Lauren's palm flat on the shower glass, her gold ring an inch from my face. The man she picked behind her. Her eyes never leaving mine.I'd handed her the whole weekend. An island resort on its last night of the season. A black dress I wasn't allowed to see until she wore it. A bartender she chose with her own eyes.She kept me waiting from Friday night to sunrise. A closed bar. Our suite. An empty dock under the stars.Then she took me out on the balcony at dawn and t...

For eight summers I've watched the man next door make my wife Lauren laugh over the back fence. I never told a soul what it did to me. Then his wife caught me looking, and she smiled.That night I confessed it to Lauren in the dark, and she asked what I wanted to see.A bottle of sunscreen on Labor Day. A hot tub under the string lights. A rusted gate nobody has opened in years.The couple next door is ready. My wife is ready. And I'll be in the room for every minute o...

Three days after our fourteenth anniversary, my wife told me the one thing nobody had ever done to her.Lauren wanted it from a patient man. She wanted two of them. And she wanted me holding both her hands while it happened.So I built it the way I build every job. A bid. References. Two friends in Chicago who had done this before.Then, in a crowded restaurant on Friday night, she told them exactly what she wanted while my hand was under the tablecloth.Fully e...