“Todd, sit down right there. Don’t speak. You can look at that magazine on the counter if you like.” Raven didn’t look up from putting on gloves and opening up the sterile pack with the piercing kit.

Todd exhaled sharply but sat without a word. Erin barely fought back a smirk. Raven could probably give Todd a run for his money in the domination department.

“Okay, baby doll, here we go.” Erin closed her eyes, breathing deeply and relaxing as much as she could. Raven’s hip touched her leg briefly. Cold liquid as the spot was cleaned.

Pain, white hot, seared her for a brief moment as she breathed through it and let it pass. That was gonna throb for a few days at the very least. Then the pressure of the bead against her clit and more liquid, the crinkle of plastic going in the trash, the tools going into a biohazard collector for the autoclave tinking against each other. And when she opened her eyes, Raven grinned.

“All done. You can look now, Todd.”

Raven held a mirror so Erin could see the piercing. It was shockingly pretty, silver nestled there like a pearl.

“Wow. That’s beautiful.” Todd put a hand on her thigh briefly, his gaze shifting from the piercing to her face. “You all right?”

“Yes. It’s good.” She sat slowly after Raven helped her get her panties in place and her skirt down.

“Salt water soaks will help. No sex for three days. You can skip underpants at home. Keep it dry, or as dry as you can.” Raven snorted, looking at Todd. “Two to three weeks and you should be fine.”

Erin took the instructions Raven handed her and walked out. The sensation was already totally different.

“Let’s go to your place, okay? I’ll drive you to the airport in the morning.”

“You don’t have to do that.” But he smiled prettily and she laughed.

“I know. I want to.”

He took her back to his house and made her rest on the couch. He brought her a bowl of ice cream and handed her the remote too.

“I’m all right. The ibuprofen will kick in and I’ll be fine.”

“It’s so f**king hot I nearly came in my pants just looking at it.

God, I don’t want to be gone for two weeks. I’m going to explode. You’ll explode! She just said no sex for three days. What will you do without me for the rest of the time?”

Erin laughed. “Todd, I’m perfectly capable of playing with my clit without you. I know how to make myself come. I doubt I’ll want to be messing around in that vicinity for a while yet though.”

He groaned. “You’re going to kill me.”

“It’s not like you don’t know how to jerk off. Sheesh. Too bad Ben won’t be around. You and he could, you know, take care of each other. You’d have to give me all the details and if you wanted to take pictures or film it, that would be fine too. Just sayin’.”

He laughed, sitting on the floor, leaning his head back to where she was nestled. “You wouldn’t care? If I was with someone else?”

She grabbed a hank of his hair and pulled, hard. He yelped. “Someone else? That might get you maimed for life. But Ben isn’t some random someone else. He’s . . . he’s ours, I suppose. No, I don’t have any objections to you sexing it up with Ben. Ben digs you, he’s a good guy, he’s hot and he respects what we have together.”

Todd turned, getting to his knees, and she fed him a spoonful of ice cream. “You know, I was planning on telling you that too.”

She smoothed a hand over his hair. “Thanks, but it’s only two weeks. I may hang out with him, but I want the first time I have sex after the piercing to be with you. And I don’t know, I don’t want him to feel weird, or you to feel weird, for that matter.”

“Erin, you just said it would be fine.”

“For you. I lost you before. I don’t want to take chances. It’s not worth it no matter how hot he is.”

He took her hand. “Honey, I would absolutely not say this if it weren’t true.” He paused, blowing out a breath and turning pink in the bargain. She couldn’t help but turn to mush every time he blushed, it was the sweetest thing about him. “It makes me hot to think about you and Ben together. Probably because I know him. I trust him and I trust you too. But watching you with him was one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. I don’t want you to think I don’t love you. God, do you think I’m a freak?”

She hugged him, kissing his cheek. “Todd, you’re not a freak. You have a kink or five. That’s good because so do I.”

“I’m not one of those dudes who wants to have his wife f**k around and humiliate him, whatever they call that.”

“Cuckoldry.”

“How do you know this shit?”

“Porn Wikipedia, I suppose. I don’t know, I just do.”

He rolled his eyes and she laughed as he continued. “Anyway, it’s sort of like having you in my own personal fantasy bank. I don’t know all of why it turns me on, but it does. So if you wanted to make out with him or let him feel you up or jerk him off and then, you know, call me and tell me about it? It would make my trip so much better.”

“Gosh, if you insist I jerk your best friend off after I let him feel my tits . . .” She sighed dramatically. “The things you ask of me. We’ll see, Todd. Of course I’d tell you; I’d never do it without you knowing. But at this point I have no plans to go jumping on Ben’s c**k when you’re gone.” Despite the fact that his confession was seriously making her piercing throb—big-time.