“After you get to know me, will you be ready?” she asked, and he heard the hurt in her voice.
He shrugged his shoulders, unwilling to give her the words that would reassure her. He wasn’t about to tell her that with the way she made him feel, he doubted he’d ever be ready to break up with her.
He wanted her in his life, but realistically didn’t know how to make that happen. Articles like the one that had her so upset were a part of his life.
She made his fuller, gave him a different perspective…made him feel. And that had been missing since his parents died.
“We’re so different, Adam. I thought that wouldn’t matter, but I think it does.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, pushing to his feet and going to her. There was no way he was letting her brush him off and push him out of her life. This was a minor problem. “I’m not going anywhere, Gracie.”
The words crystallized everything for him. He didn’t have the answers, but for once packing up and moving wasn’t the most appealing route. He wanted to do whatever would make this work for him and Grace.
“Why not? It would be simpler for both of us if we just stopped seeing each other.”
He thought about last night. And the last few weeks when they’d been working together. How his life had changed when he’d stumbled across an erotic story penned by her and knew that he couldn’t go back to being the man he was before.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Grace. But I do know that I can’t let perception rule my life.”
“Perception?”
“What other people think.” He couldn’t say more than that. Sometime he’d be able to tell her that he wasn’t really who she thought he was, but not right now. Right now, he needed Grace.
He slowly unwrapped the towel from her head, dropping it to the floor. He held her face in both of his hands, lowered his head to hers and kissed her with all the emotions that he was afraid to identify.
She kept her hands between them. The satin fabric of the undergarments she still clutched felt cool and silky against his stomach. He wanted to crush her to him. To take her into his body so she couldn’t get away. So that he could keep her safe from being hurt like she had been this morning.
He wanted to keep kissing her until time stood still and once again there were only the two them. He’d always been a practical person, but with Grace he wanted to be that fairy-tale hero.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her back to her bed, knowing that making love to her wasn’t going to solve anything. Wasn’t going to resolve any of the questions she had that he couldn’t answer. Wasn’t going to make the problems outside of her cozy little house go away.
But he needed her in the most basic and elemental way. He needed to feel her arms and legs wrapped around him. To feel her nails scratching down his back and her body melting around him.
Welcoming him into her embrace in a way that felt like forever. Because forever had just gotten a hell of a lot shorter than he’d expected it to be.
Eleven
He pulled his hips back, teased her with the promise of more. She shifted herself against his touch and finally felt him at the entrance of her body. He thrust deep inside her and she clutched at his shoulders.
His thumb rubbed at the center of her pleasure and the fire stormed through her, throwing her closer and closer to the pinnacle. Her breathing increased, she could scarcely catch her breath.
His hand on her bottom held her hips steady as he rocked against her.
Excerpt from “Adam’s Mistress” by Stephanie Grace
Grace walked into her office on Monday feeling a lot less confident than she had back in January when she thought the scandal of two teachers was going to close her school.
“Good morning, Bruce.”
“Morning, Grace. Um, you’ve got a guest in your office.”
“Who?”
“Dawn O’Shea.”
Grace groaned. She’d been putting the fired teacher off but should have guessed that Dawn wouldn’t let her do it indefinitely.
“This is really a bad time for her to be here.”
“I know. That’s why I put her in your office. Figured it was better if she was out of sight.”
“Good thinking. I hate to ask this, but will you interrupt in five minutes?”
“No problem.”
She entered her office. Dawn was standing behind Grace’s desk staring out at the campus green. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
Dawn jerked around at the sound of Grace’s voice. “We didn’t have an appointment.”
“Well, we have been trying to meet. I’m glad you stopped by, but today is going to be a little crazy.”
“I saw the picture of you in the paper.”
“Everyone did. What can I help you with?”
“I want my job back.”
“It’s too soon, Dawn. We’re going to need at least another term before I can bring your name up to the board.”
Dawn nodded. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“I wish there was something else I could do.”
“Me, too,” Dawn said, picking up her large brown leather purse and leaving.
This was really not what she needed. She made a mental note to contact the other administrators she knew in schools outside of Texas. Maybe one of them would have an opening for Dawn.
She was tired. Adam had left Saturday afternoon and she hadn’t seen him since. He’d called a couple of times, but she’d refused to pick up the calls. The full board was meeting that afternoon and she needed to appear before them feeling fresh and strong. On her own.
But she’d missed him. She’d slept horribly the last two nights, which really ticked her off because she’d only spent one night in his arms. She shouldn’t be missing him already.
She went to the sideboard and fixed herself a cup of coffee. She heard someone behind her and knew it was Adam without turning around. The spicy scent of his aftershave surrounded her and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply.
