Muse

by M. Lynne Cunning

  “I was wondering if I’d ever hear from you again. Seriously, Lauren, it’s been days.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, I am. I’ve been…busy.”

  “I’ve tried to get a hold of you numerous times. I don’t like to fight.”

  “We’ve become pretty good at it, though.” The words came out before she thought them through. It was the truth, but she hadn’t meant to sound like she was rubbing it in.

  “I know.” From the clipped tone of his voice, Lauren knew he was clenching his teeth as he spoke. She deserved that, too. “I’m trying to fix this,” he said.

  “I know, I know.” Lauren fiddled with the key to her dorm room and let herself in. No one would have known by looking at this place that this was where she had succumbed to her most primal desires and brought home someone who wasn’t her husband to fill those needs. No one except her and that man himself. “Michael, I can’t hash this out right now, all right? I have a…a meeting.”

  “A meeting?” His skepticism was obvious.

  “Yes, a meeting,” she snapped. “I have to go sit down with some of the other students and outline an assignment. It’s a group assignment. So, we’re having a meeting.”

  “A meeting,” Michael repeated. “All right, Lauren. Well, I suppose you can call me when you have time then.” He emphasized each word as he spit it out.

  “Michael, why are you getting upset over this? I’m here for class. Class involves student collaboration, which involves meeting with them. I’m sorry the timing—” Lauren stopped in mid-sentence as a hand slid gently to her side. She whirled around, wide-eyed, and came face to face with Dean, who was wearing an uncertain expression. How much of the conversation had he heard? She held a finger to her lips, begging him to stay quiet. If he so much as uttered a word, Lauren didn’t know what would happen next, but nothing good could come of it.

  “You’re sorry for what, Lauren?” Michael barked.

  She struggled to keep her expression blank and her composure intact. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. We’ll talk later, okay?” Her eyes never left Dean’s as she spoke. She wondered what he was thinking right now. He stood still, then Lauren watched as his hand grazed its way down her arm, sliding over to her hip. The mischievous grin he wore answered Lauren’s question all too clearly. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “Lauren, I don’t—”

  “I mean it.” Her voice caught in her throat as she tried to push Dean’s hands away. “I have to go. Right now.” Dean, ever the determined one, stepped closer to her, causing her to attempt to pass by him, one step closer to the door, only to be intercepted between him and the wall. He ducked his head and began to kiss her bare collarbone, holding her gently in place with his hands on her hips.

  “I guess we’ll talk later then.” Michael was angry, and his anger was growing with each passing second.

  Luckily, he ended the call before Lauren sighed out loud, her knees buckling under the feel of Dean’s lips on her skin. She leaned her head back against the wall, her breath coming out in ragged pants as Dean took the opportunity to trail his kisses up to her throat.

  “Dean…” Lauren breathed, putting her hands against his chest. She told herself to push him away, not to give in to the hot breath against her skin or the trembling of her own body under his fingertips, but she didn’t push him away. Instead, her fingers curled tightly in his T-shirt and pulled him closer. She waited for him to ask who she had been talking to on the phone, but his question never came.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered desperately.

  “Because I can’t handle what you’re doing to me,” he hissed against the base of her throat.

  Until his voice broke through the silence, Lauren hadn’t even realized she had asked the question out loud.

  CHAPTER 19

  After one night of betrayal, Lauren might have had the chance to ask forgiveness for her sins. It wouldn’t have been easy, but there may have been a chance at some kind of redemption from one solitary night of straying. Cheating on Michael would crush him, maybe even send him into a fury resulting in an explosion of anger and demanding that she leave, if only temporarily. But she somehow believed that a one-time mistake with Dean was something she and Michael could have risen above, if she was given the chance.

  Now, however, Lauren had tumbled over the jagged edge of repeated felonies. From the moment Dean’s fingertips touched her skin as she stood against the wall, phone in hand as she spoke with conviction to Michael while simultaneously growing weak at another man’s touch, she was catapulted into a series of late nights and afternoon rendezvous with Dean, leaving him only to go to class or work tirelessly on her novel.

  She felt trapped in a vicious circle of need. She needed Dean in order to continue to write the story that poured out of her each time her fingers touched the keyboard. There was no denying that he and the unexpected passion that exuded from him was fueling her imagination as she wrote with reckless abandon.

  She needed him, and therefore she could not deny him, or herself for that matter, when he spoke his poetic words and touched her with such tenderness. Sarah had found her Daniel, and if that meant Lauren had to play a dangerous hand of this game between her, Michael, and Dean, she was beginning to feel as though she no longer had a choice in the matter. She couldn’t walk away, not now.

  The fact that it all seemed too easy began to frighten her. Michael rarely called, and when he did, his voice was clipped and their conversations were short. If this was what their love had come to, Lauren did not harbor any desire to head back to Texas anytime soon.

  Dean, in all his creative and passionate glory, was available almost at a whim, ready and wanting her constantly. Lauren surprised herself when she realized that she had that craving as well. Unfortunately, her desire for him on an emotional level waxed and waned. The physical was what drove her to him, she now realized. To think that it was anything more than lust was a dangerous thing, and Lauren decided it was best to refrain from thinking about it. Doing seemed to be more her style lately, anyway.

