“I sure did, and that bitch ain’t answering, but I left her plenty to grow on in those messages I left.”
Renee could only imagine. “I’m headed back home. I guess we’ll talk later.”
Aria nodded solemnly before she stepped inside her house and closed the door.
Renee shifted her eyes up to the summer sun, hating how restless and lost she felt. When she woke this morning she never thought it would end like this. She had some choices to make about her life, her career, and her marriage. Tough choices that she avoided in the past, but she now knew what she had to settle down and face—especially after today.
“My marriage is in trouble,” she whispered aloud to herself.
Now the question of whether her career was worth losing her marriage over was completely different in light of even the remote possibility that Jackson had left her for Jessa Bell.
She didn’t want there to be another Jessa Bell.
She didn’t want her family destroyed.
She didn’t want to lose her husband.
As Renee walked up to her home, she knew she couldn’t envision it without Jackson and their children in it.
She knew that she would fight for Jackson. Come hell or high water, the Clinton family was staying just the way it was. Period.
JESSA
Bzzzzzz.
I slipped from beneath the silky depths of my bath water to pick up my cell phone, and I sighed with pure boredom at Renee’s number. I knew the fallout would not be easy and I knew my little text didn’t help things…but I could not resist. I didn’t hate her or any of my ex-friends. I was just ready to move on with life with him and without them. Once I took the plunge headfirst into happiness and love, I decided to put myself and my heart first.
Releasing a deep breath that caused the lit votives around the edge of the bathtub to flutter, I picked up my cell phone, pushing aside any nervous feelings. Any guilt. Any regrets.
Jessa, you pulled the wool over our eyes and I for one will never forgive you for this no matter which husband it is.
I rolled my eyes at Renee’s pathetic text. I couldn’t care less if I had Renee’s forgiveness. Fuck them all. Love was a conqueror and I loved him. He loved me. Sometimes life was just a bitch. Sometimes two people were meant to be. Sometimes you had to throw caution to the wind and go for what you know and what you want.
I saw the icon telling me I had voice mail messages. Now what, I thought as I called my voice mail box and placed the phone on speaker.
Beep.
Beep.
“You know, Jessa, you’re smarter than I thought, because you know I would have dragged your ass all up and down Richmond Hills. You know I would have put my foot so deep in your ass that you would be shitting shoes for days. You know that your ass woulda been mine. How dare you pull a stunt like this and not be woman enough to stand and stake your claim your supposed prize, you slick, no-good, heartless bitch. I will see you one day and I don’t give a flying fuck if it’s years later, I’m gone fuck you up. Trust and believe that, you punk bitch.”
I sighed at Aria’s Brick City brash bullshit. Our entire friendship was based on competition. One-upmanship. But in times of crisis we always pulled together. Would I miss her friendship? Of course. But I had many years of love and passion and happiness ahead of me to replace all of my friends.
Beep.
“Remember that you reap what you sow, Jessa Bell. Nothing good will come of this and you know it. We were friends. We trusted you. And for you to treat this like a game shows me that we never knew you, not the real you. You should be ashamed of yourself, Jessa.”
I pushed aside any feelings of guilt I felt at the sadness in Jaime’s voice. I could tell that she had been crying…but fuck that. Shame? Humph. I lost my shame nearly a year ago when the affair first began. It went right out the window with regrets and guilt.
“I should be ashamed? Humph. Bitch, please. A reformed ho who can’t have children, a slick bitch stealing her husband’s money, and a workaholic trick fucking her young-ass assistant. Yeah…what the hell ever.”
Closing my phone, I dropped it to the floor before I sank lower into the water. I was glad for the warmth because in that moment I felt cold…almost as frozen as I felt in the days after my husband’s tragic death.
My friends could never understand that it was so hard for me to be with them when their marriages were a constant reminder of what I was terribly missing in my life. I thought I would never feel anything again. I thought that no man could compare or replace or make me forget.
But then we shared that stare and then that first intimate touch in their kitchen…and then the random calls just to say hello and then, in time, to say more…meeting in distant places where we hoped to remain unseen…and in just weeks since we crossed that invisible but still distinguishable line of impropriety, a night filled with more fiery heat than I had ever known.
And then I realized that I was wrong. So very wrong.
In his arms, his bed, and his life I discovered far more than I had lost, and soon I craved it like a drug. We craved it. Whenever, wherever, and definitely whatever. Until finally we knew that we had to be together. It was time for all or nothing….
“Bring my pussy to me.”
Click.
It was just the call I was waiting for. No other words were needed. I knew who it was and where I was to bring it. I snapped my cell phone closed and rose to my feet. We didn’t have much time. We never did.
“Bathroom break,” I said, eyeing my three friends where we sat playing whist at a portable card table in the center of my den.
“Hurry back, Jessa, we are whipping their ass,” Aria told me as she rearranged her cards.
“Just the luck of the deal,” Renee assured her partner Jaime, who was biting the MAC lip gloss from her lips in concentration.
I left them with a smile, picking up the pace of my steps to him as soon as I was out of their line of vision. Into the kitchen and out of the double doors of the deck. I nearly ran in anticipation. Across the deck and the yard, almost slipping into the underground kidney-shaped pool, to the double-car garage in the rear of my property.
