Message from a Mistress (18 page)

Jaime grabbed her purse and her keys from the foyer as Eric slumped down to sit on the bottom step of the staircase.

“Maybe you have masks too, Eric. Maybe you’ve always been an S-and-M freak and this was just your opportunity to have your freaky sex dreams come to life.”

He said nothing as she jerked the front door and the smell of suburbia filtered in. And then it hit her. She was leaving her marriage and her dream home in Richmond Hills. She didn’t even have a plan on where to go, but the debit card to her secret account nestled in her wallet would help.

Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the handles of her suitcases and walked out on her life as she knew it, not even bothering to close the front door behind her.

She loaded her suitcases into her trunk and closed it. Hopped into the driver’s seat. As she passed the houses of her friends, she decided it would be best to update them on her new status. They might have their own drama to deal with as the day came to an end.

Jessa Bell.

Jaime realized she hadn’t even asked Eric which of the men—if any—hadn’t returned from the trip. He’d denied a relationship with Jessa and Jaime didn’t know if she believed him, but she did know that right now she didn’t care one damn bit.

For once it was all about her.

Her wants.

Her needs.

Her desires.

As she eased the car through the open gates of Richmond Hills, Jaime felt the solace inside the vehicle. The old Jaime would hold all of this in and not dare let anyone behind the velvet rope of her private thoughts and feelings. But she was trying to leave that part of her behind. She wanted to talk it over with someone and get it all off her chest.

Jaime reached in her purse for her cigarette case and soon she was inhaling deeply on a cigarette. She pulled to a stop at a red light.

The only person she felt she could confide in without judgment was Renee, but Jaime wasn’t going to lump her drama onto her friend’s lap, especially not today.

Needing a distraction and afraid thoughts that she made the wrong decision would surface, Jaime turned on her satellite radio and hummed along to the slow jams being played.

As she drove through the streets she knew she had a lot to do in preparation for her life. She could have insisted Eric leave, but Jaime honestly didn’t want the memories attached to the home she once loved. She wanted a fresh start. New life. New home. New environment. New everything. But all of the decisions she had to make about her life would have to wait for tomorrow. There was not a thing she could accomplish tonight.

Well, almost nothing.

Jaime couldn’t really identify the exact moment she decided this was what she needed. But she was weak and wet with anticipation by the time she pulled her Volvo into the parking lot of the strip club. It had been months since she gave in to her monthly fix, but nothing about it had changed. Same brick building with neon flashing lights. Same steady thump of the music’s bass against the walls.

She eyed the door, knowing that all she had to do was walk inside and Pleasure could be all hers—for a little while, anyway. The familiarity of shame started to creep on her but she pushed it aside. She remembered how badly she felt lying on that floor, pussy still sore from his sex when he asked to be paid.

But goodness, she had never ever cum so much in all her life. Truth be told, sex that good was worth every red cent.

Over the months she hadn’t forgotten it, even when she felt guilt over hurting Eric and shame over paying for sex.

“What am I doing here?” she asked herself out loud, already putting her still-running car in reverse to back out of the parking spot.

“Whaddup, stranger?”

Jaime slammed on her brakes and looked out the driver’s side window at the man, the stripper, the walking sex himself standing there, looking down at her like he was ready, willing, and able to give her just the pleasure she craved…for a price. She took a deep breath of her cigarette as the heat infused her body. Six months and he only looked better. The black sleeveless shirt he wore showed off his muscled arms and clung to the rippled muscles of his chest and abdomen. Although his sweats were thick and baggy, his penis bulged against the material.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said, hitching the Nike bookbag up higher on his shoulder.

Jaime had never really conversed with him before and she didn’t know what to say. “Just been really busy, you know,” she said weakly, putting out the cigarette and instantly hating how lame she sounded.

Pleasure smiled, his white teeth flashing against his chocolate skin as he bent down until they were eye level. “You came here for me, didn’t you?” he asked in a low voice that Jaime found sexy as shit.

She licked her suddenly dry lips and nodded, unable to look away from him.

“You don’t want to go back in that club, do you?”

She shook her head.

“And you want me to fuck the shit out of you…
again
…don’t you?” he asked her cockily.

Jaime shivered and pursed her lips at the very thought of his body and his dick on her…in her. She didn’t answer him but the look in his eyes let her know she didn’t have to.

He stood up and pulled a card out of his pocket. “Get a room and call me. I should be there by twelve,” he told her.

