Superhost Fantasy

The phone buzzed on the nightstand well past midnight.

Faye reached for it out of habit, half-asleep, and the notification glowed in the dark: new five-star review from Mateo R. Paul was already asleep beside her, breathing slow and even, one arm flung over his eyes. She should have put the phone face-down and gone back to sleep. Instead she was sliding out of bed, padding down the stairs in the dark with the screen clutched in her hand like a secret.

The kitchen was cool and quiet. She didn't turn on the overhead lights. She just stood at the island in the moonlight from the window over the sink, wearing Paul's old flannel shirt and nothing else, and read it.

Paul is a logistical wizard and the carriage house is a dream. But the real treasure of this listing is Faye. She is warm, attentive, and beautiful. She brought me fresh eggs from the garden and made me feel like I was staying with an old friend. I noticed her. I hope she noticed me noticing her. I'll be back, if she'll have me.

She set the phone down on the marble countertop. Her heart was beating too fast for the hour.

She had noticed. Of course she had noticed. She'd felt his eyes on her for three days, a warm constant pressure between her shoulder blades. When she leaned over the garden bed to pull weeds, his gaze tracked her legs. When she brought out fresh towels, she caught him watching her cross the courtyard, his eyes drifting down to her ass in those shorts. And when she bent to pick up the welcome book she'd "accidentally" dropped, she felt the weight of his stare settle on her chest. Twice.

She'd enjoyed it. The shorter shorts were on purpose. The lower-cut tank tops were on purpose. She stretched a little longer in the morning sun, laughed a little louder, touched her own throat when she knew he was looking. She was a married woman in her mid-thirties and she had spent three days performing for a stranger in her own backyard, and she had never felt more alive.

Faye poured herself a glass of water she didn't want, just to have something to do with her hands. She was still standing there, staring at nothing, when the floorboard on the stairs creaked.

"You're up." Paul's voice was rough with sleep. He stood in the doorway in his boxers, hair a mess, squinting against the light of her phone. "Everything okay?"

"I got the review." She turned the phone around, even though he was too far away to read it. "Five stars."

Paul crossed the kitchen and leaned over her shoulder. She felt the warmth of him at her back, the familiar smell of sleep and skin. He was quiet for a long moment.

"'I hope she noticed me noticing her,'" he read aloud, his voice flat. "Huh."

"Yeah." She was watching his face, not the screen. "Huh."

He straightened up. He didn't look angry. He looked thoughtful. "You want some water?"

"I've got water."

"You haven't touched it."

She looked down. The glass was still full. "I was distracted."

"By the review."

"By the review."

He filled a glass for himself and leaned against the counter opposite her, drinking. The silence stretched. He was studying her over the rim of it, and she was suddenly very aware that she wasn't wearing pants.

"He's right, you know," Paul said finally. "You're beautiful."

"Paul."

"I'm just saying. It's a five-star review. It's a nice thing for him to say."

"It's not just a nice thing for him to say." She was picking at the edge of her sleeve. "He was watching me the whole time he was here. I could feel it."

Paul set his glass down. "I know."

"You know?"

"I've got eyes, Faye. I saw the way you walked around the courtyard when he was out here. I saw the tank tops." He paused. "You dropped the welcome book twice."

Her face went hot. "It was slippery."

"It was leather."

She laughed, and the sound was too loud for the dark kitchen. "Okay. Fine. I dropped it on purpose. He was looking at my tits and I wanted him to keep looking at my tits. Are you happy?"

Paul didn't answer right away. He was looking at her with an expression she couldn't quite read. "Did it work?"

"Did what work?"

"The tank tops. The book. Did he keep looking?"

Faye's mouth went dry. "Yes."

"Good."

"Good?"

Paul pushed off the counter and crossed the kitchen to her. He took her face in his hands, tilted her head back, and kissed her. It wasn't a goodnight kiss. It was slow and deep and deliberate, his thumbs scraping along her jaw, his mouth opening hers. She felt the kiss all the way down, a pull that tightened her nipples and pooled low in her belly. His hands slid from her face into her hair, gripping just enough to make her gasp against his mouth, and when he pulled back his eyes were dark.

