“No story.” She looks at me as I come up on the other side of her. “Just way too busy with my new job. A job I love and would never want to lose.”
“You love it?” I ask and have a feeling she means she loves me. “That’s good. I love having you.”
Her smile as she looks up at me melts my heart. She fingers the cross around her neck and says, “You do?”
I nod and look at Cole. “You now the rule, Cole. No dating my assistants.”
“I know of no such rule. Your only assistant was Lori, and she was married.” His arm tightens around Beth’s shoulders. “Anyway, this little lady needs to have some time off from being your slave.” His mouth goes close to her ear and my heart starts to pound. “What do you say to a little fun this evening? I know this rocking club downtown. Do you like to dance?”
“I think I have to do next week’s schedule this evening. Channing has a lot going on next week and it’s going to take some major concentration to get it mapped out for him,” she says as we go outside. “Thanks for the invite, though. That’s nice of you.”
Leading her to his car, he goes to open the front door and stands back, gesturing for her to get in the front seat. She looks back at me and I give her a nod. “I’ll take the back seat, Beth.”
She slides in and I look at Cole as he closes the door. “Come on man. Let me have a whack at her, Boss man.”
I shake my head. “You should stop before she has to burst your bubble. She’s nice, but not so nice she won’t put a stop to your shenanigans, Cole.”
He bites his lip as he walks by me. “Those tits are scrumptious.”
I bite my lip and get into the back seat. Before he gets in, I lean up and whisper, “You want him?”
Beth looks back at me and smiles. “No!”
I lean back. “Good.”
Cole is a handsome man. He usually has to beat the women off with a stick and the fact Beth isn’t at all attracted to him makes me feel like we’re moving along fine.
If only Jana would be declared dead, this thing could be out in the open and no man would dare hit on her if they knew she was mine.
Cole slides in behind the steering wheel of his Dodge Charger and looks over at Beth. “The boss said we’re going for sushi. But I won’t take him there if you want something else.”
She laughs and looks back at me. “Didn’t you tell me the sushi at this place was to die for, Boss?”
I nod. “It is. But if you’d prefer somewhere else it can be your choice.”
“I want to try it. So do as our boss says, Cole.” She turns around and I gaze at her dark hair in the nice braid and want to wrap my hand around it.
Fantasizing about her is something I do often when I’m not actually making love to her. She fills my thoughts. Something no one else ever has.
Cole pulls up to the little restaurant and I get out and open her door. He’s quick though and with a couple of long strides makes his way around the car and takes her hand. “This way, Beth.”
I’m so busy watching him hold the hand that belongs to me, I don’t see the couple walking out of the restaurant door. “Channing?” I hear a woman say.
I look away from Beth and Cole’s clasped hands and find Jana’s mother and father looking at me. But before I can say a word, their youngest daughter, Lori, walks out. “You!” she shrieks.
Again before I can open my mouth I see Beth stop and pull her hand out of Cole’s. She’s by my side in a heartbeat. “Mr. Michaels is very busy today. I’m afraid there’s no time for this.”
She takes me just above my elbow and maneuvers me around the three. Lori glares at me and Jana’s mother and father look at me with slack jaws. I hear Lori say, “What a piece of shit.”
Beth’s hand tenses on my arm. “It’s okay,” I whisper as we walk into the restaurant.
Cole looks back at us. “The old in-laws. I can see they still think you’re a killer.”
“Looks like it,” I say as he takes a table near the window.
He pulls out a chair for Beth and she takes it. “Thank you, Cole.” Her eyes travel over the room and she smiles. “Looks like I’m the envy of every single woman in here.”
“Don’t care who’s looking my way. I only have eyes for you, Doll,” he says and I groan with the line.
“Please, Cole. You’re making me lose my appetite with your dorky lines.” I wave at the waitress who hurries over. “Tell Michio we want a platter of whatever is the most fresh, please. And some lemon waters.”
She nods and hurries off to get our order. Cole looks over at me. “Beth may have wanted something different.”
I turn my eyes to hers. “I know what Beth likes.”
Her eyes go wide and she looks at Cole. “He told me this morning he wanted me to try this place. I may have grown up near here, but I’ve never been to this place. I trust Channing’s judgment. He has excellent taste.”
Cole leans up and leans his chin in his palm and gazes at Beth. “He sure does have excellent taste. He picked you to be his assistant after all. Come on. Go out with me.”
Just as I’m about to really lay into him, she reaches out and places her hand on his shoulder. “Cole, you seem like a great guy. You really do. And to say I don’t find you attractive would be a lie. But here’s the thing, I don’t like to date anyone I work with. You know, it can get all uneasy if it doesn’t work out. I hope to be with Channing for many years and I bet you do too. So, you see, we need to remain on friendly terms, you and I. So it’s best to leave dating out of the equation. It’s what’s best for the company.”
So I can add to the growing list of things this young woman excels at, the art of diplomacy.
Cole looks at her then at me. “Too bad you hired her, then. It seems I might have had a shot. Any chance she isn’t working out for you and you might let her go?”
With a shake of my head, he sighs and Beth laughs. “You’re silly, Cole.”
