Submission: Guilty Pleasures #3 (BBW Erotic Romance) by Adriana Hunter

Jake. You’re that
kind of girl. Yeah, if you want, you can come talk to me.” She gave me an
address in a dismal part of town. When I found the building, it was just as
dismal as its neighbors.
    I climbed the narrow stairs to the
third floor. It smelled of stale grease and the seemingly ever-present miasma
of cigarette smoke. I couldn’t imagine Jake here, but then again, the Jake I
thought I knew and the Jake I was uncovering seemed to be two vastly different
people.
    Jane answered my knock, wearing
only a short robe belted around her waist. The scarlet color set off her pale
skin and raven black hair. Despite myself I instantly compared myself to her:
slender legs, tiny waist, waves of black hair...high cheekbones. Of course he
likes her; she’s got the perfect body.
    She pointed me toward the kitchen
table, pushing aside a stack of magazines and newspapers from one end,
begrudgingly clearing a space for me on the sticky Formica.
    “You want coffee? I have some
made, but no creamer. Only some of that artificial sweetener crap.”
    I shook my head. “No, nothing.
Thanks.”
    “Suit yourself.” Jane sank into
the chair opposite me, fishing a cigarette out of a crumpled pack. She lit a
match, the smell of sulphur filling my nose, followed by the smoke from her
cigarette.
    Jane squinted at me through the
blue haze. “So, you know about Jake. Stacy told you, didn’t she?”
    She laughed, a rough bark of
sound. “I knew she would.” She tapped the ash from her cigarette into an
overflowing ashtray.
    “I don’t go in for deep analysis
of why I do things. Too much shit in there to dig through. But in this case, as
the shrinks would say, my motive was transparent.”
    She waved the cigarette at me,
holding it between her slender fingers. “I wanted to know if you two still have
some kind of relationship...have some kind of connection. Figured if I told Stacy
and you called, you were still involved. And by the looks of it, I was right.”
     Her eyes narrowed as she
regarded me through the smoke. “I suppose I should thank you. If you hadn’t
been in the picture, he never would have bothered to come looking for me. Lucky
me.”
    There was a long pause while she
took another drag from her cigarette, the end glowing bright red. She blew out
a trail of smoke, leaning forward, watching my face.
    “You’re real quiet today, aren’t
you? No questions for Jane, no pitying looks for the poor damaged girl Jake
screwed over. Because now I’m not the girl he screwed over...I’m the girl he’s
screwing.
    “And I bet he’s not screwing you
right now, is he?” She sat back, crushing out her cigarette.
    “I didn’t come here...”
    “Yeah, you didn’t come here to
talk about Abby or Jane. You’re here to talk about Jake. I get it.”
    She shook out another cigarette,
holding it unlit between her fingers as she went on.
    “So let’s talk about Jake. What do
you want to know this time about Mr. Meyers?”
    The match flared again, smoke
rising to join the cloud hovering just below the ceiling. It was hard to
breath; I felt like I was suffocating, from the smoke and from the crushing
weight in my chest.
    “When? When did he come find you?”
My voice was steadier than I felt.
    “Last Saturday. Found me at the
bar. Either you gave him the name or he remembered I worked there. Either way,
he was waiting when I started my shift. Can’t say I was real surprised he was
there. It’s like that movie...what’s it called? Something Separate Degrees...Six
Degrees of Separation, that’s it.” She exhaled another cloud of smoke toward
the ceiling.
    “Except it’s just you and me, and Jake.
Only a few degrees apart.”
    Her blue eyes were far sharper
today than they had been at the bar, not red-rimmed, no dark smudges beneath
them, despite the choking cigarette smoke. Jane’s body was almost humming,
vibrating at some high frequency, some frantic energy running through her. I
remembered Stacy had said she had done