entrance to the bar was on the other side.

It took a moment for her to realize the sound level had fallen when they'd walked in. Joyce looked around to see a number of people not even hiding the fact that they were staring, and she blushed as she realized she'd been so caught up in her plan that she'd forgotten the kind of reaction her outfit might bring in public. Everyone around her didn't know she was just playing a fun little game with her husband.

Pete showed no sign of disturbance at the stares, and Joyce felt a wave of warmth. If someone had asked her yesterday how she thought her husband might respond to being blatantly stared at and judged by throngs of strangers because of something regarding her, she would have said she wasn't sure. That he was not embarrassed—or at least hid it very well—brought forth a wave of gratitude with a strength that surprised her.

She used to not care either, back when she'd dressed like this regularly. Of course, most people then hadn't seemed to—as she recalled, most of the inhabitants of the Florida metropolis where she'd lived hadn't blinked at an eighteen-year-old walking around with bright-purple hair and wearing vinyl from head to toe.

This northeastern crowd seemed to expect more from a thirtysomething woman on the arm of a man in a business suit. Joyce looked up at Pete, and his smile was calm as he met her eyes. She pressed closer to his body as they arrived at the counter. Pete requested a room from the woman behind it.

Joyce met the receptionist's eyes and at first shrugged off the fact that the woman didn't smile back. As she took Pete's credit card information and explained the policies to him in a tight voice, the reason for the cool reception finally dawned on Joyce.

She thinks he's paying me
.

The receptionist finished with the transaction and handed Pete their key cards. Joyce was still looking at her, and the woman made eye contact one more time and actually glared at her, clearing her throat pointedly before turning away to reach for the phone. Joyce stood still, shocked by the recognition she'd just undergone but even more shocked by the woman's demeanor. What if he were paying her? Would it be that much of a reason to dispose of all customs of politeness and customer service?

Pete put his arm around her, and Joyce clacked with him across the shiny floor to the elevators. The sound level in the lobby had gradually risen, though Joyce didn't doubt at this point that some of the voices they heard were murmuring about them. What a very odd society they lived in. Was it that big of a deal if someone wanted to dress differently from the standard nine-to-five cookie-cutter bullshit in this city? As for the whore perception, who gave a shit if she was taking Pete upstairs to fuck him for money? What business was it of theirs?

Joyce felt a slither of the rebellious anger she'd experienced almost constantly in her teenage years. The familiarity was noticeable even as it was tempered—or perhaps complemented—by the fifteen years of life she'd lived between then and now. She was surprised to realize she hadn't felt that energy for a long time. It added something—potency? passion?—to her immediate experience as they reached the elevator bank. It was what made her untie her coat and shrug out of it as they stood waiting for one to arrive. Calmly she folded her coat over one arm, unsure if the noise level had just lowered a notch again or if it was only her imagination.

An elevator arrived, and they stepped into it. They were alone.

“Jeez, I forgot the kind of reaction wearing this in public
might get.” Joyce did her best to keep her voice light as the doors closed behind them.

Pete chuckled. “It would be nice to think people had better things to do than worry about what other people are wearing,” he agreed, his eyes on the numbers above the door as they beeped with each ascension.

Joyce smiled and moved to hold his hand. He stiffened slightly, and she stopped. “What's the matter?” For a second she feared the public's reaction had reached her husband, that he was suddenly looking at her like they had. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” She blurted the words before she could stop herself.

Pete's chuckle turned to a guffaw. With another glance at the numbers, he turned fully toward her, and Joyce felt the heat emanating from his body as he seemed to move closer without taking a step. Joyce fell back a pace at the influx of intensity.