Message from a Mistress (9 page)

Truth was, she had always held out hope that ultimately Eric loved her, because he could have easily divorced her and kicked her out without it costing him a red cent—and truly she still was waiting for that moment to come.

But she still felt like he had to have some love for her because he never left and he never asked her to leave. She swore there had to be some authenticity to the affection and devotion he bestowed upon her in public. Surely he wasn’t faking all of that….

“How do I look, Eric?” Jaime asked him as he strode into their bedroom suite
.

He didn’t break his stride to the dresser or even look in her direction. He didn’t say one word as he began to search the drawers for something
.

Jaime walked up to him and lightly touched his shoulder. “Eric, I said how do I look?” she said with insistence
.

He turned and stared at her stoically, still saying nothing
.

Jaime stepped back from him. “Eric, we’re having a dinner party—”

He brushed past her and left the room, leaving nothing but his cold dismissal to surround her
.

Ding-dong.

Jaime blinked away the tears she felt building and double-checked her appearance in the mirror. Although her hair was perfectly glossy and straight as it flowed like Pocahontas’s down her back, her MAC make-up flawlessly applied, and the deep purple satin sheath she wore fitted impeccably, Jaime knew it was all a facade
.

Ding-dong.

Taking a deep breath, she left the room and made her way downstairs. Eric was already standing at the door, waiting for her to reach his side so that they could greet their guests together
.

He opened the door and they both placed on perfectly lying smiles as their first guests arrived. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hall, stepped inside the foyer
.

Jaime’s smile became genuine as her mother-in-law removed her coat and double kissed Jaime’s cheek. “Something smells good.”

“Jaime made her homemade lasagna and a Sock it To Me cake, Ma,” Eric said, taking their coats
.

“Hello, son, and there’s my beautiful daughter-in-law,” Harrison Hall said, tall and distinguished and every bit the image of a judge
.

“Hi, Dad,” Jaime said, accepting a warm hug from him
.

Eric slid his arm around her waist and it felt foreign to her
.

“I tell her all the time how lucky I am to have her, Dad,” Eric said with warmth before leaning down to kiss the corner of Jaime’s mouth
.

Jaime leaned into him and placed her hand on his chest. “I’m the lucky one,” she said, looking up into his eyes
.

“Don’t they make a beautiful couple,” his mother sighed. “And their babies are going to be something.”

“Soon, Ma,” Eric said, easing his arm around to massage Jaime’s stomach.

Jaime thought of her body filled with their child, and love exploded in her heart for him.

Ding-dong.

His parents moved on into the living room.

“We would have beautiful children, Eric,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder.

He gently shook her off. “Please. You actually think I would fuck you without a condom?” he said brutally.

Jaime felt pain fill her eyes and she looked away from him, wanting badly to move away from him. But his arm locked like steel around her waist as he opened the door and greeted more spectators to the show they were putting on….

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The sound of the microwave brought her out of her memories. As she searched for the lid to the cup, Jaime knew that as much as she could hope was that the true facade was Eric pretending to hate her. But no one was that good an actor.

She carried the coffee outside and down the street to where Aria and Renee were still sitting on Jessa’s steps. “Drink this,” she said, handing it to Renee.

“Thanks, Jaime. I need it.”

“I’m gonna head back home,” Jaime told them, really just wanting to be alone with her thoughts.

“I guess we should too,” Aria agreed. “For one, I’m going to play Inspector Gadget and see if I can find some clues on whether I need to whup up on Kingston.”

Renee sipped the coffee and nodded. “I think we all should do that. And please, if one of us finds something, let’s promise to call the other two,” she said, rising to her feet.

Jaime nodded. “I will.”

“For sure, Renee. For sure.”

O
ur new home. Well, almost our new home, truth be told. My Realtor was the shit because we were leasing this house until my home in Richmond Hills was sold. That would free up the capital to purchase our dream home. I loved it and I would love being in it with him even more. As I walked through each room of the three-thousand-square-foot house, I couldn’t wait to start making memories together. A smile of pure pleasure and satisfaction covered my face. Our day was finally here
.

I checked my watch. It was just 2:00 P.M. He’d promised they would be back from the fishing trip around seven or eight and he was coming straight home. To me. His one and only love
.

I took a deep and satisfying sip of wine. All of the furniture had been brought in and set up by the movers. The boxes were neatly stacked in their appropriate rooms for us to unpack tomorrow…together
.

