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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.
Eight
“Where were we?” he asked, his voice a sexy whisper in her ear.
He nudged her center and she shifted against him, trying to get even closer. It was impossible with the layers of cloth between them. Her skirt was hiked up, but not enough.
“I think we were here,” she said, looking down at her bare breasts.
“Show me where I left off,” he said.
She drew his head down to her lips. He kissed his way down her neck and bit lightly at her nape. She shuddered, clutching at his shoulders, pressing her body harder against him. He bent his head and his tongue stroked her nipple.
Excerpt from “Adam’s Mistress” by Stephanie Grace
Adam looked like he belonged in her house as he sat next to her on the couch. A part of her was afraid she was building too much around him and their relationship the same way she did with those photos of her with other people’s families on the mantel. Creating the illusion that there was more to her life than there really was.
He spread his arms along the back of the sofa, his body open and relaxed. She thought about the story she’d written. The story that, for her, was bold and erotic. A fictional account that she used to fill the empty part of her life. The part that she’d always really been afraid to admit that she wanted.
But she and Adam had already made love once. She’d already had an orgasm in his arms and watched him have one next to her. They’d been intimate in a way—
“What are you thinking so hard about?”
She shrugged. What could she say to him that wouldn’t make her sound … like herself? Like the scared and insecure woman she was deep inside?
“Nothing,” she said, wanting to believe that it was strategy and not fear of rejection that held her still on her side of the couch.
“If it doesn’t feel right don’t do it,” he said, a wry grin on his face. But the expression seemed forced.
She guessed he was experiencing something similar to what she felt. She skimmed her gaze down his body, stopping when she noticed his erection. She hadn’t even touched him, how could he be aroused by her?
“I guess you can tell how much I like you,” he said, gesturing to his body.
“Why?”
He turned to her then, putting one hand on her face, his fingers gentle as he traced the line of her cheekbones. But when he started to speak she put her fingers over his lips. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Whatever expectations he had of her, she didn’t want to know them. Didn’t want her fears of living up to what he wanted to stop her.
“Forget I asked. I like you, too.”
“Show me,” he said.
Grace pushed all her doubts from her mind about why Adam was here. He was here, and that was enough for her. She wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to be with him. Not like the last time at his house in the shower, when she’d wanted to reach for him again but had stopped herself. Her fantasies, which had fed her secret life, paled in comparison to the real thing.
How could the imagined feel of his hand on the back of her neck match the actual warmth and weight of the real thing?
He watched her steadily, awareness of him growing in her until she had to lean forward and capture his lips with hers. His mouth was firm and hard. He didn’t open his lips, just waited to see how far she’d take it. She brushed her mouth back and forth over his.
She licked at his lips before using her teeth to draw his lower lip into her mouth, scraping her teeth over the plump flesh. She rested her hands on his shoulders for balance as she leaned over him. The angle forced his head back so that she was in complete control.
He moaned and pulled her down on his lap, shifting the balance of power in that one move. He took control, his hands sliding up to hold her head still as he plundered the depths of her mouth.
She shifted her legs so that she straddled his hips. She lifted her head and stared down at him. His eyes were narrowed and intense as he looked up at her.
“Take off your T-shirt.”
“Only if you take off your shirt.”
He nodded. She sank back on his thighs, reaching for the waistband of her shirt. She pulled it up over her head and then held it awkwardly in front of her for a minute. She knew what her body looked like with just jeans on. Her white belly was visible. Some of her skin swelled over the waistband.
He unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. He was lean and ripped with rock-hard, defined muscles that a businessman shouldn’t have. “You work out.”
“Yeah, I get restless and no matter where I am there’s always a gym.”
“There are also bars and women.”
“That’s not who I really am, Gracie. Why are you holding on to that shirt?”
She shrugged. No way was she going to say something derogatory about her body when she had him half-naked and wanting her. She pushed her concerns from her head and focused instead on Adam.
She dropped her shirt and his hands were on her immediately. His fingers traced the lines of her torso before sliding around her back and up her spine. He found the back clasp of her bra and she felt him undo it. He left the fabric on her, continuing his path up her back to her neck.
He drew her forward, his mouth meeting hers again. Making her forget the lingering doubts she had. There was no room in her mind for anything but Adam when he touched her.
His hands kept moving while his mouth held hers captive. He swept her bra aside and then pressed between her shoulders until her breasts were against his naked chest.
Her breath caught in her throat and she closed her eyes, wanting to capture this moment forever. Wanting to never forget the way he felt against her.
He lifted his head, skimming his mouth down her jaw to her neck. He nibbled on her skin, making her feel like a meal being offered up to him. His hands and his mouth made her come alive in his arms.
