Page 61 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

Lucy came out and left the door wide open behind her. She stopped a couple of feet from Carrington.

"She'll go to sleep now," Lucy said.

"Is she all right?"

"She knows something's coming." Lucy had her arms folded and her coat still on. "She’s noticed a difference in how we interact, and because nobody told her anything, she’s decided it’s because of her."

"The gardeners come to the gate at seven. Alvarez at ten."

Lucy looked at her. Carrington heard how it sounded a second after she said it. Two facts, both of which Lucy already knew, in the voice she used on people who worked for her. She had always been able to say the right thing in any room she walked into. She had nothing for this one.

"I'll go back to the cottage," Lucy said.

She walked to the top of the stairs and took hold of the banister.

"Lucy."

Lucy stopped. She stood there a second without turning around.

The name came out before Carrington decided to say it. What’s more was she wasn’t sorry. She wanted Lucy upstairs, in her bed. Carrington stayed where she was because she wasn’t sure her legs were steady enough.

Lucy came back toward her and didn’t say anything. She stopped about a foot short of her, and Carrington took the shoes out of her hand and set them against the wall. They went into her room. Carrington turned the lamp off and pushed the door without letting it fully latch closed.

Carrington could hear how loud her breathing was and couldn’t quiet it, even though she knew they had to stay quiet, tonight of all nights. Lucy pulled the coat off and dropped it. The bed creaked when they laid down on it, and both of them stopped moving and listened for five or six seconds. Nothing from Grace's room. Carrington got a fistful of the T-shirt and pulled it up over Lucy's ribs, and Lucy made a sound. Carrington put her hand over her mouth.

Lucy's breath went hot against her palm and came back cold. Her eyes opened and stayed on Carrington, and Carrington held still. Then Lucy nodded once against her hand. Carrington didn’t take it away. Carrington could feel Lucy under her—the warm shift of her ribs, the cotton of a shirt rucked up past her navel, the denim still on one leg and gone from the other where they'd pulled it down to the knee and no further because the bed had creaked when Lucy arched. They'd both stopped, Carrington's hand already clamped, Lucy's fingers digging into the sheet, both of them listening to any sound down the hall.

Nothing. The house held its breath around them.

Carrington moved her hand down to Lucy's jaw and swept her thumb across Lucy's lower lip. She felt it part for her. Lucy's tongue touched the pad of her thumb and that was all it took for the desperation to come back. Carrington leaned down and put her mouth where her thumb had been. Lucy's hand came up and gripped the back of Carrington's neck, fingers pushing into the loosened hair.

She kissed Lucy harder, and Lucy made a small sound, caught in her throat. Carrington pulled back and pressed her fingers to Lucy's mouth again. Lucy closed her eyes and kept Carrington’s fingers there.

Carrington’s robe was open and her blouse underneath was unbuttoned to the sternum, the small buttons Lucy had worked at with both hands before Carrington pinned them above her head. That had been the first escalation: Lucy's wrists pinned and her mouth open against Carrington's fingers, the both of them still mostly dressed and already past the point of talking about it.

Carrington let go of Lucy's wrists and brought her hand down between them. Lucy's shirt was bunched under her arms. Her bra was pushed up and still clasped; Carrington had just shoved it out of the way. Carrington's mouth found one taut nipple in the dark and felt Lucy's whole body jerk.

She bit down softly, and Lucy's stomach clenched under Carrington's free hand. The hand that had been gripping Carrington's neck slid down to her shoulder and then to her arm and squeezed, nails digging in through the open blouse. Carrington pulled back from Lucy's breast and pushed her thigh between Lucy's legs. The remaining denim bunched against her own bare skin. Lucy had one leg still half in her jeans, the other bare, and the heat of her core was immediate against Carrington's thigh. Lucy pressed down, and Carrington pressed up, and they found a rhythm that was too fast and not at all smooth.

Carrington's hand left Lucy's mouth and went down. She shoved the jeans lower on the one leg, got them to the calf, gave up. Her fingers found the waistband of Lucy's underwear and pulled it to the side. Lucy was soaked, the kind of drenched that made Carrington's breath catch because she could feel it on her knuckles before she got anywhere. She pushed two fingers inside her pussy. Lucy's hips came off the bed and the mattress springs gave a single low groan.

Carrington looked down at Lucy's face. It was in half an inch of light—the line of her jaw, the shadow of her open mouth, her eyes wide and fixed on Carrington. Carrington kept looking at her because she couldn't stop, and more to the point, she didn't want to stop. Wanting was the part that frightened her most.

She curled her fingers inside Lucy’s walls. Lucy's mouth opened and no sound came out, just a breath of air. Carrington started moving her hand, slowly at first, then faster, the heel of her palm grinding against Lucy's clit with every thrust. Lucy's hands were in the sheet again, fisted, pulling the fitted sheet up from the corner of the mattress. Her head tipped back, exposing the long line of her neck. The tendons running down the side of it stood out.

Carrington pulled her fingers almost all the way out and pushed back in hard. Lucy's leg—the bare one—hooked around Carrington's calf and pulled, changing the angle. Carrington’s fingers went deeper, and she added a third. Lucy's forehead pressed against Carrington's collarbone and she was shaking, her breath coming in short bursts against Carrington's skin, each one warm and then cold, warm and then cold.

Carrington could feel herself building toward her own orgasm, something she hadn’t intended. She'd come in here meaning to take care of Lucy and keep herself in check to get through the night and be what she had to be in the morning. But Lucy's leg was locked around her and Lucy's breath was on her throat and Lucy’s juices were running down Carrington's hand and wrist. She could feel her own pulse between her legs, heavy and insistent.

She shifted her weight and got her knee up higher between Lucy's thighs. She kept all three fingers inside Lucy, pumping rhythmically, and brought her other hand down between her own legs. The robe was open and the slip underneath was rucked up to her waist. She shoved her underwear aside and pushed two fingers inside her own entrance, letting out a loud exhale. Lucy's hand came up and covered Carrington's mouth.

Carrington closed her eyes, and her fingers kept moving inside Lucy, inside herself. Lucy's other hand found Carrington's wrist and pressed, pushing Carrington's fingers deeper into Lucy’s pussy. That was the thing that undid her, Lucy directing her hand from underneath and taking what she needed through Carrington's fingers. Carrington's hips spasmed against her own hand, and she bit down on the meat of Lucy's palm.

Carrington opened her eyes to find that Lucy was already looking up at her. That face again—the one thing she didn't want to look at but couldn't stop looking at—and in the half-inch of light from the landing she could see that Lucy was close. The set of Lucy's jaw, the way her breathing had gone shallow and tight, the flush that Carrington could feel even if she couldn't see it, the heat coming off Lucy's chest and throat.

"Look at me. I want to see you when you come," Carrington said.

Lucy's eyes had been drifting shut, but Lucy opened them and fixed her gaze on Carrington, holding the fiery eye contact. Carrington worked her fingers harder, her thumb on Lucy's clit, circling the nub. Lucy's hips were moving in short, tight circles, chasing her pleasure.