  Lauren had been in New York for five weeks when she sat down with Libby in the cafe and let the truth fall from her lips. Her cell phone had just begun to vibrate relentlessly on the table in front of her and, with a quick glance at the caller display, Lauren had pressed the ignore button and set it back down.

  She lifted her gaze back up to Libby across the table and had been met with a stare that made her blood run cold. She knew. Libby knew.

  “What’s wrong, Libby?” Lauren might have known in that moment that her secret was not so secret anymore, but she was not about to admit it freely. Libby pushed her coffee aside and didn’t beat around the bush. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No, I don’t have a boyfriend.” It was a minor technicality. She wasn’t lying, not really.

  Libby cocked her head to the side slightly, her eyes searching Lauren’s. She said nothing, waiting.

  “I have a husband.” The four words passed Lauren’s lips quietly. An inner tension lessened in her shoulders and neck. Relief flooded through her. She hadn’t acknowledged the full weight of her secret until she’d finally exposed it. She waited for Libby’s eyes to grow wide with surprise, but it never happened. Instead, she looked down at her hands, seeming almost ashamed of herself.

  “I know. I mean, I figured as much.” Libby’s eyes lifted to hers as she carried on. “You always seemed to be ignoring your phone, and you seemed so reluctant to pursue Dean even though a blind person could very easily see how much chemistry you have together. I just knew there had to be someone else. A husband, though?”

  Lauren nodded. She should be ashamed of herself, and she knew it. “And I’ve slept with Dean.” She paused. “I mean, I’m still sleeping with him.” It was better to be completely truthful. Only half the truth would get her nowhere.

  “Again, anyone could tell that, too,” Libby said. “What I want to know is why you’re telling me. I mean, it’s o
bviously happened numerous times. You and Dean, I mean. And up until right now, you have been adamant there was nothing going on, not telling me anything. Why now, Sarah?”

  The mention of Sarah’s name caused Lauren to jolt, her eyes meeting Libby’s straight on. As she lifted her hand to squeeze the bridge of her nose tightly, shutting her eyes to give herself a moment to collect her thoughts, Lauren asked herself Libby’s question over and over again in her mind. Would Sarah have told her friends the truth, what she had done with another man despite her marriage?

  “I wanted someone to know what I’ve done,” she blurted out. “I’m well aware that what I’ve done is wrong, Libby, but at the same time, I don’t know. I can honestly sit here right now and tell you it is not love between Dean and I. At least, it isn’t from my side of the equation. It’s pure passion, it’s physical release, and it’s maybe even a sad attempt at getting the attention I’m not getting because of my marital problems right now. What Dean and I are may easily include all those things, but I mean it when I say that love does not have anything to do with it.”

  Libby raised an eyebrow, and Lauren wondered if her bluntness had taken her aback. “And do you truly believe it’s the same way for Dean? Really, Sarah, do you honestly believe that?”

  “No, I suppose I don’t.” Lauren stole a quick glance around the room in an attempt to break away from the tense conversation at their own table. “But I don’t know how to fix that now. I don’t want to hurt Dean. I really don’t.”

  “You do realize that you seem more concerned about hurting Dean than your own husband, right?”

  Libby’s question caught Lauren’s attention. What bothered her most was her lack of concern about Dean or Michael’s hurt feelings. It was true, she did not want to get caught or found out about cheating on her husband, and she also did not want to have to own up to using Dean as a pawn in her quest for the perfect romance story.

  Her only concern right now seemed to be her own well-being, not anyone else’s. Sometimes, though, Lauren was overwhelmed by her guilt for doing what she had done to the sanctity of her marriage with Michael and her shame at treating Dean so wrongfully. After all, both men had only ever been good to her in their own ways.

  “I’m really confused right now, Libby.”

  “I can’t imagine. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t even know where to begin fixing this whole mess.”

  “Do you want to fix it?”

  Again, Lauren stopped to stare at Libby incredulously. “What do you mean, do I want to fix it? Of course I do. Why would you ask me that?”

  “Well, it seems to me if I were cheating on my husband with a guy I had only just met a few weeks ago and was really of the mindset to fix it all, the first thing I would do without hesitation was call off the relationship with Dean and admit my wrongdoings to my husband. You have to be honest with both of them. It’s the only way to start fixing it, Sarah. If it is fixable, I mean.”

  The thought of her and Michael’s marriage crumbling had crossed her mind a few times. Hearing it come from someone completely objective to the situation had shed a different light on the looming prospect.

  “You don’t think Michael and I can fix this? You think I’ve gone too far to be able to get him to forgive me?”

  “I don’t know Michael, Sarah, so I can’t say for sure. What I am saying is that many marriages have been broken by less than what you have done. I’m sorry, but you must know that he may not forgive you for it, right?”

  She winced at the brutal truth. Libby was absolutely right. Lauren had no idea what would become of her and Michael after she headed back to Texas. Then again, she had not yet thought of how things would go with Dean when the time came to leave New York, either. She had always known she would leave him behind and head back to her real life, but it had never occurred to her that Dean may not accept that. It had also never occurred to her that a time would come when she would have to admit to him that she was married. Lauren shook her head as she thought about it all. In one month, she had given herself over to her whims and desires and, in the process of gaining collateral for her novel, was slowly losing everything else around her.

