by Wood, Lauren
Memories of Jason’s hands on my skin flooded over me as I worked the strawberry scented cream into my legs. I wondered how long it would take to shake those, and what I would eventually do to curb my loneliness. I had committed to staying here for a while, and I didn’t know how I’d find the time to date or what it would mean for my job even if I could find someone.
I looked at a few photos I had taken of Jason and the kids at the beach and sighed. Maybe this was just my life now. I’d have to spend my foreseeable future with the kids I loved, watching their father who I craved but could never have.
“Sorry, hope I’m not interrupting.”
I jumped at the sight of Jason in the doorway. “Jeez, you really have made a habit of sneaking up on me lately.”
I pressed my hand to my pounding heart, thinking sneaking up on people like that probably was a classic talent of a murderer. Then I quickly remembered I was in nothing but a towel, and the naked skin underneath was still aching for his touch. It made me very angry with him all of a sudden, to feel my longing for him surging through my veins so strongly, and now he was standing right there just to rub it in.
“I’m sorry, I can give you a minute to get dressed if you want...” he suggested, unable to stop his eyes from wandering.
“That’d probably be for the best,” I barked back, snatching my robe off the back of a chair. “If we’re following a strictly professional protocol now, I’d say it’s highly unusual for you to just waltz into my room while I’m naked.”
“You’re right,” he replied, taking a few long, slow steps closer to me. “This is definitely something your boss would never do. And your boss definitely wouldn’t stand so close to you while you were half undressed.”
I slid my arms into my robe as he stopped just a few inches from my face. I didn’t know what he was trying to pull, but now I was sucked into those eyes of his. And historically, any time that happened I usually couldn’t find my way back out of them until we had kissed…or more.
“What are you doing, Jason?” I whispered breathlessly. “We talked about this.”
“I know. I don’t know what I’m doing,” he rasped in his deep, sexy voice. “I just came in here to give you something, but the moment I saw you…it’s like I lose all self-control. You pull me in like a magnet.”
A whimper escaped my mouth, and I was practically shaking with all of my pent-up desire for him. Between the faint stubble of a five o’ clock shadow across his strong jaw, the sound of his voice, and the hungry look in his eyes…I felt completely undone in a matter of seconds. He was going to drive me mad.
I jumped again, this time at the sound of his phone, and felt thankful for the interruption. He pulled it from his pocket and checked the caller ID before returning his gaze back to me.
“I should take this.” He pulled a small black box from his other pocket. “I got a little something for you.”
Without any explanation, he slipped the box into my hands with a smile, then walked into the hallway as he answered the call. I looked down at the box, almost feeling afraid of it. I had never met anyone so confusing in my life. Why would he insist we have to stop sleeping together one minute, then get me all hot and bothered up the next, only to walk off and leave me with a present?
I shook my head and lifted the top, revealing the most stunning pair of earrings I had ever seen. They were emeralds—my favorite, and I had definitely never owned anything so expensive. I could imagine him buying things like this for Anna all the time. But for me? And why now?
His voice echoed down the hall, even though he appeared to be trying to keep it down. I stepped forward to the mirror to put the earrings on, but I wondered if I even should. What did this gift mean to Jason? The smart thing to do would be to tell him I couldn’t accept.
But they were so beautiful nestled into the little box of black velvet. I watched the diamonds shine and send out dancing reflections around the room. Temptation got the better of me, as it always seemed to happen with Jason. Before I knew it, I was clasping both earrings into my ear.
Just as the second one was in, I heard Jason shouting, but he quickly tried to reign it back down to a whisper. I was curious who would be calling this late, and whoever it was apparently was making him really angry. Staying hidden behind the wall, I moved closer to the door to listen.
“You can’t do this,” Jason fumed as quietly as he could. “We had a deal. You were never supposed to contact me again. I gave you what you wanted, now keep up your end of the bargain and stay the hell out of our lives!”
With that, he ended the call and was quickly storming back towards my bedroom. I jumped back from the doorway and tried to go back to admiring the earrings in the mirror, looking as innocent as possible.
“Sorry. I, uh…” he trailed off, looking flustered. It was like that phone call knocked the wind straight out of him, and now he was lost.
“These are beautiful,” I offered, gently touching one of the emeralds.
I had a hundred questions about why he was giving these to me, and then a hundred more about what I overheard on the phone. But I had no idea where to start, and he apparently didn’t either.
“You’re beautiful,” he replied with an almost pained smile. “But, uh…I should…I should leave you to it. Have a good night.” He spun on his heels to walk away.
“Jason, wait! That’s it?”
He turned back around slowly. His eyes were dark and stormy, and his chest heaved up and down in heavy breaths. I couldn’t tell if he was just that worked up over the phone call, or if he was having to work as hard as I was not to give in to how turned on I felt any time he was near. Whatever brought on his intensity in that moment made me even more vulnerable to my arousal.
“I should get to bed,” he insisted weakly.
“Okay,” I nodded, but he didn’t move an inch.
