SECRET Revealed Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by L. Marie Adeline

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, B D W Y, are trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Simultaneously published in Canada by Doubleday Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Adeline, L. Marie.

  S•E•C•R•E•T revealed : a S•E•C•R•E•T novel / L. Marie Adeline.—First edition.

  pages; cm

  1. Women—Fiction. 2. Secret societies—Fiction. 3. New Orleans (La.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR9199.4.A34S43 2013

  813′.6—dc23 2014007356

  ISBN 978-0-553-41920-7

  eBook ISBN 978-0-553-41921-4

  Cover photograph: Larysa Dodz/Getty Images

  v3.1_r1

  For Lisa Laborde, with love and gratitude.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Ten Steps

  Prologue: Cassie

  Chapter 1: Solange

  Chapter 2: Cassie

  Chapter 3: Solange

  Chapter 4: Cassie

  Chapter 5: Solange

  Chapter 6: Cassie

  Chapter 7: Solange

  Chapter 8: Cassie

  Chapter 9: Solange

  Chapter 10: Cassie

  Chapter 11: Solange

  Chapter 12: Cassie

  Chapter 13: Solange

  Chapter 14: Cassie

  Chapter 15: Solange

  Chapter 16: Cassie

  Chapter 17: Solange

  Chapter 18: Cassie

  Chapter 19: Solange

  Epilogue: Cassie

  Acknowledgments

  A Reader’s Guide to S•E•C•R•E•T Revealed

  Other Books by This Author

  TEN STEPS

  Step One: Surrender

  Step Two: Courage

  Step Three: Trust

  Step Four: Generosity

  Step Five: Fearlessness

  Step Six: Confidence

  Step Seven: Curiosity

  Step Eight: Bravery

  Step Nine: Exuberance

  Step Ten: Liberation

  PROLOGUE

  CASSIE

  Had it been only a week? A week since I put on that black-and-white lace camisole with the matching panties? My ear pressed to the door, I listened to him take the steps in twos, forcing myself to count to five after he knocked lightly, trying so hard to appear a little less excited to see him than I actually felt. I only made it to three seconds and then whipped open the door.

  There was my Will, with a fistful of scurvy flowers clearly stolen from a vase at the Café.

  “For you,” he said, holding the flowers under my nose before tossing them over my head onto the floor behind me. “And for me,” he said, scooping me up and carrying me backwards to my bed.

  He threw me down on the bedspread. I squealed, delighted, as he pushed my camisole up over my breasts to kiss my stomach. Then I went lax, watching as the mere taste of my skin inflamed him, making him hungrier, rougher, which I found agonizing and thrilling. The sound from his throat as he worked off my camisole and threw it aside … I can still hear it.

  “Are you real?” he asked as he gathered my breasts in his hands.

  “Well, I thought about implants, but I’m just not that kind of girl, you know?” I said, lazily running my fingers through his thick, dark hair.

  But he wasn’t going to be distracted by my joke. We weren’t “just friends” anymore. We were lovers. And he was lost in me, in my body, my hair, my skin. I was an ocean, allowing desire to wash over me, my blood pumping, sending small shudders through my legs, making me ache in places he would soon be touching. He pulled off my panties and whipped them over my head. They hit the window and fell to the floor. He regarded my body as if it were a banquet, unsure where to kiss first. His hands knew where to be, his fingers especially, as they traced along the curve of my pelvis, gracing where I was wet and waiting.

  “I want you so badly,” he said, his hot palm on my skin, urging a finger inside.

  There were more words, but I don’t remember them. My eyes were shut, the blood now pounding in my ears, my anticipation so great I threw my arms over my head, presenting my body to him like a gift, just to see what he would make of it. And that’s when he flipped me over onto my stomach, lifting me, sinking his teeth into a cheek, not too hard but hard enough to mark me as his. I heard him yank his clothes off. Then his hands squeezed my hips and he arched me farther, opening me up to him, my arms stretched to the sides, my cheek against a pillow. I felt his prodding erection and I writhed to let him in, heated now, hungry for him to fuck me. I was like an animal, my fingers now claws pulling on the duvet. His own hands pushed their way down my back, caressing the skin before him.

  “Oh god, Will.”

  I couldn’t explain hunger like this any more than I could the fullness I felt as he began to inch inside me, his palm on my hip for leverage, since it was clear there’d soon be madness. But at first what I remember was this perfect, slow slide in, then this gorgeous ache as he pulled out. Over and over he thrust, and I began to match his fucking to my moans, or my moans matched his rhythm—it was hard to know. My thighs widened, my back bowed farther. I felt his thumbs press into my hips and then I looked over my shoulder at his face, so determined, so astonished. I think I wanted to snap him out of his trance, because why else would I say it? Why would I ask him to spank me? He paused.

  “Do it,” I hissed, my hair in my face.

  This had never occurred to me before. But we were in a different place, an animal place, and then I felt it. Will gave me a swift, sweet slap—just like that—followed by a mellow rub, and I loved how it felt, the way his skin on mine sent vibrations straight to my core, now wrapped so tightly around his thrusting cock.

