by Mia Caldwell
“Wow,” I said again.
“Yeah. The plan had been that Deborah, the nanny my parents hired, would come out with us, but she had a family emergency that would delay her. They wanted me to wait for her, but I disliked her from the start and thought I’d find someone on my own. In hindsight, it was probably stupid, but it worked out okay, I think.”
Corbin stops at the edge of the vineyard and smiles at me. “My jaw hurts from talking,” he says, “I don’t think I’ve talked that much in weeks.” He looks at me searchingly. “How do you feel now? I just laid a lot on you.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Um, it’s a lot. I won’t pretend I’m not shocked by you taking off for India, but…I think I understand. Grief is weird and it can come out all kinds of ways. After my parents died, my Grandma had to hold it together for me. And she was great, really, considering. She lost her only child–and she had my mom when she was only 18, so she’d been a constant companion. But she was very strict with me. Even though she wasn’t Catholic, she sent me to a strict Catholic school. And I could see that it hurt her to shout at me, to ground me for getting a B on a test, but it was just her grief. She tried to control me, since my mom was gone, out of her control. After a few years, she started easing up and now we’re very close, but it was hard. Really hard for a while there.”
We cross the lawn below the kitchen garden in silence.
Finally, Corbin stops and takes both of my hands. “Thanks,” he says, his blue eyes intense. “Thank you for being understanding.” He starts to walk with me again, saying, “It was so hard to tell you that. It seemed pretty reasonable to expect you to be disgusted. I mean, I’m disgusted with me and who’s more on my side than me?”
I chuckle and he squeezes my hand again. “It’s not good,” I tell him. “But it helps that I can see you’re trying. If there’s one thing I learned from the nuns, it’s that repenting is the first step. That and that bad handwriting is the sign of a feeble mind.”
“Note to self: hide all handwriting samples. I’m starving,” Corbin says as we reach the kitchen door. “Join me for a snack?”
“Good idea.”
I’m a little surprised to see that Corbin actually knows where things are in the kitchen, he must be a regular late night snacker, when Marta has gone to bed. In no time, he’s whipped up two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“Specialty of the house,” he says, setting the plate down with a flourish. “Pate de peanut and jam a la strawberry.”
“Mmm…gourmet,”
“Everything sounds fancy if it’s French. Sorry, I’m not much of a cook.” He sits down across the table from me and bites into the white bread.
“Me either,” I confess. “I’m good at finding cheap take out. Teacher’s salaries don’t allow for a lot of fancy.”
“How did you come to be teaching out here?” Corbin asks. “Of course I know it’s a charter school, I know that you’re dedicated to it. But I don’t know why you’re still in California, instead of back in Georgia.”
“Well, at first it was to pay off my loans. I got the job through America Teaches, and if I worked in an underserved area for two years, they’d pay off my college debt. I figured I could get debt free and then go to grad school. But I loved it, so I stayed.”
I tell him about the community, about the scared little third graders, so desperate to learn, about their parents so desperate for the kids to have a better life. My bread goes stale as I tell him about going to cookouts by the river with school families, about their hammocks strung in the trees and the meat cooking on the grills.
“It sounds like you’ve found the perfect spot for yourself,” he says, “I’m jealous. I guess I’d kind of thought I could charm you into leaving your job, but I can see it’s hopeless.” He chuckles. “I’ll have to pull strings and get it shut down so you have to stay.with us.”
“Yeah, you might not even have to. I actually needed to mention it to you–I will need Tuesday off to go to a meeting of the Board of Directors.”
“Of course, no problem. Just let me know if I can help.”
“Thanks,” I say, and finish my sandwich.
Corbin clears our plates to the sink and I stand up. “May I walk you back?” he asks, as if I lived across campus.
He takes my hand again as we walk back upstairs.
“I need to thank you again for being so understanding. I can’t tell you how hard that was. Or how much better I feel now that it’s out. I hope I didn’t over burden you.”
