Laying a Foundation: Bonus volume: Includes series prequel, The Groundbreaking (The Love Under Construction Series) (29 page)

“Actually, I kinda am,” he grinned back. “I’d like to get this show on the road.”

When they stepped out the front door, Nikki gasped – at the curb was a huge, pearl-white Yukon. The Denali. He’d mentioned it. It was some kind of gorgeous – gold package, the whole enchilada. “Wow. I’m going in style,” she said, using her sexiest voice.

“Yeah, I thought it would be quieter, and bigger, since the dogs are with us.” He opened the rear passenger door. Nikki was startled to see that he’d put a large blanket across the back seat, and there were a couple of dog toys on the seat.

“You bought those for them?” She couldn’t manage to hide the surprise in her voice.

He gave her a sheepish grin. “I thought that would give them something to do while we rode.” She wondered at him – he was just full of surprises. It appeared he genuinely liked the two little monsters.

The ride gave them a chance to talk about benign things. He told her his full name – Antonio Luigi Walters – and that his birthday was September nineteenth. She told him her full name – Nicolette Renee Wallace Wilkes – and that her birthday was on September eighth; he was surprised that her parents named her such a French name. He asked her questions about Paganism; she asked him questions about Catholicism. They talked about school, growing up, things they did as kids. It was so quiet and sweet that Nikki almost forgot to be nervous.

But when they turned down the lengthy, winding driveway to the big house, her stomach lurched. This conversation, more than any other, would determine whether or not their relationship would move forward. She felt kind of sick knowing what was riding on it, but she was determined to be honest and straightforward.

Helene was at the big house when they got there, putting the finishing touches on lunch. It was one o’clock and, even though she was a bundle of nerves, Nikki was starving. She noticed Tony seemed anxious too.

Helene set the table, then left them to eat alone. Nikki was getting Bill and Hillary settled when Tony groaned, “My god, that smells good and I’m really hungry, but I’m so nervous I’m not sure I can eat.”

So he was nervous! She felt a little better and giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

“I wondered if you were as nervous as I am. Guess I got my answer!” She sat down at the table and picked up her fork.

“Probably more. Can you eat?”

“I don’t know, but this smells and looks so good that I’m going to try!” The salmon Helene had baked had an aroma like nothing else, and the baby asparagus and roasted red skin potatoes looked like something from a cooking magazine. Nikki hadn’t been sure she could eat, but once she tucked into the food, the deliciousness of it all took over and she ate ravenously. Tony seemed to be enjoying his lunch too. He entertained her by telling her about some of the improvements they’d made to the house over the years. When they were finished eating, he poured them both a second glass of wine while Nikki carried all of the dishes to the sink and put away the leftovers.

With the lunch taken care of, Tony handed Nikki her glass of wine and took her free hand. “Let’s go sit in the great room. We’ve got to get this started. It may take awhile, and I don’t want us to feel rushed.”

He led her over to a huge, overstuffed armchair, filled with soft, brightly-colored toss pillows. He sat on the adjacent sofa.

She pretended to pout. “You’re not going to sit with me?”

“If we sit together, we won’t get to have a conversation. Things will happen that we don’t intend, and, well, this is probably how it should be.” Nikki nodded. He was right – that was exactly what would happen. She was already itching to touch him, and having him beside her would mean she wouldn’t be able to control the urge.

“So, how do we begin?”

“At the beginning. Why don’t you start?” Then he added, “You can start with when you lost your virginity, and we’ll work our way up.”

Nikki took a deep breath.
This is it,
she thought. “Well, that’s a funny story. I had this high school friend, and we decided if we hadn’t gotten laid by the time we were fifteen, we’d sleep together. And that’s exactly what happened. It was pretty wretched, but at least we could say we weren’t virgins anymore.”

Tony started laughing. “That’s one way to solve that problem!”

“Maybe not a good way, but that’s what we did. After that, I pretty much screwed anybody who showed an interest in me.” She hadn’t meant for it to sound that way, but it was fairly accurate. “I was quite the little slut. I liked sex, and I had a lot of it. Until I met Randy. And I got knocked up almost immediately. But we were crazy mad in love with each other, so we got married when I turned eighteen, and Jake was born a few months later.”

