Broken Daddy

by Blake North

  “I have some…recurring expenses,” she says uncomfortably.

  I decide not to tell her I know about the debt. I don’t want to embarrass her. I nod, look at the TV. I’m not really watching it. I’m just trying to break the intense stare I was giving her. She’s opening up to me, showing me who she really is. She’s endearing and brave and sweet. It’s difficult not to kiss her.

  “Anyway,” she says with a sigh, “I wanted to check with you first—I want to schedule a play date for Lydia with a couple of kids from her class. Socialization is such a major part of the primary grades. She’d love it, and I’m thinking just Trinity and Chloe this time. What do you think?”

  “Last names,” I say.

  “What?”

  “What are their last names?” I repeat.

  “Uh, I think Trinity’s last name is Dawson. I don’t know about Chloe. Why? I mean, I have the class web site so I can email the parents about a day and time.”

  “That’s not the issue. I don’t know the parents. I haven’t had a chance to do a basic background check, make sure we’re not dealing with anyone who’s a sex offender or potentially affiliated with the Rativan syndicate…” I say.

  “Whoa! I’ll be with her the whole time. I was gonna take them bowling or something. I wasn’t sending her with a stranger to go visit their weird Uncle Mark in the halfway house or something. Calm down,” she giggles a little.

  “You think I’m paranoid,” I say tightly.

  “I think you should have a glass of wine or three and try to unwind a little. No offense, but you’re pretty tightly wound.”

  I level her a glare, trying to quell her cheeky accusation that I need a drink.

  “For real, this level of tension and stress—not good for your health,” Reva advises. As if she isn’t my employee. As if she isn’t younger than me, less experienced. As if, in fact, she’s older and wiser and being compassionate.

  “And drinking would be good for my health?” I say archly.

  “It’s better than high blood pressure. You will pop a clot one of these days from being this hyper all the time.”

  “I’m vigilant. It’s part of parenthood as well as part of my profession,” I say stiffly.

  “Four,” she pronounces. “At first I said a glass or three, but you for sure need like four. You’re very—there’s not even a word for it. You seriously think I’d be putting Lydia in danger by taking her and two other kindergarteners for an afternoon of fun? I wasn’t planning on going skydiving!”

  “Okay, fine. I need a glass. Maybe one,” I say, feeling her playfulness take the edge off my mood.

  I go to the kitchen and pour two glasses of a good pinot noir I got from Napa. I hand her one. She raises an eyebrow at me.

  “You’re off the clock. I’m not even sure I need this to help me unwind. I feel fairly relaxed,” I say, rolling my right shoulder a little to ease a crick in my neck.

  “Here,” she says, setting her wine down on the end table, “I can help with that.”

  Reva puts her hands on my right shoulder. I pull away, look at her sharply.

  “What? I taught kickboxing. You’d be surprised how much you hurt your neck when you do kickboxing wrong. I know what to do,” she says insistently.

  I lean forward, turn so my back is toward her. She kneads and squeezes my shoulder, easing the tightness by my neck. Her hands are warm and strong, competent. I should be thinking what clinical skill she has at what amounts to sports massage. Instead, I’m thinking filthy things about her hands on my body. This is not helpful to the general situation. My neck feels better, but I’m hard and I’m annoyed. If she were a bit less innocent, I’d think she was tormenting me on purpose. Just to test my resolve, see if I’m strong enough to resist making a move on her.

  “Thanks,” I say tersely.

  I move away from her hands. But I’m entranced. I can’t stop looking at her. She takes a sip of wine, so casual. I drain my glass and set it down. I never have more than one drink—a relic of growing up with my mother’s perpetual intoxication and uselessness. I keep my wits about me, and I take pride in that. If the wine was supposed to mellow me, help me relax, it hasn’t. It’s only muffled the sense of strangeness I have at sitting in my own home with a woman I find so completely attractive. I know I should go to my office, to my room, to the damn shower, anywhere. I stay on the couch beside her. When did I sit beside her? There was space between us, I thought. That space has been swallowed up until I’m near enough to touch her hair.

  “Do you want another glass?” she offers, “I’ll get up and get it.”

  “No, thank you,” I say carefully.