Am I really about to do this?
she thought as she took the card from his hand and shivered from the touch of his skin breezing across hers.

He smiled and licked his lips, showing off deep dimples she wanted to bury her tongue in, before turning to walk toward the rear of the club.

“Pleasure,” she called.

He stopped and locked intense eyes on hers.

“How much?” she asked, hardly believing she was soliciting sex outside a seedy strip club.
Maybe Eric isn’t the only pervert
.

“How long?” he countered.

That forgotten bud between her legs swelled to life and called out for attention and satisfaction. “The rest of the night…if you can,” she said, feeling shy as butterflies claimed her stomach.

He nodded. “Five bills. Midnight,” he said, waving briefly before he disappeared around the back of the building.

Knock-knock-knock.

Jaime walked to the door of the hotel suite as naked as the day she was born in a pair of sequined Gucci heels. She had pushed aside thoughts of her failed marriage, Jessa’s text, and anything else beside enjoying herself.

As she stepped back to allow Pleasure inside the suite lit with candles, she eyed him and promised herself that this was the absolute last time.
Just once more
, she thought as he stopped and scooped her naked body up into his arms, pushing the door closed with his foot.

Just once more.

I
n the few hours that had passed since she left Aria’s house, Renee had busied herself settling back into her role as full-time housewife. She finished cleaning the entire house, including the kids’ bedrooms. She made red rice and sausage, a garden salad, and homemade hush puppies to go along with the fish he caught—and just in case they were still having friends over. She lit scented candles, put on subtle and inviting lighting, and took a leisurely bath.

It was time to get back to basics.

Once she settled onto the corner of the club chair by the window, she picked up her cordless phone and dialed Jackson, waiting for his voice mail to come on.

Beep.

She closed her eyes and spoke from her heart. “This morning you said that we needed to talk, and I will admit that those words can be the scariest thing a wife is ever told by her husband. They are words that can make a smart woman pause and reflect. For the first time in our marriage, those words introduced me to the fear of our marriage coming to an end.”

Renee paused and pressed the phone to her ear as she bit her bottom lip and closed her troubled eyes. “Of course, I could be assuming the worst, but that is what the end of this marriage is for me—the absolute worst. I love you and you are my heart. Our family is the most important thing to me and…and I am willing to work and fight for it.”

She took a deep breath, completely aware that the next words out her mouth meant giving up everything she had worked so hard for. “If my working means losing you, then…then…then I won’t work anymore. I just want things between us to be the way they used to be. I need things between us—”

Beep…beep…beep.

Renee ended the call and placed the phone back on the charger. She had reached the end of the allotted time for a message, but that was fine—she had said all that she wanted to say. Hopefully it was enough.

Renee sat there snuggled in the corner of her chair and witnessed the slow descent of night. She watched the cars slowly passing by on the street and the families arriving and leaving home, lost in her thoughts, wondering which road she was traveling on—and just how long she had been lost.

There was one thing she knew for sure.

She wasn’t giving Jackson up without a fight. No way in hell.

Her BlackBerry lit up in the darkness and vibrated in her lap. Renee dropped her eyes down at the screen. It was their daughter Kieran calling. Renee picked it up but she didn’t answer it. Her kids were safe and secure at their grandparents’. Right now she didn’t feel like stepping into the role of mother. She wasn’t up to random questions about clothes, or boys, or curfews. Renee loved her daughter, but right now Mama was going through something she hoped Kieran would never experience.

Tonight she would find the truth about her marriage. She wanted to know it all, regardless of whether Jessa was a spoke in the wheel or not. It was time to see just what cards they held.

Her main focus was her role of wife—a role that she was ready to step into 100 percent. No more half-stepping. She had all day to weigh her options and it hit her hard that she couldn’t lose Jackson for anything or anyone…not even her career. Not anymore. For her, it was time to save their family.

She’d almost cheated.

Jackson might have cheated.

When they’d wed she wouldn’t have ever guessed that either of them would stray. Never.

Sighing, she rubbed her hands over her eyes and fought the urge to rush to their bar and pour a huge drink for herself. She had long since sobered up from earlier, and alcohol would only numb the truth—not make it disappear.

