The Housekeeper's Daughter

by Palmer, Dee

  “Wow and you said you didn’t love me.”

  “I lied.”

  “Don’t do it again.” Her voice waivers and her eyes brim with tears. I don’t get the chance to reply.

  “Sir, you need to move!” The insistence in the nurses voice is tempered with the humorous smile she flashes between me and a rather flushed looking Tia. “Step outside a moment while I check her over would you?”

  “No.” The response is flat and accompanied by a humourless laugh. The nurse is fucking crazy if she thinks I’m leaving now. Tia cocks her head and tries to placate my stony resolution.

  “Logan, I’m fine, just do as the nurse says,” she coaxes. I roll off the bed and face them both. Using every inch of my six foot four frame in an attempt to intimidate.

  “No.” I move to make the only concession in this arrangement, planting myself in the chair at the edge of her private room. I’m out of the way of any interference but most definitely not outside the room. I fold my arms and wince when I catch the edge of my dressing. Tia’s eyes flash with worry, and I don’t bother to reassure her it’s nothing, not when it gets me exactly what I want.

  “He can stay. Please let him stay.” With her plea, I fight a shit-eating grin.

  “I’m going nowhere. Get used to it, ladies.”

  “Okay,” The nurse shrugs slightly, her tone wary. “But I’m going to be removing your catheter, and the procedure isn’t going to be remotely dignified.”

  “Oh no, Logan, I’ve changed my mind please go outside!”

  “No,” I repeat, adding my only concession, which softens the mortification in Tia’s expression. “You have the curtain, and I will turn my back, if it helps.”

  “God, you’re stubborn.” Her eyes narrow, and the nurse’s hearty chuckle fills the room.

  “I guess you two are suited then, because I’m pretty sure he said the same about you when you chose to burn to death beside him, hmm?” She arches an accusing brow nice and high, aiming it at Tia. Tia’s gaze fixes on me, and I feel the heat like a branding iron on my chest and a little deeper inside.

  “I don’t think I was being stubborn.” Her voice is unwavering and earnest. “I don’t want to live without him, so I was never going to leave him to die alone.”

  “Oh my.” The nurse sighs, and she buckles at the knees and places her hand over her heart. I’m beside Tia before she finished that last word. One hand in hers, the other cupping her jaw, she leans into my touch, glassy eyes fill with tears, blurring her vision or is that mine? An eternity passes between us as we hold a gaze that pierces both our souls. We could’ve died in the fire, yet here we are, together. Nothing is more precious than what I hold in my hands, right here, right now.

  “I love you.” I state.

  “I know,” she says with absolute certainty, even if it does sound like a threat. I love her overtly possessive tone and hope she can hear the same in mine. Our lips collide and meld, and I vow to let nothing come between us again, not Atticus, not my sister, and not this nurse…well, maybe just the nurse.

  “Ahem.” The nurse coughs impatiently, checking her watch with a wry smile. “I have other patients, and the sooner I can get Tia checked, the sooner you will be able to take her home.”

  “Today?” I suggest, and the nurse rolls her eyes at my optimism.

  “In a few days.” The nurse counters with a more realistic suggestion. I press my lips once more to Tia and she grins wide and mischievously against me, speaking at the same time.

  “I like the sound of that.” We’re perfectly moulded together so I do the same

  “Me too.”

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” She hasn’t stopped giving me furtive glances all the way home. Three tortuous days of tests before she was given the all clear and discharged from hospital, and I have been chomping at the bit to get her home. Only now, her initial excitement has been replaced with a sense of reticence, and I don’t like it one bit. We haven’t spoken about the shit tonne of stuff we need to discuss: Atticus, my sister, and Tia being the fucking heir to the Kraus fortune. All the focus has been on getting better and getting out of hospital.

  Maybe she’s having second thoughts.

  She sat close enough to me in the taxi it wasn’t so obvious, but while walking her carefully up the path to the front door of my house, her silence is getting to the point of being borderline creepy.

  “What is it? Do I have come on my face?” I grin like the devil at her instant shock and horrified expression and open mouth. She jerks around to peek over my shoulder and check no one can hear. The taxi is long gone, and the mid afternoon streets are relatively empty. My question was only a half joke.

