The Bet (10 Dates)

In no time, he had her groaning in pleasure while his strong fingers dug into the painful muscles and soothed them out. For the second time today, she found herself captive to his strong hands that brought so much pleasure. Moaning softly, she ignored his hands when they crept up her ankle and started in on her calves. Should she stop him? She should, she didn't!

The movie started, saving her before he got too high. Pulling her legs away, she cuddled into his side while they shared the popcorn and drinks.

Mallory loved the movie. At a compelling moment, she had a tear-jerking cry letting out some of her angst over her husband's Judas behaviour. Watching Ethan out of the corner of her eye while he was comforting her, she noticed a little moisture escaping down his cheek too. He was crying at a chick flick. That impressed her. The rest of the guys dissed chick flicks like they'd book a cruise on the Titanic before watching one.

She used her finger to wipe away his tear and then kissed his cheek in thanks. His acceptance made her feel good after the shock Steve laid on her today.

Walking out of the theatre afterward, they talked about the film. Mallory was amazed to find that Ethan had watched the whole thing. He was talking intelligently about what happened. They agreed together that one scene had been too fake to be believed. Still, overall, they both liked the film. The best she'd ever gotten out of Steve the odd time he'd taken her to a chick flick, was, "Did they?" He couldn't be bothered to watch. It was just time to suffer through, often watching sports highlights with his earphones on, screen dimmed.

Mallory started running her girlfriends through her mind. How Ethan had escaped a serious relationship astonished her. He was such a catch. Trouble was she couldn't think of a single woman that would appreciate him anywhere near what she did.

Her thoughts suddenly took a big step backward to take a hard look at Ethan. Why was it she thought it was only HER that found him so attractive and enticing? Like every woman she knew wasn't good enough for him? Was she missing something? They'd been friends a while. Or she'd been a friend while he was carrying a torch for her.

Was there something more between them?

Married dating seemed so wrong, yet the truth was she was enjoying herself immensely. She wasn't going to blame herself; the fault was Steve's and his idiocy in pushing Ethan to ask her. Sadly, she had only thought of Steve tonight long enough to compare his failures when measured against Ethan.

In his car, listening to the hypnotic rumble of the motor, Ethan distracted her thoughts when he hesitantly asked her, "Would you like to come and see my house? Maybe have a drink?"

She shouldn't; it was dangerous going home with him. But she was curious to see his place.

Curiosity won out! "Okay."

Driving down moonlit streets, she was having a lot of second thoughts. This was crazy; she was putting herself in temptation's path. She was attracted to the point of admitting to herself she'd have slept with him tonight if she was single. She watched his face, alternately flashing white, then dark, as the moonlight burst through branches of the trees overhead, then eclipsed him into shadow.

Geez, he was good looking. Her panties were getting moist watching him. Except the Man Killer ensemble didn't include panties! Her pussy was naked. She could only hope there was no stain on the back of her dress. That would be embarrassing! Even worse, she hoped he couldn't smell her arousal!

Casually, she fished a Kleenex out of her purse. At the next traffic light, he looked to the side. She quickly stuffed the Kleenex into her moist slit to catch the overflow. She snickered. It was the kind of private memory she and Ethan would never confess to their children.

She froze, shocked to the core. Where had that come from? Her and Ethan's children? Where was her brain?

"Something funny?"

"Ahhhh?" She was at a loss for words. "Just a random thought," she answered.

She was saved from further embarrassment by him pulling into his driveway. Inside she gawked like a kid taking in all the improvements he'd made. The place was a palace, The burnished wooden floors gleamed. Everything was modern and up-to-date. His tastes were masculine. She vowed she'd change that as soon as she moved in. Then gasped again. Where was this thinking coming from?

He showed her through the house, ignoring one bedroom.

"What's in there?" she asked.

"Ahh, just storage," he answered. His eyes shifted again.

She looked at the door, curiously. There was something behind it; he didn't want her to see. The possibilities were endless, but his previous lie had been about his hobbies. Obviously, he had one he didn't like to share. She made a pact with herself. She'd tease or wheedle it out of him, even if she had to...! No, she stopped right there. That wasn't the solution. That way lay ruination and divorce.

