Madeleine Strays: A Wife-Watching Romance Read Online Free Page A

that she wanted to be fresh and focused ahead of her date.
    She was awake before her husband, which was a surprise on a day in which she had no work shift. Having had trouble getting to sleep the previous night because of the thoughts going around and around in his head about what might happen the next day, by the time he’d eventually got to sleep, he was dead to the world until 10 am.
    He woke to the sound of the front door closing as Madeleine came in from a visit to the gym.
    “Hey sleepyhead,” she said, doing his morning glory no favors by peeling off her sweatpants and hooded top in front of him to reveal that sexy one-piece swimsuit of hers.
    “You’re up early,” he said.
    “It’s a big day, right?” she smiled, casually grazing her palms over her full breasts so that her nipples stiffened up underneath her swimsuit.
    “Certainly is—you feel ready for it?”
    She shrugged. “Feel a little nervous to be honest,” she said. “That’s why I’ve been to the gym—got to keep moving, right?”
    She wanted him to accompany her as she kept moving, to help keep her distracted from what was happening that evening—and yet the whole day seemed to revolve around it.
    She started off with stripping off that swimsuit in front of him before a quick rinse in the shower, and then they were out soon afterwards, and Hugo found himself tailing her around Bloomingdale’s, trying to find something to wear that evening.
    He felt safe as long as they weren’t wandering through the lingerie department. Yet he soon found the awkwardness of being dragged past so many racks of skimpy little panties or bras paled almost into insignificance when he reminded himself that she wasn’t shopping for him, she wasn’t even shopping for herself—she was shopping, potentially, for some clothes to impress her date.
    After what seemed like half a day, she finally contented herself with the tiniest dress Hugo had ever seen, a little blue number which barely covered her rear as she was trying it on, and was so revealing around her cleavage with its plunging scoop neckline that it left nothing to the imagination. And Hugo swore the thing had some kind of spandex in the material, it was so skin-tight, molding itself to her every mouthwatering curve.
    “Might as well just wear your underwear and dispense with the dress,” he murmured as he sat in the changing room, watching her sport it for the mirror.
    “Jealous?” she grinned, twisting her shoulders this way and that to check her angles.
    “Of course,” he smiled, then chuckled as she stepped back and placed her hand gently between his legs to feel his hardness there. “Are you sure it’s the right size? It’s not one or two too small?”
    “You love it,” she said.
    In the lingerie department she toyed with a few possibilities in the Agent Provocateur range, including a nearly see-through blue lace bra and thong set that made Hugo wince to see her even consider it for the eyes of another man.
    “You’re quite concerned about your underwear considering it’s a first date,” he said to her quietly as she mulled over an alternative black lace teddy.
    She looked at him and gave him an impish grin. “You really are jealous. I love it.”
    But for whatever reason she wasn’t happy with the underwear on offer in Bloomingdale’s, or else she simply wanted to try to embarrass her husband a little more, pulling him along to a boutique store up on University Place, a little closer to home.
    He just felt foolish in there—worse so than the department store, since the whole store was women’s underwear. With so much pastel and padded or frilly or lacy fittings, it was clearly not a place meant for a guy like him. He tried not to look at any of the other customers in the store, keeping his attention firmly on Madeleine, the safest place for his eyes to be.
    He tried not to focus too much on the prices, either, though underneath the surface he was happy for her to spend whatever it