Regrets? I had none. After Marc’s death I thought I would never love again, but I found life in his arms. I found how to breathe again. I found how to be again. He did that for me. No one could understand that. No one. I couldn’t give up this chance to be happy. I couldn’t give up this chance to be loved. Cherished. Adored
.

I threw my friends away, but I’d make more.

I gave up my house that was paid for via Marc’s insurance, but now I had another one. Bigger and better too.

I loved a man who was supposed to be faithful to another, but he would never betray me. Our bond was too special. Besides, no man had ever cheated on me. None. This I knew.

I had to tell people what I’d done—stealing one of my friends’ husbands—and there would be scorn but we would get through it together.

His family would have to adjust to the new Mrs., but in time they would. They had no choice.

This was no fling. This was the start of
everything
for us.

Mrs. Brokenhearted would get her divorce papers sometime this week, and when everything was legally square, I would marry the man I loved, who loved and adored me endlessly.

Reaching in the pocket of my linen slacks, I pulled out my cell phone and flipped it open. As I dialed the number of the secret cell phone he kept just for us to talk, I made a note to have him shut the other one off.

I’d be damned if I sat back with her calling him and begging him to come home—yes, he was that good
.

I shivered at the memory of the sex we’d shared
.

“Hello, lover. I’m home. The movers are gone and I’m all alone thinking of you, waiting on you, needing that dick.” I laughed huskily into the phone. “Tonight I will cater to you. I will pamper you. I will suck and then fuck you. Hurry home, baby. I don’t want to start playing in this pussy without you here to watch me
.”

With a smile, I snapped the phone closed and held my glass up in the air. “Here’s to
my
happiness
.”

A
ria paused at the door to her house before she used her key to open the heavy front door. As soon as she stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind her, she felt weak and slumped back against it. She closed her eyes and tried to fight through a wave of emotions that threatened to strangle her.

Her purse, cell phone, and keys dropped to the floor. She didn’t care. She was barely keeping herself from falling the hell out.

“Come on, Aria. Get it together, bitch,” she warned herself as she pushed off the door and forced herself to stiffen her spine.

Jaime and Renee had headed home.

And there she was. Alone. Angry. Aggravated. Afraid.

Releasing a heavy breath, Aria kicked off her heels and then headed down the hall to Kingston’s office. She opened the door and stood in the doorway, looking at the one room in the house that was Kingston’s and Kingston’s alone.

She hesitated. Aria had never snooped before. She never really felt she had a reason.

Until now.

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the door frame. She honestly didn’t want to be that wife that had to sniff drawers and play detective, trying to catch her man doing dirt.

Until now.

Aria walked up the hall with her head hung low, but then she turned on her heel and headed straight into the office to his desk. She dropped into the plush leather seat, her eyes falling on their five-by-seven wedding photo sitting at the edge of the desk calendar. The photographer had caught that small and very intimate moment just before their lips connected as they stared lovingly into one another’s eyes.

Of all their photos, Kingston had always said that this particular one was his favorite. “I see your love for me,” he would say. Aria leaned forward to pick it up, smoothing her finger against his profile with a soft smile.

Brrrrnnnngggg.

Aria damn near dropped the photo in her scramble to pick up the cordless phone. “Hello?” she breathed more than spoke into the phone as she leaned forward to set the photo back in its spot.

“What you doing?” her mother, Heather Goines, said into the phone, her tone already playful.

Aria felt relief flood over her. “Oh, my God, Mama, guess what?”

“What’s the matter?” she said.

Aria let out a deep sigh and then told everything to her mother, leaving out nothing. Not even Malcolm.

Heather let out a sigh longer than her daughter’s. “Boy, you just heaped a bunch of crap on my plate. First off, are you okay?”

“I’m just trying to wrap my mind around all this, Mama,” she admitted as she dropped her head in her hand.

“Well, you gave it to me and you know how I go…I gots to give it back the way I see. You ready?”

And that’s why Aria loved her mother beyond words. Nothing but realness.

“First off, Jessa need her ass whupped and good, but right now she is so irrelevant because the commitment was made by y’all’s husbands and not her. Believe it or not, this ain’t about that scandalous bitch. This is about y’all’s marriages because if not her, it could have been somebody else. A faithful man remains faithful regardless of the woman. You understand that, Aria?”

Aria’s eyes shot back to their wedding photo. The truth of her mother’s words was hard to swallow. “Yes.”

“Now here is the million-dollar question for your ass, Aria. Forget Jessa. Do you think your husband is cheating on you?”

Aria paused.

