Her Secret Affair

by Arlene James

  “I live in hope,” he quipped. She chortled, and he began trying to sheath himself with one hand, quickly losing patience. “Help me with this, will you?”

  She did, and within moments he pushed up into her.

  Joined, they lay like that for several moments, hearts beating in double time even as a wave of contentment took them. Then Chey felt him pulse inside her. She bent her knees and pressed her feet flat onto the bed, wanting more of that. He didn’t stint. Groaning, he pushed again and again, and then she was pushing, too. Time and place spun away. Shortly, she spun after them. When they all came back together again, he was pulling out of her.

  “No, don’t,” she mumbled, still craving the contact.

  “I have to, sweetheart,” he said, gasping a little. Rolling to her side, he gathered her close. “I’d love to stay inside you and grow hard again, but the condom makes that problematic.”

  She snuggled against him, murmuring, “Maybe I’ll talk to my doctor about the pill.”

  He went very still, and so did she, realizing suddenly what she’d said, intimated. Well, why not? She hadn’t made him any promises, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think that she could so easily pull back from him a second time. Besides, he’d said that he meant to keep a very close watch on her, and she felt that was probably a good idea but couldn’t imagine actually managing it without giving in to this again. He readjusted their positions, bringing his face close to hers. Stroking her cheek for a long time, he studied her eyes. Then he kissed her, softly, lingeringly, before getting up and going into the bathroom. She pulled up the covers while he was gone, relatively chilled without the heat of his skin against hers. When he returned he slid down beneath the covers with her and pulled her against him.

  Stroking her back languidly, he cradled her head in the hollow of his shoulder and said softly, “I can’t always be content with just this.”

  She sighed. “I know.”

  “But just now,” he said, smoothing her hair, “you’ve made me very happy.”

  She tilted her head back. “That’s the thing about you,” she said appreciatively. “You know how to enjoy every moment.”

  He hummed in response to that and slid a little lower. “Let me show you how it’s done,” he said, wagging a brow suggestively. When his head disappeared beneath the covers, she gasped. She did a lot of gasping after that, and a little happiness in the moment was the least of what he showed her then.

  He woke to the dim light of dawn with Chey at his side, her rump shoved against the hollow of his back. She’d commandeered fully three-quarters of the bed, which was not nearly so wide as his own. If he turned the wrong way, he’d find himself on the floor. Easing over onto his back, he stretched out a cramped arm, brushing the silky top of her head as he did so. She murmured and straightened, pushing farther up onto her pillow and expelling a deep, sighing breath. Muttering the word “hot,” she shoved at the covers, neatly exposing one luscious breast for his attention. He smiled, despite the suddenly painful throbbing of his morning erection, and rolled onto his side, propping his head on one folded arm. Using the pads of his fingertips, he lightly stroked that plump, creamy breast until her nipple peaked. Her eyelids slitted open, then she reached for him with both languid arms, purring deep in her throat, but just before their mouths met, her eyelids flew wide and she gasped, shoving him away.

  “It’s daylight! You can’t be here. Someone will see!”

  Sighing, he settled down onto the corner of the pillow. “Chey, I’m through pandering to Janey’s fiction.”

  “But your grandmother—”

  “Wouldn’t blink an eye,” he assured her.

  “Maybe not, but there are other people in this house, including your son!”

  “We’re not exactly making it on the couch in the family room,” he muttered.

  “There isn’t even a lock on the door,” she hissed.

  He sighed. “Okay, even in this big house, it would, admittedly, be more private in my room. So tomorrow night we’ll sleep there.”

  She sat straight up in bed. “I can’t do that!”

  Anger flashed through him. He tossed back the covers and got up, snapping, “Too much commitment for you?”

  “You know I’m not into casual affairs. It’s just—”

  “Casual?” he interrupted sharply. “You’re calling this a casual affair?”

  “No! I’m calling it what it is, less than you want.”

  “And more than you want!” he accused, stung.

