“Me neither. I want to be all in one piece once the kids get off to school this morning and we’re home alone together.”
Lust nearly swamped her this time. “Mick,” she groaned. Had the dam between them finally broken? He’d been so careful about keeping his distance and now he seemed ready for that closeness she needed.
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “But I can’t deny myself any longer. I want to be in your arms again if you’ll have me.”
Giddy with pleasure, she reached out blindly, hoping to clutch the mantel to steady her now-shaky knees. Her fingers brushed one of the photos propped there and it fell, hitting the brick hearth with a loud crash. Kayla gasped, then stared down at the broken glass and mangled frame in dismay.
“What happened?” Mick asked, his voice sharp. “Are you all right?”
“I…I knocked over a photograph. It broke.”
She could hear the relief in his voice. “That’s okay, then. No harm done.”
Kayla shook her head back and forth, her stomach queasy. “It’s the picture of Ellen that was sitting on the mantel, Mick. I’m so sorry. I’m so very, very sorry.”
He was quiet a moment. “Honey…”
“I would never do anything intentionally to…to…damage it. Honest, Mick. I know you love her. I know how much you must miss her every single day.”
He was silent again. “Kayla—”
“I can’t believe I was so careless as to break it. The frame’s probably irreparable and the glass is just slivers, but the photograph itself is fine.” She knew she was babbling but she couldn’t seem to stop. “I’ll take it to the framer’s and I’m sure they can take care of it in no time. No time at all…” Embarrassed, she forced herself to wind down.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said again.
“Me, too,” Mick said. “You realize you’re over-reacting.”
“No! Yes. Well…” She blew out a breath of air. “I feel really bad.”
“Likewise.” Mick blew out a matching audible breath. “I should have talked to you about Ellen before.”
“She was your wife. You love her and you always will. I get all that.” Kayla went to the utility closet to grab the hand broom and dustpan.
“I don’t think you do, honey, and that’s my fault.”
Tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder, she cleaned up the mess and then carefully laid the photo on the coffee table. “You’re not to blame for anything, Mick.”
“Listen. This…thing between us has nothing to do with Ellen. She’s been gone a very long time and maybe if I hadn’t had the kids…but I did, thank God, and because of them I managed to drag myself through the dark times and into brighter days. The days are very bright now, Kayla.”
She sank to the couch, her gaze on Ellen’s smiling face. “That’s good to hear, Mick.”
“So you’re probably wondering why I…” He released another breath. “It’s not grief or fear of loss keeping me from another woman…from you. From your bed.”
Her hands twined in her lap. “So what is it? After that night you didn’t seem ready to, uh, repeat the event. Until this morning. Until now.”
“Oh,” he groaned. “If you only knew how ready I’ve been to repeat the event. Again and again and again. A guy can only hold off for so long.”
“Then why…”
“Baby, I don’t want to hurt you.” She heard the worry in his voice. “And I don’t know if I think…”
“You’re thinking too hard, then,” she said, concerned that he was ready to renege. Mick was slipping into protector mode and she didn’t want him to be her hero, but her lover.
What came after that? Was there a future for them? She wanted that, but unless he allowed himself to get close to her again they both wouldn’t know if it could really work. “You let me worry about myself. I’ve been on my own for a long time and I’m pretty good at it.”
“Kayla—”
“The nights have been lonely for me, too, Mick. Come home. Come home and let’s be company for each other.”
“Oh, baby.” There was a new lightness to his voice. “You’re sure?”
“So sure, Mick. So sure.”
He clicked off, saying he needed all his concentration now and she put her phone back in her pocket, her smile as wide as piano keys. Yes! Then she hopped up, wondering if she had time to do a once-over in her room and bathroom before he arrived and the kids left for school. Her gaze caught on the photo and she paused.
Thank you, Ellen, for sharing them with me. I won’t let any of them down.
Especially when it was so close, she thought, to the four of them merging into something new and stronger than before. “I’m loving them for you,” she whispered.
