The Mistresses

A couple brushed past them, oblivious to the world. They had their arms around each other. She realized it would be easy to look at them and assume life was simple for them—and maybe it was.

She always wanted relationships to fall into nice, straightforward categories. The work relationships she had with Bruce and the teachers on her staff. The mentoring role she had with her students. But she couldn’t put an easy label on Adam. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted any man.

It was a weakness to want him. Because he didn’t fit into the safe boxes that others did and she had the feeling he never would. He was never going to be someone she felt completely comfortable with.

“Let’s go back to our box,” he said, cupping his hand under her elbow and leading her back to the stairs. She couldn’t read his expression but had the distinct impression that he was angry.

“Adam?”

They stopped walking and turned. Grace wanted to groan out loud when she saw Sue-Ellen Hanshaw. Of course she always looked well put-together and made Grace feel every bit the small-town poor kid she’d always been.

She suspected the other woman didn’t do it intentionally. Sue-Ellen definitely put her kids and family first, which Grace could admire.

“Hi, Sue-Ellen, enjoying the game?”

“I am. I thought I saw you earlier with Grace.”

Wasn’t she clever?

“Adam was just giving me a quick lesson in hockey.”

“Where are you two sitting?” Sue-Ellen asked.

“Up in one of the private boxes.” Adam’s tone didn’t broker an invitation to join them.

“Do you have other guests?”

Sue-Ellen sounded suspicious. With each question Grace felt her skin get tighter. She wanted to disappear—heck, if she hadn’t been running away from Adam’s questions, they’d never have seen Sue-Ellen.

“No. It’s just the two of us,” Adam said.

“Is that wise?”

“We’ve been discussing the school,” Grace said quickly. “Did you hear Adam has arranged for a few celebrities to come play in the charity basketball tournament to raise money for the school’s gym?”

Sue-Ellen smiled and the expression almost reached her eyes. “Thank you, Adam, for doing that.”

“It was no problem. To be honest, it was Christian’s idea.”

Sue-Ellen’s son was one of the many students who were working hard to keep the school going.

“I think he had an ulterior motive. He’s a huge Bottle Rocket fan,” Sue-Ellen said, naming one of the bands on Adam’s record label. She was being friendly, but Grace sensed disapproval under the surface.

Grace knew practically his entire artist base thanks to some time spent on the Internet. She wasn’t surprised to hear that Sue-Ellen’s son, a junior, had come up with the idea. She wondered if Sue-Ellen realized how badly her son wanted the school to stay open. If she knew how much the changes in their personal lives over the last two years had affected her son.

“It was a great suggestion,” Grace said.

Sue-Ellen flushed at the compliment to her son. “I’m so impressed at the way he’s gotten involved with saving the school.”

“You should be proud of him,” Adam said.

“I am. I’ll see you both at the meeting on Thursday, right?”

“Yes,” Grace said. “I’m looking forward to hearing all the parents’ ideas.”

Sue-Ellen moved on. Adam made no move to go back to the box to watch the rest of the game.

“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” he asked, pulling her out of the walkway and into the shadows.

“No. Why would you think that?” she asked. Her back was against the wall. He leaned closer to her, putting one arm on either side of her head, caging her with his body. She put her hand on his chest to keep him from coming any closer. Because she wanted more than anything to say to hell with Sue-Ellen and Malcolm and the morality patrol and just give in to the temptation that was Adam.

“Your comments to Sue-Ellen made it seem like we weren’t on a date,” he said, canting his hips forward so that he was nestled against the center of her body. Flashes of light flickered in from the arena. Or was that her, reacting to him?

“Good. The last thing we need is for anyone to know that you and I are dating. That’s the kind of publicity the school doesn’t need,” she said. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded breathless.

“Why good? This feels like a date to me, Gracie.”

She was mesmerized by the latent passion in his eyes and leaned up toward him. Brushed her lips over his once and then again. She had never had a man so completely take over every part of her life before. She suspected that Adam didn’t even know that he was doing it.

He kept his lips out of reach. “Explain to me about Sue-Ellen.”

“She’s reporting everything I do to Malcolm.”

“I didn’t realize it was that bad. You don’t have to pretend we aren’t dating.”

“Are we dating?”

“I think I just said we were.”

“We’ve only had dinner once. And now, the game. It’s not like we’ve really had a chance to get to know one another.”

“We know each other intimately,” Adam said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her fully into his body. He lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers. “Don’t we, Grace?”

She knew he was asking her something important, but she couldn’t think or answer. She just wanted to lose herself in this moment and in this man. This was what she’d been wanting when she put those photos on her mantel, snapshots of a life that wasn’t really her own. She’d always craved this. This, what she felt right now with Adam.

And she knew exactly what this was. A feeling of belonging and acceptance that had been missing all of her life.

Adam lifted his head after a long moment had passed. He drew her out of the shadows, leading her down the hallway and toward the exit. “Let’s get out of here.”

