Chapter 1

On Friday, February 29th, Kate emerged from the bathroom, dressed in her normal post-shower attire. She had a tan bath towel wrapped around her slender, curvy torso, as she vigorously dried her hair with a second towel. She felt Jack's eyes on her and she wrapped the towel around her body, aware of how little it covered. She playfully slithered from side to side, allowing her hips to let Jack know that she did not mind his eyes drinking in her beauty. She smiled at him as he lay across their bed, trying to get his eyes to meet hers, but his eyes were too busy staring at her thighs, her hips, her waist, her tits, and then back down again. A half-smile crossed his face, surrounded by his full goatee. Kate could only imagine what impure thoughts were soaring through his mind. Ten years of marriage and she could still sense his thoughts, both good and evil.

"You're still in bed, lazybones," Kate teased. Jack closed his eyes but kept smiling. His hands stretched high above his bed as he pushed his legs out forward in one big stretch. He countered her tease in their flirtatious chess match, by allowing his arms to flex. That is one feature of his she always admired: his arms. They were thick yet muscular and had two of the strongest, gentlest hands one would ever want touching, caressing, stroking, pinching a body.

He cleared his throat. "It's Leap Day, honey. You know what people say about Leap Day." Kate smiled brightly, ready to counter.

"What: another day between us and summer vacation?" Kate turned away from Jack and playfully dropped the towel to the floor, revealing all those devilish curves Jack had come to enjoy. She was already thinking about the day ahead and all the paperwork work that came with the end of February, as she prepared her reports.

"No," Jack retorted. "On February 29th, going back to ancient times," he paused, allowing that playful half-smile to return to his face. "On February 29th," he repeated again, "all bets are off."

Kate stared at herself in the mirror and fasted a plain ivory bra. She raked her fingers through her still-wet, red tinged chestnut colored hair. "Is that so?" Her tone was dry, faking non-interest. "Uhhhhh….that's a new one. So the Romans used to go around and say, 'Hey-us, it's-us, February-us 29th-us. All-us bets-us are off-us?' That's a new one."

"It makes sense though, right? February 29th is the day that doesn't really exist. So ergo – wherefore and therefore – nothing that happens on that day really exists either." Jack stood up, realizing how late he was going to be for work. He crossed from the bed and it was Kate's turn to watch. His cock was swollen, and a tiny, glistening drop of pre-cum emerged from it. His body certainly looked improved. They'd both made a New Year's resolution, like tens of thousands of people, to visit the gym more. Unlike many others, they had stayed true to their resolution and so far it had paid off quite nicely.

Kate looked down and back up into Jack's eyes. Smiling, she asked, "Pardon the pun, dearest, but what's your point?"

He paused at the bathroom door, where steam still slightly clouded the edge of the mirror, and he shrugged. "Just that today, we can do all those things we normally wouldn't." He looked at the shower door, and then at the light fixture in the ceiling, concealing the shit-eating grin that spread across his face like wildfire.

Kate's face flushed. He was talking about the fantasy again – his fantasy. Kate had been shocked when he first confessed the fantasy. She wanted to hate it, but couldn't. She wanted to be disgusted by it, but just wouldn't. It went against every fiber of her good-little-Catholic-girl upbringing. She loved Jack more than she ever thought possible. She loved the comfortable life they led: the two children, the family dog, the vacation timeshare, the suburban home, the two mid-sized SUVs in the driveway. It was perfect in every way and she had no desire to ruin it. Yet at the same time, she loved the idea of turning him on, using his fantasy as the basis for so much dirty talk. The sex was good already, but when Kate talked to Jack about his fantasy while he was inside her, she could feel his shaft grow and his cockhead swell.

Her little office flirtation with Michael had been completely harmless. Jack knew about it, after all. It had never led anywhere and it was never meant to. But it was inevitable that her attractive coworker made it into their bedroom fantasy.

She had felt remorseful afterwards, despite Jack's encouragement. Jack told her, while his cock was buried in her from behind, to imagine she was with Michael – to close her eyes and feel her colleague's powerful body was driving deep into her instead.