  “Dean might not forgive you either,” Libby added.

  “What do you want me to do, Libby?” Lauren snapped. “Tell Dean about my husband and lose him? Then go tell my husband about Dean and lose him, too? I’m not ready for that yet.”

  Libby held her hands up in mock surrender, leaning forward on her elbows as she spoke. “Calm down, I am only trying to help. It may not be what you want to hear, but you have to think about this rationally. Seriously, did you really think this whole thing would not come to a head at some point? Did you really think you would not have to admit your unfaithfulness to both your husband and Dean at some point? Sarah, did you actually think you would just get away with it?”

  She locked eyes with Libby, letting a short bout of silence fall between them. “Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

  Libby closed her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, leaning back in her chair again. “You have to tell Dean, Sarah. Call it off now, before things get any more complicated.”

  “You’re right. I will.”

  “Right now.”

  Lauren eyed her warily. “Now?”

  She nodded toward the phone on the table. “Right now. Text him. Tell him you want to meet him. You have to do it now or else you won’t do it at all.” She reached forward and, for a moment, Lauren thought she was going to attempt to make the call herself, but instead she pushed the cell toward her.

  It was just a text, and she agreed with everything Libby was saying. Why then was it so difficult for Lauren to send that text to him? The answer was simple and came to her quickly. Because she didn’t want it to end. Not yet.

  Lauren liked the way Dean made her feel, the way he was so attentive toward her. He was a man with equal physical attractiveness and inner passion, a combination not easily found in today’s society. Lauren did not want to have to give him up. Sarah needed him, therefore Lauren did too.

  Libby was right, however. If she had any chance at all of rectifying this situation she had willingly created, no matter how slim the chance, she had to end it now and face the consequences of her actions.

  “Okay, I’ll text him,” she said as she reached out and grabbed the phone off the table. Libby watched without saying anything as Lauren punched the keys on her phone.

  I need to talk to you, when can we meet?

  Lauren sent the message and looked back up at Libby. “It’s sent. Now what?”

  “We wait. One thing at a time. I really think you’ll be glad you ended it now, Sarah, rather than waiting it out. There was never going to be a right time to tell Dean and face the music with your husband. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s the truth.” Libby shrugged. The sound of Lauren’s phone vibrating against the table caused them both to look down at it. Dean’s words glowed back at Lauren and she sighed with relief. He wouldn’t be able to see her until later that night.

  She read it out loud to Libby but was already shaking her head in protest. “There is no way that will work. If he shows up late tonight, breaking it off with him will be the furthest thing from either of our minds.” She met Libby’s gaze and saw the disappointment in her eyes. “I’m just being honest,” she added.

  “Text him back and say tomorrow, during the day. You are not getting out of this, Sarah.”

  “I’m not trying to.” She grasped the phone from the table again and punched in the message to Dean.

  Not tonight then. Tomorrow afternoon. Say, around 2:00?

  Almost immediately, his reply was announced by the alert going off again.

  I’ll be there. See you soon.

  “There,” Lauren said after reading out Dean’s response and glaring at Libby. “Better?”

  Libby nodded. “It will be. Once you have everything out in the open, Sarah, you will feel much better about it, t
oo. Believe me.”

  “I wish I did. Believe me.”

  CHAPTER 20

  The clock seemed to be on fast forward as Lauren went about her day. As the minutes crept closer to two o’clock, Lauren began to dread Dean’s arrival. She knew the moment she saw him, she would be reluctant to follow through. As much as she knew Libby was right, that she and Dean needed to end their relationship, she began to grieve having to end such an intense and unbelievable union.

  Lauren would no longer have Dean as the muse he had become. She would no longer be able to contemplate, analyze, and create the words they pondered and wrote together for the assignments in their class. Her time in New York would no longer be the same. Reality would take over the reins of her life and things would change forever.

  Sarah would be no more.

  Once again, she would be Lauren, and perhaps that was the part she grieved for the most. Being Sarah had awakened Lauren to the most intimate parts of herself, mind, body, and soul. Being Sarah had allowed her a freedom she had not felt in some time. Perhaps she had never known it existed at all. She did not want to be Lauren again.

  Being Sarah had spoiled her, showed her exactly what she had been missing all these years. There was a creativity and a reined-in passion within her begging to be unleashed. As Sarah, she had given herself a little leniency, room to breathe and grow as her own person without having to acknowledge the ways in which that growth might affect the others around her. Sarah had seemed to harbor a greediness and a selfishness that was unmatched against Lauren’s desire to do what was right. Of the two, Sarah was definitely the stronger-willed one, and Lauren was going to miss that assertiveness and determination.

  The soft knock on the door jarred her from her thoughts. She held her breath. This was it, the conversation that would change everything and possibly ruin things for her on every level. Slowly, she exhaled in an attempt to calm her nerves and crossed the small room, opening the door to see Dean’s face. He smiled uncertainly.