I understood what she was getting at.It was more than the blanket, at any rate.I knew how she’d bent her own rules tonight in bringing Mia over, and I didn’t intend to keep pushing until they snapped.
“Want me to call the car?”I drank in Clara’s features, getting my fill of her pretty face, those hazel eyes I couldn’t stop looking at, those perfect, full lips I wouldn’t stop thinking about until I saw her again.
“Yeah.She needs to get to bed.It’s way past her bedtime.”
While I arranged for the driver to bring around the car, Clara let Zoey know it was time to go and they began saying their goodbyes.Clara hoisted Mia into her arms, waving goodbye to everyone.Cora rushed over for a group hug, and I overheard Zoey tell Cora during their goodbye hug, “I have always wanted to meet you.I still can’t believe this night is real.”
I accompanied Clara, Zoey, and Mia down to the ground floor and out onto the sidewalk to the waiting sedan.Mia barely stirred as Clara buckled her into her car seat.The sight of mother and daughter together, both wearing clothes I'd chosen, both having spent a perfect, easygoing evening in my home, made something fierce and possessive unfurl inside me like roots in soil.
“Thank you, Nash,” Zoey called out through the open window of the front seat.“You are amazing and I still cannot believe I saw Axel Fairchild and Cora Margulis in person.”
“You’re so welcome, Zoey.It was good to meet you.”Clara started to slide into the backseat but I caught her by the arm.I murmured into her ear, “Text me when you’re inside your apartment.”
Goosebumps flared on her forearms.“I will.Thank you for tonight, Nash.It was perfect.”
I surged forward, catching her lips in a final kiss before she could pull away or decide otherwise.I needed one last taste.I wasn’t sure when I’d see her again outside of our regular Wednesday lunches, and that seemed like an eternity away after tonight.
Whatever we’d started here had just gotten a lot more complicated.And more fulfilling.
That scared the shit out of me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CLARA
CLARA
At the start of the following week, I was still trying like hell to come down from the high that was Nash Nightingale.
Whenever my mind wandered, it went straight to the grit in his voice when he’d told meif it was just the two of us in here, I'd show you exactly what this dress does to me.What you do to me.
How was a woman supposed to continue living after hearing something like that?
I was a feeble, horny mess now.Barely functioning, strung together with caffeine and daycare drop offs.
After daycare drop off Monday morning, I came back to my apartment for some self-care.And I didn’t mean a face mask.I hopped into bed, grabbing my favorite vibe from my bedside drawer, and huddled under the covers for some me time.
At this rate, I was going to need to masturbate hourly if I wanted to keep my head on straight around Nash.
I found myself swollen and wet, which was my new constant state of affairs.Nash had me permanently excited, and there was no solution in sight, other than fucking him, which seemed somehow inappropriate.
Hadn’t the contract stipulated wewouldn’tdo that?
I didn’t care, at least not for now.I gave myself over to my fantasies as I moved my vibrator over my clit, my eyes squeezed shut as I imagined what might have happened Saturday night if it really had only been the two of us in his penthouse.I imagined Nash peeling the dress off me, laying me out on the couch, and feasting between my legs just as he’d done four years ago.My legs clamped together, a whimper escaping me as an orgasm ripped through me.
I opened my eyes, breathing heavily as I checked the clock on my nightstand.Two minutes?That was a new record.Yet somehow it hadn’t scratched the itch.
Only Nash could do that.
I cleaned my toy and stowed it, stomping out into my living room to distract myself with some plant care before diving into my Monday to-do list.I filled my little watering can and began moving along my usual plant watering path to visit with each green friend.
“Ooh, you’re pretty dry today,” I murmured to the aloe, who I only watered every two weeks.Then it was on to my kitchen herbs, the snake and spider plants, the fern I was taking care of for my neighbor while she was abroad, the rubber plant that already needed to be repotted.As I watered, my mind went back to Nash.As I tended my golden pothos, some of my thoughts leaked past my lips.
“I’m not supposed to sleep with him.But it’s all I want to do.So should I sleep with my fiancé or not?”
The silence in the apartment made me laugh.Of course my plants wouldn’t answer.But they also had no idea how ridiculous that question was.
I was the only person in the world divided over whether she should sleep with her fiancé.