  While we waited in her hospital room for the discharge papers, I teased and tormented her enough that she dragged me to the private bathroom and begged me to work my magic tongue, her words. As appetisers go, it was fucking perfect, and if she’d just clarify what’s with the weird looks she keeps throwing my way, I am more than ready for the main course. I want to be the reason she can’t walk for a week.

  “You’re outside.” She circles her finger around encompassing the immediate surrounding of my porch, front garden, and the street beyond.

  “I knew you were smart, smart and sexy.” Pulling her hard against my chest, she gasps as I plant two heavy hands on the cheeks of her arse and give a proprietary squeeze.

  “No Logan, this is huge!”

  “Don’t, you’ll make me blush, but actually it’s not as huge as it’s going to be.” I grind her softness against my hard length. “The jeans are kinda restrictive.”

  “Logan.” She tries to make my name sound like a reprimand but the gust of air she expels along with it sounds a good deal like a sensual moan.

  “Tia,” I mimic and roll my hips so she gets the full feel of what she’s doing to me. She shakes her head in an effort to clear the sexual fog, even as the erotic tension rockets.

  “You’re outside. When…when did this happen?” I drop my forehead to hers, urgency and hunger dripping from every pore and saturating my skin. I barely hear what she’s said the blood is rushing so damn loudly in my ears.

  “I have been working through this with an on-line therapist.”

  “Since when?” Her jaw drops comically wide with astonishment.

  “Since just after you moved in and I knew I wanted more.”

  “Oh my god, Logan, why didn’t you say something? This is amazing!” She squeals and claps her hands together like some sort of demented seal.

  “And that might be why.” I raise a brow at her over exuberance. “It’s stressful enough without the look of expectation on your face.”

  “Oh, sorry. You’re right, even so…” She stills herself, fisting her hands to stop herself waving them about with obvious glee. “I’m so happy for you, for us. I want to know everything.”

  “I will tell you. I will tell you everything, but not right now.” A deep, needy rumble vibrates in my chest and flows directly from me to her. I know she feels it in every nerve. Tiny hairs on her neck stand to attention as her body trembles in my grasp. Her eyes are wide with desire, pupils dilated to large pools of liquid coal edged in the luminescent green. “Right now I need to bury this something huge into your very tight—”

  “Oh my god.” She buries her head in the centre of my chest, and I let out a throaty belly laugh. She’s adorable.

  “Or Logan. I’ll answer to both.” I tilt back even though her head is flush against me, and I can feel the heat from her cheeks through the fabric of my T-shirt. I want to sweep her up onto my shoulder, but I’m afraid I might hurt her. I’m not even going to risk carrying her in my arms because, if I pull a stitch, we are headed straight back to hospital. If I see another hospital in my lifetime, it will be too fucking soon.

  I settle on taking her hand in mine, entwining our fingers, and dragging her up the steps and into the house, and I don’t stop until my long strides have erased the distance from the front door to my
bedroom. I kick the door wide and hear the audible hitch in Tia’s breathing. I know it wasn’t the climb up the stairs or the near sprint along the corridor that has her gasping for oxygen. She’s breathless with anticipation, and I fucking love that.

  “On the bed, now!” She hesitates only for a moment, then turns to face me. Her wide, intense gaze pins me to the spot. It’s incendiary and sparks of pent-up desire seem to crackle between us. She walks slowly backwards, one carefully placed foot behind the other until she is flush against the bed. I have followed her retreat step for step, but my stride is wider and we are a hair’s breadth from one another by the time she comes to a shaky halt. Her fingertips press lightly on the bedcovers for balance. My eyes bore into her, and I swear we could set the room on fire with the heat firing between our bodies.

  “Do you feel the heat, Tia?” I tower over her slight frame, my bulk casting a protective shadow I like.

  “I know what real flames feel like, and there’s no comparison, Logan.”

  “No more fires, T. Just this…just us.”

  I place my palm flat over her racing heart and relish the way her body shudders at my touch. She leans away and drops, inching her way backwards and up the bed. I follow her reclining body, until only millimetres separate our combustive heat. I lift and pull her sloppy T-shirt over her head and push her flat. My fingertips splay on her chest. Her heart is pounding.