As soon as I stepped into the darkness of the garage through the side door, he pulled my body against his and I melted at his very touch, pressing my lips to the spicy, lightly sweaty curve of his neck as his all-too-familiar hands rushed to lift the edges of the floor-length print skirt I wore.
“Damn, no panties, huh?” he asked in his deep tones as he reached between my thighs to stroke his index finger across my pussy lips.
“Kills time. We have to hurry,” I whispered before I licked his earlobe with a gasp as my fingers clutched his shoulders. “Your wife and the girls are inside waiting on me.”
He lowered his head to press his mouth to mine. I loved it when we kissed. It was always soft and sensual. A soul kiss. I moaned in pleasure when he sucked my tongue deep into his mouth as his hands massaged the soft fullness of my buttocks. “I can’t get enough of you, Jessa. I love you,” he whispered into my mouth, bringing emotional tears to my eyes.
“Shh, baby, don’t cry,” he whispered as he planted soft kisses from my forehead to my chin.
But that only made me cry harder. “I love you so much.”
“I know you do, Jessa, and this is getting harder and harder for me because I know you deserve better,” he said near my ear as his hands cupped my buttocks and pressed me against his hard, stirring dick.
Hunger for him filled me. Emotional and physical.
Time was of the essence. We had to rush. There was no time for words. Not in that moment. It had been almost a full week since we were able to snatch time to be together and I was more than ready for these heated moments with my man, but each time I wanted more and more of him.
I kissed him again, the taste now familiar to me, as he freed his dick from the zipper. I stroked the curving length of him, sure I could point my dick out in a lineup. Each vein and curve was fa
miliar to me.
“Damn, your hand feels good on my dick,” he moaned, flinging his head back as he massaged his hands over my naked ass like a blind man reading Braille.
“Better than hers?” I asked, unable to help myself. Jealousy and insecurity claim everyone.
“Don’t bring her up.”
I dropped down to squat, holding his dick before me like a microphone as I cut my eyes up to him. “I hate having to sit there and listen to her brag about how good you fuck,” I told him before I tried to swallow every single inch of him.
His hips bucked and he bit his bottom lip.
“Especially when I know we make love better. Don’t we?” I asked him in whispers against the throbbing tip of his dick.
“You’re the best I ever had, Jessa,” he swore.
I sucked him deep and wet for that. “And you love me?”
He grabbed my face and forced me to look up at him in the barely lit shadow of the garage. “I love the hell out of you,” he told me fiercely.
My heart swelled with love for him as I rose to my feet. “Then why can’t we be together? Why are we doing this to each other? To her?”
He hugged my body close to his and I buried my face in his neck. “I do need you. All of you,” he whispered to me as his heart pounded against my chest.
I leaned back and looked up at him. “Then have all of me. I’m yours. Neither one of us wanted this to happen, but here it is. Now what are we going to do with it?”
With just enough light from the backyard, we looked deeply into each other’s eyes, and I knew in that moment that we both thought of the repercussions. It was a lot to take on for us to be together…but I was ready, willing, and able. Was he?
“I have to tell her that I’m leaving. I owe her that much,” he finally said.
I released a breath that was filled with relief and love.
We kissed with all of the passion and love we felt for one another. And when he used his strength to lift me high enough to then lower my quivering pussy onto his hardness, I had never felt so complete in all my life. I knew that every step in my life had led me to this amazing man whom I was meant to love and to be with.
He turned and pressed my body against the wall as we ground together, our hearts pounding. Our senses filled. Our bodies in unison as our chemistry cloaked us like a blanket.
“Jessa!”
We paused and swallowed hard as one of the ladies called my name in the backyard. “Damn,” he swore, even as his dick continued to throb against my walls.
“I got to get this nut, baby,” he whispered against my lips before he began to work his dick inside me again.
“Jessa…you out here?”
It was Renee. I recognized her voice.
“Hurry, baby. She might come back here,” I whispered to him, feeling an illicit thrill to be fucking him with someone just feet away.
He stroked away until his grunts filled the air as his nut sprayed against my quivering walls. “Damn, I love fucking you,” he moaned against my throat.
I laughed huskily until I opened my eyes just in time to see the top of Renee’s head as she made her way back to the garage. “She’s coming!” I screeched in a whisper, pushing him away before I dropped down to my feet, sending my skirt floating back down.
“Shit,” he swore, rushing to fling his now-flaccid dick back inside his pants before he zipped up.
“Hide,” I ordered him, ignoring the wetness and soreness of my core as I grabbed a rake and rushed out the door.
I nearly walked into Renee. “Hey, girl. What you doing out here?” I asked nervously, knowing that I was smiling like a fool.
“Shit, what are you doing out here…with the rake?” Renee asked, looking beyond my shoulder into the garage.
I eased the door closed behind me. “I glanced out the window and I thought I saw something floating in the pool. I was going to use the rake to get it out,” I lied.
Renee glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t see anything in the pool,” she said with a frown.