  “It’s really good,” she says encouragingly.

  I shake my head.

  “I won’t poison you,” she says playfully, smiling.

  “I’m not being paranoid,” I say a little tightly, “I have a one-drink limit.”

  “You’re not driving,” she teases, “unless you have someplace else to go.”

  “I’m staying in.”

  “Okay,” she said, her smile turning shy, less playful.

  “I don’t drink very much. My mother was—she didn’t handle it well when my father left. She was intoxicated most of the time.”

  “That’s so sad,” Reva says, her hand on mine. I don’t pull back this time. My fingers close around hers.

  “It is sad, I suppose. She was a very kind person before that. She read to me at night, folded my shirts and put them in the drawer in this perfect stack,” my throat feels tight. I haven’t thought of that in years, her slow transformation from loving mother to hopeless drunk, “then he left and, little by little, so did she. First it was my laundry in a pile on the bed for me to fold. Then it was running out of clean clothes, and she was too tired to check my homework. After that, in just a couple months, it was like she didn’t know I was there anymore. She used to make dinner every night, and at some point she just started buying frozen pizzas I could cook—I was seven. After a while she didn’t even do that. Whatever money we had left went to the liquor store with her.”

  I take a long breath and let it out. Reva is in my arms. I’m not sure how that happened. I don’t remember reaching for her. I don’t remember her reaching for me. I only know that she’s holding me. She’s whispering something. My eyes are shut, my face buried in her neck, her hair. Her long hair that smells like sugary vanilla.

  “You must have been so scared. I’m sorry you had to go through that, Ridge,” she says, “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

  For the first time, it occurs to me that she’s right. I was scared. I don’t remember it that way usually, when I bother to think of my childhood at all. I remember being angry all the time. I remember hating my mother, hating my teachers, the other kids, everyone. I remember a dull, gray, angry haze for years. Now that Reva’s said it, what comes back to me is cold. Being cold because the heat was turned off, probably because she didn’t pay the bill. Having to go to school in dirty clothes, afraid I’d be bullied for it. Riding the bus sick to my stomach from having no breakfast, or telling the school nurse not to call my mom when I had a fever, lying to say she’s at work when she was probably passed out on the couch or out with god knows who.

  I hold Reva tighter. I feel a tremor in my arms, a shudder run through me from having her in my arms, the yielding of her body, soft and warm against mine. I kiss her hair. I hold her to my chest, my chin on top of her head. She feels so good in my arms, so perfect. I need to keep holding her. She hasn’t pulled away. She seems content to hold on to me. I’m sure as hell not moving.

  Slowly, she raises her face to mine. Her pretty eyes are bright with unshed tears. Her lips hover inches from mine, waiting to be kissed. I don’t stop. I don’t think. I don’t even remember to take a breath. I just give in. All these weeks of pent up desire hum at the surface, electric.

  I kiss her. My mouth finds hers almost on its own. Reva’s lips lock with mine. I suck her bottom lip, kiss
her softly. Her arms are looped around my neck like we’re slow dancing in high school. I’m careful with her, gentle. I put my hands on her back. I want to cup her bottom, lift her into my lap, but I hesitate. I don’t want to startle her, scare her off. I’m tentative, almost breathless.

  Kissing Reva is intoxicating. She rises up in my arms, swings her leg across my lap. I have her in my hands now, my tongue in her mouth as she kneels over me. I feel like I’ve lost my head. My animal instincts take over. The weight and warmth of her in my lap—it triggers something in me. It feels volcanic, a rush of heat, a desire so powerful it may sweep me away or burn me up entirely. I need her like breath, like shelter and food. She is upon me, her mouth on mine, her hair falling around my face in a curtain of silk, luscious.

