Steamy Surrender: Emmett Claims His Best Friend’s Wife

I should have sent her home the second she said his name. Instead I stood in my kitchen at nearly one in the morning with my best friend’s wife barefoot on my tile, and I let the wrongness settle over both of us like heat off the stove I had forgotten to turn off.

I’m Emmett. Twenty-eight. I have wanted Giselle since the week she turned nineteen. Derek and I were sharing a cramped apartment then, both of us already out of school and working, and she started coming by with takeout and that low laugh that made the place feel smaller than it was. Nineteen. Grown. Legal. Still the worst idea I have ever nursed, because she was already his. They dated through the rest of that year, married when she was twenty-three, and bought the house beside mine like somebody wanted to see how long a man could live next to a fire without putting his hand in it.

She is twenty-six now. Derek is thirty, my closest friend since we were both old enough to sign a lease, gone until Thursday on a business trip he has been talking about for a month. He texted me from the airport to keep an eye on things next door. That was the joke of it. Keep an eye on his wife. As if I had ever managed to look anywhere else.

The marriage has gone quiet. I hear it in the way she pauses before she says his name at the mailbox. I hear it now, in my kitchen, while she stands in a thin cotton robe with her hair down and her eyes too bright for the hour.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she says. “Your light was on.”

I pour her water she does not drink. The robe gaps when she leans on the island, and I look at the floor and it does nothing. I have pictured this room a hundred times and hated myself for every version of it.

She sets the glass down. “Derek and I don’t touch anymore. Not really. He kisses my cheek like I’m a roommate he likes. I keep telling myself it’s a phase. Then I walk over here and I remember I’ve felt something else for years. Something I was never supposed to feel for you.”

The air changes. Wrongness has a temperature. It climbs my throat and sits there.

“Giselle.”

“I know,” she says, quiet and steady. “He’s your best friend. I’m his wife. I shouldn’t be in your kitchen saying this. But I’ve always felt it. That spark. The one we’re not allowed to name.”

I grip the edge of the counter until my knuckles pale. She is twenty-six, married, living twenty feet from my front door, and she is looking at me like she has already decided the night is going to cost us something. I should have walked her back across the yard. I didn’t. The want I have carried since she was nineteen and laughing in our old living room finally has a witness, and the witness is her.

She doesn’t look away. Neither do I. The clock on the microwave blinks, and the house next door stays dark, and the only sound is both of us breathing like we have been running.

The confession doesn’t stay polite. Once it is in the room it grows teeth.

“I’ve thought about you,” she says, and her voice drops, confessional and shameless at once. “Not just the spark. I’ve thought about you claiming me. About what it would feel like if you stopped being careful. I lie next to him sometimes and I picture your hands. I hate myself for it and I still do it.”

My mouth goes dry. “You shouldn’t tell me that.”

“You already knew.” She steps around the island. The robe brushes her calves. “You’ve looked at me like you were starving since before the wedding. I noticed. I never said anything because saying it would make it real. It’s real now. He’s gone. I’m here. And I am so tired of pretending I don’t want the one man I’m not allowed to want.”

I move before I can talk myself out of it. Two steps and I am in front of her, close enough to smell the soap on her skin and the faint trace of the wine she must have had alone next door. I cup her face. My thumbs rest at the corners of her mouth. She is warm. She does not pull back.

“I’ve imagined fucking you for years,” I tell her, and the words come out rough because I have never said them to anyone, not even to the dark. “My best friend’s wife. That’s what you are, and I have still pictured bending you over every surface in this house. I have pictured your mouth. I have pictured how you’d sound if I stopped pretending I was a good friend and just took what I’ve wanted since you turned nineteen and started showing up at our door. I am twenty-eight years old and I have not gotten over you. I don’t think I ever will.”

Her breath catches against my palms. Her eyes shine. “Emmett.”

“Say it,” I tell her. “If you want me to stop, say stop. If you don’t, tell me what you came over here for.”

She swallows. Her hands find my wrists and hold on, not to push me away. “I want it too. I want you to fuck me. I know it’s wrong. I know he’s your best friend and my husband and this will wreck something if he ever finds out. I still want it. I want you to claim me. Tonight. While he’s away. Please.”

