The Mistress (15 page)

"Marissa, look at me. What is it?" Preston repeated, as he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her around to face him. “Are you okay?" he asked, stroking her hip soothingly from under the covers. "I know we had a bit of an argument last night, but you seemed over it. Is that what this is about?"

She shook her head. "No," she mumbled, purposefully avoiding his eyes. "Not exactly.” She stopped.

"Not exactly...?"

Marissa was flustered, obviously so, in fact. She knew he had noticed. He noticed everything. She fidgeted nervously in her discomfort, and he continued stroking her soft skin, most likely trying to calm her. Instead of finishing her sentence, though, she curled closer to him and buried her face in his chest.

"I want you to
care
," she mumbled against his flesh.

"You don’t think I care?" he asked, trying not to sound exasperated.

"
Do you?
" she huffed, looking up at him.

Preston persisted. "Why do you think that?" he asked.

"Why do you keep answering with questions?" she answered, turning the question back to him in the same manner he had been doing to her. Why couldn’t he just answer the question?

"Marissa...” he trailed.

"Are we- are we going to have sex or not?” she squeaked, trying to change the subject. He obviously didn’t want to answer or he would have by now. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to answer, now, because the old Preston would have immediately reassured her that he cared, that he wanted to work on anything and everything that was wrong. Marissa was secretly very suspicious of
this
Preston, and her worries were becoming more realized.

He smirked. "Are you offering?"

She glared up at him, cheeks flaming red; she was pissed. Though she wanted to change the subject, he didn’t even care to acknowledge her changing the subject. He was thinking with his dick. This was not the compassionate man she married.

A
fter days of not speaking to her husband, she decided to perk up. Summer seemed to be her off-season at the bakery, so as it approached the crowds became less and less. She still had enough business to maintain and stay comfortable, but there wasn’t need for all three of them to be there every day. Today Joseph and Marissa happened to have the day off together while Rachel maintained the shop.

Because of the rare occurrence of their simultaneous day off, he invited her out for lunch and a matinee. It was a welcome change. They never got to spend time together away from work, and she ached for her non-gay, gay best friend. It was especially necessary after the few days she had just had. She needed to get out and have fun.

Unfortunately for her, she didn’t have a lot of friends. She had Joseph and Rachel, and then she had Haley – who had been increasingly strange lately. She didn’t seem to interact with the family as often – at least, not for the last couple of months. Not wanting to pry into her personal life, she didn’t try to delve into what was wrong with her. But now, things were getting really bad. The kids were starting to take notice, vocally so. She didn’t have an answer to give Lucas and Sophie, but she definitely wanted to investigate given time.

Part of her was truly hoping it would sort itself out, but the more time went on, the further away she seemed to be. She was dazed and confused during her daily tasks; she had even forgotten to pick the kids up from school and/or activities on a couple of occasions. That was
not
Haley.

She shrugged it off, but took a mental note to be sure and inquire further when she saw her later. She had to get to the bottom of it – not only as her employer, but as her friend. Marissa sifted through her drawer, looking for her teardrop earrings with a pink marble stone in the center. Where could they be?

Frustrated, she took her investigation over to Preston’s bedside table, thinking that he may have gotten annoyed and threw them in. She couldn’t really blame him, actually. She had three jewelry boxes, including one that stood almost as tall as their dresser and half its width, but she never used them. It wasn’t until his annoyance got the better of him and he put them away that her jewelry was actually housed within them, in fact. Instead of putting them away, she would pile them on every surface she could find; after the long day at work, the last thing she wanted to do was neatly place her jewelry into their respective places. But she did admire that after all these years he still tried to change her habits.

As she filtered through his organized chaos, she came across something quite peculiar: a teddy bear charm. It sparkled with intensity. Sterling silver – or perhaps even white gold – with clusters of diamonds across its body and rubies for eyes. It was beautiful, extravagant even, but why did he have it?

