Incentive (Infidelity Universe)

Getting to know her has given me a glimpse of what it might be like to share a life with someone. With her. The simplest things—preparing her meals, leaving her admiring notes, finding ways to show her how much she means to me, making her happy—has altered my definition of getting ahead.

Infidelity pulled me out of a rut, but it’s become clear to me that success isn’t measured in dollar signs or notches in a bedpost. Over the past few months, I’ve counted my greatest accomplishments in the number of times I put a smile on Laynee’s face.

I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, she’s become my purpose. Her happiness is my incentive. She’s my secret to getting ahead in life.

With long vigorous strokes, I slice through the water in the pool behind her Georgian-style cottage. Each time I come up for air, my gaze falls unerringly on her toned, lithe body on the lounger.

Face down with her feet angled toward me, she offers up a sinful view of her delectable ass. Little black strings crisscross her curves and hold the tiny pieces of her bikini together. I don’t know why she bothers wearing anything at all. It’s a Friday night. No one’s around. She’s going to be nude as soon as I finish my laps in the pool.

Christ, I love the way she bends to my touch, melts beneath my mouth, and unravels around my cock. I have her—beside me, under me, all around me—yet I feel like I’m still chasing her.

The golden waves of her hair part down her back and fall around her ribs, baring a tapestry of scars that shimmer like diamonds in the glow of dusk. In the five months I’ve known her, she’s never exposed them to anyone but me. Reese was there the night she was attacked, but if he showed up right now, she’d wrap a towel around her shoulders.

It bugs me. Not that I want her parading around half-nude in front of other people. But I don’t like her hiding in shame. In fact, it fucking pisses me off.

Her fans idolize her, and her public image is recovering with the buzz about her dating a handsome nobody. Not because that nobody is me, but because she’s making public appearances again, putting herself out there. Except the world has no idea what she’s concealing beneath her designer clothes.

I’ve been dragging her out of the house a couple times a week. I take her to dinner, dancing in night clubs, sunbathing on the beaches of Tybee Island. We’ve also made several day trips to L.A. for various interviews and meetings. The cameras follow her everywhere, and I despise the smile she gives them, the one that doesn’t reach her gorgeous blue eyes.

There’s something standing in the way of her happiness, something big and jagged inside her that projects a shadowy wall behind her gaze. I know what it is. I have a despicably close relationship with it.

Because I saw it in the eyes of a nine-year-old boy.

I watched it permanently steal his smile.

I felt it when his mother pulled him out of my school.

Broken trust.

It’s a crippling scar on the soul.

I’m not guilty of the horrors that were done to those kids. Nor am I guilty of the abuse that was inflicted on Laynee.

But I want to be guilty of repairing the damage. Even if it takes forever. Hell, I’ll give her infinite forevers to see her whole and happy.

The problem is I don’t know my way around a relationship. My experience with women is limited to sex. When I want it, I chase it—through seduction, domination, whatever means necessary. But the best sex in the world won’t rebuild Laynee’s eroded trust.

Even though I have her, she remains out of reach, aloof, sad. All of this became apparent to me when she wasn’t offered the role in her last audition. It was given to an actress with half her talent and beauty. The actress also happens to be half her age, which was a devastating blow to Laynee’s morale.

Adding insult to injury, I came home from that trip with business cards from two potential investors. Both divorced women, loaded with capital and looking for ways to invest it. Given the way they leered at me, they’re probably more interested in my cock than my business ideas, so I don’t know if anything will come from the proposals I sent them.

The prospect of me working with them hasn’t helped the ominous mood hanging over Laynee. Especially since she offered numerous times to fund my business ventures. Taking money from the woman I want to provide for feels like a kick to the groin. I need to do this on my own.

“Earth to Decker.”

Her lilt draws my gaze to her hypnotic eyes.

“What’s putting that sexy brooding look on your face?” She shifts to sit on the end of the lounger and stretches out her bare legs in the space between us.