AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Liken your stay on Paradise Island,” she suggested, “to an intensive boot camp experience, minus the drill sergeants shouting in your face. However, as in any boot camp, there will be obstacles that you all must face, some as a couple, others done individually. And it is my hope that each of you will afford me a glimpse into your relationships, so that I might be able to help you maximize your emotional and sexual experiences.”
Krista nearly frowned as she shifted in her seat and gripped her purse.
It was all nonsense. But coming home with a hundred grand in her hand made it that much easier to keep her mouth shut. Besides, she wanted to prove to Kendall that whatever marital issue he thought they were having was all in his damn head, thank you very much.
Krista was as sexually free with him as she was going to be. However, she’d be damned to hell if Kendall thought for one minute that she was going to discuss the most intimate, the most private, details of their sex life with some stranger. Therapist or not, she didn’t need therapy—or coaching in how to be a good wife and lover.
She was both.
Krista glanced over at LaQuandra, and then Brenda. Mmph. Now those two heifers, they needed it, coaching and mentoring, more than she ever would. No judgment, though.
She then cut her eye over at Roselle and bit back a sneer.
Ooh, he was a dirty son-of-a-bitch, that one there.
Cheating-ass bastard. No-good motherfucker.
She made a quick mental note to pray a few extra minutes tonight. She’d already prayed while on the ride from the landing strip, and had asked her Savior to bridle her tongue, to keep profanity at a minimum. No more than two to three curse words a day. Yet, so far, she’d already managed to exceed her limit.
She shifted in her chair as Dr. Dangerfield’s voice reeled her attention back into the room.
“The goal,” Dr. Dangerfield continued, “is that you leave Passion Island after your six-week stay empowered. That you leave here more passionate, more attentive, more loving to one another. That you prioritize passion back into your lives, and be more creative in pleasuring your partners . . .”
Brenda cut an eye over at Roselle. Being creative wasn’t the problem. It was his damn cheating.
Roselle squeezed the inside of Brenda’s thigh as if he knew what was running through her mind, while he kept his gaze on Dr. Dangerfield. She was sexy as shit. And, although the dress she was wearing wasn’t clingy or tight-fitting, he could tell that underneath the gauzy fabric, she was hiding a bad-ass body.
“We all crave passion,” Dr. Dangerfield continued, meeting the gaze of everyone in the room. “Brenda and Roselle Woods, LaQuandra and Isaiah Lewis, Krista and Kendall Evans . . . each of you want to be desired, to feel special and needed, by your respective partners . . .”
The three couples, subconsciously, were in agreement with her. They wanted to be appreciated, to be respected, and, goddammit, be—with the exception of Krista, who thought all was good in her bedroom—sexually fulfilled.
Dr. Dangerfield noticed the way Krista was staring at her, sizing her up almost, or maybe she was simply sitting there daydreaming. She decided to call Krista out. “Mrs. Evans, is there something you would like to say?”
Krista blinked, caught off guard by her directed question. What the hell? When she finally spoke, there was a crack in her voice. “No. Not at the moment.”
Dr. Dangerfield smiled. “Very well. Now, as I was saying . . . for some of your relationships, the passion you once felt for your partner has since waned. That is a natural course of any relationship. Life and the careers and the kids and family all happen. The fire dies down. You become complacent. You start to take one another for granted. And, somehow, you have forgotten about those things that drew you to your partners in the first place . . .”
LaQuandra swallowed. You better preach! She felt as if Dr. Dangerfield was speaking directly about her miserable-ass marriage. It pained her to be so unhappy. To feel so damn neglected. If Isaiah just fucked her, beat her pussy up, all night long, she could think clearer. Maybe not be so on edge.
LaQuandra believed she could eventually find a way to forgive Isaiah for fucking his baby mother, Cassandra—that trashy-bitch. What LaQuandra knew she couldn’t forgive was his disregard for her needs as a woman and his wife. She felt anger rising up within her like bile. She could almost taste it. And it made her sick.
She shot a look over at Isaiah as he pulled his iPhone from his front pants pocket and glanced at the screen, more out of habit than anything else. There was no signal, so he slid it back down into his pocket.
LaQuandra’s nose flared. “Really, Isaiah?” she hissed. “You really had to check your phone now? Who the hell you expecting a call from?”
He shot her a side-eye glance. And then decided to ignore her.
LaQuandra clenched her jaw, but then she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before she forgot her manners and set it off up in here. Oblivious to the glances of Krista and Brenda, LaQuandra reopened her eyes when she heard the silky sound of Dr. Dangerfield’s voice again.
“Passion is an important component of a relationship,” Dr. Dangerfield stated, running a slender hand through her hair. “But do not be fooled for it is not the glue that will keep your relationships, your marriages, intact. It will not sustain your relationships. Some of you have altered your commitments to your partners and to your marriages and have forgotten to alert your partners of those changes. You have forgotten to inform them that you are no longer committed to being dedicated and loyal to them. And that within itself can make it more difficult to stoke the fires of passion in your marriages.”
She paused, purposefully. Allowed what she’d already said to linger in the room a beat, before she continued. “Remember this: the heart wants what the heart wants, even when that which it wants is hurting us the most.”
LaQuandra gritted her teeth, and looked over at Isaiah again. She felt like backhanding him.
Dr. Dangerfield caught the scathing look that LaQuandra had given her husband and surmised their relationship was probably in the most trouble, just judging by the way they were sitting. Isaiah sat wide-legged with his arms folded, while LaQuandra sat, legs crossed, with her back to him. There was clearly no passion between the two of them.
Passion was energy. It was intense. It was powerful. It was the essence of desire.