“Nikki, I need to know,” Tony started, his voice deepening and turning serious, “were you ever unfaithful to Randy?”

Nikki’s gaze was unwavering. “No. Never. There was no one after Randy. It was just us, always. I thought he might’ve cheated on me a couple of times, but he insisted he didn’t and, in the end, I believed him. But I never, never, ever cheated on him. I swear.”

“Oh, I believe you. But you have to understand how important that is to me. I’ll never tolerate that. I’ve put up with too much to go through that again.”

“I’d never do that to you, babe. Never. I’m just not like that. If I were that unhappy, I’d leave. I wouldn’t sneak around and hurt you.”

Tony seemed relieved. “So,” he began again, “what was your sex life like with Randy? Good? Mediocre?”

“It was good – great, in fact. We were both adventurous and liked variety, so we were always mixing it up, you know, new positions, new toys, lingerie, kink . . .”

“Kink?” Tony perked up considerably. “Define kink for me, or your version at least.”

“Well, let’s just say there sometimes was rope, a blindfold, and/or spankings involved. We liked to go at it occasionally in places where we might get caught. We had a flogger, a cat o’ nine tails, and a riding crop. Some restraints. Three or four kinds of nipple clamps. Those kinds of things.” She stopped for a minute, then said, “Actually, we more or less had a Dom/sub relationship in private.”

Tony was sitting up on the edge of the sofa, listening intently. Then he asked, “So, do you have limits?”

“Well, sure, don’t we all?” Nikki sounded kind of put-out.

“So where do you draw the line?”

Nikki thought for a minute. “Well, mine are pretty far out there, but there are some things I just won’t do. For instance, if it involves pee or poop it’s pretty much out of the question.”

Tony made a face. “Me too. Not interested and not going there.”

She laughed. “Well, good, because if you wanted to go there, you’d go there alone!”

Tony laughed, then took her hand and pulled her over to the sofa to sit with him. He just couldn’t stand being that far away from her anymore, not with the conversation they were having. “So, what will you do? I’m guessing all the standards.” Nikki nodded. “Anal?” She nodded again. “Oral?” She nodded enthusiastically; he felt his cock start to stiffen. “Ever been fisted?” She looked mildly surprised, then said, “Yeah, Randy and I tried it, but we never could manage. He just wasn’t patient enough.”

A hum set up in Tony’s mind. He felt like he’d hit the jackpot. It sounded like she was open to pretty much anything, and he was getting too excited thinking about all of the things they could do, or try, together. “So you said restraints. Do you like being restrained?”

“Actually, yes, I do. Can I be completely honest here?”

“I wish you would.” He wondered what was about to come out of her pretty, pink, extremely hot mouth that would make him even more glad he was a man.

“Okay, to be completely honest, I like pain with my pleasure. I don’t want anything to do with needle or blade play, nothing that draws blood, but I need an ache to have a screamer. Sometimes I want to make love, but most of the time I just want to fuck, and fuck hard and fast. If you’re not giving me what I need, I’ll tell you. And if I don’t like what you’re doing, I’ll tell you that too.” She took a deep breath. “As long as you treat me like a princess everywhere else, you can treat me like a whore in the bedroom and I’ll take what you give me and come back for more.”

Tony felt like the air was getting heavier and it was getting harder to breathe. Then he realized maybe it was because he was holding his breath. “And how many times a week could I expect this call to action?” He wished he could cross his fingers without her seeing.

She looked at him from under her lashes and said, without hesitation, “Based on past experience, I’d say maybe a couple of times a day, but at least daily. Unless we’re both really, really busy.” She licked her lips, and he almost came undone. “Anything else?”

Tony was having trouble articulating. He finally managed to breathe out, “Nope. I think that about covers it.”

“Are you extremely put off? I mean, does what I’ve told you change anything?” She looked a little worried. “Are you afraid you’ve gotten yourself involved with some kind of freak?”

“No, baby. The only thing it’s done is to make me even more determined to make this work,” he emphasized, taking a deep breath.
Shit, I could really do with a glass of bourbon right now,
Tony told himself. “So now I guess it’s my turn?”

“Yep. Run with it.”

