by Sosie Frost
“And how did that happen?”
Cassi sucked in a breath and attempted to push up on the tire. It did nothing. Her hips and ass were firmly wedged in the luckiest goddamned tire I’d ever seen.
“Well, one day, I was born. Twenty-two years later, the world exacted its revenge.” She smacked the rubber. The motion shimmied her deeper into the tire and accidentally pinned her shoulders. “Can you help me?”
I could. I wouldn’t, but I could. “What can I do?”
“Maybe if I lose more self-esteem, I can slide out of here.”
She wiggled her wobbler and wedged herself in an awkward position against the inner rim of the tire. Her ass was exposed to the dirt. If the bikini bottoms slipped up any further, she’d choke on them.
Cassi groaned.
“Now what would you have to be embarrassed about?” I asked.
“Let’s start with the booty.”
“Like hell. There’s nothing wrong with that booty. That’s a perfect booty.”
“You’re the expert.”
“You’re goddamned right. And, if anything, that tire swing wants to keep that ass snug for itself.”
Mellie gave the swing a push. Cassi grunted as she bounced against the dirt. “Looks like the ground wants it more.”
“Can you blame it?”
“Can you help me?”
“Can I get a picture?”
“You can get fu—”
I interrupted with a smile. “The children are listening.”
Listening. Laughing. Same difference. Cassi awkwardly humped, pumping her hips and getting nowhere but lodged into my memory. Tabby toddled over to me and pointed.
“Uh-oh,” she babbled.
“That’s right,” I said. “Can you say this would make good blackmail.”
“Abababa.”
“Close enough.”
Cassi scowled. “Know what? Forget it. I don’t need your help. I’ll be fine right here.”
“You’re gonna sit there all night with your butt in the hole?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“Come on, Cas. A booty like that belongs in the world, not attached to a ten-year-old tire swing. Let me help you.”
“Oh no.” She wagged a finger at me. Her shoulder was stuck, but she got a decent wiggle from her elbow. “You’re gonna make fun of me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And then you’re going to hit on me.”
“Once I’m done taking pictures.”
“My prince charming.”
I scooted the kids out of the way and surveyed the ropes holding the tire up. They tugged easily, but so did Cassi. She shrieked as I pulled the tire back and gave the ropes a yank. Her booty didn’t unwedge, even as she teetered nearly vertical. I dragged the tire to the water’s edge and grinned.
“We’re gonna dump you out,” I said.
“No, no, no. No dumping!”
Cassi stared into the deepest part of the lake. Her suit was wet, but not her hair. It’d be a declaration of war, but the temptation was as real as sneaking a glance at the most perfect, roundest, absolutely bounciest booty on God’s green earth.
Right there. Exposed by the miraculous slippage of a very generous pair of bikini bottoms.
I pulled the ropes until the tire swung perpendicular to my hips. Oh, the wicked things I could do.
“Why isn’t this a standard feature in every bedroom?” I asked.
“Oh, you cannot be trusted.” Cassi attempted to spin. She couldn’t see me behind her rubber shell, but I had the best view anywhere in the woods. “Okay. I can get out from here.”
“All you need is a good bump.”
“No. No bumps.”
I hummed to myself. “Now how could I give you a good bump out of this swing?”
“You could be a gentleman.”
“Aren’t I helping a damsel in distress?” I grinned. “All you need is one good whack, and you’ll be out of there. A solid spank oughtta do it. Get you out of the tire and onto your knees.”
“Heaven help you, Remington Marshall, if you do what I think you’re gonna do—”
I held the tire firm. Didn’t get as good a warm up as I would’ve liked, but I’d known my entire life that my hand was made for spanking Cassi Payne’s gorgeous ass.
It was a solid, joyous whack heard across the pond. The clap struck the fleshiest part of that booty, and the clap that echoed was as if the trees offered a round of glorious applause.
Cassi crashed forward, out of the tire. She face-planted into the dirt. Her language was not appropriate for children.