His speech has gone all stilted again. I decide to head it off and stop in the hallway leading to my room. I take both of his hands.
“You did not overburden me. Sharing like that is what people do–and not just on TV. I asked–actually, demanded– that you tell me what was going on and you did.”
I’m about to launch into a lecture about the danger of secrets or something when he leans down to kiss me. I rise up on my toes to meet him, my body melting into his. This time, when his tongue parts my lips, I don’t run away.
Corbin’s hands move from my head, sliding down my body, over my curves. When he pulls my hips tight against him, I feel the thrill throughout my body. It’s been a long time, true, but more than just physical need, I feel the closeness between us, like the wall Corbin had built has crumbled.
Our kissing gradually grows from deep and slow to slightly frenzied as our passion grows hotter. Corbin pushes me against the wall, lifting me so that my legs wrap around him. The surprise of being picked up is quickly wiped away by the feeling of his hard length pressed against me.
“Wanna come back to my place?” I gasp.
“I hope you don’t live far away, I’m not sure I can wait,” he replies, setting me down so that I can lead him to my room.
Once inside, I turn to face him as he closes the door. “You are so beautiful,” he says. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”
He reaches out and unbuttons my dress. When he slides it over my shoulders, it puddles around my feet. His hands are on my bare back as he unhooks my bra and the fire inside me grows. As the black satin comes away from my breasts, my already firm nipples become rock hard in the cool air of the room. Corbin cups my breasts in his hands, lowering his head to kiss first one dark nipple and then the other. He sucks the second into his mouth, his teeth lightly grazing the sensitive flesh, making me gasp. My hands go to his silky hair as he goes back to the first side, nibbling gently, making me wild.
Corbin sinks to his knees as he kisses down my stomach, kisses my belly button, and pulls down the elastic of my panties, planting a kiss on my mound as he exposes it. I step out of my clothes as the underpants hit my feet and stand naked before him as he rises back up. His eyes are burning with need and his loose pants can’t hide that he’s as eager as I am.
But he pulls me to him in another kiss and I feel the linen, rough on my bare skin. I press against him, moving my hips, and he moans and grips his fingers in the flesh of my rear.
“Enough with this chit chat,” he growls, “time for bed.”
I yank back the covers while he shucks off his clothes and we both fall into the downy softness of the big bed. Corbin kisses my neck while he reaches for the condom he’d dropped on the night stand.
“You were optimistic about how the night would go,” I tease.
“What have you got without hope?” he says, grinning. “Besides,” he says before ripping the package with his teeth, “Better to go home sad and over prepared than to have to stop and run to my room. It’s undignified. And you might get away.”
“No chance of that,” I say as he pushes me onto my back. “There are cameras everywhere.”
“Not in here,” he says, kissing my neck. Suddenly he lifts his head and raises an eyebrow at me. “Unless you want one?”
“No, thank you,” I say, “Gotta just live in the moment.”
And it’s a good moment, as Corbin kisses down my shoulder and back down to my breasts. I can feel his cock pressing again
st my leg, hard and ready. He doesn’t make me wait long.
When he enters me, a deep moan comes from my very depths. I don’t think I knew just how much I wanted this, but now that I have it, it’s all I ever want to do. I wrap my legs around his muscular back, driving him deeper within me.
There’s no time for gentle strokes. We are like people who’ve just been given water after crossing the desert. Our need is fierce.
I cling to him as he thrusts, our hips rocking in unison. I feel my climax building faster than I can ever remember, even when I’m on my own. I press harder against him. As the wave starts to crash over me, I bury my face in his neck to keep from crying out. The last thing I want is to wake Maeve right now.
Corbin is driven to his own brink by my passion and I feel his cock swell as he climaxes. Even his O face is gorgeous, who can do that?
We lay, panting, entangled and sweaty.
“That was too fast,” Corbin says, “I want to take it slow next time.”
I thrill a bit to the notion of “next time.”
