The Doctor's Nanny

by Emerson Rose

  When she’s done, she tilts her head to the side, checking her work.

  “Not bad. Okay, now hold still and let me fix your face.”

  “I’m not broken, just young. Be nice, Savannah,” I say, toeing off my shoes and unbuttoning my shorts.

  “I know, I know. I don’t work well under pressure, sorry. Here, put this on.” She thrusts a hanger into my chest.

  “Gosh, remind me how rough you are the next time I ask for a makeover.”

  I slip my t-shirt over my head, and she informs me that I need to go braless because the romper has a racer back. Great. I step into the gauzy shorts and pull the material up and over my shoulders while she digs in her purse for whatever it is she needs to ‘fix’ my face with.

  “Did you have to choose something I can’t wear a bra with?”

  “I was in a hurry. This is my mama’s. I didn’t have anything that looked right.” I’ve never seen her so frustrated. She whips out a tube of mascara and starts to come at me with the wand, and I cringe and realize that Savannah’s southern drawl is much more pronounced when she’s in a huff.

  “I didn’t bring heels. Nothing I had went with this thing, but my mama wears these gladiator sandals with it, so I grabbed them.”

  Actually, I’m pretty happy about that. The balls of my feet are so tender from last night that walking in heels sounds like a special kind of torture. Not five minutes later, I have been transformed from my everyday self into a modern, stylish, twenty-ish looking woman.

  “There. Damn, you look good. Oh my God . . .”

  “What? Please don’t tell me there’s something on this thing. I don’t have time to—”

  “No, there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just . . . he has on a shirt that’s the exact same color. Like, I mean exactly the same shade of orange.”

  Oh brother, what are the chances of that happening? This isn’t exactly a common color. Must be fate. Yeah, right.

  “We’re gonna look like a couples dance team, but whatever, can’t do anything about it now. Thanks, you’d better go before Shanna comes back here to break up the party. I told her King was an orchestra talent scout.” I giggle and she rolls her eyes.

  “I’m not even gonna ask if there is such a thing. I’m going, but you call me if he tries any funny business. I have my mama’s truck, and I can come get you.”

  I give her a quick, short hug.

  “I will. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.” She rolls her eyes again. “Your eyes are gonna slip back into your head and stick there if you don’t quit doing that.”

  “Yeah, whatever, Mama.” She turns to leave, but she quickly spins around and mouths ‘call me’ as she opens the door. Now it’s my turn to do the eye rolling.

  She says goodbye to King as I follow her out.

  “Sorry, I was dressed pretty casually to go out to dinner. I wanted to change into something a little nicer.”

  King stops mid-turn from saying goodbye to Savannah. He slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stares at me. His gaze travels down the length of my body, starting with my eyes, working his way down to my feet and back, and settling on my mouth. I fiddle with the violin shaped silver ring that my daddy gave me last year for my birthday. I slide it around and around with my thumb until he notices how uncomfortable I am.

  “You look perfect.” His voice is low, and I’m suddenly feeling like I’m going to be his entrée at dinner tonight instead of his guest.

  “Thanks.”

  He closes the distance between us in two steps, placing his hands on either side of my face. I gasp and watch his eyes jump back and forth between mine as if he’s looking for something, searching for an answer to an unasked question. My heart hammers in my chest and my head feels fuzzy. Even sober, I feel drunk in his hands. He backs me gently through the open door behind me and into the rehearsal room, never losing eye contact.

  I want to say something but I can’t. This is amazingly close to the way I feel when I’m lost in my music. It’s like I’m on another wavelength, another level of consciousness, unaware of anything but the subject holding my attention. The door clicks behind him just as his mouth feathers over mine. I want to close my eyes and let him take me away the way I do with my music, but he is much too beautiful to shut out.

  His eyes are open too, and he begins a sensual pattern of tenderly kissing and exploring my mouth and pulling away until we’re nose to nose. When he gazes into my eyes, I see a question there. It’s the same question he asked me repeatedly last night. ‘Are you okay? Is this okay?’ I answer him by initiating the next kiss, and I close my eyes to fully experience King’s lips gliding over mine.