She grabbed it and held it tightly within her palms. She was going to ask him. She stormed through their bedroom and into the hallway. Crossing the threshold of their bedroom, she heard voices: Sophie’s and Preston’s voices. They were speaking normally and not in hushed whispers, but her instincts told her to stop and listen. Call it complete paranoia, if you will, but she had to listen.

Part of her hoped that it was in regards to what they had just discussed earlier this week. Hopefully it would shed light on issues that Preston had still left her in the dark about. Hopefully she would know more about what the hell was going on in her own house. Everyone was being strange, and she wanted to know why.

But it wasn’t what she heard. She heard anger in the child’s voice, and she wondered why. “Daddy, I don’t think you can love two people at the same time,” she cried out.

“It isn’t always black and white, sweetie,” he responded, as if he knew all too well. He sounded sad, but she couldn’t place why. What the hell? What were they talking about? “Love isn’t cut and dry, and there are several different kinds of love.”

“But he likes her better than me!” she screamed. And then it hit her. Sophie had a boyfriend. She was talking about her boyfriend. She was glad that Preston was trying to ease her spirits with his motivational speak. She smiled, and just as she was about to take a step, he spoke again.

“This is about your boyfriend?” he asked, confused. He didn’t know that? What did he think they were talking about?

Unexpectedly, her cell phone rang loudly, and she knew there was no longer a need to hide. She would have been found out. She answered quickly and acted as though she were merely just beginning her trek through the hall. It was Joseph, and now she had even more to talk about. She buried the charm into her pocket and walked out the door. She was ready to meet her friend and gain some third party insight on her confusion.

~~~

“H
e’s cheating,” Joseph said matter-of-factly, taking a sip of his sweet tea.

Marissa shook her head. “Too easy,” she responded. “Preston knows better. We made a pact. We would never cheat. We would talk to the other before we made that mistake.”

“What if it just happened?” he asked, perplexed. “People don’t always know they’re going to cheat. Shit happens.”

“But you know when things aren’t going the way you want them to...you know when things need to be fixed,” she defended, crossing her arms, offended.

“And is everything what you want it to be in your relationship? Do you think things need to be fixed?” he asked, trying to make a point.

“Well, of course things need to be fixed! I’m sitting here with you, suspicious as hell, and you’re talking about the possibility of him cheating on me and the kids!”

“Honey, you’re talking to me. You’re not talking to him. You said it yourself – if things needed to be fixed, you’d talk about it. If you’re not holding up your part of the deal, how can you expect him to? That pact was made ages ago, and you know it’s not always that easy. Sometimes there’s a problem and you don’t know it’s a problem until it’s too late. And it isn’t the kids he’d be cheating on; it’d be you. Only you.” He was speaking so directly, and with no sign of empathy. She was getting angry, but she didn’t know why; maybe it was the fact that he was voicing what she had feared, or maybe it was because she had feared it all along. Was he cheating? Was something going on?

And then it all whirl-winded into her mind all at once. The signs, the signs, oh, the fucking signs.

Was she blind? She hoped that she and Joseph were completely off base, but she wondered once again – only for an entirely different reason: should she trust Preston? Could she?

~~~

"I
want to give you everything you want," Preston told her, running his fingers through her hair. "Whatever that may be, Haley.”

“You know, whether it's sweet and tender, or passionate and forceful, or even kinky. Really. As kinky as you may want it,” he continued, obviously trying to keep from laughing at his own joke.

Marissa had gone out with her friend Joseph for the day, and Haley and he were in charge of the kids. Well, truthfully, he was supposed to be working. To be fair, he had been working – working on her nerves that is. She was trying to make the kids lunch, but he was consistently making moves and driving her to the brink of insanity.

She blushed at his words and didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she turned her back to him and began chopping up vegetables frantically. “Smell that?” he asked.

“The food?” she asked in annoyance.

