The Woodsman's Nanny - A Single Daddy Romance

by Emerson Rose

  “So, for your project, I think we should do something about respecting fire. Maybe your dad could help us write lyrics to go with Aretha Franklin’s Respect? We could sing it to your class.” My tone is upbeat as I try to bring us all back to the pleasant frame of mind we were in only a few minutes ago.

  Gage releases my hand. “That shouldn’t be too hard. You can sing it, Adley. You’re a great singer.”

  “Yes! That’s way cooler than making a stupid poster board!”

  “We might have to have a visual aid of some sort. I’ll check the assignment, but the song should get you a good grade, and you’ll be teaching about something very important at the same time. You might even save somebody’s life one day.”

  “Why don’t you go find that rubric for the assignment?” I say to Adley.

  “Okay.” She jumps off the stool and starts to run away stopping halfway to the stairs. “Clover?”

  “Yeah, honey?”

  “Thanks for telling me about your fire.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  When she’s gone, Gage stirs the meat and adds the pasta to the water. “Is there more to that story that you want to tell me now that we’re alone?”

  “I don’t want to, but I will. It was me who started the house on fire. I wanted to light the candles on my dad’s birthday cake that year. I thought I should practice. I couldn’t get a match to light by striking it, so I used a lighter. The whole book went up in flames. The heat was intense, and I dropped them on the floor. You know the rest.”

  “You were just a child. You can’t blame yourself.”

  “Oh, but I can, and I do. If I hadn’t been messing around, my life would be very different today.”

  “It was an accident. You didn’t mean for it to happen, you can’t blame yourself.”

  “Just like you can’t blame yourself for your wife’s death?” He freezes and looks me straight in the eyes.

  “That’s totally different.”

  “Oh yeah? How?” I’ve been thinking about this ever since he told me he believes his wife’s blood is on his hands.

  “I was an adult for starters. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I did it anyway. I was selfish and careless and full of myself. You were a child trying to teach yourself to do something sweet for your father for his birthday.”

  “Still got the same result, though, didn’t I?”

  “Maybe so, but the circumstances surrounding our events were a world apart.”

  “Why don’t we agree to disagree?”

  “We’re going to have to,” he says lifting his eyes to the stairs where Adley is racing down with her rubric in her hand.

  “Found it!”

  “Cool, let’s have a look.” She hands me the paper. “Yep, right here. We have to have a visual aid. It can be in the form of props, though, so maybe we can make a giant match or something.”

  “We could use a big piece of wood and paint the end red!”

  “That’s a great idea.” I look up at Gage who is watching me closely. He’s not done with me yet. When Adley goes to sleep, he is going to want to talk about the fire some more, and that’s okay because I’m not done debating about his wife’s death either.

  11

  Gage

  Living with the kind of guilt Clover and I have been living with does something to a person. It sits in the recesses of your mind festering like an infection affecting every aspect of your life. It causes you to doubt yourself. You don’t like yourself, and you’re constantly worried the world will find out what you did and say, ‘Ah ha! I knew there was something wrong with that guy!’”

  Guilt is like a straightjacket holding you hostage from enjoying life. I should know, it’s been holding me hostage for years on a mountain away from a world full of people who used to love me.

  After dinner, we watch a movie, and Adley passes out on the couch. When the credits start to roll, I glance down at Clover. She is lying between my legs on her side with her cheek pressed against my chest. Her eyes are droopy, but she’s still awake. “Hey, come upstairs with me,” I whisper in her ear.

  “Hmm?” she murmurs forcing her eyes open all the way.

  “Adley’s out, come with me.” I nudge her, and she sits up. I stand and take her hand pulling her gently along with me.

  “Don’t you want to put her to bed?” she asks as we climb the stairs.

  “No, she’s comfortable where she is, and I don’t want her to hear us.”

  “Hear us what?” she asks still sleepy.

