"Have you got it?" Cal asked as he pushed closed their bedroom door. The boys were asleep, he'd gone to check while Gillian had snuck downstairs to the garage to retrieve a book. A dirty book. A Mills and Boon 'sexy romance'. Which meant women's porn. Whatever. It was supposed to be a bit of fun. For their sex life.

"Yes I've got it," Gillian told him indignantly. She was already in bed, glasses on, waiting for him. She must have run downstairs and back up and yet she didn't seem out of breath. Cal crossed the room and got under the covers. "Are you ready for this?" Gillian asked him with a little smirk.

Cal grinned back. This could quite possibly lead to nothing, but it would be fun to see what it did amount to. She was going to read to him. Aloud. From the soft porn book. They had been married twelve years. Sometimes it was fun to mix it up a bit. "Bring it on," Cal answered her.

Gillian's smile got a little deeper. "If I read one will you read one?"

"Absolutely," Cal agreed.

Gillian turned to the small paperback within her hands. She was able to obscure the cover with just her palm so Cal had no idea what she had picked up that lunchtime when she had ducked out to a second hand book store. Believe it or not, but Gillian did not keep these kinds of books. If she read them, she got rid of them straight away. She said she didn't want the boys to find them but honestly, as far as Cal had known, that had always been her policy. Which warranted a little bit of interesting prying, but not tonight.

Tonight was smut fest volume one.

Cal shifted down the bed so he was comfortable, lying on his side, facing her. He settled the blanket over his waist only. "What are we readin'?"

"Does it matter?" Gillian turned to him again.

"I suppose not," Cal mused. "Go on then," he directed.

"Are you going to watch me?"

"Yes."

"Great," Gillian muttered. She opened the book and started reading aloud.

"Hang on," Cal interrupted.

"What?"

"Are you gonna read the whole thing?"

"Yes?"

"Skip to the good bits."

"You're such a guy," Gillian noted with a sigh and Cal gave her a little smirk. "You don't want to know the story at all?"

"Do these books even have a story?"

"Yes."

"You've read this one haven't you?" Cal suddenly realised.

"Maybe," Gillian mumbled back.

"All right then just tell me the story."

"Well I haven't read it in a while," Gillian opened the page again. "So I'd have to figure out..."

"The quick version," Cal interrupted. "Who's doin' whom?"

Gillian picked up the book again and scanned a few pages. "It's about a marriage of convenience."

"Hm," Cal noted. Boring.

"Mia married Alex to get pregnant with an heir to her father's fortune and Alex agrees to marry her because her father owns his family's Greek island and he wants it back. And the father wants an heir because his son died in a car accident."

"And now, for the dirty bits," Cal waved a hand towards the book again.

"Ok I'll find one," Gillian noted softly, focussing on the book again. Cal watched her eyes scan over the page. They stopped to actually read a few lines here and there but for the most part she flipped through the chapters relatively quickly and he waited patiently. She had a thing for his accent; he had a thing for hers. The way she formed words, the way her mouth moved and her lips shaped, it was fascinating. He could wait for her to read to him so long as she freaking read something.

Gillian kept on turning pages, scanning and turning. Cal turned his head sharply to see the page numbers. Forty five. Bloody hell. Weren't these books supposed to be all about the sex scenes? Where were the sex scenes? "Your impatience won't speed the process up Cal," Gillian reprimanded him lightly.

Cal gave a huff of a sign, turning his head so his breath fluttered across her skin. She flinched a little and he smiled. "You've been teasin' me with this for several days and now it's bloody Friday and I want my soft porn scene," he purposefully grumped.

"Patience is a virtue Cal," Gillian told him lightly. Oh she was good. Using his name a lot. He liked that. He liked the way she said it, with the long drawn out 'a' sound. It made him want to kiss his own name off her tongue. Fifty nine bloody pages in and Gillian finally started to read aloud. Except the scene wasn't as sexy as Cal was expecting. It was relatively graphic but it was missing something and as he watched his wife's face he could see she felt the same way. He blamed the plot. What excitement would there be in the first sexual encounter of a marriage of convenience?

"No," Cal snatched the book from Gillian as the characters climaxed.

Gillian startled. "What?"