Her concentration coalesced. He reached around her for a coffee mug, his body brushing against her back, and she shifted slightly, letting her shoulder rub his chest.
“Good morning, Adam.”
“Grace. Did you have a good weekend?”
She looked at him and realized that she had hurt him by ignoring him. Instead of giving her a sense of power, it made her feel small and petty. She put her cup down and took his hand, pulling him from the almost empty room. She took him down the hall into her office and shut the door.
Letting go of his wrist she stepped away from him. Even though she was in her office, the place where she always felt competent, she didn’t. If this was what falling in love with a man did to her, she didn’t want to be in love.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You couldn’t say that in the boardroom?” he asked, leaning back against the walnut paneled wall and watching her with that enigmatic gaze of his.
Over his shoulder was the portrait of her predecessor, the stern, matronly Marilyn Tremmel. The last Tremmel to be in charge. Grace wondered if Marilyn had ever had to deal with the problems she was facing.
“No, I couldn’t. I don’t want there to be any witnesses to this.”
“Still trying to avoid bad publicity?” he asked.
She couldn’t read his emotions in his tone or in his expression. Had she killed whatever he felt for her with her silence and distance? She still could feel him moving over her on her bed before he’d left to talk to Malcolm. She wanted him in her arms again.
“That’s not it. What I feel for you is personal and no one else’s business.”
“What do you feel for me, Grace?” he asked. His tone begged honesty but she knew that his definition of honesty and hers were different.
He had no problem stretching the truth. There had been an article in Sunday’s gossip column stating that he and she were old friends who’d been dating for a while. Not a lie exactly, but not
the truth, either.
“I missed you this weekend,” she said at last.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know. That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m not good at relationships.”
“Neither am I,” he said.
But she thought he was good at them. He had that knowledge of what they were supposed to be like from his Ozzie & Harriet upbringing. He didn’t have her screwed-up relationship ruler that came from the preacher telling her that her mother left because Grace wasn’t someone worth staying for.
“You had the perfect family growing up,” she said.
“I thought I did, but it turned out to be a lie.”
“What was a lie?”
Silence stretched. Adam blew out a deep breath.
“I’m not really a Bowen. I was adopted. All that Father Knows Best image that we had wasn’t real.”
She ached for Adam. For what he was saying. “Just because you were adopted doesn’t mean that your parents didn’t love you. They chose you, Adam.”
“I don’t know that. They never discussed my birth with me. They pretended I was theirs.”
She couldn’t stand not touching him so she grabbed his hand but kept at arm’s length. “Maybe because they really thought you were their son.”
“I’ve never been able to figure that out.”
She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him forever. But she heard voices in the outer office and knew the real world was about to intrude.
She didn’t want him to realize what a mess she was inside but she needed them to be okay before the meeting. She needed to know that this thing between them was solid.
“I really am sorry. I thought it would be better to put some distance between us.”
“Was it?” he asked, leaving his spot and walking toward her. More like stalking her, she thought, backing up until the desk stopped her retreat.
He kept on coming until his chest brushed her breasts and his hands came to rest on the desk on either side of her hips. “No.”
“Good.”
“I don’t like this, Adam, but I need you.”
“That’s what it’s supposed to be like.”
“Easy for you to say.”
He tipped her face up toward his. “It’s not easy for me to say, Grace. I don’t like this any more than you do, but I know that until we figure out what kind of relationship we have, we can’t both keep running.”
“I’m not a runner.” She said the words out loud but knew they were a lie. Hiding was another form of running. She’d created a life for herself based on who she’d always wanted to be. That was where her problems stemmed from with Adam.
She’d always thought he could belong to her only in her dreams. And having him in her life made her nervous. Made her doubt the things she’d always taken for granted. The parts of herself that she’d been most sure of.
She realized that the closing of the school and loss of her job paled in comparison to living her life without Adam. And that was why her weekend had been so long and so hard. Because she wanted him by her side and she was very afraid that once the school situation was straightened out he’d be on the road again and she’d be in her hiding place all alone, with only her fantasies to keep her company.
Adam had his bags packed in his car and was ready to head to the airport when this meeting was over. He knew when to cut his losses and move on, but now he had a few doubts. He knew he was running away. He’d learned long ago that when things got too messy emotionally, he did better moving on. His assistant was already working on the final details of the basketball tournament.
Grace had given him the impression that she was serious about not wanting him in her life anymore. But today she was different. As always, she was running hot and cold. He understood that part of her because he was the same way. He left usually because it was easier than staying and dealing with people. But Grace wasn’t just people and he wanted her.
He’d gone out of his way to make amends for ruining her reputation. He knew that most people wouldn’t care if they had their picture in the paper, but Grace was different. She was intensely private and her reputation had always been above reproach. He knew she savored that.
