Secrets (A Standalone Novel) (A Suspense Romance) (9 page)

The night before the art show I didn’t sleep much at
all. My brain raced with excitement over the event and all the people that
would be there. It didn’t help that I was away from my bed and staying in a
hotel nearer to the show. The gallery said it might take them a couple days to
make sure they had all the sales cleared before they would be able to give me
back the remaining photos. I didn’t mind though, it was nice to have a little
bit of an adventure and stay in the city.

I got to the gallery nice and early and walked around
to see how all the photos looked. The lighting in the gallery was simply
amazing and it surprised me at just how perfect my photos looked there. I was
confident in the quality of my photos, but seeing them on display here made
them look even better.

My heart started racing as I looked around the gallery
and saw my life’s work on display. I said a silent prayer that people wouldn’t
think my work was horrible. That was all I wanted. Just not horrible. They
didn’t need to love it; I just couldn’t take it if everyone thought my photos
were bad.

“Katelyn!”

The gallery owner Sarah waved at me enthusiastically
and started to walk over.

“Hi Sarah, the showroom looks amazing. I think your
display and lighten is what is going to get people interested in my work
tonight.”

“Oh shut up!
Your work
is amazing.
I bet we sell at least half of your photos.”

Wow, half of them. I couldn’t even imagine it. That
would mean I had enough money to finish the whole renovation on my family’s
home. I would be able to do the kitchen too and that was going to be extremely
expensive.

“Wow, Sarah that would be great. Thanks so much for
believing in me.”

Sarah brought me around to show me where the drinks
would be set up and the flyers about my work. She showed me where the balcony
was in case I needed to take a breather.

“Many artists get overwhelmed at their first show.
There will be a lot of people wanting to talk to you and a lot of questions.
The hardest part will be consistently keeping a smile on your face and
interacting with people. Use this balcony when you want to escape for a moment.
It has stairs that go all the way down to the first floor if you decide to make
a run for it.” Sarah winked and laughed a bit.

“I think I’ll be alright. I’m really excited to meet
everyone and talk about my work.”

I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in a back
room and trying to get some sleep. I had been up the whole night and really
didn’t want to have bags under my eyes when I met everyone at the event that
night. I was able to get an hour nap in before I needed to change and get ready
for the show. I
brought
a black cocktail
dress that I thought would help me blend in with the crowd if necessary. The
back was cut really low and it fit me perfectly, like a glove. I had some basic
black heels on to tie the whole outfit together.

When the evening
started,
there were at least thirty people outside the gallery door just waiting to get
in. It was exciting to see that many people interested in the event. My body
was so tense that I had to have a couple drinks to calm my nerves. My pulse
raced and my face was flush with excitement.

I tried to just mingle around and see what people
thought of the work. Since Sarah had not introduced me yet, it was nice to be
anonymous and able to blend in. I really wanted to hear their thoughts and
critiques without people being obliged to give me compliments. If they
knew
I was the artist it was more likely that
they would feel like not saying the truth.

People seemed to really like the picture I took when I
fell in the woods. It was one of my favorites as well. The dark circle around
the moon and the trees that covered the
corners
made the picture very scary looking. It was ominous and I liked that.
Especially because that night had been anything but ominous, it had been
fantastic.

That photo was the first night Chris and I were
together and I could still feel the ecstasy of his hands on my body. My body
reacted as I let my thoughts drift back to that night and the power of Chris as
he brought me to orgasm.

I pulled out a phone and sent a text to Chris to see
if he was going to be able to make my show. Since I really didn’t know what he
did for a living or where he was, I wasn’t sure he was going to be able to come
to my show. It was perfectly fine with me if he didn’t show up. I had enough on
my hands as I tried to relax before Sarah introduced me to the crowd. If Chris
had been
there,
it would have made me
even more nervous.

“I know you all are dying to meet the artist of these
amazing pictures, so please let me introduce you to Katelyn
Peterson,
” Sarah said over a small microphone.

The whole gallery stopped what they were doing and
looked up at the small platform that Sarah was on. I begrudgingly made my way
up there to say a few words.
 
