by Lily Zante
I look away. “Sorry,” I mumble. “I didn’t mean to scare—”
“What are you doing here?” If looks could kill, I’d be lying dead on the floor right now. Venom shoots from her expression. I expect her to cover herself with her hands or something, but she doesn’t. To my surprise, she stands there before sliding her hands to her hips, as if she’s proud of her body, and on display.
I’m tempted to grab the blouse on the bed and hand it to her, I’m nearer to it than she is, but I wait for her to do it. The fact that she doesn’t piques my curiosity. My manhood throbs.
“I—I …” I can’t form words. I can’t think. Every useful cell in my body has congregated to the space between my legs.
“You what?” she asks calmly. The power has switched. There is no trace of the frightened woman from the study. She stands before me in her skirt and bra as if she’s on a photoshoot. A flash of knowing flickers in her cool expression.
I want her, and she knows it. “I’m sorry. I came to apologize.” It’s a battle to not stare at her. I can’t seem to drag my gaze away. She’s all the things I am not: calm, aloof, defiant.
“You came all the way here to do that?”
I want to kiss her. I want to put my mouth to her soft, satin skin. I want to leave a trail of kisses from her face to her neck to her breasts.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. She doesn’t respond and still makes no attempt to cover up. I warn myself that her sexiness is a siren song I need to take heed of. I haven’t had sex for so long that this sight of her is killing me.
My imagination fizzles and spurts. Blood gushes south. “You’re almost naked,” I comment, because nothing else appropriate comes to mind. I should look away and still I can’t. I can’t take my eyes off her, and she knows it. Our roles have reversed and she holds power over me in this instant. Right now, I’m not the man she works for. I’m just a man, and the way her chin is tilted confirms that.
“You should get dressed,” I say.
“You interrupted me. You’re the one who’s in my room without permission.”
“I knocked on the door.”
“I didn’t hear. I was in the bathroom washing the juice stains off.”
I swallow, because my mind now holds images of her in the shower and me washing her. My gaze runs down her length, taking in her flat stomach, her silky skin, her beautiful breasts. And still she makes no attempt to cover up. I can’t stop myself from taking a step closer. The blood in my cock, drained from my brain, has made it hard to think straight.
She doesn’t even flinch.
I can’t do this. Stepping towards her bed, I snatch her blouse. The silky fabric is soft to touch, it’s like holding nothing. I hand it to her, praying that she’ll take it and spare me the agony of having a hard-on and no release.
She gives me a look of victory, as if she knows the effect she’s having on me.
“I’m not used to being around people,” I say, my voice tight because it’s getting harder to breathe watching her slip her arms into the blouse slowly. She’s doing a reverse striptease, and it couldn’t be sexier.
“That was obvious from day one.” She slowly does up the button on one sleeve cuff, then the other.
“Obvious?” I try not to stare at her chest, which is still on display.
“You’re not an easy man to get along with.”
“I’m trying to be better.”
“For who?”
“For you,” I reply, surprising myself with that revelation.
“For me?” She starts to do up her blouse buttons one by one. It’s excruciating to watch and do nothing while my cock grows bigger.
This woman is a torturer, a tease, someone who constantly surprises me. When the people I hang around with the most, the characters I create, my string-controlled marionettes, do as I command, having this wildfire of a woman in my life means I am constantly on edge. It’s intoxicating, and frustrating, and I’m struggling to hold it together.
“Are you doing that on purpose?” Because it seems to me that she’s playing with me.
“Doing what?” A smile curves along her lips. She knows. She knows what effect she’s having on me and she doesn’t care. Her gaze dips lower and settles on the tent pole between my legs. If only I’d been wearing my wretched robe. It would have hidden this better. Instead, the soft fabric of my sweatpants reveals everything clearly.
I pause, because I don’t have a handle on the situation. I back away. “I’m not going to fire you, in case you were worried about that.”
“Fire me for what? I didn’t take your pen.” She tucks her blouse into her skirt, breaking the spell, whatever it was, this strange thing that happened between us just now.
She’s still maintaining she didn’t take it. I didn’t move it. She’s stubborn. “I’m not accusing you of stealing it.”
She snaps her head towards me.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say. Fuck. I can’t think straight being this close to her, seeing her half naked.
“You’re making a lot of accusations.”
“I’m also making a lot of apologies.”
She clears her throat. “I shouldn’t have said that to you, about you being a nightmare to work for.” I notice that this isn’t an apology. She’s not sorry for what she said. She’s right.
“I am a nightmare. I admit that I’m not easy to work for.” I put my hands into my pockets and wait for her to say something. “Anything else you want to say to me, now that we’re at this juncture?”
“How frank can I be?”
“As frank as you want.”
“Can you handle it?” she asks.
My cock twitches some more. She’s putting more ideas in my head.
“Slob,” she throws at me.
I fold my arms. “Go on.”
“How about lazy, and filthy, and rude?” Her confidence is at full-throttle. She’s trying me. She’s saying the things she held back from saying before.