“Okay. Well, Dottie was my first and only. Sort of.” Nikki made a puzzled face. “I’ve told you how we met. When it came to sex, neither of us knew enough in the beginning. We fooled around before we got married, but we never actually had sex, just lots of heavy petting. Then when we got married, she made it clear on our wedding night that she had limits.”

“What kind of limits?”

“Everything. I wasn’t supposed to touch her, just kind of hover above her, put it in, thrust a few times, and we were done. There was one position – missionary – and no other. And god forbid I mess up her hair. Which brings me to one of my pet peeves.”

“What’s that?”

“Do not – I repeat, do not – tell me not to mess up your hair or makeup. Take that shit off before we get into bed. If I’m gonna fuck you, I want to be able to fuck you without worrying about ‘messing you up.’ I’d like to screw you with wild abandon, not watch out for your hairdo.”

Nikki grinned. “You don’t have to worry about that. I never sleep in my makeup – I think better of my skin. I was kind of worried about you seeing me without my makeup, but now, based on what you just said, not so much.”

“Hey, remember where we met,” he laughed, then waited, head cocked to one side.

“Oh, yeah. The gym. I guess if you could see me like that and still want to go out with me . . .”

“Exactly. A moot issue. Anyway, that was the extent of our sex life. In the beginning, we had sex maybe once a week. After the first year, maybe once every three months. Eventually, I just quit asking. Of course, when she wanted to get pregnant, that was different, but the limits still applied.” Tony had a pained look on his face, and it bothered Nikki that talking about it still caused him so much grief.

“You realize that was her, not you, right? That the not wanting sex was no reflection on you?” Nikki asked, trying to get him past the pile of garbage memories.

“Well, that brings me to what I need to tell you most. I hope you’re still with me when I finish.” Worry clouded his beautiful face. “Remember when I said I’d only talked about sex with one other person, and you assumed it was Dottie, and I said no?”

“Yeah?” She couldn’t imagine where he was going with this.

“Okay, so here goes.” Tony sat back on the sofa and tried to get comfortable, but that was a losing battle. “So, you said it – I wasn’t sure it was all her. I thought maybe it was me, my lack of experience, something like that. A couple of years ago, I started to think maybe I’d eventually want to get back into a relationship, even though it seemed like a long shot. And I started to think about the fact that I was over fifty-five and still had no clue about most things sexual. I mean, I watched porn videos and looked at magazines, but I knew most of that stuff wasn’t real. And I started trying for a way to learn more. So I did the only thing I could think of – I hired a hooker.”

“No shit!” Nikki laughed. “How’d that work out?”

“Better than you’d think.” Tony still looked surprisingly serious. Nikki got her giggles over and settled down, so he continued. “I hired an escort from a company there in town, bought a big box of condoms, took her to dinner, and then went to a hotel room. When we got there, she asked me what I wanted, and I told her I didn’t have any idea. Then I explained to her why I’d hired her, that I was hoping she could teach me some things about sex.”

“And? Did she?”

“No, but she said she knew somebody she’d recommend. She made a phone call, kissed me on the cheek, and thanked me for dinner without taking any money from me, then told me to sit tight and Cinda would be there shortly.”

“Cinda?”

“Yeah, I guess it was short for Cinderella; I’m sure that wasn’t her real name. Anyway, there was a knock on the door, and I opened it to a woman who was mid-forties and pretty ordinary-looking. She told me her name was Cinda and she’d be glad to teach me whatever I wanted to know. She said she could do ten sessions, and they’d be rigorous – we’d work from ten at night to six in the morning. Eight hours at a time of whatever she thought I needed to know or whatever I wanted to learn. I said yes, so we started right then.

“She started out with an anatomy lesson featuring both of us, then started showing me things about my own body that I never knew. It was totally and completely mind-blowing to me – this woman seemed to have zero shame, and she was willing to teach me. I thought there might be hope for me yet.

“After the show and tell, she asked me what I had and hadn’t done. The ‘had-dones’ was a pretty short list. She said she wanted to get things off on the right foot, so would I like a blow job. I’d never had one, which she thought was pretty amazing, so she dropped to her knees and gave me one right there on the spot, which I thought was pretty amazing. I was standing when she did it, and I damn near collapsed when I came.”