The Sandstone Affair (An Erotic Romance Novel) (15 page)

He begins to pump in tiny strokes, edging back
and forth inside my body. The pain is gone and I feel amazing. The sensation of
the friction between us providing a kind of internal warmth as he continues
moving, back and forth, massaging my insides with his cock. I allow my hips to
sway with him, enjoying the sensations.
We are truly one. I am an extension of him,
connected and moving together. Making love to one another in a soul
encapsulating way. He reaches around finding my already swollen and aching clit
and begins to rub it in small circles in rhythm with his thrusts. I bury my
head in the pillow and shut my mind off, feeling my body be totally,
wonderfully used.
Soon I am breathing heavily and feeling myself
climb again to the height of my pleasure, my clit actually aching from his
attention, my bottom feeling him push against my cheeks as he prepares to
explode so deep within me. I let myself climb as high as I can then suddenly
without any more build up I let go, the orgasm tearing through me. I feel it
inside me, around me, searing at my soul as my body begins its uncontrollable
shaking, creating more gripping tension on his cock.
He lets out a pained, forceful groan that
lingers in the air as he explodes deep inside me. The feeling of his cum in my
tight body is unlike anything I have known. My body stretches to allow his
withdrawal and he collapses on top of me. I feel the sweat from his forehead
against my back.
I turn to the side, my tight hole now feeling
the loss of him and puckering with the desire to have him back, creating a
second level of sensation as pleasurable in this moment as it was painful in
the first.
“You did it,” he says kissing me and wrapping his
body around me like a protective shield. “You were amazing.”
“That whole thing was amazing,” I gasp. “I
never would have guessed. I never would have known.”
“I hope it wasn’t too bad.”

“It was perfect.” I snuggle against his chest
enjoying silence in the afterglow.
Eventually, I rise and clean up, get dressed,
and find myself in front of the elevator. My head so buzzy, and my insides a
tad bit sore, I don’t remember to ask him what the plan for Blake’s office
might be.
“You aren’t really firing Lucy, are you?”
“After tonight?” he says with a smile. “I
think she can have a contract extension. Hopefully after next week, you can
come through the front door.”
I remember my Dad’s nurse, talking about
what’s important to know about living and dying. I realize it is time for me to
make the best of the life I have.
“I think I’m falling in love with you, Mark
Stone.” I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth. Like the rest of
this evening, they were totally unplanned.
“I’m already there, Julia Sharp.” He kisses me
deeply one last time.
I’m not entirely sure how I got home. My car
ended up in my parking space at my apartment but I don’t remember a single
street corner or red light. It is as if I simply floated down the avenue toward
my place.

Waking up the next morning, I’m still in awe
and reliving our experience and the words I said last night. My doorbells rings
and I practically fall over the couch running to get it. When I open the door,
no one is there but a manila envelope has been taped to it. It wouldn’t be
Janice dropping off the screenshots because she would stay. So, it must be
something from Mark.
I sit on the couch opening the envelope
carefully thinking it may be a note or a poem, or even just the plan for
getting the proof out of Blake’s office. I feel the heavy card stock against my
fingers and realize it is a series of glossy pictures. Pulling a stack out of
the envelope, I flip through them several times before my mind can really
register what my eyes are seeing.
Mark on his couch making love to a woman.

Mark by a pool with a woman on her knees
sucking his cock.
Mark with a woman bent over his lap. He’s spanking her with a paddle. She’s
wearing a collar.
Mark with a woman, bent over the bar, taking her from behind.
Over and over I look at these shots of Mark
fucking this woman in every way he has also made love to me. Finally, it hits
me. I clutch my heart because I feel like I have just been stabbed.
I recognize the one thing that is worse than
seeing the pictures, worse than the fact I just opened my most intimate self to
him, and worse than knowing I just revealed my heart to him and told him I love
him.
The woman in the pictures is Valerie James.