  “Yes. Do it again,” I commanded, my face now pressed into the duvet, eyes closed. What is happening to me?

  But by then he was lost in the fucking. He was driving so hard into me, I couldn’t have changed the direction of things if I tried. I sent a dizzy finger to my tight clitoris, greedy to come, but he roughly pushed it away, his own finger finding me—and feeling far better against that knot. All I could do was grab the duvet, hold on, and buck backwards as white stars crowded my vision.

  “You’re so hard,” I said, and then it happened, the hot wave of my orgasm sneaking up on me, sending me up, up and then over the side, as I sighed, Oh, yeah, yes, oh god, oh Will, just as he was saying, Jesus, Cassie, I’m coming, and pulling out just in time to release across my spine, both of us knowing condoms were essential, but man, at a certain point there was just no looking back, no way to stop it, and no need to either. He was mine and I was his. I picked him, he picked me. We were each other’s. If there were consequences, we’d accept them. After a few seconds of shuddering joy, he collapsed across me, pressing into me, pulling me to him, gasping and laughing at so much good fortune.

  “Holy … holy … fuck,” he whispered, his mouth at my ear.

  “I know,” I said, shutting my eyes for a second and thanking the gods of sex for this man.

  “So … where did that come from?” />
  “Where did what come from?”

  I had already forgot that, ass in the air, I had asked my sweet Will to spank me.

  “The ‘spank me’ stuff,” he said, still a little out of breath but now carefully peeling himself off my back to collapse next to me.

  I flipped over to my side to face him, my hand going to the part of his stomach I loved the most, the part still sticky with us. I thought of how the embers of friendship had so long been stoked that I had once worried we’d never be able to generate enough heat between us.

  I no longer worried about that.

  “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “I guess … I was overcome with desire.” I laughed into the pillow. I sounded ridiculous!

  “Why are you asking me?” I asked, coming up for air. “Did it bother you?”

  “Hell no. I just never took you for a spanking enthusiast.”

  “I don’t know if that’s what I’d call myself, but yeah, in that moment, it felt, I don’t know … like it was just the right kind of spice to add.”

  “I’ll keep that flavor on hand in the future,” he said, holding up a wide palm to high-five me, the punctuation to a lame, sweet joke.

  Just as I was thinking, How lucky am I that my friend Will is next to me in bed, he pulled my whole head to his face for a long, deep kiss.

  His mouth on my mouth—that’s what I’ll remember the most about that day.

  “Who knew you were some kind of sex goddess,” he whispered, cupping my chin.

  I threw my head back and laughed, because he had no idea about S.E.C.R.E.T.

  But less than a week later, Will would discover from whence his so-called sex goddess learned to be so goddess-y—and I would be left standing in a dark hallway at Latrobe’s. He’d think of me as some dirty slut, covered in another man’s scent, another man’s pleasure, eight different men not counting Will: all from S.E.C.R.E.T—nine if you count Mark Drury, my recruit.

  Soon I would no longer be a sex goddess to Will but rather a dangerous woman.

  Soon this man who once could not get enough of me would not be able to get away from me fast enough.

  SOLANGE

  I grew up in this house so I knew every plane and corner, every nook and cranny; the cracks in the tile roof from hurricanes that failed to do more than bruise the siding; the grouting that needed tending to on the only stone porch on State Street. These flaws always drew my eye when I pulled my Volkswagen into the cobblestone driveway. My dad had bought this Craftsman-style house from its original owners, and for a time we were the only black family for two blocks in Uptown. So I was still conscious of keeping it looking as pretty and pristine as he had. But lately I’d let things slip. What can I say? I’d been busy. And I’d never been the obedient type.

  Still, when I pulled up that warm fall day, I knew something was not quite right. Or that something was very right, depending on how you looked at it. The broken roof tiles had been replaced, the newer ones now a little more vivid than the old ones surrounding them. And the grout was dark where it had been newly filled in around the porch stones. My ten-year-old son, Gus, was with my ex, Julius, for the weekend. These were jobs he had said he’d help me with. When he got around to it. I said, No. I’ll do it. I can take care of myself, thank you very much.

  But between ten-hour shifts with grumpy news crews chasing breaking stories and weekends anchoring, I had no time to properly research the right maintenance company or to ask around at work if anyone could recommend a good contractor. They were so hard to find in New Orleans, so many were booked up on the Warehouse District condo boom or on big government reconstruction jobs. And Julius was never any good as a handyman. My ex-husband was an entrepreneur, a creative type, or at least that’s how he saw himself. So how the hell had these repairs come about? Surely if Julius had tackled them, or found someone who could, he’d have told me.

  It was only when I threw my car into park that I noticed the white utility truck in front of my house, a long ladder jutting out. Someone was here. I quietly exited, not fully closing my car door. Just then I heard a metal on metal clanging sound coming from my backyard.

  My journalist instincts were on high alert. Leave your purse in the car. Just take your keys. Be prepared to throw them. Don’t go into the house. Observe from the outside in. I was wearing heels so I padded on my toes, navigating the side drive, noticing as I did so that the leaky hose had been repaired. Wow. Nice. But still. How? And who?