  I have no clue what I’m doing, but somehow instincts take control and I thread my fingers through the soft curls at the nape of his neck. King moans, drawing me closer, and I feel his thick arousal pressing into my belly. His hands drift from my cheeks down my arms and around my waist, where he finds the open back of my romper.

  “Oh God, Holland, this outfit is going to kill me tonight. I’m never going to be able to keep my hands off of you at dinner.”

  “We aren’t at dinner yet,” I whisper.

  His eyes darken until they’re almost black, and he looks at me so deeply that I swear he can see my soul. He urgently walks me to the wall behind the door, where his mouth covers mine passionately, his touch becomes more demanding, and his breath comes in short pants as he lifts me up, pressing me against the wall. I wrap my legs around his waist and feel his cock strain against my eager core. I push against him, using my body to ask for what I want, and what I want is more—more of him, more of everything.

  “I want you, Holland. Right here, right now.”

  His words are like currents in the ocean, pulling me out to sea. I’m helpless against their power. Like a defenseless victim, I’m being dragged under and tossed around in the sea. I can’t tell which way is up, where to go for more oxygen, or what to do to survive. My inexperienced hands fumble with his belt as he pushes my shorts and panties to the side to slide a long finger inside my wet folds. My head hits the wall with a soft thump, and when he finds what he wants, it spurs him into a mad frenzy. I don’t even know what happens after that—the sensations all meld together. His hands are everywhere at once while mine impatiently search the chiseled muscles of his back. I need more—more of him, more of this, until he mercilessly enters me with one long, hard thrust and we are no longer two, but one. I yelp, and his hand flies to cover my mouth. This isn’t like last night. This is feverish and desperate and better, so much better. He pulls his face away. Locking eyes with me for a beat, he lifts his eyebrows, and without a word, I receive his message loud and clear: shush, or we’ll get caught, and you don’t want this to stop, so don’t get us caught.

  He pulls me flush against his chest and slides his hands under my ass, burying his face in my hair. His mouth is pressed against my neck, and I feel his warm breath panting against my damp skin. I arch my back in an effort to give him more of me—all of me—and he greedily takes it all, pushing inside of me over and over until I’m crying out so loudly that no hand on my mouth can quiet me.

  King stops and loosens his hand from my mouth, and I whimper when we lose our rhythm. He presses his forehead to mine, and I watch a bead of sweat trickle over his temple and down the side of his face. A cello plays a sad piece of music in the next room. I can faintly hear the music seeping through the wall behind my head while I wait for King to look at me. When he catches his breath, he looks at me from under his thick black lashes.

  “You’re mine, Holland. Swear to me that you will never let another man put his hands on you. Right now, say it. Promise me,” he demands. This is not a request or even an option for me to say no. I don’t want to. I don’t ever want another man to touch me like this.

  I quickly nod once with wide eyes, and he presses his hand against my mouth again, anticipating my next reaction.

  “Come, Holland . . . right now. I want you to come for me.”


  I have no idea how, but my body follows his command, and I scream into his hand, biting down as he pounds into me, smashing my back against the wall. I come so hard that every cell of my body explodes in pure ecstasy.

  I lose myself around him as he thrusts twice more before he stops, and I can feel him pulsing inside of me, filling me with a part of him for the second time in twenty-four hours.

  His entire body is trembling, and he is holding me so tightly that I can’t breathe, but I don’t care. I feel his jaw clenching against mine, and for a second I worry he may break his teeth off trying to suppress a roar that would have been deafening if we hadn’t been in public. Clinging to each other, we gasp, and I feel his jaw slowly relax and turn into a smile against my neck.

  “What the hell was that?” he asks. “You . . .” he says, dropping his chin to his chest and shaking his head back and forth. “You make me do things . . . feel things . . . shit, Holland, you’re like a fucking love sorceress or something.”