The lights from a vehicle flashed against the window and Renee sat up a bit straighter. She relaxed again when she saw it was a car and not Jackson’s pickup truck. Her eyes stayed locked on the car as it neared her house. It was Jasper and Victoria’s Lexus SUV, and although Jasper had left in the SUV it was Victoria and Victoria alone who pulled up and parked in their driveway. Renee vaguely wondered just where Victoria had left her husband.

When Victoria climbed out of the SUV and paused to look up at the dark and unlit house of the woman sleeping with her husband, Renee felt an affinity for her betrayed neighbor. Kelly’s house was dark and Renee wondered if she was home.

Her eyes shifted back to Victoria lit by the street lamp. When she angrily wiped her face, Renee knew the woman was crying. Moments later she turned and walked into her house. Although there were many feet between them, Renee felt every bit of the emotions Victoria had to be suffering with. Every single one.

Closing her eyes, Renee released a heavy breath and rubbed them. She glanced at her watch. It was just after seven. Usually by now on a fishing day, Jackson would have called to say he was on his way home. She picked up her BlackBerry and dialed his cell phone.

“If you want him, Kelly, he is allllll yours!”

Renee frowned and looked out the window just as Victoria heaved an armload of clothes over the white picket fence and onto Kelly’s lawn. They resembled awkward, oversized snowflakes or confetti floating to the ground. Renee watched as Victoria stormed into her house and back several times to send what she assumed was Jasper’s clothing over the fence.

As Victoria made her fourth trip inside her house, Renee spotted Kelly peeking out a second-story window.
Poor child is afraid
, she thought.

The slamming shut of a car door made Renee’s head whirl and her heart nearly leapt to her throat to see Jackson climbing out of the truck and walking around to reach into the bed. She’d been so busy in Victoria’s drama that she completely missed her husband’s arrival.

“He’s home.”

That fact alone made her shiver with excitement, but it was far from time to celebrate.
Maybe he’s just home to tell me I am no longer the woman he loves and needs in person. How big of him, realizing that a text message from his mistress just didn’t have the same…class
.

Renee released a little laugh that clearly showed that she truly felt there wasn’t a damn thing funny at all.

As he made his way up the asphalt walkway, Renee rose to her bare feet and smoothed the white cotton maxi dress she wore. She placed a smile on her face and turned just as Jackson walked through the door. Even as she struggled with the possibility of his betrayal, Renee thought her husband looked handsome even in jeans, navy T-shirt, and boots.

The years had been good to Jackson, she thought, crossing her arms over her chest as she took in his tall and square build, the slight touches of silver at his temples, and just the hint of crow’s feet at his eyes. He was aging like a fine wine, and Renee didn’t want anyone else to sip from him. Period.

He stopped in surprise at the sight of her standing there. “Hey,” he said briefly, tossing his keys onto the end table before he pushed his large, beefy hands into his pockets.

Renee uncrossed her arms and walked over to him. “Had a good day?” she asked, surprised by the normalcy in her voice as she came to a stop before him.

He nodded briefly before he brushed past her. “I need a shower,” he said.

Renee stiffened and clutched her hand into a fist as a shot of pain and disappointment radiated through her chest. Each sound of his feet landing on the wooden steps echoed inside her.

She didn’t know what she expected of his arrival home, but it all seemed anticlimactic. Pacing, Renee bit the gloss from her lips. She wrestled with whether she should confront him about Jessa Bell’s accusation or not. She wrestled even more with whether she wanted to know or not.

She paused at the foot of the stairs.

Jackson was home, but for how long?

Renee jogged up the stairs and into their bedroom. There was a trail of fish-smelling clothes leading to the closed double doors of their bathroom. She eyed his jeans lying at the foot of the bed.

Her hands itched to rummage through the pockets, but she stepped over them instead. She wasn’t at all prepared for what she might find. Not at all.

Opening both the doors, Renee stepped into the bathroom. She frowned to see Jackson sitting nude on the commode on his cell phone. He looked up in surprise at her sudden appearance.

“I’ll call you back,” he stammered, closing the cell phone.

Was it Jessa?

“Is everyone still coming over to play cards?” she asked, deciding to play it cool.

Jackson nodded. “Far as I know.”

Renee licked her lips and arched her brow. “Eric and Kingston?” she asked, walking over to the glass shower stall to start it for him.

“Did one of the ladies say different, because the fellas said they were still coming when I dropped them off at home.”

All three came home? Had Jessa lied, or was her lover at home breaking his wife’s heart at this very moment….