  “No!” She stared at him, anguish pulsing in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she admitted weakly.

  “What do you want from me?” he demanded, snatching up his pants. “Do you want me to give up my son, is that what you want?”

  “You know I would never ask that of you!”

  He did, but he’d been unprepared for the sharpness of the pain he’d felt at her rejection this morning. How could she do this again? Had last night meant nothing? “I thought we reached some sort of understanding last night. You know I love you. You know I want you. Then morning comes, and you throw me out of your bed again!” He leaned toward her, hands braced against the mattress and demanded sharply, “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  “I-I’m just so afraid of disappointing you,” she whispered, eyes filling.

  His anger melted instantly. Plopping down, he cupped her face in both hands. “I love you,” he said firmly. “I haven’t said that to a woman since I was eighteen years old.”

  “Oh, Brodie,” she said, “if only you knew how much…”

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Chey?”

  Her gaze flew to the door. “Viola!” Chey gasped, as if Brodie wouldn’t recognize his grandmother’s voice.

  Calmly, he stood, crossed to the door and opened it. “What is it, Grandmama?”

  “Oh,” she said, “it’s you. I woke early and was headed downstairs for a cup of tea when I heard arguing.” Wrapped in a silk robe the color of new grass, Viola craned her neck to get a look past the narrow opening of the door.

  “I’m sorry if we disturbed you,” Brodie said blandly.

  “Think nothing of it, dear,” Viola replied. “Would you like anything since I’m going down anyway?”

  Brodie looked a question at Chey, arching an eyebrow with I-told-you-so finesse. “No, thank you,” Chey said weakly, buried to her nose in bedcovers, as her muffled voice attested.

  “I’ll leave you then,” Viola said. “Sorry to intrude.”

  “No problem,” Brodie said, closing the door. Smugly, he turned back to the bed. “Did she sound scandalized or offended to you?”

  Mouth flattening, Chey folded her arms atop the covers. “No.”

  “No,” he affirmed, “but you still think I should leave, don’t you?” Chey sighed, and he closed his eyes in defeat. “Fine.”

  As he turned away again, she flipped back the covers and said urgently, “Come back to bed.” He stopped where he was, relief shimmering through him. Then he slid beneath the covers, half-clothed, and gathered her close. “This is all so new to me,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m not ashamed of loving you, but in my family this kind of thing isn’t well accepted.”

  “I know,” he said, “and I want to fix that—if you’ll let me.”

  She sighed. “I take it that it’s a permanent fix?”

  “Permanent and licensed,” he confirmed softly, “but we can talk about that when this is all over.”

  She laid her head against his chest, and after a moment she asked, “Do you think I would make a good mother for Seth?”

  He smiled to himself and kissed the top of her head. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Would I have to give up my business to do that, do you think?”

  “No! Of course you wouldn’t. Why should you?”

  “What if I can’t give him the attention he needs?”

  “Honey, Grandmama and I are here, you know. Does Seth seemed neglected to
you now?” She shook her head. “Well, then?”

  She said nothing for a long while, then she whispered, “He is a really special little boy, isn’t he?”

  Brodie closed his eyes, a contented, triumphant kind of elation pouring through him. “He’s as special as you are,” he told her softly. And you’re both mine now, he said to himself, not daring to think that it might not be that simple.

  Chapter Thirteen

  An annoying chirp very near his ear pulled Brodie from the depths of peaceful exhaustion. Next to him, Chey moaned and moved restlessly. Groggily, he groped for the light, found a chain and yanked. Levering up onto one elbow, he glanced around him at Chey’s familiar room and smiled with replete satisfaction even as he reached for the tweeting cell phone on the bedside table. Studying the tiny buttons for a moment, he picked out the one he wanted and punched it, lifting the little phone to his head.

  “Hello?”

  An instant of silence made him think he’d caught the call too late. Then a familiar voice drawled, “Brodie?”

  Hoping not to disturb Chey, he sat up, bending his knees and balancing his elbows atop them. “Georges?” He yawned. “What’s going on?”