The backyard was beautiful. Ethan had built a pool, hot tub and oversized deck with an outdoor barbecue for entertainment. A glass-covered extension jutted off the house on the back-side of that room, he wouldn't show her. Had he made a sunroom? Curiouser and curiouser, she thought. It was covered with closed blinds; she couldn't see inside.

Back inside, Ethan fetched drinks then started to sit on a chair until she patted the couch beside her. They sipped and talked for a while till the drinks were done. Ethan took her glass and put them on the table beside him.

She was about to make noises that it was time for him to take her home when he spoke up.

"Mallory, I can't kiss you goodbye in front of your apartment. I'm going to kiss you now," he stated, leaving her no doubt he was going to do precisely that.

He was a good kisser, she decided, not that she'd had much choice. He was pulling her closer while he made his dramatic announcement and captured her lips before she could answer him. Not that she minded. Besides, it was only natural to have a kiss after the second date, she told herself. Trouble was he wasn't stopping, and she was enjoying it enough not to care!

Arousal flared in her. She felt her nipples harden and her pussy engorging.

She got lost in the kiss. She could do this with him forever; he smelled so good!

It was with some shock that she realized wandering fingers had managed to snag the loop over that one button and flip it open. His hand had spread the top of her dress and had taken possession of her breast, his fingers tweaking her stiff little nipple.

She softly moaned her own building desire into his mouth. She should stop him. She couldn't seem to gather the discipline. A little fooling around was expected on the second date. She whined a few minutes later when he deserted her lips then pulled his head tight against her chest when his lips, tongue and teeth started dancing on her horny nipple. So good! Things got better when his lips found her other nipple and proceeded to torture that one into a hard bud of desire. At the same time, his fingers kept the other's motor revving.

His free hand was heading south. Mallory needed to stop this. It wouldn't be long before she was flat on her back, getting herself stuffed with his granite-hard cock. Somehow, that thought didn't seem to bother her anywhere near what it should! There was also the matter of that now soaked Kleenex!

"Ethan," she struggled to get his name out.

"Mmmmm!"

"We need to stop."

"Okay!"

To her shock, he immediately stopped. Sitting up, he pulled her dress together, flipping that little rouleau loop over her button. Guys didn't do that. Often she'd need to beat them off once they got going and had her this far. So many stories she and her girlfriends had shared about guys that wouldn't take no for an answer.

He gave her a little kiss on the lips. "I'll take you home."

Her opinion of him went up another five thousand percent.

Back at her apartment, he turned the motor off and turned to her. "Are we going to do something tomorrow?"]

"Damn straight," she told him. "I want to win that money. What have you got in mind?"

"Dinner and dancing tomorrow night. I know a great place. But tomorrow during the day is going to be awkward. You might not want to go with me."

"Really? Why?"

"I used to go for dinner with my parents on Sundays until we started the game day at your place. I wanted to do that instead. As a trade-off, I set Mondays for lunch with them. I told my mom a little bit about you and what happened. She laughed and seemed to think it was hilarious. She wants to meet you and asked if you'd like to come. But I know that could be awkward for you."

Hoo boy!

AWKWARD didn't begin to cover that. Meeting the 'rents,' this soon sucked. Still, she wanted to win that pot. Working from home, she could take the time.

The decision flip-flopped around in her mind until she decided to bite the bullet. "Okay, let's meet your parents." If nothing else, she was curious to see more of where Ethan came from.

She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Tomorrow then."

"Pick you up at eleven."

Ethan slumped back in his seat and watched her gorgeous ass twitch its way into the lobby. He needed his head examined! What the hell was he doing dating a married woman, he asked himself. It couldn't go anywhere. He was tearing himself apart emotionally, wanting her. She had been his secret crush since the day he met her. For a moment, he wished he'd never taken Steve's advice and gotten them into this situation. It had nowhere to go, yet he couldn't bring himself to walk away from her.

When she disappeared into the elevator, he turned and stared at the moon out of the front windshield. The situation seemed so hopeless. He sat there ruminating on things watching a long, thin dark cloud pass over that glowing orb in the sky. Somehow, he equated that cloud with her marriage. As bright as Mallory shone for him, her marriage eclipsed his desire. The dazzling relationship that they could have muted, just like the moonlight. Unbidden, a tear ran down his cheek.

