Next Door Daddy

by Ford, Mia

  I don’t know if she understands the message. I don’t think I want her to understand. But I pull back, content. This is the first and last night we will spend together.

  I’ll make it count for every second of it.

  “Are you going to stand there all day?” Zoe demands, though the effect is lost with how ragged her voice is. “Or are you going to finish this?”

  “Just appreciating the view,” I say with an obvious, leering look at her body.

  She flushes. I didn’t even realize that she could be embarrassed after the amount of times I’ve seen her in a compromising position. She didn’t even blush when I took her shirt off for her. She just watched me until, finally, the fever that had risen between us burst out.

  It’s easy to fall toward her once more. Zoe draws me irresistibly forward, and my cock slips into her as though her body is made for it, something like a sigh breathing between us as we are connected once more.

  This time I set a slow, steady pace, the frantic lust from before calming into something else, something deeper and scarier than I want to acknowledge right now. Zoe is all around me, clinging to me as I shift around, trying to find the perfect angle. When she trembles, her head thrown back, I know I’ve found her g-spot, and I aim for it again. At the continued assault on her senses, her skin contracts around me, tugging me in deeper, and I wonder if we’ll ever be able to be separated.

  “Deeper, Seth,” Zoe groans, her fingers fluttering over my skin before her hands drop to the bed and grip the material tightly. “I want to feel you come inside me!”

  My whole body shudders at her words. Without meaning to, I pick up the pace, my thrusts becoming clumsier as the passion builds up inside me, trembling with the need for release. I’m still desperately chasing the sensations, not wanting to let go, but I know we’re almost done. I can’t hold on much longer. I grip her hips and everything begins to explode around me.

  My cock pulses in her, once, twice, and the three times, my muscles suddenly going tense. Zoe runs her nails down my back as our climaxes build up into a fiery inferno, and then my cock seems to harden to the point of pain before releasing its load. I hit her pleasure spot once more, and the muscles inside her contract before releasing suddenly with me.

  We shudder and then I relax, falling forward slightly before I catch myself so that I don’t fall on top of her. Then, slowly, I pull back out of Zoe, and I feel oddly empty as I lay on the bed, utterly spent.

  It all gets hazy. We murmur to each other and encourage each other into bed. At some point, I curl up under the fine sheets, and my arm is around her, and I’m ignoring the insistent thought that I’m going to have to face the consequences of this in the morning.

  But, right now, I’m here, and I’m sated, and I’m still riding on the high of feeling Zoe all around me. My mind shuts down and I drift slowly into sleep.

  I can figure the rest out tomorrow.

  * * *

  As I wake, I notice that there are a few things that aren’t right.

  The first is that I’m sleeping on the wrong side of the bed. For many years, I have favored the right side of the bed, but now I’m curled up on the left. It leaves me with an odd sense of displacement.

  The second is that there’s someone in my bed with me.

  At first, I think I’m imagining it. Sometimes I dream that Rose is with me, and, when I wake up, it takes me a moment to remember that she isn’t. I wait for the afterimage to fade, idly trying to recall the dream I was having.

  After several long seconds, however, the presence in my bed is still there. I go still, listening. Yes, there is someone lying beside me, making a depression in the pillows, breathing evenly close by. Slowly, I turn around to face them.

  As I see Zoe, everything about the night before comes back. I stare at her and curse myself and my lack of self-control as I remember the way I was drawn to her as I pulled her shirt over her head, intoxicated by the flush on her cheeks and the feel of her skin. I don’t remember how it started or who moved first, but I definitely remember being unable to pull away from her.

  Every resolve I made has gone down the drain. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t do this. Now I have, and we’re going to have to navigate it in order to keep the balance. Zoe cannot be my lover. She’s Alicia’s nanny - the best one she’s ever had, at that - and I can’t jeopardize that just because I can’t keep my hands off her.

  “What do I do?” I whisper aloud.

  This is a ridiculous situation. I’ve been through countless nannies, and none of them ended up in my bed. Granted, they were all older, and none of them were as beautiful as Zoe.

  I crane my head up, looking at the picture on my bedside table. It’s of me, Alicia and Rose. Alicia is sitting on Rose’s knee, holding a slightly crumpled white flower in her hand. Rose, already looking sickly, is smiling softly at the camera. And I’m looking down at the two most important women in my life.

  Except…

  Not once, in any of what just happened, did I think of Rose. No thought of betraying her had entered my mind. It’s as though I briefly forgot about her, and that realization shoots through me like an arrow, stunning. It’s the first time that I’ve laid eyes on a woman and thoughts of Rose didn’t intrude, preventing me from going too far.

  I guess I had to move on sometime, I think, a lump in my throat.

  I don’t know whether this a good thing or a bad thing. It also doesn’t solve my current predicament. I still don’t know what I’m going to do next.

  No…that’s wrong.

  I know what needs to be done next. I need to figure out some way to keep Zoe in my employment or I need to fire her and take away the best nanny Alicia has ever had.

  I hope I can figure out some way to keep her employed, if only for Alicia’s sake.