I was not
the type of person who had a lot to say on a normal day, but in front of a
thousand people I really didn’t have much to say at all.

“Hello everyone, I’m so happy you can all be here to
share this day with me. It has been a long road to get here and I’m very
excited to be starting my journey in the world of photography. I hope you all
have a great night and enjoy my work.”

As I put the microphone down the room erupted in
applause. It caught me off guard. They were all clapping for me. It was hard to
even fathom that all these people were there at the gallery for me. They had
gotten babysitters and scheduled their whole night around coming to see my
work. It was pretty dang awesome.

The second I got off the platform there were people
coming up to me and asking me questions. They seemed to want to know every
little detail about the work. They wanted to know where it was taken, what
camera, what lens and even more personal things about myself. One man asked if
I was single, another if I took dirty pictures and a few other people asked
about my family life.

It was funny at first; as they would ask me a question
I would ponder it for a moment and then answer. But soon I got so tired of
answering the same questions over and over again. I got anxious when they asked
me questions that I didn’t want to answer, like about my personal life. It was
pretty amazing how people felt comfortable asking you things in a gallery
setting that they wouldn’t dare ask you in any other place. I did my best to
answer the appropriate questions and deflected the inappropriate ones with
laughter. I would pretend to see someone waving at me, then waive back and say
I needed to go.

Sarah was right; it was extremely overwhelming to have
a gallery show. I had entirely
underestimated
the power of a thousand people trying to talk to me about a thousand different
topics. I decided to take Sarah’s advice and sneak out onto the balcony.

It was a very nice balcony, about twenty feet long and
six feet wide. It was on the third floor and had a set of stairs leading down
to the second level and then to the main level. They had a lounge chair out on
the porch and I sat down in it and put my feet up. It felt so good to take my
heels off and let my feet relax.

My eyes closed for what I thought was just a quick
moment, but then I woke up in a panic. I looked around and tried to get my
bearings and figure out where I was at.

“I thought you would never wake up,” I heard a man’s
voice say.

I
jumped
up and
looked around. Chris came out from the dark of the other side of the balcony.
He was dressed in a finely-tailored suit and looked delicious.
 
Even in the dark he looked like a man who
could get any woman in the entire gallery to go home with him. All he would
have to do was flirt a little and flash them his smile, the girl would be his
for the night; I was sure of it.

He moved into the light and I had to take a minute to
keep a picture of him in my mind. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who
owned a tailored suit. But damn, it fit him so well.

“How long was I asleep? What time is it?”

“Well I don’t know when you fell asleep, but I’ve been
out here for twenty minutes and found you looking like sleeping beauty in that
chair.”

“It is just crazy in there. I can’t even breathe.”

I didn’t want to be the person who complained at their
gallery opening. I certainly was very grateful for the opportunity. But I was
genuinely about to have a panic attack and the only thing that made me feel
better
was being
out on the balcony with
Chris. He sat down in the lounge chair and motioned for me to sit with him.

“There’s no room,” I laughed.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me onto his lap. His
lips quickly moved to mine and met me with a desire that I wasn’t ready for. I
could feel his hand moving up my skirt and within moments he had pulled my
panties off. I wanted to stop him, but I wanted to keep feeling his touch on my
body also. It was an internal struggle between my mind and my body. Eventually,
my body won out.

Chris unzipped his suit pants and pulled himself out.
I could see his cock throbbing in the dull light of the balcony. It pulsed with
a desire to be inside me. He grabbed me and set me on top of his cock. I slid
down hard and started moving diligently against his thrusts. I had so much pent
up energy, I just wanted a release. I needed a release so badly. My body
reacted quickly to the pleasure of Chris thrusting inside of me. I could feel
my clit sliding up and down against his body and there was a buildup of desire
that I couldn’t hold back. Just as I was about to cum, Chris stopped thrusting.

He held my body tightly and prevented me from moving
against him. Chris pulled me off of him and I stood up near the edge of the
balcony as Chris got up from the lounge chair. With a defining force, he turned
me around and bent me over the edge of the balcony. As I looked down I could
see,
people walking on the streets. I looked
around to see if there was anyone watching us but I couldn’t see anyone.

