“Are we alone?” she asked, remembering the reason for her impromptu visit.
He nodded, hanging his bent arm over the top of the pew.
His demeanor and advice always comforted her. Outside of keeping the secret of the child she’d had at thirteen, she was frankly honest with him during their monthly sessions.
“I’m having difficulties forgiving myself for my past,” she began, nervously twisting the five-carat ring on her middle finger. She took a deep, steadying breath. “When I was thirteen, I gave birth to a daughter that my grandmother forced me to give up for adoption.”
His handsome face filled with concern as he reached over to take one of her hands into his. “Take a breath, Jessa,” he advised.
She did, closing her eyes as her pain fought its way through the level of numbness she tried to maintain. Her tears rose with a quickness. “I feel guilty because I do not want to find her. I do not want to be in her life,” she admitted, her voice slightly shaky.
“You don’t?” he asked.
She slid her hand out of his when his fingertips against her skin felt all too warm. “No. I think it’s best we both move on with our lives as it is.”
“Why is that?’ Reverend Dell asked, his eyes assessing her but not judging.
She took another breath, a deep one that filled her lungs but did nothing to steady her. “Discovering that she shares the same father as her birth mother is a bit much,” she drawled, trying and failing at humor at that moment.
He looked perplexed.
“Rape,” she supplied, her voice calmer than she felt.
His face filled with understanding and horror.
Jessa fought hard not to succumb to her pain and rising tears. She swallowed over a lump in her throat.
“Breathe deep,” he urged again.
She shook her head, denying his request. “I’m breathing just fine, Rev,” she said. “It’s my soul I’m worried about. Am I a horrible person?”
Revered Dell crossed his arms over his solid chest. “No, you are not. Besides, I am not here to judge you, Jessa,” he insisted. “Life is all about tough decisions.”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. “But you’re one of the mainlines to heaven, and I’m telling you that I want to know I’m not a horrible person.”
“Jessa—”
“Like, I know there’s a balance. Karma and all that,” she said, rising to her feet to pace in front of the grand pulpit. “I pay tithes. I come to church. I’m a good mother... this time. I’m good to my crazy mother. I help catch cheating husbands—well, wives, too. A cheat is a cheat.”
“Jessa—”
“What else does God want me to do?” Jessa asked, her face stricken.
“Jessa—”
She pointed up to the sky and looked up. “And you know I deserve major points for not seducing him,” she stressed before pointing her finger at the reverend.
“Jessa!” he roared, jumping to his feet.
She cut her eyes over to him before she forced a smile and shrugged. “No disrespect, Rev,” she said. “And don’t worry, I’m not throwing anything at you but tithes, offerings, and my problem. I got enough damn sins to bear.”
She winced and glanced upward again. “Sorry, God.”
Reverend Dell cleared his throat.
“Yeah, you, too,” she said, her tone distracted as she pressed her hands on her hips and tapped the toe of one of her heels against the hardwood floors.
He came over to lightly grab her shoulders.
The look she gave him was incredulous. “For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” She quoted the Bible, leaning back to avoid his platonic touch.
He dropped his hands. “I didn’t mean anything—”
She waved her fingers at him. “I know that, but temptation is temptation, and I need five feet at all times, Rev,” she said. “Just being honest.”
He nodded and stepped back, looking uncomfortable. Her honesty obviously disconcerted him. “I think we should pray,” he offered, before kneeling before the altar.
She joined him, clasping her hands together under her chin. As she tried her very best to focus on his prayers, Jessa wished she wasn’t more confused leaving her counseling than she’d been coming in.
* * *
That Monday, Jessa was in a meeting with a client but kept finding it difficult to focus on anything but the myriad of emotions swirling around her like a tornado. Come on, Jessa, get your shit together.
She cleared her throat and turned slightly in her red swivel chair to fully face Mrs. Meredith Peabody. She was in her late twenties, stylish, beautiful, and obviously living well on her husband’s ridiculous wealth as a real estate developer. She’d come in two weeks ago after a referral from another satisfied client who decided to use the intel on her husband’s affair with their nanny to renegotiate her prenuptial agreement.
“I’m sorry to tell you that your husband did make a very obvious play for our decoy,” Jessa said, reaching across the desk to grasp the woman’s trembling hand.
She eased away from Jessa’s touch.
I’m not here offering friendship.
Jessa understood. To many of the wives, she was a necessary evil: a former mistress helping them to catch their philandering spouses. Still, a mistress. A woman who had shattered the life of a wife, making her a common enemy.
“I can only assume you have proof,” Meredith said, reaching inside her couture bag for an embroidered handkerchief.
Jessa gave the attractive ash-blond woman a well-practiced woeful look. “Yes, we do,” she said, opening her Louis Vuitton iPad case to lightly swipe the dark screen. “Are you ready?”
Meredith shook her head, tucking her straight hair behind her ear and flashing a huge diamond ring.
Jessa raised her finger from the tablet, allowing her a moment before she shattered the woman’s world. She assumed she was young, probably blowing and swallowing him on call, and that her older husband wasn’t looking for more.
She had been wrong.
“I came to you just two weeks ago and he fucked up already?” she said, her eyes glassy with her hurt.
