Chapter 1
With a final, forceful tug, Andee Swift pulled the jean skirt over her hips and nearly fell over, catching herself at the last minute by thrusting her hand out to grab the edge of the bed.
"Are you ready yet?" Buck called from the other room.
She heard the fridge slam closed and the telltale signs of her husband twisting the top off a beer, tossing the cap onto the counter, and letting it dance across the space--where it would come to a rest nowhere near the garbage can, and would likely sit until she, or Janice, their cleaning lady, helped it make its way to the trash.
"Throw the cap away, "Andee yelled and rolled her eyes.
She sat on the edge of the bed and attempted to pull on her knee-high black boots--wench boots, Buck called them--but the band on her skirt cut painfully into her stomach, forcing her back upright.
All this for love.
Correction. She had love.
What she wanted was to be in love again. That heady rush of anticipation before Buck kissed her, the pinpricks of pleasure that followed lovemaking. She knew he missed those things, too, and it was her goal to make them recapture those feelings. Before they were so far gone, they'd never find them again. Before he found them with someone else. Even if they had to go to extremes to get there. No cost was too high to save her marriage.
She needed something to calm her nerves.
"And get me one, too." She certainly didn't have any room for a beer, much less food or air, but her nerves were shot and her anxiety was off the charts. "Take a step out of your comfort zone," the books advised. "Try something new," suggested online sites. Heck, what they were about to do could be considered a giant leap.
"That was the last one. I'll pour some for you in a glass," Buck called.
Andee leaned back against the bed to ease the pinch of her stomach. How many beers had he had today? This week? She wasn't sure, but it was definitely more than normal. Buck was not himself. Hadn't been for--if her math was correct and she were to be completely honest--over a year. It started with an impatience and edginess he'd never displayed before and was now complemented with increased drinking and limited touching. Yes, it could be worse but she didn't want to see what that looked like.
She pushed her worries aside, intent on focusing on today and not the disaster that was their relationship. They hadn't fought this much since . . . ever.
After much struggling, which resulted in heavy breathing and sweat beads on her brow, Andee was finally ready to go. She stood, smoothed the old skirt before trying to stretch the band to give her more room, and then made her way out of their bedroom to the center of the house--a kitchen and great room combination.
Buck gave a low whistle. "Sweet mother of God, those boots are hot." He handed her a small glass of beer. "You don't look comfortable."
"It'll be fine. It's the skirt. It's tight." She chugged the beer and fought off a burp born from carbonation. Ugh! This was so not the start she had pictured for this night, their night out. It should not start out with beer, burps, or farts. Could anything be less romantic? She was trying to get him to fall back in love with her, not be one of the guys.
"Why don't you wear a different one?" Buck squinted and leaned in to take a closer look at the skirt.
"Because I wear those other ones to church or family dinners and there is no way--No. Way--I'm wearing a church skirt to a sex dungeon. I'd have to burn it afterward."
"Is there writing along the bottom there?"
Andee covered the ink marks that dotted the hem with her hand. "Maybe."
"Does it say Andee hearts Buck? Lorelei and . . . Andee . . . B.F.F.?" He looked at her, puzzled. "Is that skirt from high school?"
"Maybe." Andee shrugged.
"That skirt's what? Twenty years old?" Buck laughed then took a pull from the beer. "You still have clothes from high school?"
She swatted at his arm. "Stop. And it's about seventeen years old. Thank you very much. Look at you. Those pants are about the same age."
"Hey," he cried indignantly and pointed to his well-worn camouflage cargo pants. "These are my hunting pants. They're good luck. I figured we could use all the luck we could get." He finished his beer and set the bottle on the counter.
What did that mean? Did he think they were going to need luck to get turned on by each other? That arousal might require more than a highly charged sexual ambience and the person you loved? Unsure of how to respond, she went with sarcasm.
"Yeah, that's why you should wear the pants that you spray with deer urine every year. Because that's hot. It's a sex club, Buck. We should try for sexy." Andee picked the bottle up and walked to the sink to rinse it out. She dropped it into the recycling bin before returning to the fridge to get two bottles of water. It was a bit of a drive to where they were going.
"It's sexy to the deer."
Andee turned to hide her eye roll and immediately regretted her impatience. "Did you put the overnight bags in the car?"
"Yup." Buck took the water bottle she handed him.
