He laughs bitterly. “If only it were that simple. Yes, I like the way you look. Because you are this.” He pans his hand up and down my body. “Because you are a rare and beautiful creature to me.” He scowls, likely at himself for admitting this, and goes about cleaning up the mess he made.
Only it’s too late. His words are more potent than any drug as they flow through my body, filling me with such euphoria I’m positive I’ll never come down.
“I want you to tell me why it’s not so simple. I want to ask if you think about me. And what those thoughts are. I want to know every dirty thought about me that enters your mind. But I’m scared of what will happen if I do. You’ll either fire me and tell me to go, or you’ll tell me, and I’ll want more.”
“Christ, Bellamy. The fucking mouth on you. This is why I ignore you. You don’t know the fire you’re playing with.” He swears in Latin, his head falling back as he breathes out through his nose. His chin drops, his expression strong and vulnerable all at once.
“Fire is beautiful because it is dangerous and wild and forbidden and nearly impossible to contain.”
His hands fall to the counter on either side of me, his face dipping closer, his chest nearly touching me. “Is this some sort of game to you? You’re not the first nanny to walk through my palace to try to fuck your way to my heart or my crown when it is neither you will possess.”
That’s a slap to the face.
I look away. “That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
I don’t even know what I’m trying to do. I’m poking at him when I shouldn’t be. I know it all too well. I want him, but I can’t have him. Not really. Not the way I would want him. He is the king. My boss. He’s fifteen years older than me, and I’msimply the nanny. He’d fuck me or he wouldn’t. Either way, I would be ruined. So, I force myself to get some control. To push us back to where we should be. Where I need us to be.
“It’s not a game, and I am not trying to fuck my way to either,” I say, forcing myself to look at him once more, even if it hurts. “It’s merely an attraction I’m not the best at hiding. Maybe because it’s the first one I’ve ever had, I don’t know.”
That admission seems to shock him, but I don’t let him challenge me on it.
My eyes hold his. “Be that as it may, I don’t want to leave your children.”
“I don’t want you to, either.”
“Other than tonight, I feel like this last month went well. We kept our distance and that’s fine. Distance is fine. But I can’t have you ignoring me. I need to feel comfortable going to you if I have an issue with one of the children. I need to be able to communicate with you and give you updates. If this is to work between all of us, we have to find a common footing. Pardon the pun.”
He laughs, and some of the tension between us ebbs. Not all of it. Every molecule in the air is charged between us. There is attraction here. He’s trying to fight it harder than I have been, and he’s right to do so.
“The part of me that likes how you look and thinks about you is why I’ve been ignoring you. I haven’t figured out how to be around you yet, and I admit that’s my problem. But you’re right. I’m being immature. So I’ll try. You’ve been trying, but I haven’t been as good at it as you are. Tonight notwithstanding.”
“It’s a shame. I’ll admit, flirting with you was the second-best part of my day, behind being with your children,” I tell him only to raise my hand, stopping his rebuttal so I can finish. “I’ll keep to my word. And I won’t be so…sexual with you again. I apologize if that was unprofessional.”
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay.”
Only he’s closer to me now. Standing between my legs that are somehow parted, right up against the V of my thighs. His face dips even closer to mine. I can feel his breath against my lips, and for the briefest of seconds, I think he’s going to kiss me, only for his nose to glide up along the line of my jaw, inhaling as he moves up to my ear. I shudder and suck in a breath, and I feel him smile against my skin when he hears and feels it.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t ask me to tell you all the dirty thoughts I have about you. Because not only would I have told you, I would have shown you.”
He leaves me with that, walking out of the room, a cocky fucking smirk on his lips.
“Jerk,” I call after him, only to hear his chuckle.
I sit here for a few moments, dumbstruck. Holy hell. That seriously just happened. My shirtless boss bandaged my toe and told me he has dirty thoughts about me. And that if I had pressed just a little more, he would have shown me exactly what they are.
I pant out a breath and spin around to face my reflection in the mirror. I’m flushed and smiling and have no idea how I’m going to be able to stick to the truce we just made.
13
BELLAMY
“When are you going to meet someone and fall in love?”
I choke on my sip of coffee, half of it regurgitating and flying out of my mouth in a spray of mocha, the other half managing down my esophagus on a sputtering cough and wheeze. My father leans back in his chair, completely unfazed by my reaction. Me, not so much.
He pulls a couple of tissues from the box on his tray table and hands them to me before grabbing a few more and mopping up my mess. I wipe the trail of drool and coffee from my chin and around my mouth, forcing myself to get control.
