“Bow before the mighty power of Rome!” Amalie shouted from her office.
“Are you shitting me!” Isaac yelled back.
She took a bite of pizza and smiled as her Roman tanks sacked Moscow on her computer screen. Catherine the Great, as directed by Isaac, put up a fight, but his riflemen didn’t stand a chance.
“Every year!” he yelled out again.
Amalie took a final bite of pizza. A reservation screw-up and general comedy of errors had led to them spending their first wedding anniversary ordering pizza and playing Civilization against each other. It had become their tradition, and she didn’t mind, since to date she’d only lost once.
“Do you surrender?”
“Yes!”
On the screen, Catherine angrily surrendered her empire.
Isaac stomped into her office and gave her a kiss. “Every year!”
“Want to open that wine now?”
“Hell yes. You grab the wine—I’ll find the corkscrew.”
Amalie eyeballed the small pile of boxes in the corner of her office that had never been unpacked. She took a guess that it would be in the oldest-looking box, and cut through the yellow packing tape.
“Yikes.” On the top of the box was her wedding dress, as yellowed as the tape and stained by a dried, rotted bouquet of flowers that must have been from one of the tables. She reached under the dress, feeling her way through wedding detritus until her fingers wrapped around a wine bottle. She headed down to the kitchen and found Isaac with his arm deep in one of the drawers.
“How can we not have a corkscrew? I mean, I can clearly remember buying several over the years.”
“Did you try in the bottom drawer?” Amalie asked as she used the tip of a steak knife to get the foil off the top of the bottle.
Isaac bent over and started rummaging around the black hole of seldom-used kitchen bits. “What is this thing?” He held up a bit of plastic and metal wire.
“Egg slicer.”
“Why the hell do we have an egg slicer?”
Amalie shrugged. As far as she could tell, egg slicers were one of those things that just magically appeared in all kitchens despite no one ever remembering purchasing or being gifted one. “Give me your shoe.”
“What?”
“Give me your shoe and throw out the egg slicer.” Her shoe, with the hard sole, would probably be better for what she was about to try, but she didn’t want to stretch out the heel.
Isaac pulled off his shoe and handed it over.
She put the base of the bottle into his shoe.
“You really think that’s going to work?”
“Worth a try.” She got down on one knee and slammed the shoe on the floor, not wanting to risk the wooden walls, which needed renovation. Murr cat, who had been hanging around hoping for treats, startled and ran. The cork popped up a millimeter, but it was enough to maintain her faith in physics. Five more hard slams and the cork was half out. She bit down on it and twisted the bottle until the cork came out with a pop.
“You are awesome.” Isaac held out two wine glasses so Amalie could pour.
“Yes, I am.” The wine smelled strong but not like vinegar, so she had hope. “Here’s to us officially beating the state average for marriage length.”
“To saying fuck you to all those passive-aggressive toasts at our wedding.”
“Haters gonna hate.” They clinked glasses and sipped the wine. Isaac coughed a little while Amalie blinked at the taste. “I think we should have been better about keeping this chilled.”
“It probably just needs to breathe a bit.”
The bottle had sat on the high table at their wedding, grudgingly paid for by Amalie’s parents, who had made it clear that they did not expect the marriage to last. Amalie had tucked the bottle away, determined to drink it once she and Isaac had beaten the divorce odds. Her friends had also been less than supportive, seeing Isaac only as a now-failed doctor who chopped up dead people. Her aunts had lectured her on how she shouldn’t marry someone shorter than she was, despite the fact that technically they were the same height. Isaac’s parents, looking for someone to blame for his career and emotional meltdown, were half convinced she was somehow responsible for him quitting medicine. What should have been a beautiful, magical night had been passively combative at best.
Isaac took another sip of his wine, his face twisting up at the flavor.
She couldn’t help but laugh and put her glass aside. “Time for presents.”
Isaac handed her a lumpy package wrapped in blue-and-silver paper with pictures of dreidels. She couldn’t comment, though—Isaac’s gift was wrapped in pale pink and wished him a happy birthday. One of them really needed to pick up some neutral wrapping paper.