  “Don’t move.” My deep voice is gravelly with lust. I crawl back down the bed, kissing a trail down over the swell of her breast, down her tummy, and I use the tip of my tongue, tasting the tempting skin just above the waistband of her leggings. I hook my fingers in the elastic and drag them and her panties all the way down her toned legs. Despite the agony of urgency in my cock, I’m taking my sweet time, enjoying every sigh, every squirm and hitch of breath as I innocently lavish my own pleasure and desire on her helpless and extremely receptive body.

  I slide my knees to the floor and cup my palms around the back of her thighs, pulling her toward the edge of the bed. Scooping her legs over my shoulder, I clamp my hands around her hips and lift her so her soaking core is within kissing distance.

  “Fuck I could die right now. This is heaven.” My words blur with the cry escaping from deep inside her the moment my tongue touches her wetness. Soft, then firm, the pressure varies depending on her gasps and grinds directing me to give her maximum pleasure. I fucking love that. The silent and not so silent cues tell me I’m right on the money. I work my mouth and tongue along her tender folds to her needy nub of nerves. My lips cover her clit, and I suck down.

  I have to grip hard because her whole body jolts, as if hit with a high voltage current, throwing her into a wild display of spasms and convulsions. God, she feels so good, coming undone all over my tongue. Her fingers spear and grip my hair like a lifeline, and I wonder if she’s not actually trying to scalp me. It’s not even a distraction; her touch is always good, better than nirvana when it’s abandoned and wild. I insert a finger, then another and curl them around, swirling and teasing her most sensitive tissue.

  She pushes her head back into the mattress, and her back strikes the perfect arc as her whole body tenses. She sucks in a sharp breath, and a sensual, silent cloud seems to envelop her and suspend her taut body in a freeze-frame of ecstasy. I still and attempt to hold her there on the crest. Mesmerising seconds pass and when she finally sags like a warm noodle on the bed, I flash a grin that is as wicked as it is wide.

  I look up at her through my lashes and sensually drag my bottom lip through my teeth groaning with audible pleasure as I scrape every last bit of her taste into my mouth. “You look sleepy.” I let her floppy legs slide off my broad shoulders. All strength has deserted her, and I chuckle as I stalk up her body, slowly rousing it with gentle kisses. “You can’t be sleepy.” My tongue flicks her pebble-hard nipple through her fine white cotton bra. I nip the tip through the material, firmly holding it hostage in my teeth.

  She hums out a sigh, stretching then sinking her body away from the bite, whimpering as my lips carve a smile against her breast. She lifts her head just as I release the delicate contact, grabbing and moulding her soft round flesh in my hand. “I’m still hungry.” I suck her whole nipple back into my mouth, hard. The cotton of her bra is soaked, and her legs are twitching back to life with her building need once more. She writhes beneath my body as I slide one hand under the edge of her bra, around and under her back. I release the clip and pull it clear from her body. Finally naked, I flash her my winning smile.

  She laughs at my somewhat goofy grin, but the scorching heat in my glare evaporates any humour from the room. I wedge my thick thigh between her legs and shift onto my side, half on her body, half supporting my full weight. I hook my arm around her waist and hoist her over, lifting her leg high on my hip, and in one slick, smooth move, I thrust forward, filling her completely with my unbearably hard cock. I roll us until I am fully on my back, she’s on top and slowly sits up with a sinfully sexy smile plastered over her beautiful face.

  She braces herself with her hands flat on my chest, pulling her body up off my cock, hovering for a second that feels like a lifetime of deprivation, and then she takes control. With agility and precision she rolls down onto me, sinking her sweet centre balls deep in one determined drop. We both let out a groan filled with angst and ecstasy. She rocks and rides me, grinding me deep and deeper still with every tilt of her hips, and I meet her stroke for stroke. Fire and lust course through my veins, my fingers grab and sweep over her body, like I can’t get enough of her. I can’t, I have to touch, caress, consume; I’m convinced my life depends on it.