Footsteps on the staircase had her turning around. Her mouth gaped. Jane wore a micro-mini skirt in black. The hot-pink tights beneath it were the only thing keeping her from indecent exposure. But the top she wore with it—vaguely corset style that laced up the middle—looked like something worn by a desperate woman on a street corner.
The black of the ugly platform shoes on her feet was matched by the liner that ringed her eyes. Blue eyeshadow and hot-pink sticky lip gloss completed the ensemble.
“Is this a, uh, costume?” Kayla asked, vaguely gesturing at the girl’s clothes.
“No.” Jane didn’t do an eye roll, but it seemed like a close thing. “I borrowed some things from Maribeth.”
“Ah.” Maribeth had been shaving her legs since fourth grade and wearing makeup since fifth. Mick and Kayla had agreed that sleepovers at Maribeth’s weren’t a good idea for Jane, although they’d welcomed the other girl to their house more than once. Her bag was always packed with celebrity magazines and lots of hair products.
When Jane reached the bottom of the stairs, Kayla saw that she was wearing every bracelet she owned on her right wrist. On her left she’d twisted a white bandana printed with tiny black hearts.
“Cute scarf,” she said, nodding at it. She decided the multi-bracelets look wasn’t a problem either, not in the grand scheme of things. “But you’re going to have to wear a different top—how about that white long-sleeved T-shirt of yours—and Jane, you know you can’t wear makeup to school.”
The girl stiffened, her expression shocked. “What?”
Kayla wondered if she’d really expected to get away with breaking the house rules. Recalling the angst of preteenhood, she softened her voice. “Janie—”
“Jane.”
“Jane. You know that I can’t let you wear make up.”
“All the girls are wearing it today.” The girl’s voice was hostile. “We made a pact.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“You’re not sorry! You’re just being mean.”
Kayla gazed on her young charge, remembering that just last night they were snuggled on the couch talking to each other in the funny voice they consigned to Goblin.
Humans, you are beneath me.
You are so lucky I decided to stay and rule your world.
The one with a queen complex right now was Jane. “Sweetheart—”
“I’m not listening to you.” The girl brushed past.
Kayla grabbed for her arm. “Jane, you must go upstairs and change your shirt and clean off that makeup.”
At her touch, Jane yanked away. “I won’t. I won’t ever listen to you!”
“Come on—”
“You can’t tell me what to do!” the girl shouted. “You’re not my mother!”
The words pierced Kayla’s chest. “Jane—”
“You’ll never be my mother!”
“Jane.”
“Go away,” the girl said, bursting into tears. “Go away and stay there!” Then she stomped past Kayla and ran back up the stairs.
She stared after the preteen, until a new noise caught her attention. Before she turned she knew who stood there, she knew who’d witnessed the entire ugly debacle.
You’re not my mother. You’ll nev
er be my mother! Jane had said. Go away and stay there!
And the girl’s father, the head of the three-person unit that she longed to make into a foursome, the man she wanted to be beside forever, hadn’t said a word.
Chapter Ten
Mick acknowledged he’d screwed up big-time as he returned home after driving the kids to school. When he’d walked in on his daughter’s mini explosion, he’d not taken charge as he should have. Fatigue from the previous night, surprise at her astonishing outfit and a certain fuzziness brought on by a recent phone call that had fogged his windows were the culprits, he decided.
And now that blame for his inaction had been assigned, a solution must be identified.
He must contrive some way to make it up to the nanny.
The house was quiet when he let himself back inside. Not one noise gave away where he’d find Kayla. Stymied, Mick stood in the living room, and his gaze caught on the photo of his wife on the coffee table.
He moved closer to it, staring into her dark eyes. He saw Lee in the shape of her face and Jane in the deep bow of her upper lip. I’m putting them first, he assured Ellen. And I won’t let the teen years get the best of me.