She ripped into her Hanukkah-themed lump. “Oooo.” There were a dozen packs of gel pens, including neon, metallic, and glitter colors, plus a couple of notebooks that had “Trust me, I’m a scientist” printed on the front. She gave Isaac a kiss. “Open yours.”
He popped open the tape on his equally lumpy gift and pulled out a floor-length paisley-print dressing gown that she had spotted in a second-hand shop. It screamed 1978, with brown and red swirls, but she knew Isaac. He grinned and giggled and pulled it on over his clothes. “It’s perfect.” He gave a little spin, and she laughed again.
That was what her family and friends had never understood about Isaac—the way he could make her laugh and just be happy, even on her worst days. He was also aware enough to know when he shouldn’t try to cheer her up, understanding that there were days when she needed to sit in her anger or sadness for a time, picking it apart. She did the same for him, and they could be equally stubborn. It was a balance few saw and fewer understood.
She grabbed his new dressing gown and pulled him in for a deep kiss.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close even as she wove her fingers into his curly hair. He broke off the kiss but didn’t pull away. “You are so damn sexy,” he whispered.
“Right back at ya.”
He gave her a quick peck on the lips before resting his chin on her shoulder. He swayed slightly, and she followed, certain of the music in his head. It had to be the same song that was in hers.
They’d had their first dance to a carefully choreographed waltz played by a string quartet, and finished to polite applause. Toward the end of the night, when things were winding down, their DJ had put on “Daydream Believer.” They had leaned against each other, their eyes closed, exhausted by the day, completely over their friends and family, both feeling a little damaged, and simply swayed to the slightly sad bit of 60s pop.
The song finished and faded out in her head. A moment later Isaac was kissing her again, his lips just lightly brushing hers. It was sweet, but she wanted more. They had all night, and sweet could be saved for later. Right now she was feeling victorious. She pulled him in tight and slid a leg between his. He got the message and deepened the kiss.
That was the other thing they recognized in each other—a knowledge and acceptance of the desires of their bodies. An understanding of power and pleasure, of the cycle of give and take.
His hands slid under the back of her shirt as she slid hers into the back of his jeans to give his ass a good squeeze. “Upstairs?” he growled between sharp kisses.
She nodded. It wasn’t like she hadn’t ridden him hard and dirty on a floor or simply pressed him against a wall in the past, but they were successful adults now. They could take sixty extra seconds and actually get to the large, comfortable bed upstairs.
In the end it took longer than sixty seconds to get upstairs. Isaac pressed her against the wall at the foot of the stairs, kissing her hard and sliding one hand up the front of her shirt. Her clit gently throbbed as he tweaked her nipple through her bra.
She put her lips to his neck, knowing just the right spot to give a little suck.
His hips bucked, and he ground himself against her. Distracted, she was able to flip him around so his back was against the wall. He growled, and she squeezed his hard cock through his jeans.
His eyes went unfocused for a moment before he grabbed the hem of her shirt, yanked it over her head, and flung it toward the living room. For a second she wondered if they should just skip the bed and aim for the couch. He tried to turn their positions around while planting his face between her breasts. Instead, her bottom hit the steps and she let out an oof, with Isaac’s knees hitting the stairs a second later.
“We are not fucking on the steps,” she said, even as she popped the top button of his fly. They’d done it once before… and only once.
“Agreed.” Isaac’s voice was muffled from his face still being pressed between her breasts.
She gave his hair a tug, and he got to his feet before giving her a helping hand up.
About halfway up the stairs, he got her bra unhooked and she got his fly the rest of the way down. They kissed deeply, all teeth and tongue, fighting for dominance. She knew she was going to both win and surrender in this little dance of theirs. As would he.
When she felt herself getting close to being willing to just fuck on the stairs, she pushed him away and sprinted toward the bedroom. He stalked in just seconds behind her. They stared at each other, their breath fast but almost in sync. She could see his cock trying to push its way through his underwear, and felt a pulse of wetness spill from her core in return.
“I think you’re over dressed,” she said, giving her lips a little lick.
“I could say the same about you.”