Upstairs, Mallory washed up, flushing a soaked piece of Kleenex down the toilet. Throwing on a long t-shirt she usually wore to bed, she went to the window to see if Steve's car was back yet. They needed to talk. She frowned, spotting Ethan's car still parked down there. She could see him slumped in his seat. He didn't appear to be talking on the phone or anything. She watched for a while, becoming concerned when he didn't seem to be moving.

Ethan startled when the passenger door opened, and Mallory climbed in. He took in her t-shirt with a robe loosely hanging off her shoulders. God, she was hot. Then he spotted her quirky little rabbit ear slippers and broke into laughter.

"What?"

He pointed to her slippers, still laughing.

She smacked his arm. "Don't you be mocking my slippers! A warm foot is a happy foot. And a happy foot is a happy woman. Just you wait till I shove my cold feet into your back to warm themselves when we're in b...!"

Her brain caught up with the import of the momentous statement her mouth was dishing out; she blushed, "I mean...!"

Ethan tried to keep a straight face, then they both broke down laughing.

"Why are you still here?" Mallory asked minutes later when they could look at each other without hysterics.

"I'm asking myself why I'm putting you, Steve and myself in this situation with dating you. It's so wrong. There's nowhere it can go."

She contemplated that. After Steve's message this afternoon, she didn't have much hope for her marriage. But then again, she didn't want to bail because of one stupid statement. Maybe Steve would have regrets and apologize. Maybe not. Her suspicions were that Steve had told the truth about his feelings. But she shouldn't feed Ethan false hope by making him think her marriage was on the rocks.

But she had to admit now that they'd started this dating thing she didn't want to stop!

She pulled him over and gave him a scorching kiss. "Sometimes, Ethan, we're closer to our goals than we realize." With that ambiguous statement, she climbed out and headed home again.

Ethan laughed again, watching those rabbit ears flopping around while she walked in. As if she was reading his mind, she turned and pointed to her slippers, her finger wagging a no, no at him. There'd be no dissing her beloved slippers. He tried not to laugh again at the amusing sight, an intimate look into a quirk of hers.

Little did she know that the thought of her in bed with him, cold feet or not, was like Christmas, Easter, and his birthday all rolled into one for him.

Driving home, Ethan kept running her ambiguous message through his mind. What exactly did that mean? Headlights washed over his face, and he flinched at the screeching of tires with an angry blaring horn from a pissed off driver. He'd damned near gotten t-boned running a stop sign. He pulled over to the side of the road to give his pounding heart time to slow down. Shit, that had been close! It was time to get his head back in the game before he killed himself.

Upstairs, Mallory looked out the window again. Ethan was gone, and there was no sign of Steve yet. She poured herself a glass of wine and curled up on the couch. The future that Steve had repudiated was non-negotiable in her books. Children, buying a house were typical progressions in a marriage. Kids were high on her priority list. Had Steve announced this back in the beginning, they would have never made it to the altar. They dated for a year and had been married for four years. Had she wasted all those years with the wrong man?

Thinking about Ethan had her wondering if he was nothing more than a tempting rebound relationship from the hurt Steve had dished out. But when she thought about it, she realized the two of them had been gravitating together since he came into their lives around three years ago. That had only increased in the last couple of years. When the group went hiking, she and Ethan seemed to end up walking together talking. When they were watching the game, she seemed to end up sitting beside him. It was him that regularly got up to help her bring snacks or more beer. He helped out with the cleanup after or volunteered to do little errands, picking up stuff for the parties. When they went out to the bars, she almost always sat beside him, talking and watching the others' hijinks.

In fact, she realized that all the times they'd been in a bar together, she had never seen him drunk. The others gulped beers down like the objective was to get smashed and act like a moron. Ethan sipped his beer and seldom ever went past two of them. Three seemed to be his absolute limit.

If she was cooking in the kitchen, it was Ethan sitting at the table talking to her. Willingly jumping up to get dishes out of the cupboard, mash the potatoes or any other help she needed. Thinking about his sensitivity compared to the others and things he liked, she had to acknowledge the two of them had far more interests in common than she and Steve. Or any of the others for that matter.

