by Maren Smith
“Not really,” Cadence said.
“We saw Libby!” Buddy said, jumping up and down on the couch.
“Butt on the sofa, feet on the floor,” Marcus told him, and with one last hop, his youngest bounced down to sit on the cushions. “How’s she doing?”
In the living room, Michael dropped the remote on the coffee table, got up off the couch and left the room. His footsteps retreated all the way upstairs, down the carpeted hall, and then a bedroom door slammed shut.
Staring up at the kitchen ceiling, Marcus said, “That well, huh?”
Resuming his bouncing, albeit now on his knees, Buddy said, “Michael had to sit in the cart ‘cause Cadence said she’s not going to put up with any more of his crap.”
In the kitchen, Cadence dropped a can of soup on the counter with a little more force than necessary. Deliberately avoiding having to meet Marcus’s eye, she said, “We don’t tattle, Buddy.”
Hurt, his youngest whined, “I’m not tattling. I’m telling.”
“You’re tattling,” Marcus told him flatly. “We’ve talked about that before too, so knock it off.” Making his way to the counter, he began unloading grocery bags beside her. Lowering his voice to keep their conversation as private as possible, he asked, “Want to talk about it?”
“Nope.” She immediately sidled away from him, putting an extra inch or two of space between them. She still didn’t look at him.
“If you want me to talk to him, I’m going to need to know what sort of ‘crap’ went on.”
“What happened between Michael and me, stays between Michael and me.” Turning her back, she began to shuffle cans from the counter to the closet pantry. Probably because it was the only thing she could think of to put even more space between them. All that did was suddenly make him that much more intensely aware of how little space there actually had been, and all he could think of now was ways in which he could reduce the space even more.
Following her to the closet, Marcus sidled up behind her, bracing his hands to either side of the door jamb and leaning in close on the pretext of lowering his voice and maintaining the privacy of their conversation. She stiffened when he did that, but that was all right. Right now, he was pretty stiff too. “Vegas rules do not apply in this house, Cadence. Talk to me. What happened?”
He didn’t lean against her. He didn’t think he could without being tempted to rub just a little bit, and rubbing was the sort of thing that responsible employers just did not do to their employees. At least, not without the consequence of a well-placed sexual harassment lawsuit. But the way Cadence responded to his nearness said clearly ‘harassment’ was not how she was viewing this.
He heard it when her soft breath hitched in the back of her throat. He saw the slight quickening in the steady rise and fall of her breasts, safely contained behind the thin cotton barrier of her white blouse. Three little faux pearl buttons. That was all that stood between him and his first glimpse of those pale, pink swells. Crowned with tightly budded nipples, he’d bet. Perfect for suckling, nipping…nibbling.
“Cadence,” he coaxed, fervently wishing she would turn her head, just a few inches, just far enough for him to see her face. Maybe just far enough for him to bend around and meet her, lips to soft and trembling lips.
“I’ll never tell,” she whispered, but she was turning. Reluctantly. Bringing her mouth around to within easy reach of his as if she were being pulled against her better judgment.
His better judgment was definitely in agreement, but the burning in his blood and the instant throb rekindling in his cock was demanding something altogether different. He hadn’t kissed her yet, but he could already taste her.
“Stubborn,” he said, so thoroughly enchanted that it was all he could do not to lean in those last few inches just to feel the heat of her dancer’s body scalding full-flush right up against all the hardest parts of his.
She raised her eyes then, looking first at his lips and then up into his eyes.
“Stubborn,” Marcus said again, and so damned unbelievably, unbearably kissable.
His kids were watching. He wasn’t exactly being discreet about this, and neither Daniel nor Buddy were being quiet in their giggling. He likened it unto a death of a thousand internal cuts, but Marcus pushed back off the door jamb and away from Cadence. He left her lips untasted, her mouth unclaimed, and her stubbornness uncorrected. The arousal he was suffering now was a fit punishment for that.
“I’m going to go talk to Michael.” He quickly held up his hand, stopping her protest before she could do more than suck a breath. “What happens between you two, stays between you two. For now, at least. I’m still going to talk to him. See if I can’t convince him to come down and join us for lunch.”
Her eyes on his retreating back felt like a caress. Just before entering the hallway, he glanced back, but she immediately dropped her gaze and quickly busied herself with organizing the new groceries into the pantry again. He could have sworn what he saw in those baby blues of hers was nothing less than pure longing. That she wouldn’t look at him long enough now for him to confirm it was a different kind of confirmation on its own.
He smiled and went upstairs.
Knocking twice on the boys’ bedroom door, he waited a few seconds for an answering hail that never came and then he went inside.
Michael was lying on his back on the bottom-most bunk bed, hands folded behind his head, feet braced up on the mattress above him. He currently had it shoved up out of the frame as far as his short legs could get it. When Marcus stepped inside and quietly closed the door, Michael made a slight face, lowered the mattress and rolled over to sit up on the side of the bed.
“I didn’t mean to slam the door,” he said sullenly. “The wind got it.”