Grotte d'Amour, also known as the Love Cave, Tampa Bay's finest BDSM dungeon, was their destination and over an hour away. Andee had felt it best they get a hotel nearby. Should everything go as planned, fingers crossed, she hoped they'd be too revved up to make the drive home, too desperate for each other. A hotel would be the icing on the cake. Besides, she'd already had plenty of sex with Buck in a car and they were long past high school lovemaking, forced to be creative with their intimacy. This was to be a new experience, something spontaneous and fun. One of the relationship books she'd read had given her the idea, and she was still bowled over that he'd agreed to try.
"Are you ready?" Buck asked. "You sure you still want to try this?"
"Are you having second thoughts?" She played with the lid on her water bottle.
"You said you wanted us to spice things up. This is sure a deviation from what we're doing."
Dreading where a response might lead, Andee searched carefully for the right words. "We're in a rut, Buck. Marriage does that to couples, and we don't have the excuse, or luxury, of blaming it on children. Research shows that the seven-year itch really happens at ten years. Happiness in relationships declines."
They'd be celebrating ten years of marriage next week. But what worried Andee more was that they really had seventeen years together, having been high school sweethearts. Andee couldn't bring herself to look at the statistics on those dynamics. The ten-year itch numbers were disturbing enough.
"If you say so."
"Look," Andee said and pointed to the large thermometer she'd created in Excel, blown up to over two hundred percent and hung on their fridge. "We've worked really hard to save money for the last ten years. Which is great. It's starting to pay off. The article I read about the ten-year itch says that spontaneity is lost to forward planning. We are awesome at forward planning." She tapped her finger on the picture she took great pleasure in updating every month to mark their progress. They were one month out from achieving their goal: to buy a vacation home. Every time Andee looked at the picture, she wanted to clap her hands in glee and dance around the room. That was until she had read that article. Seeing the confusion on Buck's face, she finished with, "Which means we have no spontaneity."
"And apparently too much forward planning means the balance is a sex dungeon." Buck pushed up the sleeve to his white T-shirt to scratch his bicep.
"We're trying something new."
"Aren't we though," he said with a shake of his head.
Andee pulled scissors from the kitchen drawer and held them up. "The instructions on the web site say the theme for Friday nights is sensual. To come as your alter ego. A hunting man is not your alter ego." The list of suggestions she'd read in the women's magazine listed both BDSM and costume play. Doing both in the same night gave her a double win, made her feel victorious.
She gathered up his sleeve to his shoulder hem and began cutting. When she'd finished both sides, a quick look told her she needed something more. Ignoring his sighs, she cut strips lengthwise down the front giving the shirt a shredded look.
She dropped the extra fabric in the garbage. Looking down at her plain attire, she wondered if she could cut something from her shirt as well. Maybe a hole in the middle to expose her stomach? But she couldn't see wasting a good T-shirt for these purposes and instead grabbed the bottom edge of the shirt, pulled it up and over the center of the collar under her chin and tugged the edge downward, cinching the fabric. The look exposed her midriff and cupped her large breasts nicely. In fact, the pull of the fabric helped tug her breasts upward, a position they'd struggled to maintain in recent years.
"Now I see the theme. I kinda look like a homeless redneck and you look like a redneck cheerleader." Buck stared at his exposed arms. "I think we should have gone the leather route."
"The only leather we have is your letterman's jacket." Andee pulled her waistband up, hoping to minimize the red marks it was creating from the constant pressure.
"We really suck at this." He held out his shredded shirt and raised a brow. Turning his wrist slightly, he glanced at his watch. "I guess we should go. It's almost ten."
Andee stifled a yawn.
Buck slid a riding crop belonging to their fifteen-year-old niece who rode dressage off the counter. "We could forget this and just go to bed."
There was no tease in his remarks, no suggestion of what they might do if they stayed home versus trying out this dungeon.
"Are you scared?" Andee poked, knowing his triggers. Truth was she thought she might be. Just a little.
"Shut your mouth, woman. Nothing scares Buchanon Swift." Buck waved the crop over his head before bringing it down for a light slap against her thigh, the cattail catching her exposed skin right below the hemline of her skirt.
"Ow," Andee cried, tears springing to her eyes. "Wow. That really hurt." She rubbed vigorously against the already red and raised skin.