This was no rebound. Ethan had been at her side all along.

She rechecked the window. There was still no sign of Steve coming home. Pissed off, she texted him. 'We need to talk.'

She usually got prompt responses, but as time went by, the silence of her phone seemed deafening.

**********

Her phone chimed to let her know Ethan was outside. She checked her eyes one last time in the mirror. They looked better now. Steve hadn't come home or responded to her last night, and she'd spent half the night crying before deciding he was no longer worth it. A small frisson of bitterness was starting to well up, pushing him aside.

She'd spent the morning agonizing over what clothes to wear to meet Ethan's parents while bathing her eyes in cooling water and cucumber slices to reduce the swelling and bags underneath.

Driving to his parent's place, she started to get uncomfortable when she realized they were heading into the ritzy area of town. Ethan guided the car until he arrived at a gated driveway and clicked a remote.

Mallory was stunned. She knew this place. Like so many people around here, she'd driven by this mansion many times admiring it, wishing someday she might be successful enough to own something like it. They drove up a long driveway until Ethan parked under the portcullis.

Mallory looked around. Geez, this place was worth millions. She hadn't expected this!

Inside she was introduced to his parents Barbara and Victor.

"Come on, Mallory. Let's head for the kitchen; I'll get us a glass of wine. The boys have some plans to go over."

Barbara was leading her through the house when Mallory's eyes spotted something familiar.

"Oh my god, is that a reproduction?"

"No, that's the original!"

The original? Mallory had attended an art show a few years back and had been mesmerized by that painting. The fifty thousand dollar price tag on it had only been around forty-nine thousand more than she could afford. Again, it was something she hoped she'd be able to splurge on someday. His parents must be wealthy to afford to spend that kind of money on a single painting.

"Do you mind?" she asked, eager to admire it again.

"Of course, dear. That's what art is for. Enjoy! Look as much as you like."

"I attended an art show a few years ago and absolutely adored this one. It was way out of my price range, though," she admitted to Barbara. Looking around, she saw numerous paintings with the same artist's signature.

The penny dropped! Her name was Barbara, Ethan's last name was Evans. The paintings were all by Barbara Evans. Ethan's mom was...!

She turned in stunned amazement. "Oh, my goodness! You're Barbara Evans, the world-famous painter!"

"Well, I don't know about world-famous, dear. I just paint, and if people like them...? I really don't hold it against them if they live elsewhere!" She shrugged, then looked amused. "I take it Ethan didn't tell you anything about us. Typical, but that boy is so determined to make it independently without people giving him what they would if they knew who his parents were. I have to admire that."

"No, he never said a word. I'm so gonna kick his butt for that," Mallory threatened to Barbara's laughter.

Over on another wall, Mallory spotted another painting. The style was completely different from Barbara's. The colours were rich and vivid, and even though she didn't know much about art, the artist's talent shone through like a beacon.

"Oh my, that one's beautiful too. Another artist you know?" She tried to read the signature, but it was a scrawling, formal cursive script, the letters hard to make out.

"Yes, it is. You like it?"

Mallory nodded, studying the painting. "It's incredible!"

"Come with me, Mallory. You seem to have a taste for good art. We have a room we keep the best paintings in. There's another one by that artist that Victor and I feel is quite special. I think you might like it."

They descended down some winding stairs until they were standing in front of a steel door. Barbara entered a code into the lock. "Give me a minute Mallory, I need to adjust the lighting. No peeking beforehand." She laughed!

Mallory took a moment to look around the basement. It was nicely finished with a sports bar and big screen tv. Comfortable looking chairs and bar stools decorated the room. Behind the bar was a collection of alcohol that would rival any bar she'd been to.

Barbara slipped out of the room. "Okay, Mallory!" She pushed the door open.

Her portrait mounted on the opposite wall shimmered out at her, accentuating spotlights enhancing her visage. Stunned, Mallory stumbled in and fell to her knees, her hands cradling her cheeks. Shocked eyes stared up at the gorgeous painting. Nobody needed to tell her who the artist was.