Something Forbidden (14 page)

“Nice to meet you, Max,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t remember me, or if he was just covering for the lie that I’d already confessed to Katie. It didn’t really matter, though.

“Greg.” I returned the shake.

“And you must be Katie. Very nice to meet you,” Greg said. He didn’t leer at her. He kept his eyes up as he took her hand and shook it.

I almost laughed at the formality of it all. Not that anything was going to happen tonight, but these were known swingers, and here we were, introducing each other like we were at the neighborhood block party.

“Chloe tells me you’re an accountant?”

“I am. Exciting, huh?”

“I don’t think it isn’t. We move in the same circles. I’m a financier.”

Katie laughed. “You mean you’re a rich playboy?”

Greg joined her laughter. “I like to think I help others achieve their dreams, but sure, you could call me that.”

Chloe interrupted. “Come on, our table’s ready.”

We ended up sitting around a small table in the corner, alternating male-female. Katie was on my right, Chloe was on my left.

How strange was it to be sitting across the table from the guy who’d planted the seed of my now fully matured fantasy? How do you start a conversation with a guy like that?
So my wife and I were considering bringing other men into our bedroom...could you pass the roasted cauliflower please?

Katie started us off with more innocuous chatter. “So a financier? Did you finance any companies I may have heard of?”

“Probably not. Most of my investments are in small tech companies. High risk, high upside sort of things.” Greg rattled off a list of names that I’d never heard of. Katie stopped him on the last.

“Nimbus Solutions? The video streaming company?” Katie asked. Greg nodded. “Our firm works with them. We perform their annual audit. Nice bunch of people.”

“Yeah, that one was a no brainer. Sometimes, you can just tell by the quality of the people working there. Mostly what I do is read the people and the culture. If that’s off, then I don’t invest.”

“You should have read the culture where I work.” She delivered it through a row of pretty, yet gritting, teeth. She was still bitter from the IRS audit and all the scandal that went down—bitter at the dissolution of her team.

“Which firm?”

When she told him, his eyes went up. “I read about that in the news. Tough times.”

“Oh, yeah.”

The server came along just as I started feeling totally shut out of the conversation. We ordered a number of small dishes to share (I didn’t miss the irony of sharing plates with Chloe and Greg) and a bottle of cava. As the bubbly was being poured, Greg and Katie launched right back into talk of finance and accounting, and while I had a business degree and years of experience running them, they might as well have been speaking a different language.

Chloe made sure I didn’t feel like an awkward third wheel. “I didn’t know you
owned
 that bar,” she said once she learned about my plans to open the speakeasy. “That changes my opinion of you.”

“For the better, I hope?”

“Oh, definitely.” She leaned in, her whisper husky. “You see, I have a rule. I don’t put out on a first date with bartenders.”

Her pale blue eyes were like a wildcat’s, homing in on its prey. I managed not to gulp. “And business owners?”

“Well, maybe you’ll find out,” she winked.

I chanced a look at Katie, wondering how she’d take the flirtation. If she’d heard, she didn’t show it. She had her chin resting on her elbow as she listened. Guilty lust squeezed around my chest as I ran with Chloe’s suggestion. The four of us were clicking. I could see this going further.

But I said the smarter thing. “I seriously doubt it. We agreed...” I glanced at Katie, letting Chloe know which
we
I was talking about. “This was just dinner. Just a conversation.”

“Of course, of course.” Chloe scooped up her wine and took a sip. “But Greg and I were talking on our way over here. We have a proposal that I think you’ll like.”

“I don’t know—”

“It’s not what you think. Trust me.” The blonde pushed back from the table. “Excuse me, I have to use the lady’s room.”

Katie rose with her as though asked directly to join. To Greg, she said, “We’ll continue this later, but I
do
think ethics plays an important part in corporate finance.”

“You’ll have to have a pretty convincing argument,” he said, leaning back in his chair. We watched them go before Greg turned to me. “Your wife is incredible.”

“Thanks. Believe me, I know.”

Greg went on, like he had to prove it. “She’s not only beautiful, but she’s incredibly smart. And successful. Successful women hold a special place in my heart.”

“Like Chloe?”

“It’s one of the first things that attracted me to her.” Greg refilled our glasses—wine this time, the cava was long gone. “You and Chloe seem to be getting along.”

We were, although unlike Greg and Katie, we weren’t bonding over mutual interests beyond what our spouses were doing. Remembering Greg’s kink, though, I decided to feed it a little. “Chloe’s great. You’re a lucky man, my friend”

“You can be, too, you know. Any time. I know she’s up for it.” He swirled his drink. “So she told me you and Katie were curious about our lifestyle?”

Here it was: the talk. The real reason we were here. We’d been nibbling at these small plates long enough that I almost convinced myself that I was satisfied.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

“And you two have never done something like this before?”

“Never. I actually never even considered it until you and Chloe walked into my bar.”

Greg smiled. “And now it’s all you can think about. Like an obsession.”

I nodded. This man knew exactly how I felt. It was weird, after living with the fantasy in my head for so long, to find a kindred spirit. “I know that it’s wrong, but—”

“It’s not wrong. It’s not part of the social norm, but that doesn’t make it
wrong.
” Greg paused, organizing his thoughts. He’d already had years to work out the twisted logic of this set-up. “You and Katie love each other. I’m a good judge of people, but anyone can see that.”

“I do. Which is why this is so crazy. I mean, I’m not worried about her leaving me.”

“Right. You shouldn’t. I don’t with Chloe.”