  She is a runner. I feel that, feel the muscles of her strong thighs now as they curve under my hands. Reva unbuttons my shirt. I feel so keyed up, my hands don’t know where to starts. She’s undressing me. Yes. This is what I’ve wanted, what I’ve thought of all the time since the day she walked into my office. Her hands opening my shirt, her palms pressed flat against my chest. She never breaks the kiss. If she breaks the kiss, it might break the spell, is what I’m thinking. Because desire has made me irrational. I want her so bad I’m shaking, my hands sliding under her shirt and roaming over her bare back. Her skin is so soft under my hands. I let go of her so she can push my sleeves down my arms and strip off my shirt. Her shirt will be a problem because it’s a pullover. I’ll have to stop kissing her for two seconds so I can get her shirt off, and I’m not sure I can do that. I’m not sure I can stop kissing her. My tongue in her mouth, searching, stroking, seems to be the only connection I have to reality. I never want to stop.

  Reva is the one who pushes me away softly to pull off her shirt. She’s there in my lap, topless, like a gift. I feast my eyes on her beautiful, high breasts, the slope of her shoulders, the deep rose of her tight nipples. I dip my head, catch one in my lips and tug at it. Her body arches toward me, her fingers rake through my hair giving me all the answer I need. I swirl my tongue over her nipple and love the sensation of it beading harder in my mouth. I withdraw my mouth, blow lightly across her wet, puckered skin and watch her squirm. She rests her hands on my shoulders, kisses me again, a full, deeply sexual kiss. I feel it through my entire body, fierce and hot as her tongue in my mouth.

  I feel her teeth scrape my bottom lip as I reach for her pants. They’re leggings, which I hate because they are so hard to remove. Unlike a skirt, which is always convenient. I scowl against her mouth as she raises up, and I try to maneuver stretchy knit pants down her legs. Finally, she climbs off me and yanks them down, kicking them away. I gather her back into my lap greedily. She is all long legs, hot smooth skin. I slide my hands up her bare thighs, loving the heat I feel through her panties, my fingers curling inside the elastic to brush the soft slickness of her pussy. She moans out loud.

  “Oh God, yes,” I groan against her mouth. I slide one finger along the length of her cleft to feel her wetness, the sensitive flutter of her response to my intimate touch. It feels better than anything. I feel my cock stiffen painfully, and I drag my teeth along her full bottom lip. Her head falls back so I kiss her neck, sucking and biting. She digs her fingers into my shoulders and holds on tight.

  I’m teasing her senseless, high on the power I feel. My lightest touch must send a jolt of pleasure through her body by the way she reacts. My finger dipping into her tightness makes her jerk in my arms. I have never wanted anyone the way I want this woman. I have her breast filling my palm, my fingers drawing back to pluck at her nipple. She reaches between us to unbutton my pants, to slide the zipper down. It’s a surreal, breathless moment. I’m going to have her at last. Right now. This second. Raw and real, her skin on mine. She is lush and tight. I explore her with my fingertips, readying her for me.

  I want Reva so badly. I whisper to her, my teeth gritted against the onslaught of arousal, “Do you want this?”

  “Yes—yes, Ridge, I want you!” she pants.

  Holding her by her thighs, I roll her onto her back. She stretches out at full length beneath me on the couch. I take in all of her in one swift glance—the creamy apricot skin, the curve of her hips, the pink-tipped breasts, the golden hair tumbled loose around her head, the inviting, damp patch of curls where her thighs meet. I kick my pants off, impatient for our joining. I mount her, her legs spread wide. My cock is iron-hard, my pulse pounding crazily as I breach the resistance of her tight pussy and spear her right to the core. Her cry is pleasure and anguish. I sink into her all the way to the hilt. She takes all of me at once. I know the pressure must be heavy from the restless way she twists her hips. I try to slow down, to let her adjust to the feel of me, the size of me. I’m rock hard. She’s melting around me, softness and heat like lava coursing around my cock as I thrust again.

  Each time I withdraw from her, she urges me back with her legs, pulling me to her. Her face is a gorgeous pout of arousal, cheeks flushed and lips swollen from our urgent kisses. She looks perfect beneath me. I love being on top of her, covering and consuming her, taking her. My thickness parts her sweet, wet folds. She whimpers, her hands running up and down my arms as I brace myself above her.

  “Please,” she says hoarsely, “I want all of you on top of me.”

  “No. I’ll crush you,” I manage to bite out, my control right on edge.

  “Ridge, I need you,” she pants, her arms grappling me down closer to her.

