I watched it all happen this afternoon. Watched Jess pick up my daughter when she was spiraling. Watched her create something out of nothing. Watched Ben relax against her like she’d found something she didn’t know she needed.
And I felt it. That dangerous thing I’m not supposed to feel.
Relief. Gratitude.
Want.
Christ. Especially the want.
Because Jess in professional mode is somehow worse than Jess naked in my arms. She’s competent. Creative. She moves through my space like she belongs here, and my brain keeps supplying images of what that would look like permanently.
Her in my kitchen every morning. Her laugh filling these rooms. Her body in my bed instead of her going home every night to that shitbox apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.
Stop.
The monitor crackles. “Goodnight,piccola,” Jess says, using the nickname I use. My daughter’s nickname. And it sounds right in her mouth. Natural. Like she’s been saying it for years instead of hours.
I hear Ben’s sleepy response. “Goodnight. Frederick says goodnight, too.”
Then footsteps. The sound of Jess moving down the hall. Down the stairs.
I straighten. Pretend I wasn’t listening. Pull my laptop closer like I’m actually working instead of torture-refreshing the same spreadsheet for twenty minutes.
Jess appears in the kitchen doorway. She’s ditched the blazer from the contract signing. Now it’s just a plain black t-shirt and jeans, but the way the cotton clings to her curves makes my hands itch. Her hair is down, showcasing those soft waves I remember fisting while she rode me. While I made her orgasm four times.
Get it together, Fiore.
“She’s out,” Jess says. “Fully asleep. I thought it would take longer but she just shut down.”
“That’s unusual.” I close the laptop. Gesture to the stool across from me. “Want to debrief?”
She hesitates. Glances at the doorway like she’s calculating exit routes.
Smart girl.
But she sits.
Pulls out a small notebook from her back pocket.
The spiral binding is bent. The pages are dog-eared. It’s not some pristine planner. It’s a working document.
“Okay.” She flips it open. “So. First day observations.”
I watch her scan her notes. She bites her bottom lip while she reads. That lip I’ve tasted. That mouth I’ve claimed.Iwant to be the one doing the biting...
I force my eyes back to the notebook instead of imagining what else that mouth can do.
“School pickup was rough,” she starts. “Meltdown about Matilda. Counting to ten withoutbreathing. That’s not actually helping her, by the way. The counting. It’s barely panic management.”
“Her therapist recommended it.”
“Her therapist is wrong.” She says it flatly. “Or maybe not wrong, but incomplete. She needs something that actually regulates her nervous system. That’s why I did the hand squeeze and the breathing.”
I lean forward. “Explain.”
“It’s grounding. Physical touch plus controlled breathing. It interrupts the panic spiral.” She’s flipping pages now. Showing me diagrams she sketched. Little stick figures doing hand squeezes. “One-two-three gives her something to focus on. The breathing slows her heart rate. Together they signal to her brain that she’s safe.”
This woman spent her first day creating a whole system. Drew pictures. Made notes. Thought about my daughter’s broken nervous system and figured out how to hack it.
