by Paige North
But then, some dark-haired douchebag comes out of the shadows, his hair all slick like he’s trying out for a boy band in the 90s. I say douchebag, but of all the men here, he looks the most put-together. Clearly an executive with cash to spend and a charming smile to match, though misguided on hairstyles he may be, he closes in on Bailey as she’s coming back from the restroom, but I’m not worried. She’s been batting them off left and right.
Except she’s not. This guy she actually talks to. Bailey laughs with douchebag, as her other friends move to other spots in the bar, so she’s alone with him. He says a bunch of shit that makes her smile, throw her head back laughing, and something happens inside of me. My blood begins to boil. I don’t know why—she’s not my girlfriend. Why should I even care? Get the fuck out of here, Zayden, I tell myself. First of all, I followed her out on her only night out and now I’m watching her like I’m her father.
I can’t help it, though.
I want to rip Douchebag’s heart out through his throat.
Why?
That woman he’s talking to was just mine last week. She let me into her room, she let me into her bed, she deemed me worthy of taking her virginity, which still blows my mind out of the water. And then I told her we couldn’t do it anymore, so really, it’s not her fault if she’s talking to another guy. But I can’t let her. The more he guffaws with that dorky smile of his, the more I want to make a hole in his face, the more I risk losing her to a loser.
Before I can think about what I’m doing, I’m making a beeline in her direction. She spots me before I even reach her, and her eyes widen gradually with an “oh, shit” expression. “Hey, sweetheart, guess what? It’s time to go.”
“Zayden, what are you doing here?”
Douchebag turns and gives me that look guys give each other when they’re warning you to get the fuck away. He says nothing, though, and I wedge myself between her and him. “You can’t be drunk then coming home to take care of a baby who needs you.”
“Drunk? I haven’t even finished one drink.”
“Baby?” the guys says. “Excuse me, buddy, but who are you? Her dad?”
“Her boss, fuckface. What’s it to you?”
Bailey’s hands push against my arm. I’m riveted on Douchebag’s pasty face.
“Seriously?” Bailey says. “You give me time to go out and now you’re telling me I have to get back? What kind of time off is that? Bradley, let me talk to my boss alone, please,” she says to the guy.
“Yeah, Bradley,” I say as he retreats.
Once he steps back to the bar, respecting her request, she closes in on me, her light brown eyes chastising me. “What is this about, Zayden? Mr. Hawthorn, whatever it is I’m supposed to call you right now.”
“Bradley?” I snort. “You were talking to a guy named Bradley?”
“You have no right to be here. I’ve done nothing to make you think you can’t trust me, and I barely ever drink alcohol.” She scoffs and surfs through her contacts. “I can’t take this. I have to call the agency and let them know I’m not the right one for the job.”
“No.” I push down her phone with my hand. “It’s all good, Bailey. I just had to make sure you weren’t bringing home some random guy tonight. Not to my home, Olivia’s home. Can’t happen.”
“Are you kidding me ?” Her eyes blast open with an incredulous gaze. “I can’t…I just can’t…” She scans around, and one of her friends catches on to her distress, giving her a silent questioning look. Bailey waves her off as okay then leans into me again. “Please go. It’s been a confusing enough week staying away from you, and now you follow me here, and…and I don’t know what it is you want from me, Zayden. Are you my boss or are you more?”
“I’m your boss and nothing else,” I say.
I register the look of hurt in her eyes, as colorful lights swirl over her face. If that were true, then why would I be here, following her, acting jealous the moment she talks to some other guy? Douchebags named Bradley, specifically? All I can think of is that she’s the closest I’ve ever come to wanting a woman for myself.
Bailey Rainville makes me feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
“I see.” She grabs her clutch, plucks a twenty from her wallet, but I grab her money and throw it back in her purse, tossing a fifty on the table instead. “The beer wasn’t worth fifty bucks,” she snarls.