"Not this one. This one's not good," Cal told her. Of course the entire book could be a complete dud. He started flipping pages himself and Gillian shifted down the bed so her head was on the pillow and she was face to face with him. He could feel her watching him as he scanned for a key word, anything that would indicate the main characters were about to do it again. Of course, it was kind of difficult to see clearly without his own glasses on but he couldn't be bothered reaching for them yet.

Cal caught something about a breast and slowed down. This seemed better. He shoved the book back towards his wife who looked amused. "There," he informed her, keeping his finger to mark the place at page seventy-seven. "Read that one." And then he curled up again attentively.

"The whole damned staff must know what had been going on in this bed earlier," Gillian began again.

"No," Cal interrupted. "Not from there."

"From where then?" Gillian asked shortly.

"All right grumpy," Cal teased. "From the otha page. Right at the bottom. With the kissin'."

Gillian gave a little smile as she readjusted the book.

"I saw that," Cal murmured.

"You're so funny," she half laughed. Cal chose to ignore her taunt. "Then he did take her, passionately and ruthlessly, his hungry mouth covering hers..."

Cal pressed a kiss against his wife's shoulder and closed his eyes to listen happily as she went on to describe hands in the darkness and wet, hot kisses...

And then she was waking him up. She watched him, her face close. "Hi sleepy head."

Cal gave a little groan, blinking against the light. "Aw geeze I'm sorry. I didn't realise I was tired."

"Either that or my voice soothed you."

He gave a slight smile and she grinned. "That must be it," he noted.

"Or the story was completely boring?"

"How much did you read?" Cal shifted slightly to see the book but Gillian no longer had it.

"How much do you remember?" Gillian countered with a coy little smile.

"Uh somethin' about 'cries of anguished pleasure echoed around the darkened bedroom'."

"Oh so the entire bit when they had sex?"

"Yeah," Cal gave a grin. "Then I got bored again."

Gillian gave a little chuckle. "So still not a fan of a 'romance' novel?"

"Guess not. But then again, I had a hard time with the actual storyline. Excuse the pun."

Gillian gave an amused smile. "What didn't you like about the story?"

"It was stupid."

"That was articulate," Gillian cut in.

"No let me finish," Cal reprimanded lightly. "While I undastand misunderstandin's, and that bit was all fine and that, the rest of it wasn't realistic for me. It's like someone wrote it."

Gillian fixed him with an unimpressed expression, "Of course someone wrote it, it's a book."

"That's not what I meant. Hang on. I'll think about it."

"Ok," Gillian said slowly, with a slight frown, a slight amused raise of her eyebrow. She shifted a little, so she was on her stomach, leaning on her elbows, looking over at him.

"It was like there was no real chemistry between the characta's," Cal spoke again. "It felt like I was aware I was readin' a book, instead of bein' sucked into the story."

Gillian's lips twitched into a slight smile. "Hmm well I never said they were literary genius." But she wasn't being defensive, she was agreeing with him. "At least now you know what they're about."

"Are they all that bad?"

"Most of them yeah."

Cal gave his head a slight disparaging shake. "I'm sorry. Perhaps you should switch to movies." He gave her a grin.

Gillian laughed despite herself and shifted a hand to swat at his chest. "No woman enjoys watching some guy fuck the shit out of some poor girl."

Cal laughed.

"Ok? So no. However, if you found me a romantic comedy where the characters actually did it at the end in all their graphic glory, I could probably get into that."

Cal's grin stayed wide. "I shall make that my new life's mission."

Gillian leaned in to give him a kiss. "Sorry to wake you up."

"Oh you are not," Cal grouched good-naturedly.

"I was just wondering if the porn actually did anything for you?"

"Nothin' in the slightest aside from maybe a little twitch before I drifted off. I did enjoy hearin' you say 'big and throbbin', slick and powaful'," he wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Did it do somethin' for you?"

"Surprisingly no. But I guess the second time around it just wasn't the same."

"Oh yeah? Did it get a rise out of you the first time?"

"Maybe," Gillian responded mysteriously. She turned on to her back again. Cal shifted so he was leaning on an elbow and could see her face. "It seems to pale in comparison to when we..." she stopped suddenly and met his eye. He knew exactly what she meant without her having to complete the sentence but she looked embarrassed. "Our magic," she finished instead.

Cal gave a smile of pride. "Yeah," he nodded forcefully. "I know exactly what you mean."