He’s not silly at all. He’s also shown me how hard this is going to be to keep quiet about.
How many more men will I be able to tolerate coming on to her before I blow up?
Chapter 12
BETH
Three weeks into this thing we have going on and I’ve fallen so hard for this man. Channing is unlike any other man I’ve ever known. He snuck me out to his beach house as he calls it. It’s a beach mansion in my opinion.
I took my car home to my apartment and a little later he came in his mother’s car to pick me up then took me to his beach house and told his mother he’d bring her car back to her in the morning.
He told her he was getting the oil changed for her, like the good son he is. Channing is just plain good. I can’t see how anyone could think he killed his wife. And I don’t see how she could’ve ever cheated on him.
He’s the best lover I’ve ever had!
Carrying two glasses of red wine, Channing comes into his bedroom. He told me he’d never shared the bed with Jana so I feel okay about being in here.
My heart stops as he leans in to kiss me before he places one of the glasses in my hand. “Here you go, Baby.”
We just got out of a hot shower and I’m wrapped in a towel and he has one wrapped around his waist. With a quick movement, he has my towel off and lying on the floor.
I pull his off and we place our glasses on the bedside table and he tosses me onto the soft mattress. I hold out my hand, stopping him before he jumps on me. “Open the window. I love the sound of the ocean out here.”
He pads over to the window and pulls it open as I watch his muscles move with every step.
Damn, his ass is fine!
As he comes back towards me, he stops and looks at me. “That’s where I want to see you every single night, Beth.”
“We both know that can’t happen yet, Channing.” I hold out my arms. “Come to me.”
A frown covers his face and I hate it. “I want this over. I need this over.” He climbs onto the bed next to me.
“One
day it will be.” I climb on top of him, straddling him and kiss him, trying to take his mind off the fact Jana has still not been declared dead. “We still get to go everywhere together.”
“Yeah, but I have to keep my hands off you. I have to watch men come on to you all the time and I hate that shit.” He pulls me down to him and holds me tight. “You have no idea how much I hate that shit.”
He takes my bottom lip between his teeth, delivering a bite. With a growl, he morphs it into a kiss. One that’s full of ownership. One that has me wet in an instant.
I pull my mouth from his and kiss my way down his tight body. Making sure to stop and admire his ab work and run my tongue through the grooves that separate his muscled stomach.
My hands wrap around the wide girth of his hard dick and he moans as I begin to stroke it. My lips touch the tip and his hands run through my hair. Slipping my mouth over the entire cock he moves my head at the pace he wants.
Slow and steady he moves me. The silky skin of his hard cock is salty and delicious. The way it slips past the back of my tongue into my throat is amazing and I love every last bit of his amazing appendage.
Channing and I work great together on everything. In every way, we are perfect together. Where he zigs I zag. When he gets frustrated, I can always find a way to end his frustration.
This feels so right. Something in me though is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for this dream to end in a nightmare. Waiting for it all to be taken away from me.
The sound of thunder brings me out of my little world and the wind comes through the window. It’s chilly and sends a shiver through my naked body.
He must have felt my shudder, and he pulls me up. “Come up here. Let’s get under the blanket.”
I move up him then he pulls the blanket over us both and turns me over. His mouth falls soft on mine. Then he pulls back and looks at me. “One day I swear to you I will make this right.”
“I know you will.” I pull him back to kiss me.
His mouth on mine feels like home to me. I could live in this moment, but then again I think that about every moment we spend together no matter what it is we’re doing.
I took our clothes to the cleaners the other day and thought the same damn thing. I’m hopelessly in love with him and deathly afraid of it ending.
However, I am living in each moment. Not letting one go by without cherishing it.
His lips leave mine and travel to my earlobe where he nips it. “I want you to know something, Beth.”
“Hmmm,” I moan.
“I want you to know, I love you, Beth Stattler.” Heat fills me with his words.
He pulls back and looks at me. With a smile, I say, “I love you too, Channing Michaels.”
The smile that moves over his face makes him even more handsome. “One day, I’m going to make you mine forever.” His mouth takes mine again and I can’t believe what he’s said.
Does that mean what I think it means?
Does that mean one day I will become Mrs. Channing Michaels?
I don’t dare let myself get too carried away. But thoughts are running through my head about wedding dresses and weddings and kids.
He gives my lip a bite and moves his body all the way over mine and pushes his hard cock into me. My knees come up and I wrap my legs around him as he starts stroking into me.
The bed squeaks a little with every thrust then the headboard starts banging against the wall. He stops his kiss and looks at me. “I haven’t had sex in this bed. I didn’t know it would be this noisy. Sorry. I’ll get another one tomorrow.”
He places his mouth on my neck and bites and sucks at it as he pumps up and down, making the bed bang the wall even louder. Then he takes one leg and runs his arm around the back of my knee, lifting it until my knee is by my head.
Making deeper strokes into me, sends waves pulsing through me. My moans become louder and I start making little shrieks with every hard thrust as it goes so deep.
The room is filled with the noise of our love-making. Lightning strikes from close by, sending thunder to temporarily drowned out the sounds we both are making and the bed as well.