“No, but seeing you in that fucking amazing dress is. Let’s go.” I pull her by the arm, but she rips herself out of my grasp, charging out of the bar.
“I don’t understand you,” she says when we’re standing on the sidewalk in the cold night air.
“Like I said, I wanted to make sure you weren’t up to illicit behavior. My child’s nanny has to be pure, maternal—”
“Stop with the pure and innocent bullshit. Look, I don’t care if you fire me, but I have to say, this is getting ridiculous.”
“I agree. It’s ridiculous that the first thing you do on your time off is go pick up men.”
“Meet up with friends,” she corrects, giving me a pointed look. “Not that it’s any of your business. If you’re going to be jealous of men talking to me, you have to tell me why. You have to tell me the truth. I see the way you stare at me at home—at your house.”
The truth? She’s delusional. There is no truth. Only this one…
“This is purely a business decision, to protect my investment.” It’s bullshit, and I know it the moment the words leave my lips. I wanted to watch her tonight, to know her outside her role within my home, to see her laugh with friends, how she behaves when she’s free, since I can’t take her out myself.
“Your investment?” she cries incredulously. “Who, Olivia? You don’t even spend time with her. I mean, geez, you couldn’t even spend a few hours with your daughter while I went out with my friends.” She scoffs, kicks a lamppost then turns to me again.
I have to hold my tongue or I’m going to say something I regret.
“You know what?” She hisses through the silence. “I’m not going to let you ruin my night. I came here to see my friends, and I’m going back in there. Goodnight.”
She turns back to the door but I block her path again. There’s something tight constricting my chest. “Olivia needs you back in an hour.”
Her eyes flash angrily at me. “Olivia needs her father!”
Darts. Carefully targeted. Her words pierce through my chest, and anger washes through me, but I don’t know who or what exactly I’m angry at. She’s done nothing wrong, and honestly, neither has Douchebag Bradley. He’s only doing what I do every night of my life when I chat up random women to take home at Bar None.
Only, I don’t care about them tonight. I haven’t thought about other women in a week. They’re the last things on my mind, honestly. More than ever, I want only this woman. She knows me and speaks to me like no one else. Yet I can’t say anything, can’t tell her that I suspect she’s the reason. So I do the only thing I know how when I’m losing control of a situation—give orders.
“Your carriage turns back into a pumpkin at midnight. And then, Cinderella, I want you back home.”
She gives me a fuck-you look but doesn’t say it. And just like that, I’m back in control.
Bailey
Stepping up to the Hawthorn mansion is like returning to the Beast’s castle after a dark night in the forest. And then, Cinderella, I want you back home. Who does he think he is? I may be employed by him, but he’s not allowed to talk to me that way. As I open the door and enter the house, I see a young woman about my age collecting her purse, as though she’d been waiting forever for me to get home.
A car pulls up behind me, and she brushes past brusquely. “The baby’s asleep. She had her full bottle, but it took her a while to go down. I think she’s teething. Goodnight.”
Zayden hired a babysitter to watch Olivia.
Of course, he did, or he wouldn’t have been arguing with me at Griffith’s. Amazing that he couldn’t watch her him
self. He wasn’t kidding when he said he didn’t want her in his life at all. It makes me so completely sad for her. Could I ever be involved with a man who doesn’t love his own baby?
No. Which is why, the sooner I get him out of my head, the better.
I head upstairs to check the baby. Sound asleep. I close her door and glance at Zayden’s. Closed as well, though the light of a TV illuminates the polished dark wood floors. I should go over there and tell him I didn’t appreciate what he did tonight, but I remind myself how nice it is to have money in my bank account and instead, I change quickly in my room. This has been the second weirdest night of my life.
Unfortunately, I can’t stop thinking about the first weirdest.