But that still wasn’t enough for her. She was skittish and scared. Watching him with those big wounded eyes of hers as if she were waiting for the next bad thing to happen. And his life, which, romantically, had always been fluid and carefree—safe—had been threatened by the deep need he had for her.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he said, tugging her off balance and into his arms. The only time he felt like he knew what he was doing was when she was in his arms.
“Me, neither, Adam,” she said, leaning forward, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting against him. He pulled her closer. He’d thought he’d never have the chance to hold her again but now he did.
He didn’t want to let her go. For the first time since his parents’ deaths he felt vulnerable.
After this weekend, he’d begun to understand why Viper bad-boy Stevie Taylor drank to escape. Understand how confusion and alcohol could lead to violence. Adam had wanted to put his foot through the wall or his fist through the door this weekend when he kept trying to call Grace and got no answer.
He wrapped his hand in her hair and pulled her head back. He found her mouth with his and plundered it ruthlessly, punished her with his teeth and lips and tongue for making him feel vulnerable…for leaving him.
She didn’t try to pull away and after a moment the rightness of having her in his arms soothed that troubled part of him. He gentled his embrace, sucking gently at her mouth. Skimming his lips over her jaw and rocking her in his arms.
When he lifted his head her lips were wet and swollen from his kiss. Her eyes were half-closed and she was clinging to him. It made him feel complete in a way he hadn’t realized he was missing until that moment.
Until he’d lived through a weekend without her. How the hell had Grace wound herself so deeply into his soul?
“Um…what was that about?” she asked.
Her hands were tracing a pattern on the small of his back under his suit jacket. He liked the feeling a lot. Okay, too much, he thought as he felt his body harden.
“Just showing you how much I missed you,” he said. He could do a better job of it if she’d let him set her on her desk and push her skirt to her waist, like her story character. But he sensed that Grace wouldn’t want to walk into an important meeting with damp panties and the knowledge that she’d just had an earth-shattering orgasm with one of the participants.
“I don’t know that I won’t retreat like that again,” she said. “I mean, if something else happens like the photo. I am trying though. Can you have patience with me?”
“Yes,” he said. Walking away from her wasn’t going to be easy. He knew that he was going to unpack his bags and figure out a way to run his company from here in Texas. Not because it was his home, but because it was where Grace was.
“Thank you, Adam,” she said, tipping her head back.
She leaned the slightest bit toward him. Watching the implicit trust she’d just given him by turning to him affected him. He refused to acknowledge it. He should have walked away.
He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers, meaning the embrace to be an apology for the rough kiss he’d just given her. She slid her hands down his chest and held on to his waist. He didn’t rush her or try to intimidate her with his kiss. Instead he teased her lips with his own.
Finally she opened her mouth and tilted her head to the side, inviting him to deepen the embrace.
A knock sounded on the door and he pulled back from her. He dropped nibbling kisses under her ear and then spoke into it.
“Gracie, I think someone wants you.”
“You?”
“Other than me,” he said.
Awareness pulsed through him. He wanted to lead her to that leather couch in the corner of her office. But if he did, she’
d never forgive him. There was a boardroom full of people waiting for them.
“Fix your lipstick. I’ll meet you in the boardroom.” He walked away while he could. Knowing that they’d turned a corner and not sure how to navigate the future.
He opened the door to find Malcolm there, regarding them gravely. Without a word, he led the other man away to give Grace time to compose herself. It was the least he could do.
Grace needed more than a minute to fix her lipstick. She sat down at her desk, realizing her desk blotter was crooked. She’d forgotten about the file folder with “Adam’s Mistress” in it. Dammit. This time she was shredding it, Bruce or no Bruce, on the way to the meeting.
She lifted the blotter and realized the story was gone. Nothing remained, not the folder nor the pages that were in it.
She started opening drawers searching for it but she couldn’t find it. Oh, God, she really didn’t need to have that on the loose right now. Why hadn’t she destroyed it already?
“Grace, the board of regents is seated and they are waiting for you.” Bruce stood in her doorway, looking uncertain.
“I’m on my way,” she said to Bruce.
“What are you looking for?”
“A file folder I’d tucked under my blotter. Have you seen it?”
“No, but I can ask the cleaning service. They were in last night for the bi-weekly cleaning.”
“Please do,” she said, forcing herself to stay calm and not panic. The file would show up and then she’d feel silly having worried about it being missing. Again.
The meeting went quickly. Malcolm and the other regents as well as the parents’ representative were all surprisingly supportive of her and Adam dating. But they made it very clear that there could be no more public photos or stories about them.
Having her private life discussed was her worst kind of nightmare, but Adam was seated next to her, and he reached over and squeezed her thigh just when she thought she’d try disappearing under the table.
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