The mistake he’d made this morning was in being unprepared for the outburst. It felt like another load of bricks on his shoulders, but he realized he’d have to be prepared to handle Jane’s growing pains on a moment’s notice if he was going to keep the rest of the household happy at the same time. He couldn’t let his daughter hurt Kayla’s feelings again.
He was pretty sure he’d hurt Kayla’s feelings. There had to be a way to handle that, too.
Without caffeine, though, his brain started to spin. So he made his way to the kitchen, where he found the nanny sitting at the kitchen table, studying the newspaper. In her usual jeans and blouse, Kayla appeared relaxed. Yet her mood was impossible to gauge as she looked up. “No mishaps on the drop-off?” she asked.
“None.” He beelined for the coffeemaker and the empty mug sitting there. “Let me apologize for my daughter.”
Her mouth twisted. “You don’t need to do that.”
“I do. She’s my responsibility and she was way out of line this morning.”
“She washed off the makeup.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. And she’d changed her clothes. The only thing of Maribeth’s she’d kept on was the clunky-heeled shoes. All the jewelry had stayed as well, but bracelets were no big deal in his book.
The coffee went down hot and strong. He felt marginally better as the caffeine hit the bottom of his belly. “I think she’s channeling Goblin.”
Kayla, to his surprise, burst out laughing. “I had the same thought.”
His mood easing, he pulled out the chair beside hers. “I’m thinking all those princess flicks we took her to as a little kid were not a good idea.”
“I’m not sure a moratorium on movies would stop the inevitable, Mick.”
“Change,” he muttered under his breath. “Yeah, I get that. And I get that I have to deal with it. I’ll go completely gray by forty, but I’ll manage.”
Kayla’s hand covered his on the table. “You don’t have to do it alone, Mick.”
He looked over at her. “It’s my job.”
“Mine, too,” she said lightly. “And—”
“It’s not yours,” Mick protested. “I’m not shirking my duty, I swear.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Plenty of single parents manage not to raise juvenile delinquents.”
“I…” Kayla’s hand slipped off his to wrap around her mug.
“Hey, don’t look so glum,” he said. “I’m not going to mess this up. I made myself a promise years ago that I’d be a lean, mean parenting machine and I’ll be damned if I break my word to myself or let down my kids.”
Kayla shoved back her chair and headed for the coffeemaker. She hesitated with her back turned to him, then she slowly spun around. “Mick, you’re a great father. Single…or otherwise.”
He shrugged off the compliment, aware the crucial years lay yet ahead. “We’ll never know about the otherwise, huh?”
She went very still. “I…guess not.”
Some note in her voice made him look at her more sharply. He still couldn’t fathom her expression, but the sun started streaming through the kitchen window and it caught her hair, setting it to a golden blaze. The sight set fire to his blood, and his mind went back to that phone conversation they’d had before Jane’s fateful tromp down the stairs.
The nights have been lonely for me, too, Mick. Come home. Come home and let’s be company for each other.
He’d assumed the mood was spoiled, but he was thinking of her again, naked, that sunny hair wrapped in his fists, her sleek skin warming beneath his mouth. She was standing in that spot, he realized, that enchanted spot on the hardwood floor that she’d occupied the moment of their first kiss.
The noise of his chair legs scraping backward was loud, but not as loud as the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. His weariness drifted away as he walked toward her. She stood her ground, her blue eyes as wide as the sky in the window beyond her.
Should he say something—what?—because surely she read what he desired on his face. He wanted her and how she could make him laugh and smile and need like a man—and not just a father—lightened all of his burdens.
She didn’t move as he approached. When he cupped her face in the palms of his hands, her lashes brushed her cheeks and her body swayed toward him. “On my way home from school, I promised myself I’d make up for my daughter’s rudeness,” he said.
Her soft laugh washed over him like more sunlight. “Is that what you call this, Mick?”
“No. I was planning on making you breakfast.”