  Her soft full breasts feel like heaven, taut skin over plump flesh, which rises and heaves with each delicious undulation of her sinfully sexy body. My hands skip and trace every part of her body, light and searching, coveting.

  I tug her hand and tip her forward and off balance, rolling until my whole body covers hers. I lead, and she follows, we move together as one, in tune, in sync…in love. She screams when I pull her tight to me, angle my hips for the deepest penetration possible, and suck hard on her neck. Overwhelmed, out of control, and out of nowhere she comes again…hard.

  I’m consumed with lust, raw and relentless. I give her no time to drift down from her high, not when I know there’s so much more. This is only the beginning. I shift us again so she is in my lap but I’m sitting upright and we are almost nose-to-nose. I lift her hips just where I want them, my lips cover hers, and she hums a satisfied and very sleepy sound against my mouth, her limp body upright only because of my strong arms holding her in place. I mutter words as they wash over her face, her cheeks, her glazed and dazed eyes. I doubt she can hear the exact words, but her sweet, sexy smile is more than enough encouragement, not that I could stop if my life depended on it.

  A deep groan leaves my throat and rumbles from my mouth and into hers. An almighty shot of pleasure seizes me deep inside; the base of my spine throbs, and my cock swells painfully and empties inside her. Spasms race the length of my spine and my cock rocks every ounce of pleasure from my body and gifts Tia every last drop. I continue to gently devour her with reverent kisses, and when I stop, it feels like time is frozen. Our bodies are slick, our collective breath held. I can see every single facet of gold reflected in her dark green eyes, sparkling with life and magic. Because that’s how this feels, unearthly good and magical.

  Long seconds pass and the silence is broken by a soft exhale. I watch as the corners of her lips curl into the most amazing smile.

  “Hey,” she says sweetly, the innocence in her pitch at odds with the devilish smile on her face. I slide onto my side. She is on my lap, albeit we’re on our sides, and I am very much still buried deep inside her, rock hard and ready for round two. Her heavy lids droop closed, and stifling a yawn, I figure round two can wait. We have all the time in the world. I tug the cover over our bodies and pull her a little tighter against my chest. Her bones seems to creak under the pressure, g
iven there was no extra room to begin with. God, this feels good.

  My fingertip traces her dark hairline, gathering the stray hairs that are stuck to her forehead. I smooth them away from her face, and I just can’t believe my eyes. I can’t stop staring either.

  She’s perfect and she’s mine.

  I’ve barely left the bedroom in a week. Logan has smothered me in lust and love, and I’ve adored every second. I stare at my reflection in his bathroom mirror. One of the few occasions Logan has left my side. I feel fully recovered; I did when I left the hospital; however, at his insistence, I am taking it easy. He’s a little obsessive, but I’m sure the novelty and fear will wear off. It will take time, and we’re not completely back to square one. He does leave the house now. He jogs in the morning and even ventures to the local store for supplies. I’ve yet to learn how this transformation occurred. I can only assume it has something to do with Atticus and me. In fact, we’ve really not broached any of the subjects looming like an ominous cloud on the horizon. I think we both needed this time for some fun and to reconnect. I betrayed him, and because of me, he nearly died.

  I can’t help thinking that I owe him a debt I’m not sure I will ever be able to repay.

  “You don’t owe me shit!” Logan calls out, and I have that wide-eyed feeling of utter panic that I’m speaking my thoughts out loud or he is, in fact, mind-reading; neither scenario would be good. His back is turned and he’s kicking out some seriously tummy growling gorgeous aromas from the sizzling frying pan. I cup the glass of chilled Meursault in my palms, absently swirling the light golden liquid in a deep steady whirlpool.

  “Peasant.” Logan grunts looking over his shoulder and I swiftly move my fingers to the stem.

  “It’s not fucking cocoa, Tia.” I mimic his reprimanding tone, adding my own sassy mockery that causes his dark brow to pitch high and judgmental on his handsome face.

  “Damn right it isn’t, that’s a premier cru, and the difference is worthy of respect. If you’re going to ruin it with the heat from your sweaty palms, you may as well be drinking vinegar.” He wrinkles his nose with distaste, and I scoff.