The weirdest and most pleasurable and then the most devastating…
The heat in the house feels toasty from the cold but it’s made me parched, so I open my bedroom door again, looking to see if anyone’s around. I’m in my T-shirt and panties, and I know I shouldn’t go prowling around the house this way, but it’ll be quick—thirty seconds tops.
I sneak down the stairs, shuffle into the kitchen, grab a glass and press it against the refrigerator door. Tomorrow, I should order a mini fridge for my room (along with that bright yellow pillow), just so I won’t have to run into Zayden anymore. This is a job and nothing else, I tell myself. Take care of the baby, get paid, and get back home all the richer when it’s done. I should think of him as callously as he thinks of me.
Standing in the kitchen downing the glass of water, I feel my worries washing away. I refill it and prepare to take it upstairs with me when I hear a voice coming from the darkness of the living room which scares the living shit out of me. “Is that how you walk around all your employers’ homes?”
Water splashes over the rim of the glass and trickles onto my shirt. “What the…” I see him, sitting in a leather chair shrouded in darkness like a freakin’ mobster waiting for his target in the alleyway. I almost can’t speak.
“Oh, I forgot,” he drawls. “You don’t have much experience. You just pretend to know what you’re doing.”
“That’s not true,” I mutter, catching my breath in my throat.
“It’s not? You don’t think you’ve misrepresented yourself, Bailey? In all matter of things?” His voice is stern but resolute. Like he’s done chastising me, and now he just wants to tease me. “Come here.”
I shouldn’t. He’s a wolf in the dark, a predator taking advantage of my weakness. He knows I want him as much as I hate him, and he’s milking it for all it’s worth. Why should I give him the satisfaction?
Because you need it.
The way he commanded your body last time, that’s what you want. What you waited for, Bailey. Boys weren’t good enough—you needed a man. Go to him.
Even as my brain wants to argue, I take tentative steps toward him, my feet padding on the floor, the glass trembling in my hand. When I’m a foot away from him, I see him more clearly, leg bent in the chair, in the same jeans he wore earlier, his shirt open and unbuttoned. A hand reaches out of the darkness, illuminating in the pale kitchen night light, and takes the water from my hand.
“I said, come here.”
I come closer. I can’t speak. I can only fall under his spell. Why am I so willing to forgive him for being a dick tonight? Because he was jealous. I believe he was jealous, which means he feels something for me.
When I don’t move quickly enough for him, he reaches an arm out and pulls me by the waist, still holding the glass in his other hand. My knee falls between his on the leather seat for support. Before I can protest, he holds my leg in place and shoves my T-shirt up, exposing my breasts in one swift move.
I gasp.
What is this man doing to me? Why can’t I stop what I feel for him?
My nipples stiffen at the exposure to the raw air. With the glass, he lifts it and lets a few streams of ice cold water trickle down the center of my chest between my breasts. He smiles in the dark and watches as I gasp again. Once more, he sends the ice water snaking over my skin, causing my nipples to harden, and then he sets down the glass and both his hands press against the small of my back.
I’m drawn to him, to his lips, as they close in around one nipple, as his tongue teases and flicks, circles then sucks hard. My God. I want him so badly. I loved watching him charged with energy tonight even as he embarrassed me. I loved seeing him filled with envy just knowing I was giving my attention to some other man.
Moving to my other breast, his hand comes up and squeezes it into his mouth, stuffs it more like it, like he can’t get enough until the entire thing is in his mouth and then he sucks and lets out a sigh against my skin. “I’ve thought about you all week, Bailey. You want to know what I’m thinking. That’s what I’m thinking. How I can get you in my mouth again, how I can slam myself into you again. Is that what you want to know?” He grabs my ass with both hands and digs his thick fingers deep into my skin.
“Yes,” I breathe.
“We can’t do this again, yet I don’t want to let you go. I let you leave just a few hours tonight, and look what happened.” He lifts the rest of my shirt, and I use both hands to support myself on his hard, wide chest. My tits fall into his mouth, and he takes them in again, sucking harder than before.
