“Of course,” Samantha says.“I’m just making my rounds at the local parking lots today, so I’ll be home around four,” Daniel says between sips of his coffee. I’m not sure why he’s offering this information, though, especially since I have no clue what he does for a living. All I know is, Samantha said one of them would be home between four and six every day. It was one of the first things she mentioned when I wasinterviewing.
“Parking lots? If you don’t mind me asking, what do you there?” In other words, how the hell do you two have so much freaking money running a yoga studio in a beach town and skipping from parking lot to parking lot? I’m kind of confused and curious at the same time. Clearly, I need to be doing whatever they’re doing so I can have a sweet lifestyle liketheyhave.
“Oh, I figured Sam would have told you. I—ah—own—” He looks down at his fingers, counting across both hands. “I think I’m up to about twelve lots now. Between that and my investment consulting biz, it’s not the worst way to live, if you know whatImean?”
Parking lots. He owns parking lots. I just went to school for four years and destroyed my brain so I could acquire a career worth more than fifty thousand a year, and this man is making bank by owning parking lots. I’m twenty-two, and I’ve already made poor lifedecisions.
“Wow, that’s impressive,” I offer quietly. “Well, I’m going to—” I awkwardly point upstairs, “shower, so I’ll see you guyslater.”
Hiking up the stairs, I hear a muttering of aggravated words exchanged between Samantha and Daniel, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. All I know is, I make it inside my bedroom just as I hear the front door open and closeagain.
I hit the light switch in the bathroom, and of course, the first thing I notice is the missing bowl of condoms. Okay, awesome. What the hell? Clearly, Liam is the king of all mind games, and I’m obviously not putting up a very goodfight.
My towel drops to the floor as I peer into the mirror at my frizzy hair, seeing my unthawed nipples still standing at attention. I glance into the mirror a little closer, studying the ... ohhh—way thinner than I thought—material of my bathing suit. I’m always so careful about white, and this is exactly why. You can see my freaking nipples right through the damn thing. No wonder I’m getting so much unwarranted attention. Crap. It’s a good thing I had a towel on when I came into the housejustnow.
I open the frosted glass door of the shower and crank the hot water up before stripping out of my skankilicious bikini. I believe that was the brand name, which now explains it all. The stupid thing was expensive too. Don’t they test the material in water before selling it? Plus, I’m blonde. My nipples aren’t even that dark. I can’t even imagine what it would have looked like if that were the case. I would chance being arrested for indecent exposure in public. That could only add to the amazingness of this summersofar.
Inside the shower, I revisit the spa-like bench I didn’t take advantage of yesterday during my five-minute shower. I was in and out and didn’t take the time to notice the variety of shower spouts protruding from the wall. I turn a knob that I didn’t touch yesterday, and the water shoots out from different directions. How fancy. At home, I was lucky to have high enough water pressure to rinse the shampoo frommyhair.
I drop down and rest my head against the tiled wall, sucking in the hot steam with the hope that it’ll loosen some of the tension in mychest.
I can’t believe he took Shermanator. Whodoesthat?
Opening one eye to look around the shower again, I spot a detachable shower hose with a massage dial. Oh, there is a sex god. Tugging it away from the wall, I turn the dial to a medium level and hold it between my legs, relaxing at first, then quickly welcome flashing images of Sterling and Liam, but Liam’s boner-looking non-boner from last night is one of the clearer images I’m focused on. I can’t help butwonder...
A sudden burst of cold water shoots up my penis fly trap, and I almost let out a loud scream, but instead my body convulses, enjoying the drastic temperature change. Even the pipes are groaning behind me, followed by the loud percussion of pressure storms returning the hot water. It’s about all it takes to finish me off quicker than I would have liked. The fulfillment is so intense that I feel the need to cup my hand over my mouth to prevent any noise from escaping mythroat.
A door slams in the vicinity, and I can’t tell if it’s in the hall or closer. Whatever the case, it better not be in my room. Now that my O-factor has zeroed out and my pulse is left racing as I fall off the beautiful ledge made of orgasms, I just want to know what that noise was. Holyparanoia.
I wash up quickly and shut the off shower, grabbing the towel from the nearby rack before stepping out onto the fluffed bath mat. My focus goes to the door first, which is still closed. Then I glance over to the mirror, finding a smiley face drawn into the fog with a blinked eye and the words, “Don’t forget the vent switch”besideit.
I stomp over to the door and whip it open, somewhat assuming I’d find Liam standing in the middle of my bedroom, but my door is closed, just not locked anymore. Enraged once again, I towel dry my hair and slip into a pair of jean shorts and a black tank-top—all materials fit for hiding bodyparts.
There are weird noises coming from Dylan’s room when I open my door, so I head down there first, finding Dylan and Liam both playing a video game together. They’re perched on the edge of Dylan’s bed, making similar tongue-in-cheek faces while concentrating so hard it’s like there is no option other than beating each other out in whatever game they’replaying.
Since they don’t notice me, I head downstairs to put Dylan’s breakfast together. Liam is beginning to strike me as some big kid who wants to live vicariously through Dylan because I’ve never met any guy around my age who wants to spend so much time with a kid almost a third of his age. It is sweet, and I feel awful for what Dylan has been through, so I guess it’s nice he has Liam, though I wish Liam would just focus on his manservant tasks here and let me do my job with Dylan. I’m starting to feel like a houseguest more than a nanny. It’sweird.
After I put Dylan’s breakfast together and pour him a glass of juice, I head to the bottom of the stairwell. “Dylan, your breakfast is ready.” After a minute, he comes downstairs, covering his mouth, laughing silently.Let me guess, Liam has filled your head with some kind of crap information about me?“What is so funny? Did you beat Liam atyourgame?”
“No, it’s nothing,” he says. “But, yeah, I whippedhisbutt.”
“Good, keep doing that. He needs a good butt whipping,” I say, joking around while roughing upDylan’shair.
“Huh, is that true?” Liam asks, appearing in the entryway of the kitchen. “Just like those movies you watch,right?”
Dylan laughs again. “You watch butt-whipping movies!” Thankfully Dylan has no clue what Liam means, but I want to slap him for even mentioning it around Dylan. What the hell is hethinking?
“You forgot—” Liambegins.
“No, no, no, no,” Dylan whines, holding his hands up to the sides of his face. “Youforgot.”
“What, what? What did I forget? It’s cereal, just like you want in themornings?”
I look up at Liam, watching him mouth the word, “Strawberries.” Oh. I did forget. I race to the refrigerator and whip out the container of already sliced strawberries, bringing it tohisbowl.
“Do you want to do it, or should I?” I ask Dylan, feeling nervous, but doing my best to hide it thatfromhim.
“You,you,you!”