Buck rushed to her. "I'm sorry, babe. I didn't even swing it that hard. Flicked it, really." He pulled her hand away to look at the welt and hissed upon first inspection. "You should put ice on it."
Blinking back the tears, Andee looked at Buck. "Maybe this is a really bad idea. How can we go to a place like this Love Cave and even consider participating when I can't take a slight flick from the crop?"
"I'm not real big on pain either. I don't even like watching my brother spank his kids."
Defeated, Andee let her shoulders slump. Who was she kidding? They weren't swingers; they didn't even like to double date unless it was Cole and Lorelei. She unfastened the snap on her skirt and took her first deep breath since pulling it on. "Truth is my stomach was starting to hurt." She rubbed at the red marks circling her waistline. "We suck."
"Nah. We just need to rethink it. I've got an idea."
Andee waited for him to finish.
"I saw some Easy Cheese in the pantry. I think we have bourbon and sugar cubes left. How about we get into some . . . other clothes, turn on some Mad Men. I'll let you pick the season. We can break out our sixties food, make each other an Old Fashioned, and dream about being able to drink on the job. Or at the very least, walk out whenever we want."
"What about the hotel room? We'll have to pay anyway."
"There's our spontaneity. See, we're reckless with money." Buck made a check mark in the air and laughed. "Check that off the list."
Andee laughed with him. "Reckless with money wasn't on the list."
It was good to see him smile, to share a moment and feel connected to him again.
"Work with me here." He rubbed her arm.
"You'd rather marathon-watch a series we've already seen than go to a sex club?"
Buck shrugged. "Maybe this isn't the right type of club for us."
It was not lost on her that he didn't suggest going straight to bed.
Andee sighed. At least they had this. He seemed to enjoy her company when they watched TV. "I think there are some 100 Grands in the freezer. I'll pull up Netflix. You make the drinks."
"Atta girl." Buck swatted her on the bottom. "Go change."
"I think I'll have to cut this skirt off me to get out of it."
"I'll meet you on the couch," he called.
Though she was relieved to be staying in and getting out of the torturous contraption, staying home only fed into her insecurities about the state of their marriage and their sex life. If they didn't have wild, reckless sex tonight, would the days after be more of the same?
Andee miraculously managed to get out of the skirt without having to cut it then changed into one of Buck's old college shirts and a pair of elastic-waist running shorts--also known as her daily lounge wear. Pulling her hair into a low ponytail, she looked at herself in the large mirror over her dresser. When had she stopped spending time on her appearance? Was it before or after she and Buck got into this rut? How long ago was that? Three years? Maybe four? Even tonight, she'd barely added to her makeup regime, thinking the dark eyeliner was sexing it up enough.
What made it worse was that as a couple they might be experiencing a dip, but lately she'd hit a low on a personal level as well. Sure, a routine was inevitable, and the fact was that she and Buck had been creating routines together for many years, so it was remarkable that they hadn't fallen into a lull like this before.
But they were most decidedly in a rut. They could call it what they wanted. Dress it up under the guise of familiarity and comfort and try to convince everyone that only couples who had something so solid could obtain such a thing, but no one ever talked about a car hitting a pothole or getting stuck in a groove as a good thing.
How could marriage be any different?
It wasn't, and no matter how she looked at it, she and Buck were not experiencing a good thing. Once his interest was gone, would he move on toward something newer and fresh? Upgrade?
It was the term her father had always used when he'd move them to yet another house he was planning to remodel. "Everyone wants something better, something more," he'd tell her. This point of view was even reflected in her mother, who continually changed her look and style.
Andee groaned and stared at her closet full of clothes older than her marriage.
They clearly needed a dose of better. Especially in the sex department. Ugh. It totally sucked. It wasn't that they didn't have sex. In fact, they'd had sex a few nights ago. Only it was just the same old sex every time. The same moves. The same length of time. The same quick cuddle afterward. Lately, when it was over, Andee was left feeling more alone and less loved than at any other point in her day, week, or life.
She was sick of the same, and though she'd never subscribed to her father's philosophy, it was a long time coming for her to start mixing things up. Yes, something was off between them. If she waited any longer, that something could grow into a big monster and destroy everything dear to her. There was no way she was about to let that happen, things had already gone too far. It was time for a new season in the life of Andee and Buck.