Her lashes lifted and his heart stuttered as their laserlike color hit him. “So it’s scrambled eggs or sex?”
The teasing note in her voice lightened things even more. “Whatever you want,” he said, then bent over to take her mouth, his tongue slipping inside to paint the slick surface just inside her lips, before surging forward to slide along hers.
Her body flowed against his. Smiling to himself, he put an inch of air between their mouths. “Bacon or more besos?” They’d learned that beso meant kiss in Spanish when they’d traveled with the kids to Baja, California, one year.
Her fingers clutched the cotton of his T-shirt. “I’m not sure you’re playing fair.”
“I’m just as happy to play dirty,” he whispered. “Listen to this deal—orgasms now, omelets later. What do you say?”
She winced. “The alliteration is well…atrocious.”
He laughed, feeling the last of his tension drain away. The sad things he’d seen on his shift, the worry he’d walked into when he’d caught Jane arguing with the nanny; they both evaporated as he caught Kayla closer against him. “But what do you say, honey?”
“I say…” She looped her arms around his neck.
“I say, take me to bed, Mick, and we’ll concern ourselves with later…well, later.”
It wasn’t only fatigue and problems that dissipated in Kayla’s room, though. Mick felt the years drop away, too. He was young again, the sensation of a woman next to him almost brand-new. His chest tightened as he unbuttoned her top and he saw her breasts swell over the cups of her bra. His thumb found the already-hard tips, and that was like a miracle, too.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “You want me.”
“Well, duh,” she said, laughing at him, as she attacked the snap of his jeans.
They fought each other for supremacy then, each determined to get the other naked. He ended up picking her up and tossing her onto the mattress, then following her down to get the job done. But she shifted, straddling his hips so that their jeans were pressed together and her sweet breasts bounced into his range of vision.
He skated his palms up her sleek back and jackknifed forward to catch a nipple in his mouth. Sucking strongly, he felt her response through two layers of denim
. She wriggled against him, her damp heat against his rigid erection. When he switched to lick the other nipple, she moaned and he yanked at her button and zipper, loosening her pants enough so he could run his hands beneath them and her panties. His hands cupped luscious curves as he pressed his hips upward, giving her the friction she needed.
“Mick.” Her reedy voice had him moving again, switching spots with her so she was on the bottom and he loomed over her slender figure. With a sweep and tug, he had her naked. “Oh, God,” she whispered as he bent low to take her mouth and his knee pressed into the juncture of her thighs.
“I want to make you feel good,” he said, then slid his mouth along her cheek to her ear. “I want you to come in my hand and in my mouth and then I want to come inside you.”
She shuddered. “We need to get your clothes off, then.”
“My intentions are good, but my will is weak,” he said. “I think I’ll keep my pants on until we’ve completed step one and step two of my plan.”
She protested, and even tried tugging at his hair, but firefighters could be single-minded when they had to be. While he loved her touch anywhere on him, he ignored it as he scooted down on the mattress. He ran his tongue around one areola, playing with the silky and wet folds between her legs.
She was swollen there, open for him already, and he took her with two fingers, then drew them out to paint them over the rigid nub at the top of her sex. Kayla made sounds, sweet, sweet sounds, and he used them as his guidebook to her pleasure.
Indirect pressure and fast rhythm there, strong suction and the edges of his teeth here. Thank God he’d kept his pants on, but even then he was pressing hard against her lean flank, his own pleasure tightening, tightening.
She broke with a cry and he clamped down harder on his needs. For Kayla, for Kayla, for Kayla, he chanted in his head, and when her tremors calmed, he slid lower, pushing up and outward on her knees.
“Oh, my God,” she said, her fingers clutching weakly at his hair. “I can’t.”
“Just try,” he whispered, then blew air against that pink, glistening skin. She twitched, and then again as he breathed onto her pretty flesh a second time. When his tongue touched down her hand fell to the bed.
Not Just the Nanny Page 11