“You are such a fu—” She swallowed her words and rubbed her behind. “Bad influence on these kids!”
Well, yeah. Thought everyone knew that. Cassi marched towards me—as if a little twig like her could push me into the water. I defended myself with the tire swing, pulling it back.
She raced for me.
I let go of the tire.
The swing smacked her in the chest. Momentum did the rest. Her splash into the pond was impressive, though I once again credited for her booty for the show.
Cassi emerged from the water, hair drenched and covering her face. Her shriek entertained the kids, but she grabbed a plastic bucket from Mellie that I wasn’t entirely sure hadn’t been filled with rocks instead of water.
So I did what any brave, honorable man would do. I hauled Mellie into my arms and faced Cassi with a grin.
“Is that any way to show your gratitude?” I asked.
The bucket reared back. “Don’t use that child as a human shield.”
“Tabby!” I scooped the kiddo into my arms too. “Tell Cassi to say thank you.”
Tabby waved a pudgy finger at her nanny. “Dank Boo.”
“Thank you, Remington…” Cassi spoke through gritted teeth. “Put the kids down.”
“Now, Sassy…be reasonable. You’ve been wetter than this before.”
“It’s like you want to get dunked.”
“Just say the word—I’ll splash you all you want.”
The kids wiggled. My luck ran out. Mellie split first, racing to her own bucket on the shore. Tabby followed, plunking down in the grass and attempted to eat a pebble. Both girls threatened me with the buckets.
“Ladies…” I grinned. “I’m sure we can come to an amiable resolution—”
“Get him, Mellie!”
Cassi led the charge, pitching water—and the bucket—at my head. I dodged the attack, caught the bucket, and promptly fit it over my niece’s head. Cassi panicked as I stole Mellie’s weapon, filled halfway with chilly water.
“Don’t!” She pointed at me. “Don’t you even dare—”
She bolted. I chased, pitching the contents of the bucket over her torso. She juked, but I captured her in my arms before she could escape.
Her hands flattened against my chest, hand covering the sunflower I’d tattooed into my skin as a permanent reminder of the girl who’d loved them so much. Her breathless smile pounded my heart. She could probably feel it. A thundering, rabid thudding. T
The heat of her mostly bare skin radiated through me. Seared me. I was hot, chilled, drowning, and sucking in the first breath of air I’d taken in five years.
Cassi stared at me with wide eyes and pouting lips.
This was a woman who deserved to be kissed.
A real kiss. Not a silly game where I proved to my aching cock how much I wanted her, but the kiss of a lifetime. The kind that curled toes, melted panties, and revealed too much about how I felt. A kiss that would forgive the last five years of foolishness and promise minute-after-minute, hour-after-hour, day-after-day, year-after-year of commitment, honesty, and unrelenting pleasure.
I could have said so much in that kiss.
I should have been the man who kissed her like that.
Instead I was the idiot who’d smacked her ass and dumped her in the lake.
“I’m hungry.” Mellie’s declarations always came at the wors
t times. “I want macaroni.”
Cassi’s fingers dug into my arms. She pushed away.
Hesitantly?
“We should…” Cassi stared up at me, her eyes a dark and simmering in mystery. “Go home. Get them…food.”
“And what else?”
“Is there anything else?
I had no idea, but a man could hope. “There might be.”
Cassi shook her head.
But I made a decision.
No more living in isolation. No more dreading her knock at my door.
No more wishing for the past and regretting what had to be done.
Five years had passed, and I was ready to reclaim what was mine.
Screw professionalism. Cassi Payne was in my life again. And this time…
I was gonna get my girl—even if I had to trap her in a dozen goddamned tire swings.
8
Cassi
I always imagined the first bare tush I’d see inside Remington Marshall’s home would be his own gorgeous ass.
Instead, I chased two indecent ankle-biters, running laps around a scandalized sofa.
Mellie led the chanting. “No bed! No bed!”