“No, you know what…”
He marched towards me with a sudden determination, like a tiger walking right up to its prey. Without another moment of hesitation or a single word spoken, his hands pulled sharply against the small of my back, forcing me against his chest as his tongue rolled across mine. Just like that, we were lost in a deep, passionate kiss that made me feel like I was sinking down into a black hole that I would never find my way out of. But somehow it was a relief to lose myself in him.
21
Jason
I moaned with relief from the taste of Tara’s mouth and her sweet scent that wafted over me. She was like a drug or a cure. No matter what terrible feelings coursed through my veins, feeling her skin against mine made it all disappear.
I only meant to give her the earrings, which was probably a bad idea to do in the first place. Then I saw her standing there with nothing but a towel on and felt drawn to her like a magnet. I knew what her body looked like underneath, and even if I couldn’t touch her, I had to be near her.
Then the phone call came. I had hoped I would never hear from that monster again, like we agreed. But something in me always knew he’d come back to torment us some more. I had tried to tell Dominic that men like that never knew when to quit. It would never be enough for him.
I was overwhelmed with rage and uncertainty. It was the final blow to send me over the edge, making it impossible to resist Tara. I tried to get out of there fast enough—just run away to hide in my room and figure out what to do about the horrible phone call. But the look in her eyes…I couldn’t walk away.
Our lips broke a part just long enough for us to exchange a knowing look. We were screwed. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t fight our desire for each other. I trailed my fingers across her long neck, following her jaw line to her ears.
“These look just as great on you as I imagined they would.” I thumbed across one of the earrings, marveling at how they shined against her freckled, brown skin and red hair.
“I wasn’t expecting something like this from you.”
“I know. I know I shouldn’t even be in your room right
now. I just…”
I didn’t know how to explain what I was doing anymore. It wasn’t like me to act against all logic and rationale. But the need for us to say anything vanished as we melted into another kiss. I tightened my hold on her and lunged my tongue deeper into her mouth as my hands resisted the urge to explore under her robe.
But our mouths and hands moved more desperately, and soon I couldn’t hold back anymore. I slipped my hands underneath her robe, quickly undoing the tie that got in my way. She lifted her leg and wrapped it around me, pulling me in closer while I pushed the fabric to the floor. She was completely naked, writhing against my suit.
Her hands trembled as she struggled to yank off my tie, with my jacket and shirt to follow. Within minutes she was falling back to the bed as I moved over her, fumbling with my belt buckle.
I realized every time we were together; it was like this—with so many pent up, intense feelings fighting to break free all at once, we ended up rushing through everything for the relief.
“Wait,” I pulled back, admiring her beautiful body spread out before me. I wanted to take my time exploring every inch of her. “Let’s take it slow this time.”
I hovered over her, kneading my hands into her skin. I squeezed her breasts and circled my thumbs over her nipples, relishing in the way her hips buckled as she writhed on the bed. After running my hands up and down her body, I lowered back down to her neck, exploring all the same places over again with my mouth.
She was breathless and painting with pained and impatient whimpers by the time I was ready to slide inside of her. I had never been so hard and delighted in the juicy wetness between her legs, just begging for me to enter.
I swung one of her legs over my shoulder and pushed forward, filling her entirely as she cried out in ecstasy. But suddenly her attention drifted over my shoulder.
“Shit. The door!”
I looked back to see it standing wide open. “I’ll get it. Don’t go anywhere,” I murmured into her ear before quickly shutting it.
Pulling out and then re-entering her all over again just added to the pleasure. After slowly working my way complete inside, giving her time to relax and spread around me, I pulled her hips to the edge of the bed, giving me the perfect angle to stand and slide in even deeper.
She thrashed and frantically moved her hands between clutching the sheets and clawing in my skin. She was dying for me to go faster, but I forced myself to go as slow as I could stand it. She grew wetter with each and every thrust, and I could feel her legs shaking across my chest. I watched her with a soft grin, feeling more uncertain than ever that I’d really be able to give this up for good.
“I love being inside of you,” I groaned.
She barely responded with words as I picked up pace and pushed her close to the edge, drawing strings unintelligible gasps and cries from her lips. I could feel her tightening around me as her hips buckled again, and I knew she was cumming. Watching her orgasm, and feeling it through her core, I couldn’t hold on much longer.
I was just about to let go, but the wave of her pleasure faded, she sat up suddenly and shoved me back a few steps. Before I knew what was happening, she had dropped to her knees in front of me and was taking me in her mouth. She worked her hand around the length of me that she couldn’t wrap up in her lips, and it instantly sent me crashing into oblivion.
We both collapsed down onto the bed. I expected to be hit with a wall of guilt and regret. We had just done the very thing that we vowed not to. What was wrong with us? Why couldn’t we control ourselves?
“So now what?” she asked with a coy grin, running circles across my chest with her fingertip.
“I’m out of answers,” I laughed. “We tried to do the right thing and look where it got us.”