  This man, who is far more experienced and skilled than I am, thinks that I’m casting spells on him. Me . . . nineteen-year-old Holland Blue Bennett, virgin about town up until a few short hours ago, who knows next to nothing about pleasing a man. I can’t even protest his ridiculous claim, though, because his hand is still covering my mouth.

  “Oh. God damn, you probably can’t breathe, can you?” He instantly removes his hand from my face and tucks a piece of my wild hair behind my ear.

  “I bit you. I’m sorry,” I say, eyeing his palm.

  He smiles, flashing every single one of his perfectly straight white teeth.

  “I loved it. Next time, we’ll be in my bed and you can scream as loud as you want to, unless you prefer biting me. That can easily be arranged too.”

  “The room is soundproof, you know.” He twitches inside of me, smiling and shaking his head back and forth in disbelief.

  “You’re a wildcat, Ms. Bennett,” he says with a smirk, pressing me against the wall one more time.

  He pulls away and looks down at my crumpled romper between our bodies, and I follow his gaze.

  “I messed you up, didn’t I?” he says, wrinkling his nose.

  “Um, yeah, you did. I still need to practice, and Shanna is going to be coming back here soon to check on me, so we need to fix this.”

  He steps away, slowly sliding out of me, holding my eyes, and lowering me to the ground. With my feet firmly on the floor and my legs Jell-O beneath me, he bends his knees to tenderly place a kiss on my belly. Then he begins to smooth out the front of my top while simultaneously copping a feel. I giggle, but he is quiet as he adjusts my shorts and panties back into place. My eyes follow his every movement until he turns me around, nudging me gently toward the wall. I press my cheek against the cool surface and wait while he gathers the loose material around my waist and ties a bow at the small of my back. His hands leave me, and I hear him zip and buckle his pants. I start to turn around, but he moves closer again and laces his fingers with mine, pressing me against the wall while he nuzzles my neck with his nose.

  “I’m sorry I interrupted your playing,” he whispers in my ear. “You’re so fucking amazing. Watching you play turned me on. I have a thing for classical music, and I have an even bigger thing for you, Holland. I meant what I said. Don’t ever let another man’s hands touch this body.” He presses me against the wall a little harder to make sure I get the message. “You’re mine. I want to get to know you—every single thing about you, inside and out. Not just your body, Holland. I want to know the mind of the woman I just witnessed becoming one with her music. I want to be a part of the soul that can feel so passionately about something that I love so much. I want you to feel that way about me. I want to be your music.”

  I am dumbfounded and absolutely ruined for any other man for as long as I live. I don’t know what to say. I feel like this has become incredibly serious incredibly fast, and I’m confused, but one thing I’m sure of is that what I’m feeling for him is just as strong as what he’s feeling for me, so I agree and promise to be only his.

  “I promise. I’m yours, King.”

  “Pinky swear?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Pinky swear. You know.” He releases my hands and links his pinky fingers with both of mine and repeats himself. “Pinky swear.”

  I smile and tighten my fingers. King Romero wants me to pinky swear.

  “Yeah, okay. Pinky swear,” I answer, giggling.

  “Ahh, sweet Holland, you have just made me an extremely happy man.” His lips find my ear and he nibbles my lobe before trailing a quick path of kisses down my neck. He releases me and twirls me away with one hand like a ballroom dancer, and I squeal at his sudden shift from serious to playful. King hits me with a look of pure adoration, and if I didn’t know it before, I am sure of it now. I am absolutely in love with this man.

  “Now practice. Stop wasting precious time. Play for me.” He laughs, shoving me gently toward the chair where I abandoned my violin earlier.

  I do my best to organize these newfound emotions into some semblance of order as I sit on the edge of my chair and try to compose myself enough to focus on my music. It’s different now. This time I’m not just practicing in an empty room. I’m performing, and I’m doing it for the man who will forever be my King.

  I think King would stand in my rehearsal room forever, listening to me play without interrupting. I’m prone to losing track of time during practice. I can go on for hours without a break, thinking of nothing but the way the notes flow through my body.