  I looked across the street. Dr. Franz in the brick Colonial was washing his car. Okay, good. There’d be a witness, someone to hear me scream in case whoever was in my backyard tinkering and hammering was actually breaking into it my house.

  Ding, ding, plink, plink. The sounds continued. Feeling bolder, I made my way to the gate and raised my hand to unlock it, but the lock was completely gone, removed by the screws! My heart leapt. Should I stop here and call the cops? I padded around for my phone, but realized it was in my purse in the car. Damn it. I stepped onto the grass, my heels sinking into the moist lawn. Who watered it?

  Carefully peeking around the corner, I saw him: a young man bent over a portable sawhorse, hammering away at something. It was 73 degrees, a hot day for November, so he was shirtless, an expanse of muscled back deeply browned by the sun. When the police asked for a description I’d say he was probably Italian, Greek or Hispanic, lithe, with more of a dancer’s body than a construction worker’s. No. I wouldn’t use the term dancer’s body with the police, would I? I was five-eight, shoes off, so I put him at five-eleven. Full head of curly black hair. Sinewy forearms. Not that I would describe them to the cops as sinewy; I wouldn’t say that. Thick, maybe. Ropy? No. Wait. Why would I even describe his forearms? Well, they were remarkable. He looked to be twenty-five, thirty tops. Faded khaki work pants, naked torso, a white T-shirt hanging out of his back pocket.

  He continued hammering at something finicky resting on a platform strung between the sawhorses, his tool belt hanging crooked around his lean hips. More tools were neatly laid out on a portable worktable set up on the back patio. (Yes, Officer, that’s when I came upon a young, lithe Italian man with a dancer’s body, brown rippled skin, black curly hair, lean hips and incredibly sexy forearms—he was doing repairs on my place. Arrest him.)

  The man looked relaxed. At home. At my home. Maybe police weren’t necessary.

  “Ahem.”

  He didn’t hear me.

  “Hello,” I said a little louder.

  That sent his hammer flying out behind him, landing just a foot in front of me on the grass.

  “Holy shit!” he exclaimed, turning around. “You scared me!”

  “I scared you? This is my backyard you’re hammering away in.”

  I finally took in his face, full on. He was seriously handsome but with gentle features: soft brown eyes, full lips. He gave me an easy smile and rested a hand on his hip, his other hand pulling the T-shirt out of his back pocket to wipe his brow.

  “How long have you been standing there?” he asked.

  I realized I was holding my car keys so hard they’d pressed grooves into my skin.

  “I just got home. How long have you been working here?”

  “All day. I fixed the broken tiles on the roof, reset some of the stones on the porch, watered the lawn—”

  “I know. I saw. Who hired you? I certainly didn’t.”

  “—and I was just fixing the fence lock, but this here’s just going to be a temporary fix. You’ll have to get a new lock. One with a dead bolt, I think. I mean, this is Uptown, it’s pretty safe, but you never know.”

  He had a very slight accent, not from around here—maybe East Texas? For me as a journalist this instant awareness of details was an automatic skill, one I was known for. I took a step closer to him as he thoughtfully tilted his head; he was taking in my shoes, my legs, my waist, my breasts. I was wearing a blue silk blouse, a deep jewel tone, the same one I had worn to anchor the news that morning. I felt a current dance
through my body, instantly warming me. Solange, this is a very young man. And you are a professional, a divorcée, with a young son and a high-profile job in the city. It would not be fitting to flirt. With this man. Who is trespassing on your property. Who is fixing your house. Who is younger than you.

  “Who are you and who hired you?” I repeated, a hand moving to rub my neck. Nerves.

  “I’m thirsty. I’m wondering if I can get a glass of water maybe? Then I can tackle the leaky dishwasher—that is, if you’ll let me into the house.”

  Sexy man, this one. He had swagger; he had a bit of game.

  Sounding firm but not angry, I said, “You will remain thirsty until you tell me who sent you and what it is you’re doing on my property.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you … if … you accept the Step.”

  As he said it, literally as the words were coming out of his mouth, I knew. Finally, it was starting. The thing. The S.E.C.R.E.T. thing.

  My guide, Matilda, had said it would begin within the month, that’d I’d be warned about some of my fantasies but that others would simply … unfold. God, how many times had I thought to pick up the phone and cancel all this sex-fantasy nonsense before it started. I didn’t have time for this. Sex used to be important. Certainly it was a big part of my life with Julius before things turned sad for us. But I was forty-one years old, for crying out loud. I had a kid. I had no business gallivanting around town, or even my own backyard, having sex with strange men, even if they did have a dimple in the left cheek and wore pants that kind of draped around their lean hips. Did I mention that?

  He walked over to the garden hose. Actually, he sauntered. Damn.

  “If you won’t quench my thirst, I’ll have to do it this way,” he said, raising a cool arc of water to his lips.

  I held up my hand.

  “Wait, you can come in.”

  “And?” he asked, letting the water run onto the lawn.

  “And …”

  My mind was scrambling. How will this go? Oh god, what if I am bad at sex? It has been a while …