“Anything else?” I ask her. It turns me on even more, having her hurl these words at me, showing me that she’s not scared.
“That pretty much sums up what I think of you.”
“Are you sure that’s it? Because if there’s more, I can definitely handle it.”
She gives me a caustic smile. “That’s all for now.” Then, “Why aren’t you going to fire me?”
“Do you want me to fire you?”
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
“You fired Trevor for less.”
“You need the job, and I need a housekeeper.”
Her mouth twists.
“So, we’re even,” I state.
As I head towards my study with the new insults she’s hurled at me, it’s not anger that simmers beneath my skin, but arousal.
* * *
MARI
* * *
I wait a moment after he leaves, and then I draw out my long-held breath. He’s closed the door, but I go and stand against it, making sure it’s closed and he can’t come back in. Not because I’m scared of him, or because I feel threatened, but because my heart is thumping wildly. I try to still it. Try to force my breath to regulate. Try to dismiss the throbbing between my legs.
What did I just do?
How was I so bold and confident, standing in front of him half naked and wanting him to see me?
I experienced a type of strength I haven’t felt around him. The man who managed to strip me of my confidence wants me.
I could see it in the way his dark hooded eyes bore into me. He ravished my body with his stare.
I saw his erection.
Hard to miss something that big.
This is dark, and dangerous, and taboo.
He’s Ward Maddox, a reclusive author.
I’m ... a mess.
Dale cheating on me has shaken my self-belief. I’ve been surviving, driven by the need to move on and put behind me all the bad things that have happened lately, things over which I h
ave no control.
This just now, it gave me power. Having Ward Maddox devour me with his eyes.
I can’t tell Jamie. This is private. This is me being provocative, wanting, needing, to know that another man finds me attractive. Just thinking about Ward sets my heart racing. Makes my skin tingle with excitement.
Could something have happened between us if he hadn’t left the room?
I imagine him taking a step towards me, tugging my hair back and lifting my face, then crushing my lips with his. I imagine his hands skimming over my belly and his lips …
The sound of my phone ringing snaps me out of my sultry daydream.
It’s the nursing home. The air in my lungs is sucked out.
The nursing home staff only call if they have a problem.
Chapter Nineteen
WARD
* * *
I walk down the stairs with a boner the size of a truncheon.
I don’t need this.
My head is filled with her and it will mess with my writing.
I should go back to New Orleans.
Or get Freya to come here. This never happened with Freya. Or anyone. Mari is a different creature.
She didn’t care. She showed no embarrassment or shame. Not that there was anything for her be ashamed about, not with a body like that.
But I didn’t expect that from her.
That woman is full of surprises, and that is the hook that reels me in. She might be my housekeeper, but just now, in her bedroom, she was the temptress.
I want to take her over my knee and run my hands over her smooth bottom. I want to trail my fingers all over her body. I want to explore, and suck and kiss her everywhere.
I head back into my study and sit at my desk but I still have no pen, and I still can’t write.
I can’t function.
I can’t create.
Everything is messed up so soon after I had managed to get myself back on track. Now, not only do I have no pen, I have a boner which needs to be taken care of. I also have that image of Mari in my head. It’s stuck on auto rewind and doesn’t help my dick.
I hold my head in my hands.
She’s thrown the biggest wrench in my day.
I’m so hard, it feels painful. I need to take a cold shower or spend the afternoon jerking off, neither of which will help with my word count.
Damn Mari and her beautiful half-naked body.
Damn the power she has over me.
That was one plot twist I didn’t see coming.
* * *
MARI
* * *
My mom has had a fall.
I grab my bag and rush out, heading straight to the nursing home. Why’s she at the nursing home and not the hospital? Alarm bells sound, loud and piercing. What if something bad has happened? What if she can’t be treated? My brain goes haywire at all the things that could go wrong. I’m driving so fast that I get a speeding ticket on the way which wastes more of my time.
By the time I get there, my mom’s lying on her bed. Brenda, one of the nicer caretakers at the home, is fussing over her. I rush right over. “What are you doing here, Marianne?” my mom asks. She sounds okay. She looks unhurt. “It’s the wrong day.”
“She’s fine,” Brenda assures me. “You had a bit of a fall, didn’t you?” she says to my mom.
“Is that why you’re here?” my mom asks me. “Because you’re not supposed to be here today.” I’m secretly pleased that she is aware of my visiting days and is alert enough to know that this isn’t the weekend.
“What did you do, Mom?” I give her a light hug and plant a kiss on the top of her head. My racing heart slows down. A lightness warms my insides. I’ve been fraught the entire time, dread and worry coursing through my veins from the moment I got the call. Now I can relax. My mom’s okay. She’s going to be fine.
Brenda leads me outside and tells me that my mom tripped but luckily fell onto her bed, which cushioned her fall and prevented her from hurting herself badly.
“Tripped on what?” I want to know, scared that her reflexes and brain synapses are failing.