"I liked it," he said. "Watching you. Knowing he was looking at you. Knowing you liked him looking at you."

"You did?"

"I got hard in the living room, Faye. Twice. Watching you bend over the tomato plants in those little shorts while a guest who paid four hundred dollars to be here stared at your ass through the window. I had to go upstairs and think about baseball."

Her breath caught. She had suspected. She had hoped. But hearing him say it, flat and honest in the dark kitchen, was something else entirely. "Paul."

"You're the one who dropped the book," he said. "Don't look at me like that."

"I wasn't looking at you like anything."

"You were looking at me like you were waiting for me to be mad." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers trailing down her neck, lingering on the pulse point below her jaw. "I'm not mad. I'm the opposite of mad. I've been trying to figure out how to tell you I'm the opposite of mad for a week."

His touch sent a shiver through her. She could feel the heat of his hand without quite touching her skin, hovering there, and the almost-contact was worse than nothing. She leaned into him, pressing her forehead to his chest.

"Say it again," she whispered.

"Which part?"

"The part about getting hard."

She felt his laugh vibrate through his ribs. "Which time?"

"Both times." Her hand found the front of his boxers. She wasn't planning to reach for him, but her fingers were already there, tracing the outline of him through the cotton. He was half-hard already, thickening against her palm as she pressed. "Tell me what you thought about."

Paul's breath hissed between his teeth. His hand closed over hers, not stopping her, just holding her there. "I thought about what he was thinking. What he wanted to do to you."

"Which was?"

"Everything." His hips shifted, pushing himself into her hand. "I thought about him watching you bend over and wanting to walk up behind you. I thought about what his face looked like when you dropped that book and he got an eyeful."

"He went red," Faye said. She was stroking him now through the fabric, slow and deliberate, feeling him grow fully hard under her fingers. "His mouth fell open. It was adorable."

"It wasn't adorable. It was hot." Paul pulled her hand away and backed her into the counter, lifting her onto the edge of the marble. The cool stone hit the backs of her thighs and she sucked in a breath. He stepped between her legs, his hands gripping her knees, and pushed them apart. "You knew exactly what you were doing."

"I did."

"You wanted him hard."

"I wanted him desperate." She pulled him closer by the waistband of his boxers, hooking her fingers through the elastic. "Is that wrong?"

"It's the hottest thing that's ever happened in this kitchen." He kissed her again, harder this time, his tongue sliding against hers. One hand slid up her thigh, pushing the hem of the flannel shirt higher. His fingers found the wet heat between her legs and she moaned into his mouth, her hips tilting forward to meet him.

"He wanted this," Paul said against her lips, his finger sliding through her slickness, circling her clit with a slow, deliberate pressure. "He wanted to be the one touching you like this."

"But you're the one doing it." She was breathless, her head dropping back, her hands gripping the edge of the counter. "You're the one who gets to."

"Because I'm your husband."

"Because I chose you."

He groaned and pushed two fingers inside her, curling them, and she bit down on his shoulder to keep from crying out. The kitchen was dark and silent except for the wet sound of his hand and her ragged breathing and the soft hum of the refrigerator. He fucked her slowly with his fingers, his thumb working her clit in tight circles, and she could feel the orgasm building already, coiling tight and low.

"Next time," he said, his voice rough, "I want to watch it happen. I want to be in the room when someone else makes you feel like this. I want to see his hands on you."

"Paul."

"I want to see you come for someone else and know you're coming home with me."

That was it. That was what broke her. The orgasm hit her hard, her thighs clamping around his hand, her body shaking against the cold marble. She buried her face in his neck and rode it out, whimpering, her nails digging into his shoulders, and he held her through it, his fingers still inside her, feeling every pulse.

When she finally went still, he withdrew his hand slowly and cupped her face, kissing her forehead, her nose, her mouth. She could taste herself on his lips.

"So what do we do?" she whispered.

Paul stepped back and leaned against the counter, arms crossed, wearing the expression he got when he was working out a logistics problem. His erection was still visible through his boxers and he made no effort to hide it. "Well. He wants to come back. We could just book him."