We lay in one another’s arms, talking about everything and nothing–our favorite TV shows as kids (he has the gall to laugh at Power Rangers when he liked James Bond, Jr. But we agree that Earthworm Jim was the bomb), favorite music (he wants to make me watch Bollywood musicals. We’ll see), and pets (Bootsy’s my first pet ever. Corbin rattles off a roster of big slobbery dogs in his life)–until we’ve rested a bit.
This time, we take it slow, and it’s even better.
Chapter Eight
When I wake to the sound of Maeve’s cries, I find I’ve left a puddle of drool on Corbin’s chest. I try to mop it up before he wakes and notices, but when I look up, I see his blue eyes smiling down at me.
“Morning,” he says, “Tidying up?”
“Turns out, I’m a drooler. Sorry.” I climb out of bed and pull on a robe as Maeve’s cries become louder.
“No need to apologize, I take it as a compliment to have tired you out so well.”
“And you should!” I call over my shoulder, opening the door to Maeve’s suite. She stops crying as soon as she sees me and starts to bounce on her crib mattress.
“Hey Miss Maeve, good morning!”
“Ka!” she looks past me and shouts “Da! Ka Da!”
I turn to see Corbin standing there, shirtless, in his linen pants. It’s hard for my brain to find a place to put the sudden surge of lust. Baby. Diaper. Hot guy. It’s hard to learn to switch gears like that. Fake it ‘til you make it, though, right?
“Oh hey, it is your Da! C’mere, Da, it’s diaper time.”
Corbin laughs and stays put. “Oh no, I think that’s what I’m paying you for, esteemed Nanny.”
I give him my Grandma’s “What did you just say?” look.
“Coming, ma’am, right away ma’am!” he says, scampering for comic effect. That man can look hot while scampering.
I play it cool, though. “I’ve got the wet diaper off. Here, entertain her while I get her some clothes. Normally I take her to breakfast in her jammies and then give her a bath after, but she’s soaked through.”
Corbin steps to the changing table, saying “Hey kiddo.” I grab a romper from her dresser and come back to find him playing peek-a-boo. “Say, did she grow already?” he asks.
“Probably, that’s a thing they do.”
He gives me an eyebrow. “Thanks. But has she grown, like, overnight? I could swear she looks bigger.”
“Grandma says they do, actually. And she clearly slept like a log last night–for which I am grateful.”
Corbin smiles at me and reaches out to put his hand on my pajama’d ass. “Me too.” He turns back to Maeve. “Good baby.”
His expression clouds suddenly and he places his hand on Maeve’s tummy.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “It’s hurting my brain a little to know that her mother is dead and I’m banging her dad. I’m sure it’s even weirder for you. But we can say it out loud and admit it and try to make it okay.”
When he looks at me, he looks so sad that tears well up in my eyes. But he smiles that smile that doesn’t quite make it all the way to his eyes. “You’re right. And thank you for saying it.”
I get a sudden burst of brilliance. “Corbin!” I say, excited, “Stay with us today. Don’t go down to the office, just hang out.” I can see he’s about to say he can’t, so I forge on. “No, it’s like immersion therapy. You want to compartmentalize Nanny Vanessa from Bedtime Vanessa. No dice, that just makes it weird for me. You said you wanted to try harder with Maeve, this is the perfect opportunity.”
He hesitates. I can see he really wants to say no. But knows that he really needs to say yes.
“C’mon. It’ll be fun. We’ll go swimming. I’ll put on my skimpiest bikini,” I tease.
He smiles, for real this time. “Okay, if you’re going to bribe me. But I need to make some calls this morning, to clear my schedule. I’ll meet you after breakfast.”
In a surprise twist, Maeve has rice cereal for breakfast with Marta. I down a yogurt before I head up to my shower.
When I peel off my pajamas, I can smell Corbin’s scent on me, a nice reminder of last night. I’m almost reluctant to step into the spray. I’m a little worried by how smitten I feel. The sex was good, no doubt–maybe the best I’ve had, but his willingness to be so open with me has really gotten him under my skin.