She put her hands to her breasts and thumbed her nipples. “You first.”
Isaac stripped slowly, never taking his dark eyes from her as she teased her own body, ramping herself up. By the time he was hanging his new dressing gown behind the door, she had slid a hand down the front of her jeans and into the wetness there.
She moaned, maybe a little over dramatically, as she fingered her own clit.
Isaac growled and dropped to his knees in front of her, yanked down her jeans and underwear, and batted her hand away. He dove straight in, his tongue finding her clit in seconds and two fingers pressing up into her without hesitation. She wobbled slightly, her jeans cuffing her legs, and grabbed his head for balance. He worked her clit hard, without mercy. He knew her body, knew its limits and desires. He knew how to tease her for hours or make her come fast and hard. He curled his fingers in her, and her whole body jolted with sensation before falling backward onto their huge bed.
She kicked off her shoes, and he pulled her jeans and underwear the rest of the way off, tossing them in the vague direction of the laundry. She shimmied up the bed, and he followed, licking at the wetness that covered her thighs. She let him lick at her clit some more, until she felt the heat curling low in her belly nearly ready to burst.
Amalie sat up, grabbed Isaac’s shoulders, and rolled him onto his back. Sopping wet, her insides pulsing, she dropped herself onto his hard cock.
“Fuck.” His voice was rough. “I love it when you ride me.”
Amalie smiled. “Yeah, I know.” She rolled her hips slowly, her legs too wobbly to ride him properly.
“And have I ever mentioned your breasts look extra awesome from this angle?”
Amalie grinned. “A few times.” And she did like her breasts. They were an industry-average cup size, which meant she could actually shop for bras online—not that Isaac cared about that.
She leaned over and kissed him, licking herself off his lips as she did. He settled his hands on her waist and lifted his hips as she ground down. He closed his eyes, his head tipping back, but she could tell his attention was still on her.
“So good. You feel so fucking good.” His words were whispered between sharp breaths. He reached between their bodies and pressed his thumb firm against her clit. It was just enough to release that burning tension. She leaned back, and it roared through her body, and she squeezed down around him. “So, fucking beautiful.” Isaac’s voice was hardly more than a whisper.
Her legs feeling weak, she grabbed his outstretched hands and ground down hard. His eyes opened wide. He was always honest with her, but moments like this were when he was truly vulnerable, when everything he was, or wasn’t, was on full display. His hands held hers tight as he thrust up into her, letting out a cry of release.
Amalie rolled off Isaac as he caught his breath.
“I promise I’m going to eat every drop of that out of you. Just give me a minute.”
She reached out and randomly petted his chest, feeling his pulse begin to steady beneath her fingers.
During the wedding dress shopping, Amalie’s mother had given her a deathly embarrassing lecture on the importance of staying attractive for her husband—she didn’t approve of Isaac, but she also didn’t want a divorce in the family. Amalie had countered, asking if Isaac shouldn’t get lectured on the importance of staying attractive for her. She’d gotten a verbal pat on the head and had gritted her teeth through the rest of the day.
Any hypothetical lecture Isaac might have been given in the end wasn’t necessary. He had aged a little, but so had she, and with that age, the knowledge of each other’s bodies, wants, desires, and passions had grown. The sex appeal was in what they knew of each other and what they did with it. And she always thought he had a cute butt.
He rolled toward her, his hands gently cupped her breasts, and he delicately brushed each nipple, still hard and oversensitive from her orgasm. He kissed her neck, finding each nerve that sent jolts through her body right to her toes, the fresh sensations of pleasure mingling with the previous batch. Slowly Isaac worked his way down her body, lapping at her nipples, nuzzling the soft skin beneath her breasts, and dropping kisses across her belly.
She spread her legs, and without hesitation he crawled between them and once again buried his face deep into her folds. She stretched out her arms and relaxed into their new king-sized bed as he began to slowly lick her inner lips. He was pretty good and had improved over the years, partly due to a willingness to take direction.