He laughed and put his arms around her waist. “No. That smell of... 100% you. That lovely aroma of sweat and female juices flowing from in between your legs. It has your signature all over it,” he began. She rolled her eyes. It seemed like that was all that was on his mind, as if he was some sort of crazed sex fiend. They rarely had conversations anymore, and when they did it seemed like a ploy to get her into bed. “I want to be inside of you,” he whispered, his aim on a seductive tone, but honestly he just sounded lecherous and annoying.

"Haley?" he called out, concerned. It was then that she felt him pull her around to face him. A finger reached out and touched under her chin. He tilted her head up and kissed her, deeply. “I’m just joking,” he said lovingly. “I’m not meaning to annoy you – I just missed you.”

And then it happened – she fell into his embrace, letting him pull her closer and press up against her. He ran his hands over the small of her back, and she moaned into him.

"Preston," she whispered. “The kids are upstairs.”

He shushed her and kissed her again, and without being told, he stopped. He pulled away. “Don’t ever act like I just want sex. I love you.”

With those words, he left. And in an instant she felt like an asshole. She felt as if she had just accused him of something horrible and that he was hurt. She felt sad. Why did she love him so much?

She finished the kids’ lunch and served it to them before she tried to address the issue with him. She found herself about to knock on the door of the office, but when she reached the door, it suddenly opened. “I heard you coming,” he said, turning and leaving the door slightly ajar so that she could enter. That damn creak in the floor.

“You know, we’ve had sex in here three times,” she said, a smirk on her face. She knew she should feel bad, but she had come to terms with the fact that when she was around him – her guilt didn’t matter. Nothing did.

“Twice,” he corrected, turning to her just before he reached his desk.

“No. Three times,” she responded seductively, as she hurried to him and slammed against his lips in a fiery kiss. “So what was that that you were saying about my smell?” she asked, pulling apart from their heated passion for only just a moment before crashing into him once again.

“I can smell your arousal, and right now – I can see it in your eyes,” he responded between kisses.

“And what’s this about being kinky?” she asked, ridding herself of her shirt so that she was clad only in a black lace bra.

It was crazy, really. Haley remembered the first time that they had engaged in sex. She was angered at the fact that he ripped away at her shirt – and now, here she was entertaining the thoughts of kinky sex. All sorts of it, in varying degrees of kink. Her resolve was growing the more she was with him; he had created a wild side. And sometimes, she was scared of that wild side; it was a beast that reared its head unswervingly until she satiated its cravings. Sometimes it was inconvenient. Especially with the kids in the house, and especially when she knew that everyone had noticed her growing distance from them. It was only a matter of time before everyone figured it out.

"Does it make you wet thinking about it, Haley?" he asked her hotly, before enveloping her lips with his again. He teased the clasp of her bra with his fingers until he snapped it open and removed it, smoothing his palms across her flesh.

She whimpered at his words.

"It's okay," he continued. "I'm hard thinking about it.”

He found her hand and moved it to his cock, just as he did before their first date together. It was hard, extremely so. Her fingers closed around his girth, and he groaned out her name in pleasure. Even weeks later – even after the honeymoon stage of something new – they still were lost in one another’s passionate groans.

Haley’s mind wandered and her body moved on pure instinct, and before she knew it she was on the desk, her legs spread, naked. Preston was also miraculously naked. How it all happened, she wasn’t sure. She could only assume that it was heated, because she had blacked out – the measures of passion obviously taking over. He slid his fingers up and down her dripping folds, moving deftly and working her clit with great expertise. Not that he had needed it, but he
had
had a lot of practice over the last couple of months.

"I think you are quite the sex addict,” he said, rubbing furiously. "I think you want me to bend you over, and instead of fucking you in this dripping pussy of yours, finger you in your tight little asshole."

"Preston, oh my God," she moaned. She couldn’t believe she was actually entertaining the idea of allowing that. She had never tried anal before, and it had never appealed to her until now. He had that effect on her, after all. She tried to squirm, but he held her firmly in place, grabbing one ass cheek with his other hand, lifting her slightly off the mahogany surface. While he massaged her ass, his other hand trailed from her clit and teased the entrance of her pussy.