"You're still pissed at me," he stated as if trying to erase it from his mind.

She gave him an 'eat shit and die' look.

"I'm not ready to take you back completely.  I just want us to be together... the way we do so well," she said as her fingers slid down his chest.  She then backed away and began fumbling with her blouse buttons.

"You're not ready to become my wife again, but you're ready for me to take you to bed?"

She teased, "Who said anything about you taking me to bed?"  She opened the top two buttons of her blouse revealing her creamy white skin.  She could feel him gasp.

"I want my wife back," he demanded as if to not be affected by her game.

"Give her a reason to come back.  Remind her what it is like to be loved by you.  Only you and only her."  Her scent sent shivers down his spine as she walked past him to their bed.

"I do still love you, Doc," he was determined to win her back.

"In case you have forgotten... I am still your wife.  I just don't want to act like it right now," she spat.

He was beginning to understand her game now.  She wanted to be loved the way he has other women.  More specifically Hope.  She wanted to be with him like never before to erase all the memories of the night on the submarine.

"I don't remember what it was like to be with her.  Because I didn't want to be there," he pleaded following her.

"Don't take me for a fool, John."  She could sense his closeness and turned around to see his blazing blue eyes burning into her.  She reached for his belt to undo it.

He couldn't fight her seduction if it meant his last breath.  He wanted her.  There was no denying that.  She was too damn sexy to ignore if he tried.

He grabbed her and pressed her into him as he captured her lips.

"Whoa big guy!  I'm the one in control here," she hissed shoving him onto the bed.

He landed on the soft mattress with a thud not sure whether to allow her to play her game, or to take control himself.  All he really wanted was to hold and caress his wife and make love to her his way.  To show her how he truly felt about her.

But she wanted to play.  And play rough.  It wasn't that he was complaining.  And he didn't have time to react anyway, as she quickly ripped his shirt from its buttons.  She then reached for the two scarves she had placed on the bedside table.

His eyes grew lustful, yet fearful at the same time.  "What are those for?"

She cocked her eyebrow, "Well, they're not for you," she said as she leaned down and kissed his bare chest.  She loved how his skin jumped at her touch.

Now it was his turn to play.  John concluded to go ahead and give her what she wanted and then show her how he felt in his own way.  He flipped her over on her back.  Straddling her now, he gently and loosely tied her wrists to the headboard of their expensive bed.

Her voice was lustful and low, "It's about time you showed up.  I was beginning to think I wouldn't see you tonight."

"I'm your husband, of course I'd be here."

"Yeah well, tonight I'm anyone you want me to be," she remarked.

Ignoring her comment, he finished her earlier task of removing her silk blouse and then dove into her neck.

She moaned in his ear the way that drove him mad with desire, yet she could feel his reservations.

"Come on.  Don't you want to have sex with me?  Aren't I good enough?" she seduced.

He fought with his internal conscious to stop her games, but again, peering down at her in that vulnerable position that seemed to give her strength, she was too sexy to turn down.

The lyrics he had heard many times before may have been written from a male point of view, but he now definitely understood what it was like from the other side.

He was jolted away from his thoughts by her whispering in his ear.  "Don't love me like you know me.  Fuck me like we're strangers."

His male instincts were loving what she was begging him to do and yet he couldn't believe he wanted to object.

Objecting lost out as she wrapped her legs around him, and he slid into her with ease like he had so many nights before.  Being with her was as natural to him as breathing.

Never leaving from the warmth and wetness of inside her, he reached up to tug on the scarves.  With her hands now free to pin above her head with his own, he leaned down and whispered in her ear what she had asked him not to say, "I'd rather fuck you like you're my wife."

Her eyes were so dark with lust as they flew open to look at him, "Easy now, big guy.  Don't say the 'w' word."

John ignored her demands and continued his journey into her.  Through her as if he would split her in two.  Wrapping his arms around her, he squeezed her tight as he felt her warmth envelope him with every stroke.  To be with his wife like this, was what it was to be a man.

The sensation was enough to make Marlena lose herself completely.  She forgot the urge to fire out commands of what she wanted from her 'stranger', and wallowed in the feel of being loved by her husband.

They moved at a faster and faster rhythm that they created for themselves.  Although tonight had been like no other, she still could not ignore that they were united as one in name.  As hard as she tried, being his wife thrilled her beyond being a stranger to him.

Marlena squeezed him harder as she screamed out causing him to explode within her.  Attacking her mouth with his own, he hoped to prolong the moment.

Satisfaction gleamed from her eyes as she smiled up at him, "Tonight you showed me that being married is never boring.  Tonight was as new as the first time, yet you still loved me like your wife."

He grabbed her hands and again pinned them above her head on the pillow.  Looking down into her hazel orbs, "As I said before, I prefer you being my wife.  Tonight and forever."