The please undoes the last of my restraint. I kiss her like I have been owed the kiss for seven years. She opens for me immediately, hungry, no hesitation, her tongue meeting mine, a soft sound breaking in her throat that I feel all the way down my spine. Her robe parts under my hands. I taste wine and want and the particular sin of kissing a woman who wears another man’s ring. She fists my shirt and pulls me closer, standing on her toes, giving as good as she gets. Neither of us tries to stop. The kiss turns messy, teeth and breath and her whimper when I bite her lower lip just hard enough to make her gasp my name.

“Neighbor,” she whispers against my mouth, almost laughing, almost wrecked. “You’re the neighbor. You’re his best friend. God, Emmett, this is so fucked.”

“And you came over anyway.”

“I came over because I couldn’t stand another night of not having you.” She kisses me again, deeper, and I feel her smile break against my mouth like she already knows we are past the point of walking it back. The taboo doesn’t cool anything. It pours gasoline on it. I want her more because I shouldn’t. She wants me more because she shouldn’t. We stand there in my kitchen, married woman and the man who was supposed to look after her, kissing like the dark house next door doesn’t exist.

I walk her backward until the island hits the small of her back. She looks up at me, lips swollen, robe half open, and nods once. That is all the permission I need, and she knows it. She wants to be taken. She came here to be taken. I am done pretending I am the kind of man who sends her home.

I turn her. She goes willingly, palms flattening on the cool stone, robe riding up the backs of her thighs. I push the cotton higher and find plain black panties, already damp at the center when my fingers brush them. She makes a broken sound and spreads her feet without being asked.

“Tell me again,” I say against her ear.

“Fuck me,” she breathes. “I’m twenty-six and I’m your best friend’s wife and I am begging you, Emmett, fuck me hard. Right here. While he’s gone. I want it. I want you.”

I yank the panties aside. She is slick, swollen, ready in a way that makes my vision narrow. I free myself, stroke once, and line up. The head of my cock presses against her and she pushes back, impatient, whispering please like a prayer she knows she shouldn’t say. I sink into her in one long drive and both of us groan. She is tight and hot and so wet I bottom out easier than I deserve. The guilt hits at the same moment as the pleasure, and the pleasure wins.

“Fuck,” I grit out. “Giselle.”

“Don’t stop. God, don’t you dare stop.”

I don’t. I grip her hips and fuck her hard from behind, deep possessive thrusts that shove her forward on the island and drag her back onto me. The sound of it fills the kitchen, wet and obscene, skin meeting skin, her breathless moans bouncing off the cabinets. Every stroke feels like theft. I am inside my best friend’s wife. I am fucking her in the house he asked me to watch. She takes it and asks for more, rocking back to meet me, panties twisted aside, robe bunched at her waist.

“It’s wrong,” she gasps, voice cracking on the word. “It’s so wrong and it feels so good. You’re his best friend. You’re not supposed to be this deep. Harder. Please, harder. I want to feel you claiming me. I want to remember this every time I look at him.”

I give her harder. My hand slides up her spine and fists lightly in her hair, not cruel, just enough to arch her and let me drive deeper. She cries out, not in pain, in relief, and the sound goes straight to my cock. I watch myself disappear into her, watch the way she clenches when I grind in and hold, watch the tremor in her thighs. She is gorgeous like this, wrecked and willing, saying my name like it is the only one that matters tonight.

“You’ve wanted this,” I tell her, thrusting slow and mean for three strokes, then fast again. “Say it while I fuck you.”

“I’ve wanted this,” she moans. “I’ve wanted you to fuck me. I’ve wanted my husband’s best friend to bend me over and take what isn’t his. It feels filthy. It feels perfect. Don’t pull out. I need you to keep going. I need you to use me until I can’t think about how bad we are.”

I reach around and find her clit, circling with two fingers while I pound into her. She jolts, swears, and comes the first time with a shocked little wail, pulsing around me so hard I have to grit my teeth not to follow. I don’t stop. I fuck her through it, possessive and relentless, whispering that she is mine for tonight, that Derek doesn’t get this, that I have wanted this cunt since she was nineteen and laughing in our kitchen and I am finally having it. She nods frantically, still coming down, still pushing back for more.