“Right back where we started from.”
“Exactly.”
I wrapped my arm around her as she nuzzled up to my chest. She was the perfect size for me, fitting against my body like a glove. Everything about her seemed to fit just right, and I caught myself wondering what would have happened if I could have gone for her before I hired her as my nanny. But when could that have happened between all of the drama with her ex and me mourning the loss of my wife on her first birthday since her death?
I let out a deep sigh, finally accepting that it did neither of us any good for me to ask all these endless questions. The result was the same either way, so I thought maybe for the first time I should just stop over-thinking it.
I sat up and looked her in the eyes. “Well, I’ve always liked the saying about focusing on what you can control and letting go of the things you can’t.”
“Me too. What’s your point?”
“If we can’t control ourselves enough to keep this from happening,” I shrugged. “I guess let's just go with it. And see what happens.”
“Yeah great, except you know it can’t go anywhere good. And it may be the kids who end up getting hurt worse than us if this blows up in our faces later on.”
“They’re tough,” I quipped, offering another slow kiss to her lips. “I’m willing to take the risk.”
22
Tara
I woke up extra early to avoid Jason and I getting caught with him sleeping in my room, though there was probably no way to keep the other house staff from getting more suspicious. It was worth the risk to wake up tangled in his arms though.
“I’ll check to make sure Kelsey isn’t lurking around when you’re ready to go,” I said softly in between our morning kisses. “I’ll have to go start breakfast for the kids soon.”
“I’m going to have to hire a chef just so we can sneak in extra time together,” he joked with the most adorable smile.
“This is a mess. Between the butler, the maid, and the kids…there’s no way we’re going to get by with this without getting caught.”
“Well, we kind of already have been caught…if I’m being honest,” he confessed hesitantly. “Jesse picked up on it. He knows something is going on between us.”
“So it begins,” I sighed. “The same thing happened with Vanna.”
I was hit with the memory of our phone conversation. I wanted to ask him to tell me the truth about what happened to Anna, but his expression grew heavy as something seemed to start weighing on his mind as well. I wondered if it had anything to do with the strange phone call I overheard, which was another one of his secrets I’d have to uncover at some point.
The sun was shining in through the windows already, and despite everything we had to worry about, I wasn’t ready to surrender my giddiness over waking up together. Not yet. I’d save my questions for later.
I melted back into his arms and another flurry of kisses when we heard Kelsey’s vacuum running in the hall. She was always using that as a way to plant herself to spy on people, or to just be disruptive out of spite.
“Great, now she’ll definitely catch you leaving.” I moved to get out of bed, but Jason pulled me back down to him.
“If we’re going to get caught anyway, we might as well make it worth it.”
His tongue begged me to open my mouth wider, and soon we were lost in each others’ bodies again.
As I went through the kids’ busy routine that day, I kept reminding myself of all the things I needed to be concerned about. Jason hadn’t shied away from talking about Anna, but he had definitely failed to mention she was murdered. I had to question if that was intentional, and if it was, could he be more of a suspect than Dominic realized?
Then there was glaring reality that I couldn’t see Jason having any kind of real relationship with his nanny. That’s all I was, after all. And when we got sick of each other a few months down the road, it’d be impossible to continue working here. The kids would be devastated.
I kept reviewing it all in my head over and over again, hoping it’d pull my head out of the clouds. But nothing could stop the fluttering butterflies feeling inside. I was falling for Jason in more ways than I intended to, and it was happening fast.
The kids were spread out across the kitchen table drawing pictures while I whipped up their favorite for lunch—macaroni and cheese with chopped up hot dogs mixed in. Every so often I’d think back on receiving the earrings with a smile and would have to reach up to feel that they were still on, so I’d know it wasn’t a dream. No one had ever bought anything so nice for me, and I was scared to think how much they must have costed.
As I brushed my fingers across one of the earrings, I suddenly felt Kelsey’s eyes burning into me from the other side of the kitchen. She squinted her eyes in disapproval.
“Mrs. Halstead always wanted the kids to eat vegetables. Healthy things.”
“We’re having veggies for dinner,” I rebutted. “They’ve been working hard today on all their lessons and activities. They deserve some normal kid food as a treat.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see she was completely unmoved, likely planning to rat me out to Jason the first chance she got.
“Kelsey, you know…the kids' laundry baskets are full again,” I scoffed. “Maybe you could go tend to that if you’re not doing anything else?”
“So nanny has become maid’s boss now?” she sneered.
She huffed off when I ignored her comment, which only made me smile. I hummed a tune under my breath as I danced around the kitchen, getting ready to serve the kids their plates. But the beautiful weather outside kept distracting me, until I had an idea.
“Hey kids, what do you say we have a picnic today? I can throw all of this into some to-go containers real quick if you all will go find a basket and a blanket.”
“Yeah!” they yelled excitedly before bounding off.
We hadn’t been outside long when Jason decided to join us. He said he would be working from home for the morning, and I guess he found the sunshine to be just as tempting.