When her pregnant coworker told Kate she was going out on leave replacement in November, Kate's stomach went into knots. "Great," she thought, "what old maid is human resources sending us now?" Then when she found out some German man who lived in London was hired for the semester and he would be returning to London in July, Kate's face turned red and she frowned. "Perfect. Some goose-stepping castaway from jolly old Britain with no clue how our schools work. Way to go, HR." When Michael walked into her office before Thanksgiving break and introduced himself, there was no hint of an accent nor any trace of foreign arrogance. She only saw his tall chiseled frame standing at her desk, with his piercing, cool blue eyes, his closely cut brown hair and 5 o'clock shadow smiling back at her.

She imagined his eyes staring into hers, filled with hunger, the way he sometimes looked at her when he thought she wasn't looking. She imagined the way he shrugged every time he noticed the sparkle of her engagement and wedding rings. She imagined the way he must have smelled after his drive home from work in his BMW and how it must have been a combination of sweat, cologne and leather. She had cum hard that night when Jack first planted the seed of Michael as her lover in her mind.

When Kate was notified that Michael was moving back to London sooner than expected, she was feeling sad and relieved – and felt guilty for feeling either. Her co-worker was coming back from maternity leave just ago at the end of February, she told herself that it was good for him. He was advancing his career with a new company that focused on making software and apps for children with special needs, and she felt that this was an opportunity where her co-worker – her friend – could really blossom. But she would miss their friendship and their playful flirtations and even their banter about the morons they worked with. And then, just like that, he was gone. Even after just two days of no Michael, things felt quiet, and that was fine. Yet there was a small lead pit in her stomach that she likened after a relative or a beloved pet died. Yet he was gone and that was fine.

But he isn't gone yet, a little voice reminded. The same voice kept echoing Jack's absurd comment: All bets are off. If Michael hadn't left – if she went into work today and he was there – and he asked her to happy hour today, would she have accepted after turning him down time and time again? Would she have the guts? It didn't matter. Michael was gone. Almost

Jack's cock hit full length as he stepped beneath his shower head. His imagination was going wild. Jack had brought it up after a few drinks on a Wednesday date-night at a local Chinese buffet. He'd harbored the secret for years but three mao-tai's later, he finally admitted it. I want to see you fuck another man. I have fantasized about it for year, hunny. Just thinking about it sent a pulse of pleasure up his soapy length. That was the great irony. Jack had no idea why it turned him on. Rationally, it was idiotic. Rationally, it was a really bad idea in every way imaginable. But rational or not, the erotic thought made his cock hard every single time.

Jack pumped his cock, knowing that the suggestion was working its way through Kate's normally vanilla mind. He thought about the first time Kate mentioned Michael. She'd been so carefully casual about it. When Jack teased her, referring to Michael as her little office crush, her face turned five shades of red.

Too bad Michael accepted that job back in London. Jack was only slightly more disappointed than Kate, although they both knew it was for the best, not that anything would ever happen between the two of them.

Despite the fantasy, Jack and Kate were a normal couple living safe, normal, secure lives. They had their idiosyncrasies involving kids, dinners, date nights and television at night. It was a routine they enjoyed.

Only today was different. Kate's parents had taken the kids to visit her aunt and uncle for the weekend. He didn't believe in fate. A man made his own fortune. But this was almost too good to be true. When he emerged from the steam of the shower to an empty bedroom and saw their matching iPhones sitting on their chargers, he knew what he was going to do. Leap Day, he reminded himself. All bets were off.

When he finally made it into the kitchen, Kate was sitting at the cherry wood kitchen table, sipping her coffee and skimming through Jack's iPad. He noticed the black stockings and heels and the way her hair fell in chestnut cascades around her face and shoulders. She always looked good but today she looked extraordinary.

"Your lunch is on the counter," Kate said without looking up from the iPad. Judging by the way she uncrossed her and recrossed her toned legs, she knew he was looking.

"Oh, thanks honey, but I think I am going to go out to get lunch today. No Lean Cuisine for me today, since all rules are officially suspended by the federal government today."

Kate looked up from the iPad. "That's the way it works huh? Maybe I should book an appointment for a mani/pedi and massage at the spa."

Jack kissed Kate softly on the side of her neck and she smelled like candy. It was a scent she normally saved for date nights. "If you do, make sure you book a waxing." There was the menacing smirk again.

"So Leap Day isn't about the rules and bets being off, but the hair too?" Kate laughed at her own comment.

Jack bowed down and held Kate's cheeks in her hands. His hazel eyes met her beautiful blue eyes. "It means that you should push your boundaries and maybe get a little crazy." He kissed her on the nose and stood, crooked smile back in place. Their Leap Day was just beginning.