This moment of civil disobedience was brought to me by Osh Kosh B’Gosh. Or…it would be once I got pants on the little buggers. Until then, those pale bottoms mooned me with every ounce of mischief they could wiggle, desperate to end their nanny’s bedtime ritualistic tyranny.
“Come on.” I kept my voice stern. “You’ve got to get back in the tub.”
“No!”
“Mellie.”
Tabby joined in gleeful protest. “No!”
The day had been nothing but a series of battles with the three-year-old, ending with a bath-time armada of tantrums, time outs, and tidal waves—her own brand of justice involving a Tupperware container filled with water, bubbles, and possibly a bit of Tabby’s pee over my head.
The stakes were high. The kids tested my limits. And my patience. And how far a bottle of red wine could stretch.
“No bed!”
Mellie’s fight for independence ended when the bubbles of shampoo in her hair trickled into her eyes. Maybe Johnson and Johnson should have developed a No More Tears-Gas. The toddler crumpled into a knot on the living room floor, wailing in a puddle of misery and suds.
“Mellie.” We were so beyond counting to three now. “You are getting in the tub.”
Her words bumbled in toddler hysteria, but I was fluent now. “I don’t wanna go to bed!”
“You’re not going to bed yet. You’re getting in the tub and rinsing off.”
“I don’t wanna!”
“Come get in the tub, rinse the shampoo out, and I’ll read you a story.”
“No!”
“Now, Mellie.”
“Uncle Rem!” Mellie added a series of karate kicks to her tantrum now, spiking at the air, the couch, and a wandering Tabby. “Want Uncle Rem!”
She wasn’t the only one.
A week straight of twelve hours shifts—from the time the girls got up until they went to sleep—wasn’t just exhausting. It was terrifying.
Sure, they were cute, but Mellie and Tabby were the worst disciplined kids I’d ever met. Sugary sweet when they were presented with trips, games, and food they liked. Shampoo covered demonic screechers when a bedtime approached, a toy was taken away, or anything green touched their plates.
A couple of timeouts and some good-behavior sticker magic might have improved their behavior, but good ol’ Uncle Rem practiced childrearing in a non-conventional fashion. The oh dear god, give them what they want, why are they still screaming school of discipline. A time-tested and effective method of quiet days and nights, but one of the quickest conversions from toddler to sociopath.
“Aren’t you getting tired?” I asked Mellie. “It’s passed your bedtime.”
“Na-uh!”
“All little girls go to bed at eight o’clock.”
“Na-uh!”
“Oh yeah?” I placed my hands on my hips. “What time do you want to go to bed then?”
“Want to see Jimmy Fallon.”
“What?”
“And the Roots.”
Mellie plopped to the floor, collecting every carpet fiber, hair, bit of wood, and spec of mud on her wet skin. She whined, but I was too pissed to surrender.
“Does Uncle Rem let you stay up?”
She nodded. Now life made more sense. No wonder I had to lug her out of bed in the mornings. She wasn’t just sawing logs in her sleep, she was deforesting entire rainforests.
I offered her my hand. “Let’s go. Back in the tub.”
“Don’t wanna sleep!”
“We’re just going to take a bath and read a story, okay?”
Mellie wiped the bubbles from her forehead. The tears remained, but she eyed me with that toddler skepticism that threatened the night’s peace with an onslaught of unanswerable, possibly uncomfortable questions. Fortunately, Tabby knew how to create a distraction.
“Yay!” The baby stopped where she was running, squatted, and began to pee. “Yay!”
“Ew!” Mellie’s screams terrified Tabby. “Bad baby! Yuck!”
This both intimidated and frightened the child. To escape from her sister’s judgment, Tabby bolted across the living room, tinkling the whole way, her chubby legs flailing as her feet slapped a suddenly wet hardwood floor.
I caught Tabby before she raced into the kitchen and held her away from my body as she dribbled her last bit of disrespect with a giggle. Then I herded the girls to the tub for yet another round of baths.
This took an hour. Pajamas took twenty minutes. Another fifteen to bluff my way through Wheels on the Bus, the theme to Friends, and Beyoncé’s Halo.