  I think about waking Zoe so we can talk about this. But it’s five o’clock in the morning, and, now that the initial panic is fading, I can feel sleep dragging at me once more. It’s too early to deal with this just yet. We can talk when my alarm goes off in a couple of hours.

  With this thought, my mind settles and I drop back into sleep, gazing at Zoe’s sleeping face as my eyes close.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zoe

  When I wake up, startled by the sound of an unfamiliar alarm, Seth is sitting up in bed and looking down at me.

  There’s a grim look in his eyes, and I’m lying if I say I have no idea what he wants to talk about. It probably has something to do with why the clothes I was wearing yesterday are scattered all around the room, and why I’m lying, naked, in his bed.

  It’s such a shame, too, that this has to ruin such an otherwise good morning. I had the most pleasant dreams last night and I’ve woken to a pleasant, telling ache in my body, one which reminds me strongly of our activities the night before.

  “Zoe,” Seth says, every bit the head of an international company. Though it’s hard to take him seriously while he’s completely naked, too, his lower body covered with the sheet. “We need to talk.”

  “Yeah,” I say, sighing.

  I knew, even before we started, that this was coming.

  “First…” He looks oddly embarrassed. “I need to apologize to you. I’ve taken advantage of you, and I should have had better control of myself than that.”

  I raise an eyebrow. That is what’s weighing him down right now?

  “Don’t apologize,” I say bluntly. Part of me hopes that this is his only issue with what happened, though I know that’s only wishful thinking. “I didn’t mind you taking advantage. In fact, part of me hoped that you would.”

  He looks at me, startled by my confession. I stare evenly back, ignoring the way my heart is racing.

  He coughs and breaks the gaze first.

  “I see,” he says. Then he straightens his shoulders, rallying himself. “Either way, there are a lot of reasons why it was a mistake.”

  I knew it was coming. But hearing those words still hurts more than I had expe
cted it to. No matter what I think about what happened last night, there’s no part of me that can think it was a mistake.

  “Alicia is the main reason,” Seth presses on, not looking me in the eye. “Zoe… I think you’re beautiful and wonderful. But you’re also Alicia’s nanny. If we start something and it goes wrong, then what happens to Alicia? You’ve done so much for Alicia. I don’t want her to lose you.”

  He turns pleading eyes on me, asking me to understand. The helpless expression on his face takes some of the sting out of the realization that he thinks things will go wrong between us before it can even begin.

  But I do understand what he’s saying. I don’t like it, but I understand. For Seth, Alicia is his entire world and all he has left of the woman he had loved dearly. He’s done everything for Alicia, up to and including hiring an unqualified nanny in the hopes that someone can help her.

  So it makes sense that he’ll pull back for Alicia’s sake. But that doesn’t make it any less painful. Last night, I got everything that I have wanted for so long, and more. Now it’s being taken away before I have a chance to explore it further.

  “You saw Alicia when you first arrived,” Seth continues. “She was so angry at the world, and she didn’t want anyone other than me in my life. In such a short period of time, she’s actually excited for you to come around! You don’t know how happy that makes me. All I want is for her to be happy. And you make her happy. That’s why I…”

  He trails off and shakes his head. I desperately want to know what he was going to say, but I don’t push, because now isn’t the time for that. Instead, I draw in a deep breath and paste a smile on my face that I don’t really feel.

  “I understand,” I tell him.

  Seth’s face contorts into something that is half relief and half frustration. Then he sighs and offers me a small, sad smile.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  We sit there. It’s a little awkward, now, and I don’t know what to do next. Sitting in bed with a man that has just told me that we can’t pursue a relationship makes me feel suddenly self-conscious, as though I don’t belong here.

  “We should, uh, probably get up,” Seth says, and I realize that he feels as awkward as I do. “Do you know where all your clothes are?”

  I eye the room. Every piece of clothing is accounted for, except for the shirt that started this whole thing, which is probably still in the kitchen.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I might head home first and get changed before Alicia gets up.”

  “Right,” Seth says with a nod. “I’ll see you soon, then.”

  He slides out of bed and I avert my eyes, no matter how much I want to look and remember his body pressed against mine. Once he has snapped the door closed to the bathroom, I get out of the bed too and collect my clothes, pulling on my jeans and tank top before escaping the room.

  In an hour, I need to be back here, and we both need to pretend that none of this happened. It’s going to be difficult.

  Down in the kitchen, I collect my shirt and bag, and fish my phone out of it. There’s a message waiting for me, from Katherine; she sent it late last night, and a lump rises in my throat as I read it.

  How did it go?

  She’s asking because it was only on Sunday that I sat in front of her and told her that I was going to stop pursuing Seth in the way I have been, that I wanted to see if we could be friends while he nurses his still-broken heart. It feels like that was a lifetime ago.

  I don’t want to reply, but she’ll panic if I don’t, so I carefully word a message and send it to her:

  Not well. Talk later?

  My phone buzzes barely seconds later.

  Call me when you finish.

  A chuckle bursts from my lips and I put my phone back in my bag as I creep out of the house. Seth’s car is already waiting at the gate, and the driver raises his eyebrow at me, puzzled as to why I’m leaving the house so early. I paste a smile on my face and give him a wave before escaping to my home.