A gust of wind blows the light cream colored curtain in just as another bolt of lightning fills the room with light. And I find my release and scream, “Channing! Channing!”
His cock jerks inside me as he screams, “Beth! Fuck, Beth!”
The door to his bedroom flies open. We both turn our heads and I see a tall, thin, blonde woman wearing a white flowing gown. Her hand stretches out and one long finger points right at us.
“Jana!” Channing shouts. “Christ, Jana!”
The door slams shut and Channing jumps off me and runs to the door, throwing it open.
I grab my towel off the floor and throw it around my naked body and haul ass after him as he runs down the long hallway. But the woman is nowhere to be found.
He throws open door after door, revealing nothing. I heard no footsteps and there was no sound of doors closing.
Channing runs all over the entire house as I follow him. Then he throws open the front door and there’s no car outside. He turns as I pull him back inside the house as he’s naked as the day he was born.
My heart is pumping like crazy in my chest. She was so pale it seemed. So quiet, so not real.
Channing is shaking as he pulls me to him. “Did you see her too, Beth? Or was it just my imagination?”
I wish I could tell him it was that. “I saw her too, Channing.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” He pulls back and searches my eyes. “Really, Beth! What the fuck was that?”
Should I actually let the word come out of my mouth?
“I don’t know.” I look into his eyes which have turned dark and tired suddenly. “Do you want to go back to my place?”
He shakes his head. “No. I just want to stay put and see if she shows up again.”
“Should I leave?”
He takes my hand and leads me back up the stairs. “Not tonight. Did you notice the storm is about to bring a downpour on us?”
I follow him and keep looking over my shoulder for his dead wife to make another appearance. I want to talk about it so damn bad, but I know he wants to forget it happened at all.
Fuck! Who could deal with that?
Chapter 13
CHANNING
Not a wink of sleep is coming to me on this night. I hold Beth as she sleeps on my chest, but sleep is evading me.
I saw her. Clear as day, I saw, Jana.
Never have I seen a ghost and I’m not ready to say I have now, but I don’t know what the hell to think.
If she was real, how did she just disappear? How did she vanish into thin air if she was real?
In all this time, nearly two whole months since she disappeared off the sailboat, I’ve never seen her. Then the first time Beth comes over and we see her. Or a version of her, anyway.
I have no idea of what I should do. It’s not as if I was the love of Jana’s life and she wants no other woman to have me. That’s not it.
Revenge? Could it be? Did I accidentally miss her cries for help when she fell off the sailboat and she’s blaming me in her afterlife for her death?
I kind of think I might need to see a psychiatrist. Or a psychic. One or the other or maybe both.
The thought comes to me that I’ve yet to go into her bedroom. Not one time have I been in there. Not that I had before she died either.
Moving Beth off my chest, I lay her on the pillow and get out of the bed. I grab a pair of shorts and pull them on then set off on the cross house trip to the room she called hers. On the first floor and the other side of the house.
The place I’ve called my home for the last five years seems eerie to me all of a sudden. The storm passed but I can still hear rumbling thunder in the distance. Shadows cast on the walls as I make my way down the first set of stairs.
The house has four stories. The top story is one big room. I call it the party room,
but I’ve never had a party there. My bedroom is on the third floor along with a couple of others and a media room, an office, and a workout room.
This floor was always mine and mine alone. As a matter of fact, Jana, never even came up here. So for her, whatever that was, to come up here is just plain odd, anyway.
The second floor is mostly rooms I store stuff in and then I make it to the first floor and go through the kitchen then the living area and then the hallway that leads to her bedroom.
My heart’s pounding as I turn the knob. It’s odd, I’m almost expecting to find her in there.
The door creaks as I open it and I see the window has been left open.
Shit!
I knew I should’ve made myself come in here, but for some reason, I just couldn’t.
Flipping the light switch on I look around and find clothes lying all over her bed which is unmade. The make-up desk where she would spend hours fixing her face has make-up all over it and a few sets of false eyelashes.
Shoes that cost tons of money are lying all over the floor as if they were bought at the dollar store. The woman took care of nothing. She always acted if money was no object and things didn’t need to be taken care of because with my money I could easily replace anything she broke, ruined, or lost.
A wasteful creature she certainly was. And a filthy one as well.
Closing the window, I lock it and go to make sure the others are locked as well. And I find every last one of them unlocked.
That shouldn’t surprise me. I’m sure she was still messing with Morgan. Then it hits me that her car is still parked in the second garage. I never went to look at it either.
I think I’ll have Rocky come and clean all this stuff out and give it to a charity store. Her car can be donated as well. God knows I’m not going to drive it.
His mother can have it if she wants. I think Rocky’s dad, my old college roommate who decided to enlist in the army and made it one tour only, would like it if I gave it to her.
Rocky’s mom was pregnant when Arturo left. They married just before he left and he never came back. So I became their baby’s godfather and made sure he didn’t want for anything.
His mother, Ann, doesn’t let me do as much as I want to. She’s proud and works hard to keep a roof over his head. He turned fifteen the other day.
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