Entry-Level Mistress - By Sabrina Darby Page 0,10

I did like the way the skin between his jaw and his shirt collar looked. I pushed his hands away and leaned forward to lick the place I wanted. “Emily, stop.”

I moved an inch back, held his face in my hands and studied his eyes.

“I didn’t start this.”

“You applied for the job.”

Startled, I laughed, scooted back to the other side of the car and fastened my seat belt. He was right. And somehow, knowing that I’d started this gave me a sense of power. If I’d started it, then I could be the one to decide when it ended.

“Believe me, Emily, as strange as the two of us together is, I want you. But we need to stop and think.” Amused, I watched him give his little speech. Either Daniel Hartmann was beyond adept at manipulation or he had more of a conscience than I knew. I preferred to believe the first, at least for now, or I’d have to agree with him. However, thinking—analyzing the insanity of my actions—was the last thing I wanted to do. Not when he was so close, when I could still taste him on my tongue— “Not complicate everything more than it already is. I’m a decade older than you.”

“It showed in your kiss,” I said without thinking. He looked at me sharply and something fierce surged inside me. Gotcha. I lolled my head against the seat to slant a smile. “It means you were good, Hartmann.”

Chapter 4

On Sunday, I discovered Daniel Hartmann wasn’t much of a muse. In fact, my mind had been so disquieted that I could find no order, no joy, in the sculptural work I’d stopped a week earlier. I cleaned the apartment instead, which had Leanna howling in laughter.

Even worse, Daniel didn’t call. Hadn’t said a word since he’d left me at the door to my building, his gaze a heated promise. If I were really interested in him, if there weren’t any of this other history between us, I wouldn’t put up with his somewhat boorish ways. So what if it was slightly hot that he had assumed I would go out with him? That kind of confidence could also be interpreted as chauvinism.

But there was this history. And maybe even the fact that he was dangerous to me made him the slightest bit more attractive. Not that he needed any help in that department. The guy was blessed with more than his fair share of good looks.

When my mother called, I struggled to keep my lies to those of omission, guiding the conversation to safe topics, like art, her gardening, or gossip about all of her friends and her friends’ children. Even hearing her voice, having to obfuscate the details of my life, brought my actions into high relief. I found ways to justify my choices, to justify the kisses and the desire for more. I played with the idea of pinching myself, waking up and quitting. Walking away before I went deeper down a path that was certain to bring nothing but disaster.

But in the end I went to work on Monday because I didn’t know what else to do. In reality, as much as I found the office position surreal and, perhaps, slightly like selling out, the paycheck I would receive on Friday was very welcome. It was more money than I would have made all summer doing odd jobs. Art was not particularly lucrative unless one was famous. Even the fellowship offered only a meager stipend. However, being a Fellow at the Barrows Farm would provide a stepping-stone to major grants and entrée into the bureaucratic art world. If I wanted to play that game.

As much as I found the vibrancy of street art and the indie art movement invigorating—freeing and enticing in a bohemian sort of way—I wasn’t ready for any doors to be closed. I wanted choices.

The fellowship offered me those choices.

Surprisingly, sitting in my little cubicle at Hartmann Enterprises, erasing green pixels around a woman’s leg, offered me options as well. And not just the option to jump into Hartmann’s bed.

Actually, I wasn’t entirely certain that particular one still existed. As much as I’d managed to entice him into kissing me, he’d seemed … unnerved. I didn’t know what that meant.

Only, he wasn’t the man I’d thought he’d be. The Daniel Hartmann I had expected was ruthless and uncompromising. He would have thrown me out the minute he’d learned of my existence. Or he wouldn’t have shown any hesitation about having