  “Making love.” She stumbles, and I glance back at her over my shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  “Um, yeah I just didn’t, I mean I wasn’t planning…”

  “I told you I wanted to sleep with you, Clover. I thought we were in agreement about that.”

  “We were. I mean, we are.”

  “Good.” I lead her into my bedroom and close and lock the door. The room is dark, and I use it to my advantage pressing her up against the back of the door before she can think of a reason to change her mind.

  Those who suffer intense guilt don’t believe they deserve pleasure. They deny themselves the best things in life as punishment for their sins. Clover and I are more alike than I first knew. We are victims of our guilt living our lives looking over our shoulders waiting for a greater power to strike us down to get justice for those we wronged.

  Tonight, I’m going to take those two wrongs and try to make a right.

  “Clover,” I moan against her neck. “I’m falling for you.” I slide my hands under her sweatshirt and find her braless. She gasps when I cup her breasts in my hands and push my erection against her belly. I’ve been hard for hours lying on the couch waiting for Adley to fall asleep. What am I saying? I’ve been hard for her for weeks. Every time we are in the same room, which is often, my cock recognizes her and stands at attention.

  “I’m going to worship your body until you beg me to stop, and then I’m going to worship it more. I’m going to bury my cock deep inside you and make you come more times than you ever had with any other man. I want your legs weak and your pussy bruised tomorrow. I want you to think of me, and this night, every time you sit down for a week.”

  “Oh…” she breathes against my cheek.

  “Are you ready?” I ask, and she nods. “Put your arms up.” She raises her arms in the dark, and I lift her sweatshirt over her head and toss it aside. I tug on the drawstring of her sweatpants, and they fall pooling at her feet leaving her bare.

  I touch her slick mound, and she flinches. “Relax, beautiful, you’re safe with me. I’m going to make you feel so fucking good. I slide my finger down her hot seam savoring the feel of her soft skin before I slip two fingers inside her. I cover her mouth with mine matching the thrusts of my tongue with my fingers until she’s writhing against the door.

  “Gage…” she whimpers, and I leave her mouth. She makes a sound of protest until I begin a trail of kisses that end with me on my knees in front of her. I raise her leg up and drape it over my shoulder. “Hold onto something.” She takes hold of the doorknob in one hand and my shoulder with the other.

  I rest my cheek against her inner thigh and breathe in the scent of lemon body wash and pure woman. Something in me connects with this scent, it is so entirely her and so entirely irresistible. I kiss her bare mound and lower my focus to her crease where I slide my tongue in and lick her clit, circling it until her legs buckle, and she comes long and hard crying my name.

  When her breath evens, I lower her leg from my shoulder. I stand and carry her limp body to the bed. “Birth control?” I say simply, wanting to be responsible but not wanting to ruin the mood with too many words.

  “Yes, the pill for five years.”

  “I’m clean.” She nods, and I reach back and pull my sweatshirt off by the collar breaking eye contact only when the material passes over my head. She looks like the definition of desire with her arms on either side of her head bent and relaxed, her hair splayed
out around her, and her legs spread open waiting for me to settle between them.

  I unzip my jeans and push them down with my feet freeing my heavy cock for her to see. Pressing my knee into the mattress next to her thigh, I hover over her, my hair hanging down shielding us from seeing anything but each other.

  She reaches up and touches my hair watching as her fingers slide through the loose waves. “It’s not fair, you know.”

  “What’s not fair, beautiful?”

  “That your hair is more beautiful than mine.”

  “Not true, but if you think so, I’ll cut it off.” Her eyes go wide, and she gives my hair a yank.

  “Don’t you dare. This, though…” she says stroking my long beard. “This could use a trim.”

  “Done. First thing tomorrow.” She smiles, and I press a kiss to her soft lips. I lower myself down, my cock brushing against her slick sex, and our skin sizzling between us. It’s like a power surge happens when we make contact, and it propels us forward until our bodies are a tangle of arms and legs fighting for attention.