When her arms start to shake I pull out. She whimpers at the loss. I turn her, lift her onto the island, and she goes, robe falling open completely, breasts bare, nipples tight, the black panties still shoved to one side. I drag them down her legs and toss them. She lies back when I press a hand to her stomach, eyes locked on mine, no shame left in her face, only hunger and the bright wicked knowledge of what we are doing.

“Legs,” I say.

She opens them. I pin her knees wide, hook my arms under her thighs, and sink back into her in one stroke that makes her head tip against the stone. This angle is deeper. I can see everything. Her mouth falls open. I start to pound her, relentless, the island creaking under us, her breasts bouncing with every thrust. She reaches for me and I catch her wrists, pin them above her head with one hand, and keep fucking her like I mean to leave a mark she will feel tomorrow.

“Look at me,” I order.

She does. Tears of pleasure shine at the corners of her eyes and she is smiling, ruined and happy. “You’re fucking me so good. God, Emmett, you’re fucking your best friend’s wife and I’m letting you. I’m begging you. Come inside me. I want it. I want you to fill me up while he’s somewhere else thinking I’m being good. I’m not good. I’m yours right now. Come in me. Please. Please come inside me.”

The dirty talk is soaked in betrayal and we both lean into it because that is the point. I tell her she is a greedy little wife taking another man’s cock in the neighbor’s kitchen. She tells me she has fantasized about exactly this, about being pinned open and used by the one person who should have said no. I tell her I am going to come so deep she’ll still be dripping when she walks back to his house. She begs me to do it, voice breaking, heels digging into my back, pulling me in like she can get me farther than physics allows.

I let her wrists go so I can grip her hips and really drive. She claws at my shoulders. The pace turns frantic. Sweat slicks her stomach. I feel her tighten again, a second climax building fast, her moans turning high and helpless.

“I’m close,” she gasps. “Don’t stop. Fuck me through it. Come with me. I want us to break at the same time. I want to feel you lose it inside me. Emmett, please, I’m your best friend’s wife and I am begging you to come in me. Do it. Claim me. Fill me.”

I pound her harder, deep and punishing and exactly what she asked for, and she shatters. Her whole body locks, cunt gripping me in rhythmic pulses, a raw cry of my name tearing out of her. The sight of her coming on my cock, legs pinned wide, mouth open, wedding ring flashing when her hand slaps the stone, rips my own orgasm out of me. I bury myself to the hilt and come hard, pulse after pulse, spilling inside her while she milks me and moans about how wrong it is and how she wants every drop. The pleasure whites out the edges of the room. I keep thrusting through it, shallow and shaky, giving her everything, feeling her flutter around me until we are both spent and shaking and stuck together on the island in the wreckage of a friendship I may never deserve again.

I stay inside her. I have to. Pulling out would make it over, and I am not ready for over.

I lean down and kiss her deeply, slow this time, tasting salt and the aftershock of what we just did. She kisses back, soft and thorough, one hand sliding into my hair. My cock twitches where I am still buried in her, both of us messy, her thighs trembling around my hips. The kitchen smells like sex and the coffee I never finished. Next door, his house is still dark. The knowledge sits between our mouths and neither of us flinches from it.

“This isn’t a one-time mistake,” I tell her against her lips. “I’m not going to pretend it was. This is the beginning. Whenever he’s gone, whenever you can get away, you come to me. I’m going to keep fucking you. I’m going to keep coming inside you. We’re going to have a secret, and we’re going to be careful, and we’re not going to stop.”

She smiles, sated and wicked, the expression of a woman who has already started counting the nights. Her fingers trace my jaw. She shifts just enough to feel me still inside her and hums like she likes the reminder.

“Thursday he’s back,” she murmurs. “Friday he has that late client dinner. I can tell him I’m at my sister’s. I can be here by eight. I already know I won’t be able to stay away. Not after this. Not after feeling you claim me like that.”

I kiss her again, slower, sealing it. She laughs once, quiet and thrilled, the sound of someone who understands exactly how dangerous the thrill is and wants it anyway. We are both fully aware that stealing these moments behind Derek’s back is what will drag us back to this kitchen, this island, this ruinous heat. The wrongness isn’t a warning anymore. It is the hook.

She looks up at me, eyes bright, voice low and sure.

“So when I sneak over Friday, are you going to fuck me even harder than you did tonight?”