I read about so-called alpha heroes all the time, successful men–usually rich–who are the masters of their realm. I never really like the ones that are needlessly cruel or who tear the heroine down first. But I always liked the way they knew their own mind. I liked that they were confident and sure, probably because I so seldom feel like I know what I’m doing. I figured the ideal man would have enough confidence for both of us.
Corbin seems to know what he’s doing at the winery, even if he claims it was just a job he couldn’t screw up. I’ve heard enough of his phone calls to know that he’s an experienced businessman, even if this particular business is new. But his willingness to admit that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing with Maeve, to admit that he screwed up–badly–is strangely appealing. Reassuring almost. There are different kinds of strong, you know?
Here’s this guy with more money than he probably even knows about, all the advantages of life, and he still makes mistakes, admits them, and tries to move forward. Maybe I’m the weirdo here, but that’s hotter than a guy that would…I don’t know, brood, or go work on his motorcycle after some grunting, right?
Reluctantly, I let the soap and water wash away his scent, get dressed, and go back to the kitchen to get Maeve. Good lord, it was only yesterday that I was slipping down the halls hoping I wouldn’t run into Corbin. Seems like a week.
I’m buckling her into her stroller for our morning walk around outside when Corbin turns up.
“Okay, schedule mostly cleared. I’ll need to take a call at two, but otherwise I’m all yours.”
“Ooo, lucky me!” I say with a smile. “We’re just about to go for our walk, maybe you can be our tour guide this time.”
As we walk around the gardens that Maeve and I have circled so many times, Corbin makes it all come alive for me. What had been just a retaining wall becomes an old fort where Corbin lay in wait for his sisters, who didn’t know that they were an invading force. Well, until they were hit with the cold spray from Corbin’s water gun.
The little lily pond was revealed to be the site of marine battles with remote control boats. He pointed out the remains of a tree fort in a eucalyptus tree. The Pierces used to come down over Easter break, he said, since it was still cold in Boston, but already full spring in Napa. “I didn’t realize how much like a desert it is here until I moved here. I’d only ever been here in early April, after the rains.”
“After Laura, the sister closest to my age, went to college and stopped joining us for spring break, it just wasn’t fun any more. I was about eleven or twelve and after that we stopped coming. I hav
en’t been back until now.”
“So your sisters are much older than you?”
“Yeah, Sarah’s the oldest, she’s ten years older, then Emily is eight years older, then two years later was Laura. My mom lost baby Frances, two years after that and declared she was done. Then I came along–surprise!–six years after Laura. My sisters imagined that my parents saw me as the longed-for son and the spoiled baby. I imagined that I was an unwelcome interruption and a foreign creature. Probably the truth is somewhere in the middle.” He chuckles ruefully.
“I’ve always been fascinated by big families,” I say, “probably because mine was so small. Both of my parents were only children, so it’s just Grandma and me. I always seem to make friends with people from big families. Asia is one of eight kids. That’s a lot of kids.”
“Yeah, four seems like an awful lot when it’s my family. Of course, I envied the only children.”
We walk on, the sun gradually going from warm to way-too-hot. We retreat to the air conditioning and I show Corbin all of Maeve’s favorite toys, teach him the wonders of the putting-things-in-the-box game, blowing his mind with the taking-them-back-out game.
After lunch–and after our required wait, even hot billionaires can’t talk me out of waiting an hour–I get into my bikini as promised and meet Corbin at the pool.
“Wow,” he says looking me up and down quite shamelessly, “well worth taking the day off.”
“What about Maeve?” I say, thrusting her forward, “Don’t leave her out.”
He pokes her belly, causing her to giggle. “You look like a movie star, Maeve, giant polka dots really suit you.”
In the pool, Corbin delights his daughter by popping out from under the water directly in front of her floaty. He swims below her and grabs her feet, causing her to scream with delight.