Renee shifted her eyes to look at Jackson through the open glass door of their shower.

Ask him, Renee. Ask your husband if he’s fucking your best friend. Ask him!

Jackson flushed the commode.

Ask him was he or is he going to leave you and his family to live with an undercover slut
.

But she said nothing as he walked past her again to step into the glass shower stall.

This is ridiculous. Did he get my message? What does he think? He said he wanted to talk. About what? And when? Why is he stalling? And why am I letting him?

Renee walked over to the sink. She frowned. His cell phone was sitting on the edge but it was powered off.
What the hell?

She looked up at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t like the woman she saw. This afraid to talk, skirting a major issue, pretending nothing was wrong wife was not her at all. But fear of losing him had the real Renee completely paralyzed.

Her eyes shifted down to the cell phone, but she turned and rushed from the bathroom instead. Flying out the room and down the stairs to the bar, she poured herself a shot of tequila and downed it quickly before she poured another. Her hand gripped the glass tightly as anger consumed her. Anger at herself.

I should boil some grits and do an Al Green on his ass right in that goddamn shower.

Instead she swallowed down another shot, and it burned like fire on her empty stomach. In one day she had drunk more alcohol than she had in years. Shit.

Renee cupped the glass like a ball and hurled it across the room. It slammed into the side of the lamp, knocking it over and shattering the lightbulb. The living room darkened just a little bit as Renee turned and slid down the side of the bar to the floor. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly as she lightly hiccupped and then belched.

Renee giggled a bit as she craved the days when marijuana made everything in her life seem funny. In this moment she could use a joint, blunt, or whatever they called it these days. She’d even hit the medicinal kind.
Humph, it’s supposed to be for glaucoma or some shit. My ass been blind to some shit. Help me see shit clearer, Mary Jane.

“Renee?” Jackson called out.

She dropped her head on her arms as she listened to his feet slapping against the wood of their stairs.

“Renee?” he called out again.

She knew he was nearing her because the tiny, fine hairs on the back of her neck and her arms stood on end. Jackson’s presence had always seemed to electrify her.

“Do you want a divorce, Jackson?” she asked, unable to take the cat-and-mouse game he was playing.

She looked up as he stood beside her still damp from his shower with nothing but a towel loosely wrapped around his waist, his heavy dick pressing through the thick material like a mighty fist.

“Do you?” he asked.

“Hell no, Jackson. No, I don’t want a divorce,” she cried out, tears of desperation filling her eyes. “Did you get my message?”

He nodded, his handsome and square face solemn. “I got it.”

Renee clumsily shifted to her knees as tears filled her eyes and streamed down her face. “What else do I have to do to prove that I want my marriage, then, Jackson? Do you want me to beg you? Then fine, here I am on my damn knees begging.”

“Get up, Renee,” he said, reaching down to grab her shoulders tightly.

“Please don’t leave me,” she wept without shame as he pulled her to her feet.

Renee wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply of the familiar scent of him. “Jackson, please don’t give up on us,” she whispered into his ear.

“Renee.”

“Fuck that job. Fuck my career,” she pleaded, aware that his arms didn’t surround her body to hold her close.

“Renee!”

“I love you. I need you. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me—”

“Renee,” he shouted, pulling her arms from around his neck and stepping back from her to shake her a little bit. “Listen to me. Damn!”

Renee breathed deeply and tried her very best to calm herself as she swiped the track of her tears from her face. She felt ashamed that she had begged this man who was supposed to love her. Supposed to cherish and keep her. Honor her. All of it. Until death.

And even after all her pleading, not once had he assured her that he wasn’t going to leave her and the kids. Not once.

“I don’t care about anything that happened in the past, Jackson,” she told him as he steered her over to the sofa. “I just want to know that we can move forward.”

Jackson sat down on the wooden coffee table, his face solemn as he took both her shaking hands in his. He looked at her long and hard and then looked away at something…anything…but her eyes. “If I could leave the past in the past, I would.”

Renee pulled her hands out of his.

“I’m so sorry, Renee.”

“For?” she asked softly, looking down at her wedding ring on her left hand.

Jackson swiped his hand over his mouth. “I love you, Renee…”

She flinched. “But,” she added, feeling like it was about to drop from his mouth anyway.

He risked another look at her and Renee saw the regret, the shame, and the guilt in his face before he even opened his mouth. She gasped a little as her heart clutched tightly.
No. No. No
.