He slid into me rough and hard. I let out a moan and
he reached around to muffle me with his hand. He used his grip on my mouth as
leverage as he thrust harder and harder inside of me. He was enjoying making me
scream and hearing my muffled voice. It felt so exhilarating to be outside on
that balcony and fucking Chris. It was nothing I would have ever imagined doing
and I probably would never do it again, but on that night, it seemed like the
right thing to do.

I held onto the balcony as his thrusts got even deeper
and harder. I couldn’t help the screams of pleasure that came out of my mouth
and was happy Chris kept his hand covering me. As he delivered his final few
thrusts, I felt a release of
explosion
and my screaming finally stopped. My whole body stopped. I could hardly move.

In my
daze,
I
was able to find my shoes but I couldn’t find my panties. I looked all
around,
but it was just dark enough that I
couldn’t find them. Chris went over toward the door and waited for me so we
could go inside.

“Shit, I should get back to the party. But I just
can’t. It is so overwhelming in there. People keep asking me a million
questions. I thought the worse that could happen was they wouldn’t like my
work. But apparently liking my work can also be very bad.”

Chris didn’t say a thing, but just opened the door and
waved me back into the gallery. He grabbed my arm and placed it
on
the corner of his and I held onto him as we
made our way around to look at the pictures. When he got to about the
fourth
picture,
Chris laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“I have your panties in my pocket,” he said with a sly
grin.

It was too late to worry about that now. I just
laughed and we moved on to look at some other pictures. It was nice having him
with me because people didn’t feel as obligated to come and ask me questions.
He seemed mesmerized by my work and stopped to look at every single one of my
photos. He didn’t ask me a bunch of questions and didn’t seem to care where I
took them or with what camera. He just enjoyed them. I liked that.

Soon people did decide to come talk to me and I
introduced Chris as my friend. Although I felt like we were more than friends.
He did not like having to talk to people and looked just about as comfortable
as I did, at least at first. But it only took him a few groups of people and he
was socializing like a pro. I felt like he took on a new personality though,
like he was pretending to be an outgoing guy just to make it through the
evening. He certainly wasn’t outgoing when it was just the two of us; his
personality seemed much more like a
reserved,
confident type.

I enjoyed watching him interact with people, even if
it was a fake persona. He was funny and witty. There was something special
about the way he interacted with people that made everyone feel at ease almost
instantly. It was freaky how he turned so quickly into this person though. He
was happy and joking, he sipped on wine and talked about politics, he was way
different than the Chris I knew. I remember he said he did something with
police or security when we talked about his job before. It made me think that
his job might be why he was so easily able to adapt to meeting all these
people.

He could read them, he knew how they would like to
interact and Chris changed his persona to fit in. I didn’t know what he did for
his job, but some sort of undercover work would be great for him. He certainly
seemed able to move seamlessly into almost any environment.

Chris had his arm around my waist like he owned me and
it felt great. His confidence in dealing with the crowd of people made me
finally able to relax and enjoy the big night. I was so happy he had been able
to come.

“Katelyn, I’m not going to have final numbers for you
tonight. Are you staying in town?” Sarah said as the night started to slow
down.

“Yes I will be in town.”

“Alright, how about you enjoy a day on the town
tomorrow and I’ll call you with the final sales. I will need you to come in and
sign some documents before you leave town though.”

“That sounds fine. I am actually booked at the
Marriott for two more nights. I wanted to enjoy the city a bit before returning
home.”

“Even better. Have a good night and I’ll talk to you
tomorrow.”

Sarah took off to talk to another group of people.

“Will we need to bring your pictures home tomorrow?”
Chris said.

I was excited that he said we; perhaps that meant he
was planning on staying the night with me. It would be fun to have a night in a
fancy hotel room with him by my side.

“Oh, I’ll go ask her how many.” I was just about to
take off to ask her when Chris grabbed my arm.

“
No,
I got it,
you sit down and rest your feet.”

It was like he was reading my mind. I really couldn’t
even argue with him, I quickly sat down and put my feet up on a small table. I
wasn’t use to wearing heels so my
feet
felt like they were literally going to fall right off.