  She arches her body into mine, and I push her back down into the mattress and enter her with force. She claws at my back when I fill her, and I pause pulsing inside of her. She feels so good that I’m at risk of seriously embarrassing myself if I don’t slow down.

  It’s been weeks of wanting her, and now that she’s in my arms, in my bed, and I am in her, I don’t want to ruin it by being a one-minute man. She stills under me as if she knows I’m on the edge and waits patiently for me to get my shit together.

  When I no longer feel like I’m going to explode, I begin a slow pace sliding in and out with a small roll of my hips every other thrust. She meets me every time I enter her tilting her hips upward to take as much as her body will allow. Her lips part, and she starts to pant and grip my sides harder when she’s close. She exhibits dozens of tells that I commit to memory forever. Her eyes gloss over, her mouth opens wider, she tips her head back pressing it into the pillow, and I speed up with only one goal in mind—to make her come again and again.

  Every muscle in her body tenses, her eyes roll back in her head, and she makes a strangled sound when she begins to spasm around my cock. I feel her tighten around me, and I can’t stop myself from coming any more than I can stop myself from breathing.

  When it happens, I see stars, fucking stars like I saw when Jack Smith hit me in the head playing baseball in the second grade. Her hands come up and snake around my neck pulling me flush with her body. “I’ll crush you,” I murmur against her damp hair.

  “I don’t care. I want to feel every inch of you on me while you’re still inside me.”

  She unwraps her legs from around my back and slides them under me while we are still connected covering herself with my two hundred plus pound body. I lean to the side to take the pressure off, but she pulls me back. “No,” she says, and I give in to her wish.

  We lay this way for a few minutes catching our breath and recovering until I can’t stand the thought of her small body under the weight of mine anymore. I lift up on my elbows and look into her hooded eyes. “I’m not done with you yet, beautiful,” I say running the tip of my finger along the curve of her collarbone feeling myself swell again inside of her.

  “No?” she asks raising her eyebrows.

  “No,” I say sliding out and flipping her over in one swift motion. She squeals when she hits the mattress with a swoosh. “Shush or you’ll wake Adley,” I say although I know for a fact that she can sleep through just about anything.

  Grabbing her hips, I hoist her perfect ass up in the air and enter her again. She’s soaking wet from our first go around, and I plan on making her even wetter. I push in and out of her body watching her swallow up my cock greedily with every thrust. She arches and pushes against me the same way she did on her back, but it feels deeper in this position, and it’s making me crazy.

  I brush my thumb across the pucker of her ass, and she moans. I insert my finger and watch her hands fist at the sheets. I slide in deeper, and she pushes back easing my concern that she was moaning in pain and not ecstasy.

  I catch a glimpse of our reflection in the window overlooking the mountains. What an incredible picture that would be, me inside of her, her ass in the air clutching the sheets, sweat glistening off of our bodies reflected against the dark mountain silhouette.

  I file the memory away for later and focus on the sound of our bodies slapping against each other. “I’m going to come,” I say as a fair warning so she can do the same if she’s ready. I would wait for her, but I’m out of control like I’ve never been before.

  I grab her hips abandoning her ass and smash into her with one last deep thrust. I can feel her orgasm clutching my cock as it spasms inside her for the second time in less than an hour.

  We collapse onto our sides, and I pull her into the curve of my body. “You…”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Woman, you make me crazy. I could keep this up all night.”

  “I would let you keep this up all night except that we have another human being to take care of bright and early in the morning.”

  She shivers, and I reach down and pull my thick, plush blanket over our sweaty bodies. “How about another hour or two?”

  “I think that’s reasonable,” she says twisting her head to kiss me on the nose.

  “There’s nothing reasonable about this.” The tone of my voice has changed from playful to serious. “I haven’t felt like this for anyone since Constance, and even that was different. I loved my wife. She was everything to me then, but when I look at you… I don’t know how to explain it.”