  “Quite a lot, actually,” Georges replied with enough delight to allay Brodie’s worst fears. “I’m here at the shop with the police and an idiotic little weasel whom I take to be your ex-brother-in-law.”

  Brodie grinned. “Bingo.”

  “Yes, quite,” Georges went on. “He isn’t saying much yet, our weasel, but we caught him rifling the desk in Chey’s office, his pockets stuffed with petty cash and computer diskettes. The police are taking him down to central booking, but they want Chey to come and file formal charges. I take it she is there?”

  Brodie glanced at Chey, who was, even then, pushing hair out of her eyes. She looked as well used and utterly satisfied as he felt. Brodie grinned wolfishly and gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Yes, she’s here,” he said blithely. “We’ll meet you at the central police station in twenty minutes.”

  “Oh, not me,” Georges refused smoothly. “I’ve had all the fun I can stand for one evening, thank you. I’m just going to tidy up here and get back to bed.”

  “Very well. Oh, and thank you, Georges. I owe you one.”

  “And don’t you forget it,” Georges simpered.

  Chuckling, Brodie disconnected, then heaved a huge sigh of satisfaction. Finally. All over but the shouting now, he was sure, and he frankly couldn’t wait. What a glorious future he and Chey were going to have!

  Thumping Chey on the hip, he exclaimed exuberantly, “Up, you luscious woman. We’ve caught ourselves a weasel!”

  The glare she sent him could have peeled paint, but he laughed and hopped out of bed.

  His time estimate turned out to be rather optimistic, however. First, he had to give Chey a word-for-word recounting of his conversation with Georges, even though she’d been privy to fully half of it. Then she shocked him by complaining that he shouldn’t have answered her phone.

  “What do you mean, I shouldn’t have answered your phone?”

  “That could’ve been my mother,” she pointed out dully.

  “Well, excuse the hell out of me,” he grumbled. “It was on my side of the bed. I didn’t think.”

  “Now Georges knows we’re sleeping together,” she muttered, padding naked to her closet to pull down jeans and a polo shirt.

  He allowed himself to enjoy the view as he slid into his chinos, which he had left crumpled at the side of the bed. “Surely you don’t think Georges cares?”

  “That’s not the point,” she said, pulling on her jeans. “I might as well paint a banner and hang it over the front door now.”

  “So your concern is that he’ll gossip to your family?” Brodie said, genuinely wanting to understand the problem.

  She turned her back to him as she busily put on her bra, an exercise he found ludicrous considering that she had started out naked. “Not exactly.”

  “Then what is it?” he wanted to know, stabbing his bare feet into his loafers.

  She pulled the shirt over her head and turned to face him. “Look, I’m sorry I brought it up. Can we just go?”

  “I have to let Grandmama know we’re leaving,” he muttered, realizing that it was so.

  He left to do that while Chey was brushing out her hair and searching for her shoes. By the time he woke Viola, explained where they were going and why, the twenty minutes had already elapsed. Then, on a hunch, he went quickly to his office, opened the safe there, and removed a certain item, which he slid into his pants pocket. After that, he returned to Chey’s room, only to find it vacant. He hurried downstairs and found her waiting at the front door with her handbag and keys.

  “I’ll drive,” she said. “My car’s already out front.”

  “Fine.”

  It was going on forty minutes by the time they pulled into the municipal parking lot. Ten minutes after that they finally found the right person to report to and began the necessary paperwork. Half an hour after the paperwork was filed, a uniformed policeman came to speak to them.

  “We don’t have an identification yet,” he said to Chey after describing what they had found when they’d entered the shop. “Your assistant seems to think you know the man, however.”

  “I expect so,” Chey replied.

  “I’m quite sure we do,” Brodie added.

  “Well, let’s find out,” the policeman said, and led them away to a tiny room where they were to await yet another officer. This one wore a cheap pair of shiny pants, a once-white shirt old enough to vote and the ugliest tie upon which Brodie had ever had the misfortune to clap eyes.