Chapter 1
7

“Son of a bitch!” I shout, throwing the pictures
down on the table as if they burn my fingers. Truth is, they are burning my
eyes and incinerating my heart. Mark and Valerie? Under my nose? Behind my
back? In front of my face? How can this be happening?
My mind snaps back and forth so quickly I’m worried
I might get the bends. One minute I’m reveling in the joy of breaking down the
walls that have held my passion in check for so long and the next I am cast
into the cold light of this ugly reality. I turn away from the table and walk
to the window hoping to see some sun, or smog, or children playing or an old
woman getting mugged–anything but those pictures. Then, before I get halfway
across the room, I go back and look at them. Mark and Valerie James making
love, his hands on her hips, his cock in her mouth, her playful, disgusting
smile and his deep beautiful eyes looking at her–the way I thought he only
looked at me.
Am I mad because he’s the jerk who used me or
am I mad because I’m the fool who loved him for it?
My mind reels with possible scenarios as to
what is really happening. However, it’s about to take a holiday because the
numbness of the shock is wearing off and pure, raw emotional energy is taking
its place. Like a generator that has reached critical mass, I fume and throw
things. I walk around in circles alternating between cursing Mark and berating
myself for falling into this scheme.
The table, still filled with the paperwork for
my rejoinder, my father’s medical bills, and old resumes I’m trying to update
in case the worst should happen, serves as a reminder that the worst most
definitely has happened.
“You son of a bitch!” I say again, pushing
everything off in a flurry. Files and documents fly across the room. “Your
brother stole my company, his lawyer stole my money and you,
you
, stole
my love. I have nothing. Nothing!”
Silent and unmoving, the table refuses to
comfort me or refute my charge. In fact, fighting with the table proves to be a
completely unsatisfying experience. But I know what wouldn’t leave me empty and
cold. Marching into Mark’s pristine office and throwing some of his files
around. As prissy as he is about his paperwork, he’ll probably collapse and
then when he’s down on the floor collecting his precious accounts and
transaction ledgers, I’ll kick him right in the balls.
The plan makes every kind of sense in the
world to me. I rush to get dressed, choosing a pair of black jeans, leather
boots and a T-shirt. I’m in a shit kicking mood and I know just the piece of
shit who has it coming. I grab my purse and begin a whirlwind tour of my
apartment playing the “where did I toss my keys last night?” game.
Last night. What a difference a day makes.
Last night I was a sane, settled woman who confessed my love to a man and meant
it. I thanked him for bringing warmth and necessary changes into my life and
envisioned our paths growing in hope and goodness. Last night I was Julia
Sharp. Today, I’m Pissed Off Julia, Queen of the Damned.
“Wait,” Mark’s voice called from somewhere
deep inside my psyche. “Wait and think.”
He’s right. How cruel a fate is that? Even
when he has wronged me, he’s right. I am Julia Sharp, not Miss Shark. I am
smart, together, and in charge of my world. I don’t run around half-cocked
shouting and acting the jackass just because I’m not getting my way. All this
month I’ve been on the rollercoaster of my emotions, learning self-respect and
self-control, and this is the test. Not Mark’s test, my test. If I can take
this betrayal and scrape some kind of good from the bottom of my broken heart,
I can conquer anything.
I put down my purse and sit on the couch,
collecting the pictures back into the envelope. I can’t go charging into
Sandstone Ventures and make a scene. I’ve already been humiliated once in that
office, and Blake has that restraining order against me. I probably shouldn’t
even make a call. It would be traced, catalogued and I’d be before the judge in
time for lunch.
Taking a deep breath, I try to focus as the
first tears begin to fall. I think of Mark, his sense of humor, and warm gentle
touch. The way he holds me after sex, nurturing and replenishing my energy. The
rough and confident thrusts he makes in my body, taking me as an entitled
being–raw sex and real power put together. The caring way he cooks, and
teaches. I can stare at him for hours and feel nothing but peace and
anticipation of the next time our bodies merge into a surging, consuming wave.
I love him.
The small flowing tears turn to big, heart
wrenching, throat clogging sobs. I loved him, and the whole time I was loving
him, I was loving a lie.

