Janelle Denison: Private Pleasures

And now, eight months of bliss was slipping through his fingers. He clung tenaciously to the frayed end of the rope.

"Are we still going to the party together?" That had been the original plan two months ago.

She shook her head. "I don't think that would be such a good idea."

"Why not?"

She dampened her bottom lip with her tongue and looked away. "Because we're not a couple anymore."

The crushing band around his chest tightened. He was feeling desperate…desperate enough to blurt the declaration she thought she needed to hear from him. "Mariah-"

"Grey," Jeanie's voice drifted through the intercom on his desk. "The call from Mr. Weisman that you've been waiting for is on line two."

Damn. He'd forgotten about Weisman. The man was on the verge of signing a two-hundred-thousand-dollar contract, and he was damn hard to get a hold of. "Thank you, Jeanie. I'll take the call and you can leave."

He wanted Mariah to stay, but she was already inching toward the door in those sexy high heels and swaying her skirt enticingly.

"I've got to go, anyway, Grey," she said, gliding across the room, farther and farther away from him. Hand on the doorknob, she paused, blue eyes wide and filled with conflicting emotions. "I guess I'll see you at my father's party."

Two weeks. How was he going to survive another fourteen days without seeing her? Touching her? Talking and laughing with her? Fourteen days of wondering if this other guy she was dating would offer her the two things he couldn't give her.

Any man would be a fool not to.

The roll of Turns snapped in half between his fingers. "Yeah, I'll see you there."

"Christ, Grey, you look like hell."

Grey glanced up as his good friend Mark Davis slid onto the vacant barstool next to him. "Par for the course," he muttered, taking a gulp of his second scotch of the evening. "I feel like hell."

Monday had always been designated boys' night out at Bruno's Pub, where he met Mark and a few other colleagues for a drink and to shoot the bull. Today Grey just wanted to be left alone. While Mark appeared tanned and too energetic, Grey felt like he'd been through the wringer over the endlessly long, lonely weekend. Even work, which had always been his refuge, hadn't distracted him from thoughts of Mariah, her short skirts and sassy hair and the guy she was supposedly dating.

Mark grinned and signaled the bartender. "Hey, Bruno, I'll take a Bud and a bowl of your warmed peanuts." He glanced at Grey. "Uh-oh. Straight scotch?"

The only time he drank straight scotch was when he was in a rotten mood. The liquor hit him hard and fast, obliterating all thought and reason. Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd get so inebriated he wouldn't dream of Mariah tonight.

Bruno delivered Mark's beer and the peanuts.

Mark thanked him and gestured to Grey. "Better give this poor man a refill, Bruno."

Grey rattled the ice cubes in his empty glass. "Make it a double."

Bruno lifted a dark, bushy brow but said nothing as he grabbed the bottle of scotch and put a double shot into Grey's glass.

"Looks like I'm gonna be the designated driver tonight," Mark said, snatching Grey's car keys from the bar top and putting them out of his reach. "But I suppose the favor is long overdue, considering how many times you've bailed me out of this place at closing time."

"Yeah, well, if I start singing or something, knuckle me alongside the head, will you?"

"Will do." Saluting him with his beer bottle, Mark took a drink.

Grey reached for a peanut and cracked open the shell, then tossed the warm morsel into his mouth. He and Mark had met at the University of Southern California during their junior year in college. Their similar interests and wild life-styles-that had included partying and lots of women-had bonded them on a masculine level. They'd become fast friends and had remained close over the years. Grey had seen Mark through one marriage and an ensuing nasty divorce with his two little boys caught in the middle.

In Grey's opinion, Mark's crumbled marriage was another prime example of how overrated wedding nuptials really were. Statistics and his own experience with his parents proved that wedded bliss rarely existed. He plowed his fingers through his hair. Why couldn't Mariah understand that?

Mark whistled low and gave Grey a friendly slap on the back. "Man, you got it bad for her, don't you?"

Grey's reply was distinctly profane.

Mark chuckled, unoffended. "Yes, indeed, my friend, you're as good as gone."

Grey didn't care for the sound of that. He'd always been able to walk away from other relationships unscathed, so why couldn't he shake Mariah? Thing was, he didn't want to forget her.

"It's hell getting dumped, isn't it?"

Maybe that's what was wrong, Grey thought, staring at the tawny liquid swirling in his glass. In all his dating years, going all the way back to high school, no one had ever dumped him. He'd always been the one to walk away from relationships before they got too intense, breaking more hearts and enduring the wrath of more women than he cared to recall.

No one had ever walked away from him.

He frowned. Although Mariah's rejection stung his pride and bruised his ego, there was a deeper level to his depression he didn't understand. Without her his life just wasn't the same. And when he rambled around that huge, empty house of his, he'd find himself listening for her voice or her sweet, lilting laughter. But there was no trace of her anywhere. No cosmetics cluttering his bathroom, no scent of her in his bed, no French vanilla coffee in the kitchen cupboard and no butter pecan ice cream in the freezer.

When had those things started to matter?

"Man, have you seen her lately, Grey?" Mark was saying as he scooped up a handful of peanuts and began shelling them. "She's got this great new haircut, and she's traded in her suits for these short little skirts and tight pants. She's got a great…uh, pair of legs."

Grey glared. They're mine .

As if reading his friend's thoughts and realizing how far he'd gone, Mark held up his hands, palms out. "Hey, I wasn't the only one looking, Grey."

"Where have you seen Mariah?" Where in the hell had she gone in her short skirts and tight pants?

"I've seen her a couple of times at Roxy's Nightclub." Mark shrugged. "She was there Saturday night."

"Roxy's?" His stomach felt as though someone had just put it through the spin cycle. "That place is a meat market."

Mark grinned wolfishly. "Yeah, grade-A quality."

Grey gulped the last of his scotch, and the liquor went down like a blazing inferno. "Who was Mariah with?"

"Jade."

"Figures," he muttered. "Anyone else?"

"Just the eight or ten guys who were trying to hit on her." Mark took another swig of beer. "I have to tell you, Grey, she looked hot."

Great. Just what he wanted to hear. "Did she dance with anyone?" And why was he torturing himself with all these questions when he really didn't want to know the answers?

"No, but not for a lack of being asked."

Gray scrubbed a hand over his jaw and swore.

"I went up to her and said hi, and we talked for a while until some guy she knew arrived."

Grey hung his head. "Must've been the guy she said she was dating."

"From what Jade told me, he's a lawyer."

"Did she dance with him?" Tell me no, because I can't stand the thought of her body being pressed against another man's.

"No," Mark said.

Grey closed his eyes and blew out a relieved breath.

"But she did leave with him."

Groaning at the intimate images that bit of news provoked, Grey patted his pockets for his Turns and filched two of the chalky tablets. They didn't mix well with the liquor in his belly.