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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.
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.
Her nipples tightened as his fingers drew near them but he only skimmed the fleshy part of her breasts and then moved downward to the swell of skin above the waistband of her jeans. He traced the seam where fabric and skin met all the way around to her back where the jeans gaped away from her body.
He dipped his finger down, touching the silky fabric of her panties and then slipping underneath to caress the sensitive skin at the base of her spine. She shifted in his arms as his mouth moved down her neck.
He sucked on the pulse beating at the base of her neck. She felt an answering pull from the center of her body. She shifted on his lap, rubbing her center over his erection.
He groaned deep in his throat, his finger on her back caressing the cleft in her buttocks. She canted her hips away from that unfamiliar touch as his mouth moved lower, finding her nipple and kissing it.
“You have very pretty breasts, Gracie.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. She could barely think coherently while her body was in this state of need—aching need—and chaos.
He kept his one hand in the back of her jeans and drew the other one down her body, tracing her face and then her neck, lingering on the spot where he’d sucked on her skin, then going right between her breasts. He didn’t stop there, kept tracing a line down the center of her body. He flicked open the snap of her jeans and lowered the zipper so he could keep touching her.
She had braced her hands on his shoulders and sank back on his thighs so that she didn’t have to use her hands for balance. She scraped her nails down his chest. She loved the muscled steel of him.
The light dusting of hair on his chest tickled her fingers. She lowered her head to taste his skin, licking delicately at him before nipping him with her teeth. His hands tightened on her, his fingers finding one nipple and pinching her lightly.
He tangled his fingers in her hair and drew her head up to his. Both of his hands slipped down to her breasts as he rotated his palms over her. She lost herself in a wave of feeling as he drew her forward, urging her up on her knees.
“Offer your breasts to me,” he said in a gravelly voice.
Nerves assailed her for a minute and she was stuck in that place where she came up against what she’d never done and what she wanted to do. This was almost exactly what she’d fantasized when she’d written her story. The fire in Adam’s eyes and the heat between her legs convinced her not to back down.
She cupped herself and leaned forward. The line between reality and fantasy blurred. She felt the Grace Stephens she’d always been drop away and the Grace Stephens she’d always wanted to be take center stage.
Her eyes met Adam’s and he watched her with that level, steady gaze of his filled with passion and heat. A shiver of awareness slid down her spine. She aroused him. She made him want her. It was a heady feeling and she savored it.
She tipped her head to the side, enjoying the feel of her hair sliding over her shoulders. “Taste me.”
“With pleasure,” he said.
He kept one hand at the small of her back, urging her forward. Dropping kisses along the tops of her breasts, tracing the lines of her fingers with his tongue before suckling her nipple deep into his mouth. She let go of her breasts and grabbed his shoulders for support as the entire world tipped on its axis.
Everything narrowed down to the two of them. To his mouth on her breast, his hand on her back sliding lower and pushing her down against his erection. She wished she’d taken off her jeans.
Reaching between their bodies, she caressed his hard length though the fabric of his pants. Everything he did turned her on.
He suckled her breast and urged her to rock her hips against him. She felt the weight of her hair against her back and, as she leaned forward into his body, she felt him surround her. She felt cherished, safe, wanted in a way that awakened the hidden woman inside her.
She arched into his touch, felt him everywhere. His hands touching and caressing her, driving her to the edge. His mouth and teeth nibbling at her breasts until they felt too full, too heavy. She needed more. Needed something from him that she couldn’t find.
She rocked against him, her nails digging into his shoulders as everything inside her tightened. Every nerve ending she had was so sensitized to the slightest brush of him against her that she felt herself close to the edge.
“Are you close?”
“Yes….”
“Come for me,” he said, touching her intimately. The pressure pushed her over the edge. Everything in her body clenched down and she rocked against him.
She held his head to her body as waves washed over, leaving her shivering in his arms. He pushed to his feet, holding her high in his arms and walked down the hallway to her bedroom.
Adam tried not to analyze what he felt as he walked into Grace’s bedroom with her in his arms. She was so wonderfully responsive to his every touch that she made him feel like the king of the world. The king of her world, really. The only man who existed for her.
He felt almost as if, for the first time, he knew who he really was. That Adam Bowen wasn’t a fraud.
Tonight, when they were at the hockey game, he’d realized that her attention never wandered from him. That she didn’t want to be with anyone else.
And when she let him make love to her, he had her trust whether she wanted to admit it or not.
He set her down in the center of her bed. The head of the bed was covered in pillows. Only the light from the hallway spilled into the room. Not enough. He wanted to see more of Grace.
He reached over to turn on the lamp on her nightstand.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Making sure every detail is right.”
“Here in my room?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We’re only going to have one first time together. I want it to be everything you’ve ever imagined it would be.”