🌴 Tropical Permission 📖 Chapter Eight: The Reckoning
When Fantasy Demands the Truth: A Marriage on the Edge of Discovery
They ate at the cliffside restaurant again that night, the one perched above the water with white-linen tablecloths and waiters who refilled your wine glass before you’d realized it was empty.
The view was staggering. The food, as they had forgotten from the night before, was forgettable.
James had been quiet since they sat down. Not sullen, just unusually careful with his words. He let Diane order for both of them and only seemed to come alive again when the second bottle of wine arrived.
She studied him across the table. “You’ve been different since this afternoon.”
He swirled his wine. “I’ve been thinking.”
She gave him a knowing smile. “About what you saw? Or what you wanted to see?”
James looked up. He wasn’t in a flirty mood. His eyes were unsure, he didn’t look at her directly at first.
“I have a sort of confession too.”
She met his eyes and touched his hand, letting the warmth of her palm coax him to speech.
He hesitated, then exhaled. “I know it seems like I’ve all of a sudden become obsessed with this idea of you and someone else.”
She felt then the need to reassure him, and spoke before he could continue. “I’m the one who brought up the threesome over dinner. I don’t feel like you’re obsessed,” she lied, a tiny bit. “We’re on vacation. We can be a little naughty.”
James smiled, grateful but unconvinced. “The truth is that this isn’t a ‘new’ fantasy for me.”
Diane’s brows lifted, curiosity flickering. “No?”
“I mean...” He stammered slightly. “It is, and it isn’t.’
He shook his head. “Not exactly. Maybe the details are new. But the feeling isn’t. I’ve always… enjoyed seeing other men want you. I used to think it was just pride, or a little machismo. Sometimes I’d watch a guy check you out and think, ‘He’s going to think about Diane later.’ Or, ‘He’ll probably jerk off to the thought of you tonight.’ And instead of feeling jealous, I’d feel—” He searched for the word. “Lucky. Powerful. Sometimes even turned on.”
Diane’s breath caught at the word, her legs crossing beneath the table, her pulse quickening. “That’s not so strange,” she said softly. “It’s hot. You knowing other people want me, but only you have me.”
James laughed quietly, still a little shy. “But it goes deeper. Sometimes I even wonder if I want someone to actually have you. Just to see it. To see you—through someone else’s eyes.”
The admission hung in the air, electric and new. Diane saw the boyish nervousness in James, the way he held his wine a little too tight, the way he was looking for reassurance but not demanding it. She was surprised to realize she wanted to reassure him, and even more surprised to realize how much his words excited her.
Diane blushed and held her hand on top of his as he continued.
“So it’s something that’s been there, inside me. Something I’ve been aware of, and tried to mostly ignore or dismiss. But after what you told me, what you showed me—” His gaze caught hers, hungry now, a little wild. “I just keep thinking about it. About you being with someone else. About seeing it. About what it would do to me. To us.”
Diane felt her thighs press together under the table. She tried to answer lightly, but her voice came out hushed. “You want to see me come apart for someone else.”
James exhaled, deep and shuddering. “Yeah. I think I do. But it scares the hell out of me, too.”
Diane considered her husband, the man she thought she knew inside and out, and wondered how much of this had been brewing inside him, unspoken, for years. There was something exhilarating and terrifying in hearing him say it out loud.
She ran her thumb along his knuckles. “I think I want it too. Sometimes, I picture someone else wanting me—watching me—and it makes me want you even more.”
He smiled, relief warring with nerves. “That’s the thing. The wanting. It never feels like enough anymore. It’s like every time we talk about it, every time I imagine it, I just want more.”
They lingered over dessert they barely tasted, the silence between them heavy but electric.
When the check arrived, James paid without looking at the total. Diane watched his hands, the way they were steady and careful, the way they trembled ever so slightly when he set the pen down.
As they stood to leave, James paused, his chair scraping quietly against the tile. He looked at her, almost boyish now—vulnerable in a way she’d rarely seen.
“But there’s something else. Something I don’t think—I know—that I’ve never spoken to anyone about.”
The world seemed to tilt for a moment, the night sharpening around his words. Diane’s breath caught in her chest.
“Whatever it is, James, you can tell me.”
“I know this,” he said sincerely, graciously. “Let’s go back to the villa.”
As they walked through the night, Diane’s skin tingled with anticipation—and a touch of dread.
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