Meredith hadn’t thought her husband was cheating. She came to Mistress, Inc., to test him to see if he would, and he failed.
“It took a week and a half for our investigator to learn his schedule,” Jessa told her, her tone soft to lessen the blow of the truth of her words. “He fell for the bait after one night.”
“Did they have sex?” Meredith asked, her blue-green eyes on Jessa.
“No,” she stressed, shaking her head. “Our agents are bait, but we let the fish off the hook before they bite. I promise you that.”
Jessa tapped the screen and then lifted her chin toward the sixty-inch television on the wall across from her desk.
Meredith turned in her chair.
Jessa’s eyes darted between the screen and her client’s profile as she watched her husband’s eyes on Charli Cole as soon as she walked into the restaurant where he was enjoying dinner with friends. His eyes remained on her even as she passed their table. And while she was seated alone nearby.
It was clear he couldn’t take his eyes off her in the white dress she wore.
Jessa felt the pain and embarrassment of her client. She couldn’t imagine sitting there and watching her husband lust for another woman.
The light from the all-too-revealing video footage hit against the edge of Meredith’s tear before it raced down her face. Her eyes flittered about, missing nothing, seeming not to blink as her husband left behind his dinner mates. From the moment Charli accepted his offer to sit and dine with her, all through their flirtatious conversation, and up until they danced together as he pressed a kiss to her neck that echoed loudly through Charli’s mic pack.
“I want to lay inside you all night—”
“Stop it,” Meredith cried out, pressing her handkerchief to her face as she lowered her head.
Jessa turned off the tele
vision with one tap. “What are you going to do?” she asked, her curiosity ever piqued about that moment when a spouse discovers an infidelity.
Meredith released a heavy breath.
“We didn’t discover any signs of infidelity yet,” Jessa advised her, settling back in her chair and locking her fingers in her lap. “Take some time. Think it through. Don’t be silly in your choices. If you are going to leave, then this is your proof. If you are going to stay, then in your case, that video and his knowledge that you will go to all ends to be respected can go a long way to tame a dog before he shits on you.”
Jessa gave her a smile that was calculating.
Meredith looked taken aback.
“You’re thinking I’m cold, right? A bitch, right?” Jessa asked with a little shake of her head. “No, life’s the cold bitch.”
Meredith rose to her feet. “I would like the file and the video, please.”
Jessa stood as well. “Our receptionist has a copy awaiting you at her desk upon receipt of the remaining balance on your account of ten thousand dollars,” she said, extending her hand. “Let us know if we can be of any further service, Meredith.”
She shook Jessa’s hand and walked to the door, pausing before she opened it. “Maybe there was just something about her?” she asked, sounding hopeful as she looked back over her tanned, slender shoulder.
Naiveté of the twenties. Jessa was happy to leave that type of blind trust behind in her youth.
Life will teach her better.
“Our agent will never see him again,” Jessa assured her.
Meredith nodded and took her leave.
Jessa reclaimed her seat and used her tablet to check the interior security camera and watched as the woman paid her fee in cash to Felisha and left with the manila envelope clutched to her chest.
Knock-knock.
“Come in,” she called, looking up as their private detective Robert “Hammer” Young entered. He looked the part of an investigator in all black T-shirt and cargo pants, his mirrored sunglasses in place and his silver-flecked hair and beard cut low.
He’d been Mistress, Inc.’s full-time private investigator since the business’s inception. He was good at his job and looked even better. Both she and Keegan had found the man attractive—even with him being over ten years older—and they swore neither would cross the line with him and possibly ruin a great working relationship.
“I have the quarterly reports on my regulars,” Hammer said, coming in to place the stack of files on her desk before sitting down.
She pushed them to the edge of her desk. “To hell with those files, come fuck me,” she said, removing the skimpy black lace panties she wore as he quickly rose to lock her office door.
Sorry, Keegan.
Jessa had been able to resist her desire for him for all of a week.
She tossed her undergarment at him. He caught it with one hand and pressed it to his face as she came around her desk, hitched her floral-print satin pencil skirt up around her waist, and leaned against the edge of the desk. She was already anxious and ready for him.
Hammer dropped his pants to his ankles and walked over to her, stroking his dick to hardness as he hotly eyed her spread legs. “I thought you said no sex in the office?” he asked, slightly cocky as he reached her and bent his strong legs to thrust his hardness inside her.
She gasped and flung her head back, not answering his question, as he stroked deep inside her with speed and strength. She wrapped her legs around his back, the heel of her foot pressing against his buttocks as he clenched and released the hard flesh with each thrust. Her entire body felt alive as her heart pounded wildly and her clit swelled to life against the base of his hard dick. “Hurry, Keegan and I have a meeting at one,” she gasped, as he leaned forward and pressed hot kisses to the length of her soft neck.
He stopped.
She looked at him. “What?” she asked,
“Fuck Keegan,” he said, still deeply implanted inside her. Jessa arched a brow. “No, finish fucking me,” she stressed. Their eyes locked.
She bit her bottom lip as she clenched and released her walls around his steel-like hard inches.