I went on, encouraged. “But then I think about her going out dancing—about meeting someone else. She gets caught up in the moment. Does something she regrets—”

“And comes home to you and tells you all about it. That’s what this kink is about.”

“But what if she doesn’t?” It was a question I didn’t even know I’d been worrying about until I blurted it out like that. Hearing it aloud, it crystallized a lot of my fears.

Greg grinned. “For me, those are the hottest encounters.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s those encounters that I
think
Chloe’s having that actually turn me on the most,” he said, leaning back as if that explained it all.

I shook my head. “Still not following.”

“I’ve watched Chloe fuck about ten separate guys since we’ve started. Sometimes, I just watch her get picked up in a bar and hear about it later—like what you saw.”

“I remember.”

“Bet you think about it all the time.” Greg nodded. “Sometimes, we’ve been together when she fucked them. I’d like to say that those are the hottest, except that they’re not.”

I suddenly knew where this was going, and with the cold sense of horror, I realized that I understood it.

Greg continued. “The hottest encounters are the ones I don’t know about. The ones she’s had without telling me. The ones I can only ever speculate on. I travel a lot for work, and I know that Chloe doesn’t spend all her time alone. It’s the
possibility
that really turns me on. Not the actual act. She could be home knitting for all I care—although I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s going on. But you know what? As fucked up as some people would think it is, we love each other. And that makes it all okay.”

So many of the things he was saying resonated with me, yet I still couldn’t accept it all. “But she’s sleeping around on you...”

“Maybe?” Greg waved his hand in front of him. “But that’s not really the point. The point is that she’s not doing it because there’s something wrong with our relationship. Love and sex are two very different things. At the end of the day, Chloe loves me, and only me. Everything else is just fun.”

I just nodded, unsure of what else to say.

Greg nodded back, then pushed on. “Hey, after this, Chloe and I were wondering if you’d be up for this little night club downtown for some dancing?”

“Oh, I don’t dance.” And this was starting to creep into territory that was tempting, but well out of what Katie and I had talked about.

“I don’t either,” Greg said, shaking his head. “I was thinking we’d actually hang back here for a drink, let the girls make their arrival without us, and then we’d follow to watch.”

Now that was a plan that got my blood pumping.

“Don’t over think it. That’s what I did, and I lost a lot of time.” He glanced past me. Katie and Chloe must be on their way back. “Tonight, just go with the flow.”

I turned in my seat, following Greg’s eyes. Chloe stood slightly in front of Katie, her red-painted lips curled up in a smile. “So you boys up for a little game?”

****

Greg and I sipped our way through two fingers of expensive tequila, despite the almost irresistible urge to throw it back and drink it all in one go. I’d been working in bars patronized by college kids too long. My appreciation for fine liquor had been thoroughly desensitized.

Also, somewhere out there, Katie was getting hit on by strangers.

“The first time it happened was totally unplanned, as they always are.” With just us guys left, we’d moved to the bar and Greg was suddenly moved to tell me his life story. I forced myself to listen, even as my thoughts strayed to Katie...straying.

“It was at a bachelorette party.” Greg chuckled to himself. “I know, how cliché, right? Her younger sister, Kelly, was getting married and wanted her last hurrah to be over-the-top. Kelly’s calmed down in the last few years, but she’s always been pretty wild—and her friends were way worse.”

I interrupted—habit of a bartender to appear engaged. “So they fit right in with Chloe.”

Greg barked a laugh. “Not at all. Believe it or not, but Chloe’s always been the responsible one. I think part of that came from watching the shit-show her little sis put on. Chloe’s driven. She knows what she wants and goes for it, that’s all. Back then, we’d tossed around my fantasy a little, but it was all in the guise of being
just a fantasy.
” He put air quotes around the last.

“I think that’s where Katie and I are now.” The bartender instincts in me fell away. Now it was just me, Max, interested in this conversation.

“It’s a fucking confusing place to be. Trust me, it’s not one I miss.” He swirled his drink. “Anyway, so she was organizing this bachelorette party for her sister—and hating that she had to do it the whole time. I offered up our place since I’d been scheduled to be out of town. The plan was that they go out, get trashed somewhere, and finish the party in the safety of our place.

“Everything’s set, the day comes, and my trip gets cancelled. No big deal, right? Our house is large enough that I can just hide away in the back rooms and stay out of the way. Well, when they come back, close to 2, they’re all shit-faced—including Chloe. Not only that, but they have all these guys in tow.”

I knew where this was going. I felt my gut tighten for Greg. “Okay,” I said.

“I just hid in the back, but I couldn’t not take a peek. Dude, it was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. They were gathered around the coffee table, everyone laughing and talking at once, so I couldn’t understand a damn thing, you know? They’d opened a few bottles of champagne—nothing says bachelorette party than the bubbly, right? Everyone was paired up, including Chloe. She was sitting on some young stud’s lap, completely at ease with his arms around her.”

“You’d never talked about this before?” I said. My heart thundered.

“Not really. I mean, she knew about my fantasy, but it was always just a
fantasy
. Until it wasn’t. That night proved that we could survive the transition.”

“Was this one of the times she didn’t tell you about?”

“Oh, no, we talked about it. A lot. She actually saw me spying on her that night. I don’t think anything would have happened if she hadn’t, but I can’t be sure. As things started to get sloppy in the living room—like, orgy sloppy—Chloe texted me and told me to hide in our closet. We have this huge walk-in thing that gave me a direct line of sight to the bed.” Greg paused, shook his head at the memory. “Good thing they’re big enough to lay down in. I slept in that closet that night...”