He was not rushing her to a climax. She could feel his tongue pressing into her, making good on his promise. In past years he had spent hours licking, teasing, and caressing her body, drawing out the pleasure until she was sure she could take no more, then pushing beyond that. She wove her fingers into his hair, and he gently stroked her swollen, sensitive clit. Her body rolled like a wave, and he moved with her. People joked about doctors being good with their hands, but he was and always had been.
She arched her back and let herself drift, partly meditation, partly from sensual overload. She did nothing to fight back the delicate waves of pleasure she knew were building toward a second release. The room was quiet except for her own deep breaths and soft moans and the wet sounds of Isaac’s licks and sucks. In their first shitty apartment, they would play music to hide the sounds from the neighbors, until the neighbors left a note saying they preferred the sex sounds to Isaac’s classic vinyl collection.
Amalie was floating between memories of the past and sensations of the present when Isaac moved his tongue back up to her clit and started to gently finger her.
Despite his slow and deliberate pace, she felt the pressure begin to build, the pulsing of her clit, and the way she was clenching around his fingers, almost pulling them in. She rubbed her breasts and gently tugged at her nipples, needing just that small extra level of sensation.
When her orgasm hit, it was hard. Like a fast-racing fire from her toes to her throat, it burned through her body. She squeezed her thighs around Isaacs head as he tickled her clit with the tip of his tongue, drawing out the aftershocks until she let go.
He sat up and grinned at her, his face glossy.
“What are you grinning about?” she mumbled, her whole body prickling against the air.
“I just like making you come. Makes me happy.”
Amalie didn’t answer. Instead, she just took his hand and wove their fingers together.
“I am so glad I agreed to marry you,” he said after a few minutes of just laying by her side and breathing.
“Me too.”
He took her hand and kissed it. “Did we ever tell your family that you’re the one who proposed?”
“Fuck no. My mother would have thrown a fit. She would have browbeat you into proposing to me at a giant family gathering, with a massive diamond ring. And she still wouldn’t have liked you.”
Isaac hummed and nodded. “Why did you propose to me?”
“You weren’t going to propose to me.”
“Of course I wasn’t. I was a mess. I wasn’t husband material. I was barely human material at that point.”
She turned and looked to Isaac. “If you didn’t think you were husband material, why did you say yes when I asked?”
He opened his mouth for a quick answer, then closed it again and frowned. He repeated that a couple more times before he said, “I don’t know.”
“I think you knew you’d get through it and wanted to have someone waiting on the other side.”
“And you wanted to be that someone on the other side?”
Amalie smiled at him. “Of course, silly. I loved you. Still do.”
Isaac rolled over and kissed her deep. “I love you too.”
She tucked her head against his chest and happily dozed off.
Amalie woke to fingers just lightly brushing through her hair and a warm, hard spot of heat against her hip.
Isaac smiled at her when she opened her eyes.
“Hey.” She coughed a little, her throat feeling rough.
“Hey.”
“Whatcha thinking about?” She had a pretty good idea, considering the full erection pressed against her.
“I was thinking about the first time we did it.”
Amalie couldn’t hold back a snort. “That was not our best attempt.” They had spent a party both trying to pick up the same guy, a very pretty baseball player who ended up going home with some freshman girl, leaving the two of them to bang it out in a closet.
Isaac shrugged. “For angry, frustrated, ever-so-mildly intoxicated sex, it got the job done.”
“Well, for one of us.”
“I did make up for that.”
“You did.” And he had, showing up at her place the next day with an offer to eat her out. She’d said yes just because she’d never had a guy notice when she hadn’t come, and certainly none who had offered to make it up to her. “Any idea what happened to that baseball player?”
“No. Honestly, I don’t even remember his name at this point. Mostly I just remember him having a really nice ass.”
Amalie nodded in agreement. Her main memory of that party, aside from angrily screwing her future husband, was the painted-on jeans that guy had been wearing. She knew in her heart, even then, that he would probably have been shitty in bed, but the libido wants what it wants. “What do you think would have happened if we had both landed him?”
Isaac grinned. “Reality or deep dark fantasy?”
Amalie grinned in return. “Deep dark fantasy.”