“Uh huh.” The window was closed, so Marcus didn’t believe that for a second, but he was a big believer in picking his battles, and this was definitely one of those moments. “Do you want to talk about what happened at the store?”
In an instant, Michael’s face underwent a series of bitter changes before he spat, “Well, she didn’t use the scootabout like you said to and she never once used her cane. So she can get me in trouble all she wants to, but she’s in trouble too!”
Folding his arms across his chest, Marcus waited until the explosion was done. “Funny, but when I asked Cadence that question, all she’d tell me is that it was between you and her. When I ask you, you throw her under the bus. I was going to invite you down for lunch, but I think instead what needs to happen here is for you to sit right where you are and think about what you want to happen next.”
The bitterness and anger slowly drained out of Michael, leaving only ill-masked sadness behind. He lay back down on his bed and folded his hands behind his head again. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“Why don’t you like Cadence?” Marcus asked.
His son only shrugged.
“Daniel and Buddy don’t have a problem with her.”
“That’s because they haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Figured what out?” Marcus pressed.
Michael pressed his lips together.
“No, sir,” Marcus said, crossing the room. He sat down on the bed beside his son, bending down under the bunk, bracing his weight on one arm while he leaned over Michael, forcing eye to eye contact. “You don’t get to drop a statement like that and not explain it. What haven’t they figured out?”
Another veil of anger quickly blossomed over the sadness, masking it once more. “She’s not staying, Dad. Liking her doesn’t make any difference! I liked Mom and she still left! I liked Libby and she left too! Why do I have to like Cadence if all it’s going to do is make her leave?”
Marcus stared at his son, unsure whether he ought to be upset by that childish leap of logic or appalled. “Your mother didn’t leave because she wanted to. She loved you and your brothers. She never would have left if she’d had the choice. If you want to be mad at someone for that, be mad at t
he man who decided to drive these mountain roads with brakes that didn’t work right. We’ll deal with that another time. As for Libby, she has her own family, son. She has a baby who needs her and a husband who works to provide for them. She was very fond of you boys, but she has the right to want to stay at home and be a mother to her own little boy. You don’t get to be mad at Cadence for that, either. That isn’t fair.”
Michael glared up at him, blinked hard in an effort to keep back tears. “I don’t want to be fair, Dad. I just want to be mad.”
“All right,” Marcus allowed. “Be mad then. When you’re ready to be civil, come downstairs and have some lunch, but mad doesn’t leave this room. You don’t get to be unfair to Cadence for things she can’t help.”
Already the strength of Michael’s bitter glare was fading, though he was trying hard to hang onto it. Unable to do that and hold his father’s unwavering stare, Michael switched his gaze to the top bunk again.
Marcus left him there to think and went back downstairs. That same young mother with two small children were sitting in his waiting area when he reached the bottom step. At first glance, he could see the baby was still very sick, but breathing easier. He’d forgotten about this follow-up visit.
Damn.
“One moment,” he told her with a smile, and headed back through the short hall to the back of the house. “Boys,” he announced, breezing straight on through to the kitchen. “Help Cadence put the groceries away. Daniel, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all around.”
“Aw,” Daniel groaned.
Bouncing off the couch, Buddy cheered all the way to the kitchen.
“I can make you a grilled cheese,” Cadence said, working her way through the last of the bags, most of which needed to be packed into the now well-stocked fridge and freezer.
“No,” Marcus corrected, “you can’t. You, young lady, are grounded.”
She stiffened and probably would have protested had he not picked up one of the bar stools, brought it around the kitchen counter and thunked it purposefully down in front of her.
“How do you want to do it, Cadence?” he asked and then, specifically so his sons would not overhear, mouthed, “Panties up or panties down?”
He pointed to the stool.
Her face turned a bright shade of red, but her hesitation was barely long enough to even be called such. Cadence sat right where he pointed.
“You tell them what to do and the boys will do it,” Marcus said. “But for the rest of the day, I want you on your butt and off your legs, is that clear?”
She smiled, but there was a hardness to it that said clearly her lack of argument right now was for the sake of his children alone. “You’re the boss.”
“Yes, I am.” Before this day was over, he had a feeling she was going to make him prove it. Feeling nothing but eagerness in his spanking hand, Marcus gave her a fond chuck under her stubbornly set chin.
Bring it, her snapping eyes challenged.
Just as soon as the boys were in bed, he let his answering smile promise, consider it brought.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The longer Cadence sat, the worse she felt. Her legs were killing her, and the more she rested, the more it seemed to hurt, but that was only half the problem. The real issue was the boys. Daniel and Buddy were doing everything for her. They did it cheerfully, jumping up off the couch the first time she asked, but it grated every nerve she had that she had to ask anything at all. Clear off the table and wipe it down. Put away the sandwich fixings. Transfer the clothes from the washing machine into the dryer, and then bring them to her so she could fold them. The boys even put them away for her, running towels to the bathrooms and clothes upstairs to the appropriate bedrooms. These were her jobs. This was what she’d assured Marcus she could do to earn her room and board, but what was she doing instead? Sitting here. Just sitting.