  King stayed all afternoon. He never complained or cleared his throat suggesting that I wrap it up. He never changed his posture or shuffled his feet impatiently. King remained stone still, absorbing the music, until Shanna knocked on the door to inform us that my time was up, and the next person on the schedule was waiting in the lobby for the room.

  “Oh my gosh, Shanna, I’m sorry. I totally lost track of time,” I say as King stands purposely between us, blocking her view of me while he picks up my purse and my bag of clothes. He silently removes my violin from my hands while Shanna continues to complain. After several minutes of annoying complaining, she realizes that he is ignoring her and she crosses her arms over her chubby breasts with a ‘humph.’ He opens my violin case and gently places my instrument inside before reaching to take my bow to do the same with it. I roll my lips in and press them together to keep from smiling. When he’s finished slowly and meticulously readying me to leave, he takes my hand and leads me past Shanna and down the hall without so much as a word or a nod.

  “I’ll see you next week, Shanna. Sorry I went over my time,” I call over my shoulder, stumbling along as King pulls me through the door and into the extreme heat of the late afternoon.

  I squint and shield my eyes from the sun.

  “Where are we going?” I haven’t called my mother with an excuse to not pick me up, and I need an excuse fast.

  “Away from that annoying, infuriating individual.”

  I finally allow my suppressed smile to light up my face. She is annoying, but King’s response to her is hilarious.

  “She’s just doing her job, King. She’s not that bad,” I say.

  He stops suddenly, turning to face me on the busy sidewalk. Squinting when the sun blinds him, he automatically looks down at the ground while one of his hands still clutches mine and the other carries my violin. When he looks up, I’m surprised to see his face so serious.

  “She was rude and inconsiderate. You were only over your time by five minutes. She could have been more respectful by simply informing you of the mistake. She treated you like a child. I wasn’t going to stand there and allow that, but since you apparently use their space often, I held my tongue.”

  Part of me is elated that he’s so protective and feels the need to defend my honor, but on the other hand, I’m going to have to figure out a way to smooth over that incident before she tells my mama about the strange, rude man who was li
stening to me play all afternoon. STRINGS is the only place we can afford to regularly reserve a practice room, so I can’t have Shanna getting angry with me.

  “Okay, well, besides the obvious escape from Shanna, where are we going?”

  “To dinner,” he says, releasing my hand to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind my ear.

  The hot Texas wind is at my back, whipping my hair around my face and making his attentiveness fruitless. I try to swipe it to the side myself so I can see him better, but he stops my hand.

  “Don’t. Just stand there for a minute. You have no idea how exquisite you are, do you? You just stand there innocently with your hair all wild and untamed, those transparent grey eyes, your flawless, smooth skin . . . you’re a vision of perfection.” He traces a streak of lightning along my jaw and neck, and down my arm to my hand, where he laces our fingers together again. I’m nearing heat stroke from the summer sun—or possibly it’s a reaction to King’s compliments. Either way, I need to get off of this sidewalk.

  “I make you uncomfortable with my compliments, don’t I? I don’t mean to, I promise. You just take my breath away like no one ever has, Holland.”

  “I’m just not used to . . .” I start to explain, but he steps forward to silence me with a kiss.

  “I had to taste you again. Every time you start talking, I have to urge to kiss these lips,” he says, sliding the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip.

  He has such a way with words and . . . compliments and kisses and . . . just everything. I wish I could express to him how he makes me melt like ice cream on a hot day in July. Do all men treat women this way when they’re interested? I have a feeling they don’t. King is special. He’s different and maybe a little bit blind. How can he not suspect our age difference? I think he feels that something is off—he’s said so himself. Maybe he just doesn’t care. Maybe he likes younger women. Maybe I’ve misrepresented myself.

  In my own defense, I’ve always been more mature than other girls my age. I study harder, I’m motivated, determined and dedicated to my music and my future, so technically, I’m probably closer to thirty than twenty.