I shrugged and opened the door quickly to slide the rake back inside. I caught a glimpse of my lover stooping behind my dead husband’s motorcycle. I quickly shut the door. “Maybe it was a shadow or an animal that crawled back out.”
Renee and I made our way back to the house. She was talking about cards and other things that were very trivial to me because my thoughts and my heart were filled with happiness.
Finally we would be together. The love of my life would finally be mine and mine alone.
As we reentered the house and I offered my lame excuses for my disappearance, I looked at each of my friends, knowing that to have him I would lose them and all that they had brought into my life over the years: Aria’s humor. Renee’s wisdom. Jaime’s sense of style.
I knew that although I was claiming my own happiness, I was about to destroy one of their lives. My happiness completely overwhelmed any regret, guilt, or shame.
CHAPTER 16
Jaime didn’t know when exactly she fell asleep or how long. As she stretched atop her bed, she did know for sure that listening to her mother drone on about her disappointment and rage had pushed her to mentally shut down. Even now, hours later, her words of contempt echoed.
Flopping over onto her back, she looked up at the shadows created on the ceiling from the street lamps as her mother’s words floated back to her, still heavy with her disappointment.
“Your father and I worked hard to instill values and a sense of propriety in you, Jaime Lee.”
And contempt.
“How dare you degrade this family, your husband, and yourself by being little more than a slut.”
And disgrace.
“I am ashamed of you.”
And threats.
“You better fix it, because your mess better not come back to embarrass this family in any way, Jaime. And I mean it.”
Still, she didn’t regret telling her mother the truth. She was sick of the lies. Sick of pretending. Sick of acting out her life to someone else’s script. No matter how sweetly she wrapped lies up in a pretty, perfect package, her years of being everything that everyone else wanted her to be and nothing at all of what she used to want to be was a bunch of bullshit. Perfectly covered in designer clothes, hair, and jewelry—but bullshit nonetheless.
Sighing, Jaime sat up on the side of the bed and reached to turn on the lamp sitting on the nightstand. It was then she saw the blood still staining her hands. The sight of it reminded her of the Shakespeare play Macbeth that she read first in high school and then again in college. How could she forget the scene of Lady Macbeth washing imaginary blood from her hands, manifesting the guilt she felt over horrible things she and her husband had done?
Her crime of having one illicit affair hardly reached the level of murder, but her guilt had manifested and eaten away at her all the same. Made her hate herself. Made her feel as if she deserved the humiliation and punishment her husband had put her through every day since the affair. Made her think and think and overthink every little detail of her life.
But even beyond the guilt, Jaime knew she had long ago lost herself until she doubted that she even knew what she really wanted or thought. Everything in her life had become about the “right” everything. Being the stereotypical “good girl” and the “perfect wife.”
Jaime made her way to the bathroom and washed her hands. She flipped her disarrayed weave back from her face as she studied her reflection. Her brows furrowed in concentration. “Who are you?” she asked her reflection.
She honestly didn’t know anymore.
Maybe it was time to find out.
Jaime brushed the tangles from her weave and then for the first time in years pulled it all up into a ponytail. She took a quick shower, making it a point to skip her designer bath gels, skipped her make-up, and changed into a velour sweatsuit and flip-flops.
She shook her head thinking how she never let Eric see her without make-up…or passed gas in his presence
…or took a crap when he was in the house…and how she’d get up in the middle of the night to brush her teeth to cure morning breath.
He never asked her to do it. He never even hinted. It had been her choice to be a Stepford wife.
Enough was enough.
Jaime looked around their spacious and stylish bedroom suite. The memories that flooded her were more bad than good. How many nights and days had she spent crying, feeling degraded, feeling foolish? She’d lost count, and she refused to add any more.
Things were going to change. They had to.
Jaime walked out of the bedroom. She paused, looking over the banister of the balcony as the front door opened and Eric walked in. He looked up at her briefly before he reached back to close the front door and stroll into his bedroom.
It’s funny. Jaime had almost forgotten about the whole text message and worrying if her husband was coming home or not. It almost didn’t matter anymore. She had bigger fish to fry than who Eric was fucking.
Jogging down the stairs, Jaime felt a freedom like she had never felt before. She did hate the natural urge to knock on his door before she entered, but Jaime pushed that aside as she turned the knob and pushed the door wide open.
Eric was undressing and turned to look over his bare shoulder at her. “I didn’t call for you,” he said in that cold voice that was now a familiarity in their marriage.
“You know, Eric, after the day I had—no, after the last six or seven months I’ve had, I don’t really give a shit if you sent for me,” Jaime said, actually relishing the way the curse word flowed from her lips with ease.
Eric’s eyes widened a little bit as he stared at her. “Having one-night stands with strippers and cursing. What’s next, slut?” he said snidely.
“Nothing much, jackass,” she countered, reaching in the pocket of her ruffled velour jacket for her cell phone.
“That’s enough of your disrespect,” he said in a low voice still filled with chilling anger.
Jaime laughed as she sauntered farther into his room. “No, disrespect is receiving a text from your husband’s mistress,” she told him.
Message from a Mistress Page 18