Spikes of electricity shoot through me. I’m instantly wet, and my knee presses against his thigh, leaning against his hardness. I’ve never seen nor felt a cock as big as his before, and suddenly, I need to feel it deep inside of me again. Filling me.
My fingers need no instruction. They work at his buttons and all the layers of fabric between me and what I want. “What’s the rush, Bailey?” he asks cheekily, “Is there something you want?”
“Something I need,” I whisper, dipping low to kiss him, take in his tongue and breathe in his scent.
“Is that right?” He kisses me, still dark and teasing. “Looks like you’re misrepresenting yourself again. Earlier you wanted nothing to do with me, and now…”
“Because you’re so hot and cold…I don’t know what to think,” I say, biting his lip hard, but not too hard.
Angrily, he pulls back, stares into my eyes a moment, then flips me around before I can think about what he’s doing. Now my back is against his chest, and my legs are forced apart by his bare knees. The only thing between us is his unbuttoned shirt. “What you should think is that I want you, that every moment of every day, I am forcing myself to stay away from you.”
With his fingers, he slides down my panties until they touch the floor and then he bends me over. I bite my lip and relish what comes next—a slap to my ass. Then, another one. “And this I’ve been wanting since day one. Are you going to have this, too, Bailey?”
Does he mean fucking my ass? Because I’ve never done that, haven’t even considered it, really, and don’t know how I feel about it. “I would have to take it slow,” I say.
He laughs behind me, and another slap vibrates through me. “I wasn’t talking about fucking you, Bailey, although I like how your mind works. For such a young woman, your mind is in the gutter. I can work with this.”
“What did you mean then?” My fingertips touch the floor. My ass is wide and exposed for his viewing pleasure. I’ve literally never felt so open and susceptible.
“I mean take it, slap it, do this to it…” Suddenly, his hot fingers slide into my pussy, and I groan, my sounds echoing through the vaulted ceilings of the mansion. A moment later, his fingers slather against my ass, as he applies my juices to another spot. “And this…” Then, his tongue presses up against me.
My pussy clenches so hard, I could come just from his tongue.
Never in a million years would I let a guy eat my ass out, a guy I barely know anyway, but here I am allowing my boss do it. When I signed that contract almost two weeks ago, I may as well have signed all my powers of regulation away, because I’m losing it quick. I push back against his mouth, as his tongue and lips sear against me. I never thought this would feel so goo
d, but Zayden knows what he’s doing.
“Look at you…” Grabbing both ass cheeks, he squeezes them around his face and presses his mouth into me, his tongue licking up my slit and near my asshole. I could die of embarrassment and come at the same time, I’m right on the edge. “You love me tasting all of you, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I can barely breath, much less speak.
“Thought so.” I can hear him fussing with something crinkly, and I know he’s about to put on a condom, but for some odd reason, I wish he wouldn’t. Maybe not tonight but some other time, if we do this again, if I survive this nanny gig, I want to feel him with nothing on. Just his skin against mine. “What do you want now, Bailey?”
“I want you inside me.”
“You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, please.”
“Yes, sir, sassy little girl.” One hand wraps around, fingers stuffing into my mouth to quiet me. “And just so we’re clear, you are asking me to fuck your wet little cunt and put you out of your misery. Is that right?”
I’m growing more agitated and wish I could turn around and slap him, maybe bite his lip really hard this time for having too much fun with my needs and wants. He definitely loves seeing me in my most helpless state. I hear him chuckle, then I feel his hands gripping my waist. I prepare for the inevitable, and then suddenly, he’s pulling me down.
“Yes,” I groan from deep in my chest.
“Ask and you shall receive, sweetheart.”
Big, fat cock straight up my pussy. I scream and bite down on my lip. So much for taking it slow, going easy on the virgin. Holding onto my hips, he pushes me down further and further onto his cock, and stars explode in my vision when he sits me down all the way.