“She tripped over her shoe.”
I’m so happy to hear that.
“She’s going to be fine. We’ve had the doctor check her over. I called you because I knew you’d want to be here.”
“Thanks. You did the right thing.” I feel even better about my mom being here because of Brenda. She says my mom reminds her a lot of her own mom, and for that reason I like to think she’ll keep an extra careful eye on my mom.
It doesn’t matter that it was a minor fall, and that she’s okay. This is the best outcome I could have hoped for, and after the kind of morning I’ve had, I need my mom, and an escape from my place of work more than my mom needs me.
Soon, it’s time for lunch, so I stay with my mom and decide to spend the whole day with her now that I’m here.
My courage has returned, and Ward exhibited a side of himself that I haven’t seen before. He’s not important, and he’s not my priority. My mom is.
I return later in the evening. It’s only then that the tiredness hits me and my grumbling belly signals my hunger. I didn’t eat much at the nursing home earlier.
Was it only this morning that Ward overslept and then we had the pen saga? It seems so much longer than that.
I’m famished and head into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. It’s only when I open the fridge door that I realize I never left Ward any lunch, or dinner, or even a note to say I was going out. I just rushed off and didn’t think about him at all.
I don’t care. My mom was more important.
But as I start to butter my bread, I jump as I catch sight of Ward in the TV room. I notice the litter on the floor beside him. He’s lying on the couch in the TV room and there’s something different about him. He turns and stares.
I blink.
Has he learned nothing? He seems to have nosedived back into earlier stuck ways.
Can losing his favorite pen stall him so completely?
I look away and spread the butter evenly on my slice of bread. I focus on making my sandwich as if it’s an intricate task that requires all of my attention.
“Hey.”
Oh, god, no. He’s come to talk to me. I lay the slice of ham onto my bread, wishing I had something else to do, something that would require more of my concentration so that I wouldn’t have to look up.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod. He seems to want to talk, but I am wary. “I forgot to write a note. I’m sorry. I had to rush off.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.” He thinks I left the house because he upset me. His eyes are dark, and the circles underneath are just as dark. He looks disheveled. A mess, compared to how he looked fresh out of the shower this morning.
“Did you write all day?” I can’t help but blurt out, because he looks as if he’s been cooped up at his desk writing feverishly all day, and it that’s the case, then his junk fest is well earned.
“I didn’t write. I couldn’t.”
I wonder what he thought of me being gone for the entire day. I feel the need to explain. “Something came up. I had to rush off. I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“You don’t have to keep apologizing.” His voice is strained, but I can’t tell if he’s really tired, or annoyed, or just hungry. Or maybe all three.
It has been a day that has shattered my emotions. I am so physically exhausted from the melodrama of the last twelve hours, that all I want to do is be left alone to eat my sandwich in peace, but as I stand here talking to a rough-looking Ward, I can’t help but wonder what he’s been doing all afternoon.
I glance at the litter on the floor of the TV room. He’s eaten, but it’s a whole heap of junk food.
“Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat if—”
“I can make it myself. Even though I’m lazy, and a slob, and rude, I can feed myself.”
He’s c
alling me out. My words have obviously hit deep. “You were getting good with your healthy eating,” I comment, ignoring his pointed remarks.
“I was.”
“Then what happened?” Is he blaming me for what happened? For losing his pen and causing a disruption to his creative flow. I need to clarify something. “I didn’t steal your pen.”
“I didn’t say you stole it. I don’t have you down for a thief.”
“Good, because I’m not.” Let me get that straight. I want to know why he’s so adamant that I misplaced it, but I’m also too tired to start another fight.
“Where did you go?” he asks. “To see your friend again?” His voice is hoarse and his curiosity surprises me. The questions hang in the sultry charged air between us. I don’t want to open up. I don’t want him to know anything about me, because I sense a current of something between us, something wild and electrifying. What he’s asking isn’t run-of-the-mill polite conversation. There is subtext beneath his words.
I don’t understand my new pull towards this man, but it’s there, the throbbing between my legs starting up again, a slow, low, thrum, subtle enough that I can pretend it doesn’t exist, yet potent enough to alert me. I’m heading into dangerous territory if I can’t stop myself from reacting to him.
“My friend?”
“Jamie.”
I lift my chin and find myself fall, fall, falling into his dark-as-night eyes. I could take up residence in them. Sink deep, deep, deeper and find myself in his core. Maybe then I would get a better understanding of him. It feels like I can chisel away at his exterior for years and still not know the real him.
And yet … he’s seen me almost half naked.
I’ve seen his boner.
I would give anything to know what he’s thinking right now.
This isn’t right, or normal, me standing here with a ham sandwich that I am ravenous to eat, and him watching me with a predatory glare.
Food isn’t the thing that’s on my mind right now. “I didn’t go and see Jamie. Why?”
He folds his arms, getting all defensive. “I wondered if you went running to him and told him what happened between us.”