“You want to be fucked?” Hammer asked, his voice thick with his desire.
She nodded, looking at her reflection in his mirrored shades.
Hammer stepped back, freeing his dick. It glistened with her wetness. “Turn your ass over,” he ordered, holding the hem of his T-shirt between his chin and chest.
Jessa did, looking back at him over her shoulder.
He used his knee to spread her shapely legs and pushed her down until the side of her face and her breasts were pressed against the cool top of her desk. He slapped her buttocks with his dick before thrusting it inside her.
She closed her eyes and stretched her arms to grip the edge of the desk as his hard strokes caused his hips to pound against her buttocks and his thighs to slap against the back of hers.
“This is what you want?” Hammer asked, one hand gripping her buttock and the other pressed down upon her back.
“Yes,” she cried, rising on the toes of her shoes to line her pussy up with his strokes.
“Shit,” he swore, stepping back to pull out his hard and long inches. He tapped his smooth tip against her buttocks.
“Please,” Jessa begged in frustration, feeling her climax recede.
Hammer chuckled. “Please what?” he asked, giving her just the thick tip. “Huh? Please what?”
Jessa felt desperate and hated it. “Fuck me,” she pleaded in a hot little whisper.
And he did, filling with her with every inch before he double-pumped his hips in between two long and hard strokes.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she moaned.
His sex was always so good. So passionate. So electrifying.
He was better than her deceased husband or Eric. Bigger. Harder.
“You’re the best,” she gasped.
“Damn right I am,” Hammer boasted, bending over to press kisses to her cheek. “Let’s get this nut.”
Jessa loved the warmth of his body pressed down against her back as he continued thrusting inside her. She felt his dick stiffen in those hot moments just before his cum coated her rigid walls.
Her cries of pleasure matched his as she joined him in climaxing, enjoying the heat, the passion, and the tiny explosions deep inside her core.
“Shit,” she swore, still working her walls to drain his dick of every last drop.
Hammer gave her cheek a gentle bite before he eased his spent dick out and stepped back from her.
Jessa rushed to pull her skirt down from around her waist as she rose to her full height. “Does it smell like sex?” she asked, considering opening the windows.
He finished zipping and buttoning his cargo pants, shaking his head. “Your pussy is always fresh, baby,” he said with a toothy grin.
She smiled at him as she reclaimed her seat and gripped the edge of the desk to pull herself forward. “You’re welcome,” she quipped with a wink as she raked her crimson nails through her hair.
Hammer sat down in one of the red leather club chairs in front of her desk, propping his ankle on the knee of his other leg. “Now I’m gonna catch hell staying alert all day,” he said, pushing his shades atop his head and revealing his grayish blue eyes. “You drained all my energy.”
She eyed him, loving that he was a slightly older version of Michael Ealy. Chiseled cheeks. Strong jawline. Beautiful eyes in an even more beautiful brown complexion.
He smiled and her heart fluttered.
“You regret it?” she asked, forcing herself to look away from him.
“Hell no.”
Jessa had been in love before—not the confused emotions she felt during her lengthy affair with Eric, but real love like that she had for her husband. She knew the signs, and the more time she spent with Hammer having sex, going on dinner dates, or just spending time at her home, the more she had to accept that she cared about more than just hi
s hard dick.
“What do you have planned for today?” she asked, meaning to shift their focus back on work.
“Surveillance on the Richardson and Overbrook accounts,” he said.
Knock-knock.
“Could you unlock the door on your way out?” Jessa asked, reaching for the files he gave her before their quickie.
“I feel used,” Hammer joked, rising to his feet.
“You weren’t the one ass up, in heels, with your face pressed on a desk,” she reminded him dryly.
He laughed as he opened the door. “Thanks, Ms. Bell,” he said, easing past Charli Cole standing in the doorway.
Jessa waved her in. “Hi, Charli,” she said, closing the file as she took in the off-the-shoulder ruffled shirt she wore with torn denims and heels.
“I wanted to—”
Charli stopped, bending down to rise with Jessa’s panties hanging from the tip of her pinkie. “Interesting meeting with Hammer?” she asked, dropping the undies atop Jessa’s desk.
Jessa hid her alarm well, leaving the panties right where Charli sat them. “Never make assumptions,” she said lightly.
The younger woman arched a brow. “I had a feeling he was your private dick.”
Humph. Let me get this little bitch straight.
Jessa leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, wished she had gone to the bathroom to clean up after their quickie, and eyed her new employee. “Mistress, Inc., is all about respect for privacy and presentation of facts,” she began. “If we relied on assumptions, we would be out of business.”
Charli looked pensive as she clasped her hands in front of her where she still stood.
“I hope you are aware of facts versus assumptions because that’s the only way you could fit in here,” Jessa finished, her tone cold as her eyes bored in to the other woman.
Charli nodded. “My mistake, Ms. Bell,” she said, sounding contrite.
“Why are you here anyway?” Jessa asked.
“I wanted to thank you for the bonus in my payment this week.”
Jessa nodded, opening the first of the files. “You earned it,” she said. She looked up when Charli remained in her office. “If there’s nothing else . . .”
Mistress for Hire Page 3