  I relent, letting more of my weight on to her. When my chest is against hers, those sensitive nipples beading against the hardness of my chest, when the skin of our stomachs touches, that full body contact makes my breath hiss between my teeth. The sensation is so powerful, like a lick of flames up my body consuming me. I drive into her, wanting to roar with the passion welling up inside me. Reva climaxes suddenly, bucking beneath me, her head flinging wildly to one side, her legs jerking around me as she milks my orgasm from me with the tight clench of her body. She drains me as white-hot pleasure takes me. My vision goes dark, and my mouth fixes on hers. Reva’s tongue is in my mouth as I come. I suck it as I pump into her. Her body writhes under me, taking it all. I moan with the unexpected intensity of it. I kiss her chin, her jaw. She clutches me to her chest, kissing my hair.

  The intimacy of it nearly undoes me. Reality sweeps back in as I struggle to free myself of her grasping arms, her legs tangled up with mine.

  “That was incredible,” she says, “Why did we wait so long?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Reva

  I’m breathless. I have never felt closer to another human being in all my life before. The way he lay on top of me, putting every part of my body in full erotic contact with his had been incredible. I felt so joined to Ridge, so connected, body and soul. His kiss made me shake, made me want more, want everything.

  It all happened so fast. He opened up to me about his childhood. I saw him, the real him, as vulnerable as he is strong. He was holding my hand. It was so easy to go into his arms once that link was there. Up against the muscular wall of his chest, I’d been the one who felt sheltered and protected. I reached out to comfort him, but it was like Ridge absorbed me into his chest. I could feel his heartbeat. When I lifted my face to his, he kissed me. His kiss was ecstasy all on its own. I won’t lie—I felt like a goddess in his arms. Ridge was so gentle, so tender with me. His kiss was heartbreaking in its intensity. I melted into him. His every touch sent me nearer to the edge of paradise.

  When I was spent in his arms, I whispered how amazing it was.

  That must have been my mistake. Maybe if I’d stayed quiet, the spell wouldn’t have been broken. I could have stayed in his arms that way, perhaps. I saw it in his face. His eyes seemed to shutter, to block me out. He had been so open to me. We’d been so connected. It felt harsh and icy—a shock. I felt him pull away from me, inch by inch. His grip on me loosened, his fingers sliding out of my tangled hair. He withdrew as surely as if a ca
ndle had been blown out.

  “What’s wrong?” I say, hearing the high note of panic in my voice.

  “Nothing,” he says. I hear the lie in his voice.

  “What happened?” I press, reaching for his hand.

  Ridge gets to his feet and pulls on his pants. I want to cry. I want to cover myself and howl with frustration and sadness. I want to sleep in his arms tonight. I want to wake up hours from now in his bed because he’s kissing me, because he can’t get enough of me. That’s not going to be real now. He’s done with me. I make a little choking sound in my throat. I look around and reach for my shirt, pulling it over my head. It should make me feel better to be covered up, but I still feel exposed.

  “My apologies,” he says.

  I think I die. I actually die. I am sitting on his couch with no panties on while he says he is sorry about what we just did. I feel crushed. Destroyed. Discarded. I think I make a strangled noise.

  “There is no excuse for my behavior tonight. I’m ordinarily far more responsible in my personal choices. I seldom have sex with women I know well. I find one-night stands to be more convenient for everyone, when I’m out of town on business, of course. I have no idea what got in to me this evening, but I do apologize. Clearly a mistake, and a bitter one at that. Fouling one’s own nest and that sort of thing…” he rambles.

  “What? Did you just say you—you consider what we just did to be like—like fouling your nest?”

  “I meant no offense. Only that an employer should never engage in—”

  “Oh my God. You’re playing the boss card,” I say, scrabbling into a sitting position, my knees drawn up to my chest in horror.

  “I think the best course of action at this point is to admit that the arrangement with you as a residential nanny isn’t working,” he says.

  “You’re firing me,” I say dully.

  As if this could get any worse. Sitting here. Being rejected. Being talked down to. In no panties. And now he’s going to sack me. I shut my eyes. All I can think is—fuck my life. It’s not a word I’ve used above twice but right now seems like the moment for it. I take a long breath and try to be calm.