Her legs hadn’t hurt this much in months. She tried to tell herself it was because of all the standing, all the walking, that she’d get used to it, that Marcus wasn’t right to make her just sit here, but there was a niggling little voice deep inside her that was starting to wonder if continuing to push herself when her knees already hurt this much might not be doing some very real damage.
She wasn’t a cripple, she told herself bitterly. All she was doing was walking, just walking. Human beings were made to walk, that’s why they had legs! She wasn’t trying to run a marathon. All she wanted was to do a little housework! How was she going to get used to being physically active if she wasn’t allowed to do anything?
Her butt was getting flatter by the second because these stools were God-awful, but when she got up long enough to visit the bathroom and then returned to sit again, switching to the softer sofa wasn’t any more comfortable. Every passing second of idleness when there were beds upstairs to make and dishes in the sink and bathrooms to scrub, felt like needles under her skin.
Michael hadn’t put an appearance in since he’d banished himself to his bedroom just before lunch. All things considered, that was probably for the best. In the mood she was in, she wasn’t sure if she could handle his sullen temperament on top of everything else.
She was going to have to fix something for dinner pretty soon. It was almost five o’clock. How was she going to do that sitting down? She might not be much of a nanny, but even she knew you didn’t send a nine or a six-year-old into the kitchen to play with pans and the stove. She wouldn’t send a ten-year-old either, not that he was going to let her summon him to chores. Heck, considering what she knew of Marcus’s cooking, she wouldn’t send him either. Nobody deserved that kind of punishment.
Punishment. Just thinking that word made her bottom prickle so badly she had to fight not to squirm where she sat.
“If we have PBJs for supper, can I make them?” Buddy piped up from the floor, where he was half lying down on elbows and knees while coloring in a Transformers activity book.
“I’ll make something,” she promised him, arms folded across her chest while she chewed restlessly at her thumbnail. “I’m just waiting for your father to get done working for the day.”
For what? So she could ask his permission to walk around? Oh, that galled her. And yet, still she sat here. Fuming, but not moving. Annoyed as all hell that she had to beg him for something she had every right to do, but not annoyed enough to risk getting caught disobeying His Highness’s Grand Edict.
Her bottom prickled all over again. She bit right through her thumbnail, she was so annoyed.
By Marcus, or by that dreadfully unnerving sensation that just kept swarming across her backside, reaching down like phantom fingers to tickle along the crease that bisected her bottom from her thighs, and following the curve right up between her legs until she could feel it tickling at her sex. That was even more unnerving. If she didn’t know better, she would almost think she was getting turned on by the thought of getting caught doing something he’d told her not to. That wasn’t right, though. She absolutely was not turned on. She didn’t like being told what to do. She was an adult, damn it. An independent, competent woman in control of her own body and life and that ought to mean she could get up off the couch, walk into the kitchen whenever the heck she wanted, and fix a damn dinner!
This was ridiculous. Why was she still sitting here? Why was she letting him tell her what to do? Why did the very thought of getting up and marching into the kitchen right here and now feel so much like poking at a hibernating bear, one she really, really wasn’t sure she wanted to waken?
What could he do to her?
He could spank her, that’s what. And if she refused to let him, then he could send her packing and that would then be that. She might have a night or two of reprieve at Mama Venia’s but then Brent would come a-knocking to take her on that long, slow walk to the front gates where he would then either wave her goodbye or give her a kick in the pants to get her going, she honestly wasn’t sure which. Since her car wasn’t starting, it would probably be a really long walk, too
. She needed this job if only long enough to get her car fixed and her mother’s ring back out of the pawn shop.
How was it even legal to force someone to get spanked or boot them out? This wasn’t fair!
But then, life wasn’t fair. She’d taken that crash course already, graduating with honors just last year. Why did she keep expecting things to be fair?
It was five-thirty now. At this rate, they wouldn’t be eating until eight. She really, really needed to get something started. Marcus couldn’t possible intend for them to go hungry tonight. He was just trying to make his point. So, fine. When he got done with work, she’d let him know his point was well received and they’d work something out. She’d take it easier tomorrow. She’d do the bare minimum that her job required with lots of time in between to rest her legs. But for tonight…for now…this was just ridiculous!
Cadence stood up.
“Sit your butt back down,” Marcus said, just now stepping out of the short hall that led back to his office and the front of the house.
Every resolution she’d just made in her head went straight out the window, carried on the sub-sonic waves of her exploding temper. “You can’t force me to sit on my ass all day long, Marcus! Somebody has to make dinner! Somebody has to be responsible!”
Where the hell had that come from? Cadence blinked twice, honestly without a clue as to why she would say that.
“Um,” Buddy said, both he and Daniel staring up at her with identical expressions of awe and disbelief. “You swore.”
“She certainly did,” Marcus agreed, his eyes locked on her. He was smiling, but it was very tight and very small, and all Cadence could see when she stared back at him was the hibernating bear inside him, now very much awake. “Boys, go upstairs. Tell Michael I said everyone’s to get washed up for dinner. We’re going out to eat tonight. Cadence, I would like a word with you in my office, please.”