“Don’t think about it. Just answer with your gut reaction?”

“Before that dumb message I would have said no…but I would also say I don’t put nothing past no man.”

“So do you think Kingston has left you?”

Aria’s eyes flooded with tears and she reached out blindly to slam their wedding photo face down onto the desk. “Yes,” she admitted softly as her throat tightened right along with her chest.

“Oh, hell no. Aria Monique Livewell, are you crying? I know damn well this ain’t the same Aria that gave me hell in her teens.”

Aria’s back stiffened. “Mama, this ain’t easy. Shit.”

“Oh, it’s real easy and real simple too,” Mrs. Goines said. “Either he’s a no-good dog and don’t deserve one tear shed over his corpse, far less because some other woman got to try and keep him chained, or it’s not him and you crying for nothing. See? Easy. Simple.”

Aria said nothing as her tears dried up. Her mama had that effect on people.

“And screwing some stranger is not going to give you anything but a wet ass and maybe a disease a shot can’t clear up. You hear me?”

Okay, sometimes Mama is too real. Damn.

“Now why don’t you come on down to the hood with your family? We frying fish in the backyard and playing cards.”

“I’ll pass. I need to think some, so I’m gonna chill out here until Kingston gets home.”

“Suit yourself, but if you need me to catch Uncle One-Eye up to your house, I will.”

“No!”
Aria laughed. “No, no, no. I’m good. Let Uncle One-Eye stay retired from driving. There’s a reason why his name is One-Eye, so leave the Nova parked, Mama.”

“Shee-it, that one-eye jigga be driving his ass off. You don’t know?”

“And I don’t want to know,” Aria said dryly.

Heather just laughed.

After a few more minutes of her mother trying to distract her with endless family gossip, Aria finally begged off the phone with a promise to call her as soon as she knew who was the ultimate victim of Jessa’s betrayal.

Aria hung up the phone and her eyes spotted a heart sketched onto Kingston’s calendar and in the center was her name. Aria. It was like saying she was the one who filled up his heart, and until that morning, Aria didn’t have much doubt that she did.

They made love, fucked, and freaked each other out damn near every night—only illness, extreme fatigue, or her monthly kept them from each other.

Kingston never pulled one of those dip moves and not come home every single night to sleep in her arms.

Their marriage wasn’t perfect like Eric and Jaime’s, but they were stable and in love.

So why was she letting one stupid text message tear away at the foundation of her marriage?

Because of secrets.

She had some of her own that weighed down on her conscience and made her wonder why she should expect total honesty from her husband when she was not giving him the same thing….

Aria mouthed the words as she reread the last few lines she had typed onto her laptop computer. She stretched her limbs from her spot snuggled into the corner of her favorite armchair. It was two in the morning. Kingston was in bed. The entire house was quiet and dark. She was writing away and loving it
.

She smiled and twisted her hair atop her head as she remembered being a ghetto girl who loved to read and had big dreams of growing up to be a writer. After earning her journalism degree from Columbia, Aria did that. She worked her way up the ladder as research assistant, editorial assistant, and contributing writer on several well-known magazines and then she entered the arena of freelance writing—and it was there that she felt she flourished. Perhaps it was the freedom of not having a nine-to-five, but her creative spirit soared when she struck out on her own. Her articles and celebrity interviews had appeared in some of the top magazines in the country. Throughout her career, she worked hard to establish herself as a professional and creative writer with vision and a fresh outlook.

And now with her new column for
Lady
magazine she was really enjoying the combination of making money and exploring the written word.

The fine hairs on the back of her neck and her arms stood on end. Aria shifted her eyes up from her computer to find Kingston leaning in the doorway of her office just off their bedroom.

He was naked and she allowed her eyes to explore his body, wondering if she would ever not enjoy the sight of him—especially naked.

“Hey, you,” she said. “Why are you up?”

“I missed you in bed,” he told her as he strolled across the room with his dick swinging back and forth like a bat across the top of his thighs
.

“Awww, my baby,” she told him as she removed the glasses she only used to read and work on the computer
.

He sat down on the floor by her chair and pulled her legs over his shoulder to remove the Hello Kitty socks from her feet. Aria’s head fell back against the chair. “Oh, goodness, that feels so good,” she sighed. “God blessed you with those hands, Dr. Livewell.”

Kingston chuckled. “That’s what my patients say all the time,” he teased
.

Aria froze and tried to snatch her feet from his grasp, but he held her ankles as he laughed. His work as a plastic surgeon was a point of contention for them. “Just playing, baby,” he told her, bending down to suck her toes.