When I’m able to breathe, I pick up my phone
and call Mark’s cell.
“Hi, this is Mark,” he says cordially. Does he
answer the phone like that when it’s Valerie? I know I’m distracted. Everything
I think comes right back to her.
“I need to see you, right away. Right now.”
“It’s not a good time, and I’m at my office
now,” he says with an edge in his voice meant to tell me I’m putting his big
plan at risk.
“Well, this is the only time there is.” It
comes out a lot more mystical sounding than I wanted. I flatten my voice into a
stone, like my heart. “Go home for lunch. I will meet you at noon.”
“This really isn’t a good—”
“It’s not an offer, Mark. It’s a demand and
you’ll meet it.”
“What on earth has gotten into you?”
“The truth, Mark. The truth has finally worked
its way into my deluded head.”
“What? What truth?”
“Meet me at your apartment at noon. And, Mark.
I’m not sneaking in the back door this time, or ever again. I’m coming through
the front door so you better be in the lobby when I get there.”
I hang up the phone before he responds or I
lose my nerve. I don’t bother turning on my radio because the song in my head
is already playing too loudly to allow anything else to be heard. That song is
titled, “What a Fool I’ve Been.”
I remember when he was talking about how
dangerous it was for me to be seen at his place. Mark told me Valerie lived
near him. He told me that he needed me to sneak in and use another name in
order to protect me, and I bought it not even realizing that it’s a perfect way
to sneak your mistress past the doorman, who probably knows Valerie by name.
Names matter. Like how Mark never calls her Miss James, and frequently calls
her Val. He called me Miss Sharp all the time until the day he screwed me over
his desk.
Then, another shot to the heart: Mark asked me
the day we met with Janice to give “Val” whatever she was looking for in my
office. Thank God I decided to hold on to the Wall Street story. It’s the only
card I’ve got left, and he would have had me just hand it to her–his
girlfriend–on a silver platter along with my business.
It’s all so clear.
Now that everything makes sense, I’m more
angry than sad. So angry, in fact, I drive right past his building and have to
make a U-turn and come at it from the other direction to pull into the
underground parking garage. The fact that so many meaningful moments in my life
happened in this building and I don’t even know how to enter it correctly is
not lost on me. I arrive about ten minutes early and sit in the car looking at
the envelope full of the pictures in the front seat and trying to think of what
my approach to this is going to be. I can’t just run around his apartment
throwing things and sobbing. I’m leaving him, but I’m taking my dignity out the
door with me.
I see him standing in the lobby with the
perturbed scowl of a man who has just been terribly inconvenienced. I don’t
bother smiling, although the sight of him makes my heart flutter and ache at
the same time. He smiles at the lobby clerk, and guides me to the elevator that
requires his key.
“Nice to be going in the front for a change,”
I say, my bitterness overwhelming the small elevator car and crowding him into
silence. He opens the door for me like a gentleman, and the first thing I do is
scan his place for any sign of her–a leftover scarf, some lipstick, a pearl
handled knife he can jab in my back. Nothing. You would never know she was in
his life, unless you had photographic evidence burning a hole through your
hand.
“This better be good, Julia, because I had to
take a lot of risks to get here. I had to lie to Blake about a meeting, and I’m
not really used to being the lying brother in the family. You could have
jeopardized our last chance!”
“Oh, I don’t know, Mark. Seems like you lie
pretty well to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“For example, how you told me you wanted to
give Valerie James whatever she wanted from my office because you thought it
would be good for me. That was a total lie. Or when you told me Valerie James
was going to get my company because she was Blake’s mistress. That was a good
one too. Or when you told me you were falling in love with me. That was the
biggest whopper of them all. You lie just fine.”
“She
is
Blake’s mistress!” he blurted
out.
“And when you say “Blake” you mean
you
,
right?”
“What the hell?” Mark put his hands on his
hips and bit his lower lip. I had done a good job of staying in control, but
even the best dam breaks at some point.
“Hell? You want to know about hell? I’ll tell
you about hell. Hell is when you open yourself up to someone completely, giving
him your body and soul, just to wake up in the morning and discover you’re
nothing but a fool.”
I can’t contain it any more. I throw the
envelope at him and make my way to the couch. Just looking at it makes me want
to vomit. I can’t sit on it knowing she was there, on this sofa, loving him and
laughing at my naivety. I pace around the couch looking for somewhere to sit
because I’m about to pass out, when I finally land on a bar stool in the
kitchen.
I watch Mark as he picks up the envelope that
bounced off his chest and landed on the floor. He looks at me quizzically, and
then carefully opens the flap. Reaching in, he pulls the stack of pictures out
and turns them over so he can see the top one. I stare at him unashamedly. I
want to see his face when he gets caught in his act.
It’s not the expression I anticipated. He’s
not angry, or guilty, or sad. He doesn’t throw them back in protest or laugh
and pretend it’s a joke. He squints and analyzes each one, going through the
stack again and again. I can tell by his eyes, and the slight head tilt he’s
making, the only feeling he has is confusion.
“Where did you get these?” he asks looking at
me like he’s just seen an airplane materialize out of thin air. “Who took
them?”
I’m taken aback by his quiet confusion and
don’t know how to feel about it. If this is an act, he should get an Academy
Award.
“How the hell should I know who took them?” I
retort. “Who else do you have in the room when you’re having sex with my worst
enemy? Maybe that would be the person.”
“We didn’t have anyone with us and these were
taken in my house. I don’t understand how this is possible. Where did you get
these?”
“Okay, Mark. Let’s put the brakes on,” I say
testily. The fact he is more concerned about the evidence than what it shows
puts me off. “Before we get into who owns a camera, why don’t you stop and tell
me exactly why you are screwing Valerie James in these pictures?”