"Book him."

"Standard booking. Fresh eggs. Clean towels."

"That's the normal option, yes."

"Or." Paul held up a finger. "And hear me out. We start a new listing. Unlisted. Invite-only. We call it the Access Program."

Faye laughed, still shaky, her thighs trembling against the counter. "The Access Program."

"Access to the carriage house. Access to the garden. Access to the host."

"Access to the host." She was still laughing.

"Free use of all amenities," he said, deadpan. "Including the superhost."

"You're disgusting." She was grinning. "Free use of the superhost."

"It's a premium service. We'd have to charge more."

"Naturally."

"Background checks. Interviews. A welcome book with a list of hard limits."

"A welcome book," she repeated. "Obviously."

"A safeword checkout system. Condoms in every drawer. No face photos."

"Obviously." She was shaking her head, laughing. "You've thought about this before."

"I haven't." He was grinning too. "It's just good hospitality."

"It's insane hospitality."

"It's five-star hospitality."

"I've been thinking about this since the wedding," Paul said.

"You haven't."

"I have too. You think I haven't noticed how you look at the mailman? You think I don't know about the pool man in Cabo?"

"There was no pool man in Cabo."

"There was a pool man in Cabo. I saw you watching him clean the filter for twenty minutes."

"He was doing that thing with his shoulders!"

"See? This is what I'm talking about. This has been going on for years."

They were both laughing now, standing in the dark kitchen well past midnight, planning an unlisted sex rental like it was a bake sale. It was ridiculous. It was impossible. It was the funniest thing that had happened to them in years.

And then, all at once, it wasn't funny anymore.

Faye didn't know exactly when the laughter died. It just drained out of the room like water through a crack, and suddenly they were standing there in the silence, looking at each other, and the joke was sitting between them on the counter, fully formed, waiting to be picked up.

Paul's smile was gone. So was hers.

"We could actually do it," she said quietly.

"I know."

"I want to do it."

"I know." His voice was low. "I want to watch you do it."

The silence stretched again. The refrigerator hummed. Somewhere outside, a cricket was going hard at the garden. Faye's heart was pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears.

"Okay," she said finally. "Okay. Let's do it. For real."

Paul reached out and took her hand. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure." She was. God help her, she was. "Get the laptop."

The screen was the only light in the room, a pale rectangle floating over the marble. Faye sat cross-legged on the chair in the flannel shirt. Paul stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder, reading over her head.

Listing title: The Carriage House (Discreet Access)

"Don't say discreet," Faye said. "It sounds sleazy."

"It's sleazy."

"It's exclusive. There's a difference."

Listing title: The Carriage House (Private Access)

"Better."

Description: A beautifully restored carriage house in a quiet garden setting. Unlisted, invitation-only booking. All guests are personally vetted by the hosts. This is a curated experience for discerning, respectful, and discreet guests.

House rules: one, condoms required, no exceptions. Two, the safeword is "pineapple," and using it stops everything immediately, no questions asked. Three, no photos of faces, no photos of IDs, nothing that could identify a guest or a host. Four, hard limits are listed in the welcome book, read it before you touch anything. Five, a written checkout is required after every visit.

"Read it before you touch anything," Paul read aloud. "That's good. That's very good."

"I'm a professional."

"You're a menace."

"I'm a superhost."

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "You're my wife."

"I'm both." She looked up at him. "Save it."

"Save it?"

"Save the draft. We're not publishing it tonight. We're not publishing it until we've slept on it and we're sure."

Paul looked at her for a long moment. "You're sure you're sure?"

"No," she admitted. "But I'm sure I want to be sure. Does that count?"

He reached past her and hit save. "It counts."

The screen dimmed, then went dark. The kitchen was silent again, just the two of them and the hum of the refrigerator and the moonlight through the window. Faye reached up and took Paul's hand, the one resting on her shoulder, and laced her fingers through his.

"Paul?"

"Yeah?"

"We're going to have to buy a lot of condoms."

He laughed, warm and low and real, and she leaned back into him and closed her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, she couldn't wait to send the first invitation.