Chapter 2
The night is expensive champagne and charcoal suits talking billable hours. It’s the same damn cocktail reception year after year. Why doesn’t everyone get sick of these?
I’ve already found James Whitmore. He’s standing with two associates near the windows, holding a glass of red wine he’s barely sipped from. I clocked him the second Robert and I walked in, and I’ve been tracking his position for forty minutes like this is a poker game. I’m watching for tells.
Less than two weeks ago, I had two men inside me at the same time. I’m nodding at stories about the stock market and mortgages while my dress feels like it’s shrinking around my ribs. I’m vacuum-sealed into Mrs. Robert Matthews. So far removed from the filthy slut at the casino.
My pussy gives a quiet throb, like she’s reminding me which version of Shannon she prefers.
Not now, you horny traitor.
Robert steps into the hallway to take a call. Just like that, I’m alone in a room full of people with no husband to hide behind.
James appears at my elbow.
“Shannon. Good to see you.” His smile is fake warm.
“James, hi. How’s Laura?”
“She’s great. Couldn’t make it tonight.” He tilts his wine glass. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
Every muscle in my face locks into position. I take a sip of my champagne so my hands have something to do besides tremble.
“I was at the Goldpoint Casino a couple weeks back.” He says it like it’s nothing. “Interesting place. I could have sworn I saw someone who looked just like you near the bar. Heading toward the elevator, actually.”
Okay, Shannon. You’ve bluffed across a poker table with a pair of sevens. You can handle one curious guy at a cocktail party.
“The Goldpoint?” I wrinkle my nose. The socialite who’s never heard of such a place. “That doesn’t sound like my scene.”
“No, I suppose not.” James laughs. But his eyes don’t leave mine, and they’re sharp. The look of a man who caught a tell.
“Must have been my doppelg?nger. She owes me money,” I say. He laughs again, and I redirect before he can circle back. “How’s the Davenport case going? Robert mentioned it’s been consuming the whole floor.”
He takes the bait, and we talk about the Davenport case. The whole time, my heart is hammering so hard I’m sure he can see my pulse jumping in my throat. He excuses himself to refill his wine, and his expression as he walks away is pleasant.
I’m still uneasy, but I think I fooled him.
I deserve an Oscar. Or maybe just a Xanax.
I escape to the bathroom, and when the door closes behind me, I grip the marble counter with both hands.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
My phone is in my clutch. I pull it out and scroll to Tony’s text. The security camera still frame fills my screen. James Whitmore at the bar, grainy but unmistakable. Tony’s message underneath: His name is James Whitmore. He described you pretty well.
I’ll tell him tonight in the car. Robert will understand. Robert always understands.
My reflection doesn’t look convinced.
I tuck the phone away, reapply my lipstick with a hand that barely shakes. The mouth in the mirror is perfect, a flawless matte line that says nothing is wrong. Lipstick doesn’t lie. I do.
Back at the reception, Robert is at the bar. His palm finds the small of my back the second I’m close enough to touch. That easy claim. That trust.
Acid rises in the back of my throat.
The rest of the party is a blur of small talk and my growing tension.
When we leave, Robert’s driving and his fingers find my thigh before we’re out of the parking garage, sliding up the hem of my dress. Mine, that touch says. It used to read as possession. Now it reads as faith I haven’t earned.
“You were quiet tonight.” He glances at me. “Everything okay?”
I said I’d tell him in the car. This is the car. The confession is right there, crowding my throat and thick enough to choke on.
His thumb strokes my thigh. Waiting. Trusting me to answer.
“Just thinking about what you said this morning.” I put my hand over his on my thigh. Let my voice drop the way it does when I’m retelling casino nights. “About you watching.”
Robert’s grip tightens. His fingers press into my inner thigh and drag upward, slow, and my skin lights up. “Yeah?”
And just like that, the confession is gone. Replaced by the one thing I know will make him stop asking questions.
“Mm-hmm.” I spread my legs a fraction of an inch. Enough for his hand to slide higher, and he hits bare skin above my thigh-highs. “I keep imagining Tony fucking me from behind while you’re there.”
He breathes roughly through his nose. His hand slides up, fingers brushing the front of my panties.
“You’re wet.”
My clit pulses against the pressure through damp fabric. “Someone edged me this morning.”
Robert’s finger traces the edge of my panties. One slow pass along where my leg meets my hip that makes my hips roll toward his hand. My pussy is throbbing. She doesn’t care that I’m using his desire as a distraction. She only cares that his hand is two inches from where she wants it.
He tugs the silk to the side. “I want to see your face when he sinks his cock into you.”
His fingertip slides through my slickness, and my breath hitches. A single finger finds my clit and circles.
“God—” My hips push up off the seat. The seatbelt digs into my collarbone. “Robert—”
“I want to see what you become when Adrian edges you.” Two fingers now, sliding along my slit. Not pushing inside. “Close enough to hear every desperate sound you make.”
My chest clenches at the same time my pussy does. He’s building us a future, and I can’t even get through tonight without lying.
I’m so wet his fingers are making sounds of their own. My pussy clenches every time he slides past my entrance without pushing in, and my frustration is building.
His voice has gone to gravel. “After they’re done with you, I want to take you home and fuck you with their cum still inside you.”
My pussy spasms so hard my thighs clamp around his hand. A gush of wetness floods his fingers, and I gasp, grabbing the door handle because I’m halfway to coming in a moving vehicle and my husband just said the filthiest thing he’s ever said to me while merging onto the 520.
He pulls his hand away. Wet fingers back on the steering wheel. I’m fuzzy-headed from almost coming while I stare at his hand on the wheel, my wetness shining on his knuckles in the dashboard light.
“Tease,” I manage.
“Patience, baby.” His mouth hooks up at one corner.
Robert drives, and my clit is still pulsing and my panties are soaked.
I was supposed to confess tonight. Tell him everything.
Instead, I let Robert finger me in the car, and now the guilt is gone and the secret is right where it was and I don’t even care.
For one minute with his hand between my legs, none of it mattered.
The lies are getting easier. And my pussy is getting wetter. Which pretty much sums up the whole goddamn problem.