  Shutting the door behind me, and breathing in the familiar scent of drying paint, I can’t help but sigh in relief and finally relax. Now that I’m away from Seth and at home, my mind clears enough that I can think back over what happened.

  There’s a large part of me that’s irritated. It’s hard to deny that Seth and I experienced a very strong connection last night. Our hearts beat as one, and my entire world narrowed down to him as he surrounded me. It had been intoxicating and, even now, as I remember the feeling of his body, I yearn to find him and feel him again.

  Even if I understand his reasons for denying this connection, though, I don’t know why it’s so easy for him to deny what happened, or how he can think it was a mistake. It hadn’t been planned, and it was a surprise for it to happen just as I gave up, but it happened and it was wonderful. It wasn’t a mistake.

  But, for him, it was, if only for Alicia’s sake. I wonder if I should resent the girl for getting between everything that I’ve wanted since I first laid eyes on Seth.

  The thought doesn’t stick. I can’t resent Alicia. She’s temperamental, and she’s difficult, and it’s been an uphill battle to even get a smile out of her, but she’s just a child and it’s all worth it when I realize that she actually wants me around. I don’t want to have to leave Alicia, not when we’ve made so much progress already.

  I just wish Seth hadn’t dismissed the possibility, so easily, that we could work out.

  Maybe, I think as I choose some fresh clothes, it’s something to do with Rose. Does he feel like he’s betrayed her by having feelings for me? It would be ridiculous if he did, but I can’t rule that possibility out. In all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him with a girlfriend, it’s been two years since I moved in next door.

  The last of my anger drops away. How lonely he must be, sometimes.

  I look out the window, toward Seth’s house. I feel a little bit of shame crawl up my spine. I knew, before all this, that it would be difficult to attract his attention, and it became even more so when I found out about Rose. There’s part of him that will always belong to Rose, and I’ve already seen this. Maybe he’s not ready to make room in his heart for someone else just yet.

  Tired, now, I take my clothes into the bathroom and fiddle with the taps on the shower. I still don’t know what to do next. But I do know that I still have a job to do. Despite everything that’s happened, I’m not going to let this affect my time with Alicia. And maybe, if I can show Seth that I can juggle both my job and my feelings for him, we can talk about it again in the future.

  So, for now, I’ll focus on what I can do and continue doing the job I’ve been hired for. It’s all I can do right now.

  * * *

  Seth looks flustered as I enter the house again, feeling a lot better after a shower and in clean clothes. He offers me a distracted smile as he rifles through his briefcase.

  “Sorry, Zoe,” he says. “I’ve got an important meeting today, and I can’t find my notes. You haven’t seen them have you?”

  I open my mouth to ask him why I would have seen his work. Then I realize that he’s asking me if I had seen them at all in his room while I was in there. That throws me; so he’s not planning on ignoring that it happened, he just doesn’t want it to happen again.

  “I think I saw a folder on your dresser,” I offer, casting my mind back.

  “That could be it,” he says, brightening as he dashes for the stairs.

  I shake my head with a smile as I toe my shoes off and head into the kitchen. Alicia is there, eating toast, and she looks up as I come in.

  “Good morning, Alicia,” I say with a smile.

  “Good morning,” the little girl replies, yawning, looking like she would rather still be in bed.

  “What would you like to do today?” I ask.

  “Can we watch a movie? Please?” Alicia asks.

  “We can do that,” I agree. “We’ll pick one out after breakfast, okay?”

  “‘Kay,” Alicia say
s with another yawn.

  She will more than likely fall asleep during the movie, I think in amusement. But that just means a quieter day for me, so I’m not about to complain about it.

  I hear Seth coming down the stairs again, and I leave Alicia to her breakfast to meet him. He looks less harried, and there’s a plain, yellow folder in his hands.

  “Thanks,” he says to me. “Alright, I’m headed out. Alicia is still tired, so hopefully, she won’t give you too much trouble.”

  “She asked to watch a movie, so she’ll probably nap for a little while during it,” I assure him.

  He nods and ducks into the kitchen. I peer in just as he bids his daughter goodbye with a soft smile, and leans down to kiss her forehead. Love is etched in every line of his face, and I pull back; the sight is sweet, but also a little painful, because I know, now, just how much he is willing to give up for his daughter.

  Seth breezes back out of the kitchen, and whirls toward the front door.

  “Seth!” I say before I can stop myself.

  He pauses. I hadn’t expected him to, and I scramble to order my thoughts so that I can say something to him. He looks at me with an unreadable expression.

  “I understand,” I say, mindful of what I’m saying where Alicia can hear. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, right?” I drew in a deep breath. “Can we…get to know each other a bit better?”

  He doesn’t answer for a long moment. My stomach tightens. This is the solution I have come up with, the only way I know I can live with what happened and still get what I want in some way. I don’t want to lose him completely.

  Then, slowly, he smiles. The expression is soft, and he looks pleased.

  “I’d like that,” he admits. “I know we don’t get a lot of time together in the evenings…but we’ll try and make some time.”

  My heart leaps and a huge smile spreads across my face.

  “Sounds good,” I manage to say.