  She turns in my arms, and I see something in her eyes I wasn’t expecting. Something I’d hoped for, but now that I’m faced with it, it scares me. Something I don’t deserve from a woman as pure and beautiful and wonderful as Clover.

  Love.

  12

  Clover

  I’m not sure when it happened. It could have been that day in the supply store when he offered to buy me a backpack. Or the day he rescued me, and my class, in a blizzard on Blue Mountain. It could have been the first time I saw him take his daughter’s face in his big strong hands to tell her how proud he was of her and how much he loves her.

  Any one of those times could have done it. Any one of a million moments over the past few weeks could have made me fall in love with Gage, but last night… When he held me in his arms and told me he couldn’t explain his feelings for me, I knew I was in love, and I know he is, too.

  We communicated our love with our eyes and our bodies but not with actual words. Words are meaningless without the passion and proof behind them. We have both passion and proof.

  Now, in the light of day, lying here in his bed tucked under his arm with my cheek pressed against his chest listening to his heart beating, I wonder what comes next. Adley will be awake soon. She slept in the living room, and I expect she will wonder why her daddy didn’t put her to bed like he always does.

  Will she be upset that he chose to leave her there? Will she expect me to be something more than a nanny now? Will he? What part will I play in their family now, if any?

  What if the man who took that photograph last night discovers Gage’s identity and ruins his privacy? What if my presence in Gage’s life has ruined it? I won’t be able to live with myself if that happens.

  I blink the sleep from my eyes and notice that it’s still snowing when I look out Gage’s bedroom window. My obsessive thoughts have kept me from noticing the chill in the air and the dark screen on the alarm clock next to the bed.

  “Gage, wake up. I think the power is out,” I say patting his rock-hard abs. He groans and turns toward me pulling me closer. His exposed skin is freezing, and I shiver when he wraps himself around me.

  “You cold?” he asks in a sleepy voice with his eyes closed.

  “You’re cold. Gage, wake up, there’s no heat in here. We need to check on Adley, I don’t think I even covered her up la
st night on the couch.”

  His eyes open wide. He’s fully awake and alert when he sits up to listen to the lack of sound in the house.

  “I have to go start the generator. It should have started on its own, but once in a while, it doesn’t. Can you check on Adley?”

  “Of course, I’ll go grab some warm clothes and see if she’s up.”

  “It won’t take too long to get the generator started, but it will be a while before the house is warm again. I’ll get a fire going, too.” He kisses my forehead and then my mouth quickly and rolls away out of bed.

  I watch his perfect backside as he walks to the wardrobe and pulls on jeans, a t-shirt, a thick red and black flannel, and heavy wool socks. When he’s dressed, and there is nothing but his remarkable face to gawk at, I pull the sheet around my body and shiver when my feet hit the cold wood floor.

  “I wonder how long it’s been out?”

  “Hours, it takes a long time to get this cold in here unless it’s below zero outside.”

  “Isn’t that bad for pipes and things like that?” I ask unsure of all the things that can go wrong in a mountain home with no power.

  “Yes, very bad. Don’t open the refrigerator or use the water until I say. I don’t want to let what cold air we have in there out until I know the generator is going to work.”

  “Okay.” I hustle to my room and pull on a pair of leggings, sweatpants, thick socks, cami, t-shirt, and the heaviest sweater I own. When I come out of my room, I look over the railing and find that Adley isn’t in the living room where we left her.

  I open her bedroom door and find her huddled under the covers in her bed still asleep. I have no idea what time it is. My phone is still on the coffee table downstairs, and for all I know, it’s dead. I leave her sleeping, no sense waking her for school when we have no power.

  Downstairs, it feels like I’ve stepped outside minus the snow and wind. Thankfully, heat rises, or we would have frozen in our sleep. I’ll bet the cold woke Adley and that’s why she went upstairs to bed. Noise may not wake her, but cold does.