Aria’s anger dissipated like nothing.

“You almost done working?” he asked.

Aria shrugged. “Why?”

Kingston turned around and rose to his knees to take the laptop from her lap and set it on the floor. He swung her legs around and pressed them open. Her nightshirt inched up her thighs, exposing that she’d skipped putting on panties. “Time for play,” he told her as he leaned forward to lick her mouth hotly.

Aria frowned. “Kingston, baby, I’m sweaty and funky and…”

“And about to be fucked by your husband,” he finished for her as he kissed away her protests.

Aria gasped as he grabbed her thighs and jerked her down to the edge of the chair.

He leaned back to stare down at her pussy in the light from the computer screen. “Pure pussy,” he told her, taking his dick in his hand to tap against her clit and lips.

“Pure good pussy,” Aria told him cockily as he pushed just the tip inside her lips to tease her core.

Aria set her feet down on the arms of the chair as Kingston rolled his hips and slowly fucked just the top of her pussy with the thick tip of his dick. His tip slipped in and out of her, causing her lips to smack like kisses. “Just a little light fuck,” he told her thickly. “I’m not even gonna get my whole dick wet.”

Aria was too busy shivering to care how much dick he slid in her.

He stopped and looked down at her. “Let’s make a baby,” he said suddenly.

Aria’s eyes popped open and she froze. “Say what? Say who?” she said, pushed out of her sex-daze state.

Kingston reached down and held her chin. “Let’s make a baby, Aria. It’s time.”

Aria smiled, trying to keep the panic she felt from her eyes as she looked at her husband, the man she loved.

“I want you to have my baby. I want to watch him or her grow inside you. I want to be there to cut the cord. The whole nine, Aria. I know I said we could wait, but dammit, I’m ready,” he told her with intensity.

Aria’s heart swelled with love…and with pain because she couldn’t fulfill his dreams and his wishes. But she couldn’t tell him that. She wouldn’t. She reached up to tease his nipples with her fingertips and she worked her strong pussy muscles to open and close around his dick. “Make love to me, Kingston. Please,” she begged, jerking her nightshirt up to tease her own nipples just the way she knew he loved.

And she felt sweet relief when he swore and started that vicious stroke inside her, going against his word as he went deep and wet every inch of his dick.

As her husband made savage love to her, Aria wished she could enjoy it but her mind was stuck on how she hated to disappoint him. She could only pray that his sudden wish for a child had been more about the heat of the moment than anything.

He dug his hands beneath her bottom and held her ass up as his strokes deepened and he shuddered with his release. “Aria,” he moaned.

She kissed his shoulder and worked her hips to pull down on his dick and drain the line.

Afterward she held her husband closely as he stood and swept her up into his arms to carry her into their bedroom. As they snuggled close in their favorite spoon position, Kingston said, “We’re not done talking about a baby, Aria.”

She just stroked the arms that he settled over her waist. Long into the night she lay there with her eyes open, hoping, wishing she didn’t have to disappoint the only man she truly believed had ever loved her.

That had been over a year ago and somehow she had convinced Kingston that they should wait, using every excuse she could think of, from their careers to their hefty mortgage and everything in between. She was stalling because Aria didn’t have the heart or the clit to tell her husband that she couldn’t have children.

Aria reached over and picked up their wedding photo. Kingston was right; the love they had for each other was evident in the photo. The man had no clue of the true woman he married. Her past—the past she was ashamed of—threatened to step into the light and destroy her present….

Aria grooved her fourteen-year-old body to the music booming against the walls of the club. When she noticed the crowd of men in the corner watching her, she started to grind and wind her hips even more until a snake couldn’t compete with her—especially in the tight baby tee she wore tied beneath her full-grown breasts. Flat stomach. Wide enough hips. Tight jeans cut low on her hips, showing the vee of her hot pink thong.

She knew she was the shit.

“Heeey! Go, Aria. Go, Aria. Twirk it, work it like you got no fear,” her eighteen-year-old cousin Jontae cheered her on. “Go, Aria. Go, Aria. Pop it. Drop it. You the shit in here.”

Aria loved it. She was having a ball. And the fact that her mama thought she was spending the night at a friend’s house—and not up in a club courtesy of her fake ID—made the night even more fun. Fuck it.

Jontae was her uncle Freddie’s daughter from South Carolina and she was spending the summer with her father and teaching Aria all type of things she’d never even dreamed about.