  “Well, this here is a weird one,” he said after introducing himself as a police investigator.

  “How so?” Brodie asked.

  “All them computer disks,” the investigator exclaimed. “What could he be looking for there?”

  “Financial records, I would imagine,” Brodie answered, then went on to explain as succinctly as possible. “We suspect this is all part of a plot to separate me from Miss Simmons. If we’re correct in our assumptions, the burglar is my ex-wife’s brother. She has recently recovered from a long coma and has been pretending to have forgotten that we were divorced.”

  The investigator’s bushy brows rose abruptly, but he just shook his head. “Well, you hear a new one every day.”

  “I know it sounds ludicrous,” Brodie said, somewhat abashed, “but I expect our burglar can fill you in—if we can convince him to do so.”

  “Well, let’s give it the old school try,” the other man muttered, motioning them through a door that he opened with a key.

  “Can I ask you something?” Brodie prodded gently as they moved along a narrow corridor badly in need of paint.

  “Might as well.”

  “Has he called anyone?”

  The investigator shook his head. “We usually let ’em have the phone as soon as they’re booked, but he wouldn’t give us a name, so we had to book him in as a John Doe, and that’s another procedure entirely.”

  “Good.”

  A moment later, the investigator opened another door and led them into a tiny room crammed with a table and two chairs, one of them occupied by a glum, slumping, all-too-familiar figure. When Brodie entered the room, however, the culprit immediately straightened in his chair and lifted his chin pugnaciously.

  “Oh, yes,” Brodie said, sliding his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “My one-time brother-in-law. His name is Dude Shelly.”

  The investigator jotted the name down on a small pad that he carried in his breast pocket, saying, “We’ll run that through the state data base and see what we come up with.”

  “Chances are you won’t find anything,” Brodie told him, his gaze targeted Dude. “The Shellys recently came here from Texas. You’ll find that he has a long history of petty crimes, everything from shoplifting and purse-snatching to exposing himself.”

&nb
sp; The policeman looked at Dude. “Terrific. We just love picking up our neighbors’ trash around here,” he said in a voice that made the opposite clear. “Ever been in jail?” he asked the room in general.

  “Dallas county and city lock-ups, I believe,” Brodie answered.

  “Well, congratulations, then, Mr. Shelly,” the policeman said. “You’ve come up in the world. This time you’ll be a guest of the state of Louisiana. The accommodations may be a little rougher than what you’re used to, but you’ll likely live—whether you want to or not.”

  For the first time, Dude spoke. “State pen? Uh-uh. Not for sixty bucks!”

  “Well now, maybe sixty bucks is more money down here in the bayou than up in Dallas,” the investigator said mildly. “Besides, we got you on breaking and entering sure enough, and then there’s all those disks you had on you, not to mention some small stuff stacked by the front door that you were trying to steal, all expensive items, no doubt,” he added with a significant look at Chey.

  “We only carry exclusive antiques in our showroom,” Chey said helpfully.

  Dude made a strangling sound. “It was just junk, just pretty junk!”

  “Actually,” Brodie said, “we have reason to believe that the diskettes contain financial records and were the main objective of the burglary. As I told you, they were hoping to drive a wedge between me and Miss Simmons by finding something with which to blackmail her.” Dude’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he heard that.

  “Oh, really?” The investigator tilted his head in interest. “That ought to add a few years to his stay. But you said, ‘they,’ I believe.”

  Brodie nodded, looking at Dude. “Maybe he would like to tell you all about it. Maybe it would help his case if he did?”

  The investigator turned a considering gaze on Dude, who whined and licked his lips. “Pop’ll kill me,” he told Brodie desperately.

  “You think he isn’t going to anyway?” Brodie asked. “You failed your assignment. The scheme’s blown now, and it’s all your fault. Save yourself some legal trouble and explain the whole ugly business to this nice man, why don’t you? It was your father who masterminded this mess, so let him do the time.”