“I’m sure he was the team slut and totally knew how to suck cock. Probably liked it rough and dirty. I could have just fucked my way down his throat while you took him with a strap-on, giving his ass a good spanking. Would have stuck a nice tight cock ring on him so you could ride him. He would have been our sex toy. You would have just used him like a jumbo vibrator before sitting on his face.”
Amalie chuckled and squirmed a little at the fantasy. They’d only actually shared partners a couple of times. It was something easier said than done, and not something they would have been able to manage at that point. They had only been friends for a few months when that party happened, and were unaware of their mutual kinky streaks.
Isaac moved his hand from her hair and danced his fingers around her hardening nipples. “So am I still able to turn you on by talking dirty?”
“You know you are.”
He kissed her temple. “I love your brain. You know I would have been happy to sit back and watch you go to town on that baseball player. You could have left him a quivering wreck at your feet, totally destroyed and thanking you for every second of it. Ruined for any other partner.”
“Sounds too much like hard work. I like my boys pretrained.”
“Good thing you got me.”
Amalie laughed. “You were not trained.”
“I was.” Isaac sounded hurt but was still smiling.
“You were better than some, but there was still work to do.”
Isaac didn’t bother defending himself. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her deep. It was a warm and sensual kiss, curling her toes and contrasting the rutting of his erection against her hip. She slowly twisted one of his nipples until he began to shudder and broke off the kiss. “You know you can use me as your sex toy any time you like.”
“I know.”
His hand was now on his own cock, working it slowly. She shoved it away, and he grinned. She crawled up to the bedside table, and after a bit of rummaging around between old phone chargers and dried-up pens, she grabbed a simple leather cock ring.
“Lay back and spread.”
Isaac did as told without hesitation, even folding his hands behind his head like he was just relaxing.
Amalie slid down the bed and between his legs. She took a long lick of his cock, tasting herself on him, and watched him shudder. Then with a quick move, she snapped on the cock ring. Isaac moaned, and she sucked him hard, bobbing her head until his skin was taut, seemingly ready to split. His eyes were squeezed tight, and he was fisting the sheets, not touching himself or reaching out for her.
She pressed a knuckle into the flesh behind his balls and watched them draw up in desperation. She was tempted to grab her strap-on and give him a good fuck while in this state, but that would mean getting out of bed and finding it, and she didn’t want to stop the momentum.
She did, however, walk up the bed until she was standing with her feet on either side of Isaac’s head, towering over him. “Are you going to be a good toy for me?”
He nodded at her enthusiastically. “Oh yes, please.”
She turned and crouched down over his face. She watched his cock twitch in desperation before he grabbed her thighs to pull her down ever closer. He licked, sucked, and nibbled at her folds while she ran her nails gently across his straining cock, making him stop to moan and cry out. If he paused for what she felt was too long, she would grind herself down onto his face and roughly jerk his cock for a few seconds.
She briefly wondered how many couples who had been married as long as her and Isaac had shrunk their sex life to missionary with the lights off once every other week.
She felt herself getting close to coming, that tight ball of fire that had settled into her clit nearly ready to explode. She thrust a hand between her legs and rubbed her clit hard and fast and in just the right way to set everything off. As the fire rushed through her, she watched a tiny dribble of fluid seep from the tip of Isaac’s cock even as she soaked his face in hers.
She pulled off the ring, and Isaac sat up, pushing her onto quivering hands and knees in the process.
“Let me fuck you.” He was breathless and needy.
“Yes.”
It took only seconds of maneuvering for him to thrust into her. She grunted a little. He wasn’t small on a regular day, and right now he was filling her all the way. With his hands tight on her hips, he only lasted a half-dozen thrusts before they both collapsed onto the bed, gasping for breath.
They were both sweaty and sticky, and she could feel the heat radiating off Isaac’s body. There would have to be a shower and at least a stripping of the upper blankets before they properly slept for the night.
She heard Isaac shifting a little, then felt his hand intertwine with hers. “I’m so glad you understand me,” he said softly.
She turned her head toward him, even though it seemed to take up most of her remaining energy. “I could say the same thing.”
He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “Never let me forget how lucky I am to have found you.”
“I won’t have to, because I know you won’t.”