Adam parked his car at the curb in front of Grace’s house. A quiet had fallen between them as they’d left American Airlines Center. He didn’t know what to say to her, unusual for him. He usually had no problem filling awkward silences with small talk. But he and Grace had somehow moved beyond small talk and now he had nothing to say. No way to communicate with words. The charm that he usually employed with women wasn’t going to be enough.

She watched him with her wide, wounded eyes and he knew that he couldn’t leave her. Not tonight, he told himself, but a part of him recognized that as a lie.

“Thanks for taking me to the game,” she said in that quiet, polite way of hers.

“It was my pleasure. I’d like to take you out again tomorrow night,” he said, stretching his arm along the back of her seat. She tipped her head to the side.

“I could make us dinner at my place.”

“I’d like that. I’ll bring the wine.”

She smiled at him and for a moment he felt something that he hadn’t realized had been missing in his life. A sense of total normalcy. Like they were just two people dating. Like there were no secrets between them. No lies that were quietly waiting to jump out.

On one level it angered him because he knew that the lies were his own and having been on the other side, having been the person who’d been lied to, he knew how much that was going to hurt. Unless he could figure out a way to make Grace tell him about the erotic story. Her fantasy of being his mistress.

“What’s your dream date?” he asked.

She quirked one of her eyebrows at him and licked her lower lip. “Something like tonight, I guess.”

“You guess?” he asked, flirting with her. Finding his rhythm in the new, easy way she held herself. This was something he knew how to do.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Are you going to invite me in for a nightcap?”

She gathered her purse from the floor and opened it pulling out her keys. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Come on, Gracie. I want to hear what you’d change about tonight.” He turned off the car and leaned back in the seat to watch her, his hand stretched over the back of her headrest. Her flowery perfume filled the air, and when she moved her head strands of her hair rubbed over his wrist. He wanted to wrap his hand in her hair to not have to play the waiting game that dating couples did. Instead he wanted to claim her, to throw her over his shoulder and take her to bed.

In her fantasies he already had. Even in his own, he’d claimed her. He wanted her with a bone-deep fascination that made everything else pale. He needed to be inside her silky curvy body, marking her as his own. Finding a way to bind her to him. He didn’t understand the need, didn’t want to question it too closely. He only knew that he wanted Grace.

“Why?” she asked.

He didn’t want to have to explain himself. Didn’t want to have to come up with more reasons to drag this conversation out until she felt comfortable enough to invite him into her home. “So I can better plan next time.”

“What if you’re the thing I’d change?” she asked, a saucy grin on her face.

She knew what she was doing. She was playing him to see how much he would take. He had the suspicion that this was new to her—flirting with a man, finding her feet with him—so he tugged on a strand of her hair and brought her face closer to his.

“Then you’re out of luck. I’m not going anywhere.”

The words resonated inside him and he realized that he wanted to stay with her. To stay as long as he could.

She watched him with those wide, serious eyes and then said, “Not even in the house for a drink?” She opened her door and stepped out of the car.

He watched her for a moment. Something had changed from earlier. There was more confidence in the way she moved. As if she knew he was going to follow her. And he was. He was going to follow her and give her a night straight out of her dreams.

Grace was sure and competent and very in charge in real life, but in her fantasy she wanted a man to dominate her. To take control of her passion. He followed her up her walk, pressing his remote to lock the doors on his car and set the alarm.

He followed her as if she’d promised him the answers to questions he’d always posed. And he knew she didn’t have them. Knew that, like women or projects in the past, he wouldn’t really find what he’d been chasing. He’d thought he’d found the answers before only to be disappointed.

But tonight none of that mattered. All that he cared about was that she’d invited him in. She’d made a move in real life, not just in her written fantasies, and that was good enough for him.

She had something he wanted and because he was a guy it was partially tied up in lust for her curvy body. But he knew there was more to it than lust.

She led him into her house and got them both a glass of wine, a California merlot that was full-bodied and fruity. She sat on one edge of her couch, leaving plenty of space between the two of them.

“I thought we were beyond this,” he said, quietly. She blew hot and cold with him, one minute flirty and sexy as hell, the next retreating behind her walls. Watching him with those enigmatic eyes of hers that made him realize he might never know any of her secrets.

“Beyond what?”

“This space between us,” he said.

She took a sip of her wine. “Whenever I think about you here with me, I can’t help thinking—what is this man doing with me?”

“I’m here because you make the world come alive for me.”

“That sounds hokey.”

“I know. But I can’t think of any other way to describe it.”

“Your life is pretty exciting without me in it.”

“No, Grace, it isn’t. My life is full of events and people, but it’s all routine. I learned a long time ago that routine is important to survival.”

“Routine is getting up at six every morning, eating cereal and driving to work. Routine is not spending your day surrounded by rock stars and celebrities.”

“I guess it just depends on your perspective,” he said quietly. Thinking about how one little detail could change a life. The lies his parents had told had changed his life. The story of Grace’s he’d read had changed their lives. And though he knew he needed to say something, to somehow reveal the secret he was keeping, he still wasn’t able to find the right words.

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