Muscle-memory completes your task for you, pulling the door open and bowing invitation, just a slight incline of your head, to your beautiful wife. Elizabeth smiles slightly and sweeps past you into the restaurant, a tall-ship elegant and piratical under crimson sails, high heels clicking on granite as she stalks.

It's one thing to know you've married a predator, quite another to see her hunt.

You step through the door, following the lion into its den.

“Lizzy, dahling,” a bronzed vision greets your wife. Romo-grecian goddess or egyptian queen, her warm sloe eyes are bright with humour. When she tosses it her chocolate hair belies the myth of the boring brunette, its ringlets dancing about the straps of her dress. Metallic gold, it's only a few shades lighter than the flesh it's wrapping. And you bet that the o-ring between her breasts joins its ties in such a way as to allow for plenty of expansion around her belly. “It's so good to see you again.” She exclaims, sharing a hug and cheek to cheek kisses with your wife.

She might be younger than Liz, appearing in her twenties, or she might just be eating more to keep the years at bay. “You too, Jamie,” your wife replies, and you startle. If she's the proprietor, then she's obviously a successful businesswoman besides... and that probably means its the latter of the two.

“You don't trust my stock,” Jamie asks, eyeing you, “or is this the fabled...”

“Vern,” Liz replies, slipping her arm around your waist and squeezing you close, “my husband.” You wonder, briefly, what your wife has been saying about you behind your back. “Vern, meet Jamie Ioannidis,” she introduces.

“Charmed,” you say, gently taking her arm, raising it to your lips and planting a delicate kiss on the back of her hand.

“Bold, isn't he,” Jamie giggles, drawing your own to hers, frighteningly full lips wrapped around a dazzling smile.

"That's how he got me," your wife agrees. Planted above your knuckles, Jamie's kiss is both wet and warm, and lasting a heartbeat longer than is quite comfortable. Her eyes, under long lashes flick up to meet yours. Looking into them is like drowning in honey. You don't even try to snatch your hand away, even though she's surely strong enough to have prevented it.

“Mmm,” she murmurs, and you feel wet lips slide down to your knuckles and up over your wrist. When your fingers spasm open, it's across her tongue. “Ohh,” she moans, her breath hot across your palm before its even left her mouth.

Yours is still opening to scream. For her grip on your arm is far too strong to think of escaping.

Elizabeth...