And, finally, the kids slept.
And I, drenched in Tabby’s spaghetti dinner, soap, and unmentionables, collapsed on the living room couch. Toys and clothes covered the floor. Dishes mounded in the sink. Food littered the counters.
And Rem was nowhere to be seen.
Just like he’d stayed hidden for the past week.
Well, that was about to change.
I loaded the nanny cam app on my phone and slipped from the house only once both kids slept peacefully. I jogged through the dark and into Rem’s chosen sanctuary.
Hiring me meant he’d had the time to renovate the workshop from spider-ridden, dark and dirty storeroom to a spider-ridden, moderately lit, sawdusted wood shop. Boards and timbers, nails and machines, tools and exceedingly sharp implements dotted the shop, just waiting for little hands to pluck a dangerous toy from his supply. Rem had promised to store his equipment in safe places. He’d also promised to be done after dinner, cleaned up by the girls’ bedtime, and available for a quick story before his nieces went to bed and I went home.
Why did I ever expect Rem to keep his promises?
So much had changed, but so much stayed the same. The little girls depended on him now. And those consequences scared him. The workshop wasn’t a Canadian wilderness, but it was as far as he could run.
He didn’t look up when I entered. His attention fixed on a piece of timber he meticulously sanded. He’d carved the maple into a beautiful, artistic arch. It matched the other three he’d cut, shaped, and readied to be assembled.
The wood and dust, tools and equipment suited him. He set the piece with the others and hauled a larger slab of timber onto his work surface, the thick muscles in his arms and back straining against his shirt.
Did men know how good they looked when they rolled the cuff of their shirts just past their forearms? It felt like a conspiracy. Some sort of masculine memo sent out at the boys’ secret club meetings. Tonight’s Agenda: Diehard Movies and Muscular Forearms—beef jerky and whiskey to follow.
It wasn’t fair. Rem’s body had transformed into total muscle, chiseled as if he’d taken his tools and carved his abs, chest, and that sweet ass from the wood he’d practically crushed with his bare hands.
Annoyingly
attractive—that’s what he was.
His forehead glistened, slick with sweat. That dazzling smile would’ve made me sweat too.
“How’s it going, Sassy?”
I flashed my phone at him, displaying the grainy images of the two girls sleeping soundly. “You missed bedtime.”
“Already?”
“They wanted to say goodnight.”
He nodded. “I’ll catch them in the morning.”
Sure thing. “And…how many verses of Cat’s in the Cradle do you want me to sing?”
He brushed the dust from his hands, but his clothes were covered in splinters. “If you want, I’ll wake them up now…”
Summoning the monsters awake wasn’t nearly as hard as banishing them to bed. “Don’t you dare.”
“Okay then.”
“Are you planning to come inside soon?”
He winked. “Is that an invitation?”
“More like a census,” I said. “I’m just wondering if you’ve been scared out of your own home by two little girls.”
Rem snorted. “Three little girls. The kids I can handle. But you…”
“Yes?”
“It’s good to have a refuge.”
I arched an eyebrow. “That so?”
“The timber isn’t the only wood in here, Sassy.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?”
He dropped the sandpaper. “Want me to prove it?”
“I just want the truth—all of it this time.”
“Think I’m lying to you?”
“Yes.” I smiled. “But I’m used to that.”
“No fair, Cassi.”
“Why are you hiding in here?”
He shrugged. “I’m not.”
“Don’t give me that.” I circled the tables, lightly touching carved pieces of chairs and fixtures. “You’re hiding in this woodshop. And I can guess why.”
He extended his hands. “I’d love to hear it.”
“You’re afraid of getting close to those little girls.”
“They’re my nieces.”
“And they terrify you.” I stared into his beautiful eyes—a rich, cherry darkness that held me in place as much as I tried to pin him down. “You’re afraid of getting close to them because if you do…you’ll be forced to stay in civilization again.”
He laughed. “Butterpond is hardly civilization.”