by Mia Madison
I lead her to my bed for the first time. It has a wooden frame with solid posts in all four corners. I lay her on the bed and raise her hands over her head.
“Is this what you mean by being tied down?” I ask as I tie the sash to one of the bedposts at the top of the bed. “You know, I'll be able to have my wicked way with you once I've got you tied up and I might just have to lick you until you beg.”
Her giggling response is music to my ears, and when she tests the restraints, although they aren’t that secure, she pretends she can't move.
“Do you want me to untie you? Just say the word.”
She says “No,” and shakes her head too as if I wouldn't understand either the word or the gesture alone. She doesn't want there to be any doubt. She wants this!
Spread out on my bed, her white robe has fallen open a couple of inches but I make a point of wrenching it fully open, baring her to my gaze. She gasps and writhes against the restraints. Fucking beautiful!
I get between her legs, spreading them open. “Maybe I need to tie these down too.” I run my finger gently down the inside of her thigh. First one then the other. “What do you think?” She doesn't answer. She fucking wants this! But I need her to say it.
“You want me to tie your legs?”
She nods.
“Say it.”
“Yes, tie them.”
I grab a couple of neckties from my drawer. I don't wear them much. I can't think of a better use for them.
“Just gonna tie one here,” I tell her and I tie one of her feet to the bottom corner opposite her hands so she's spread out right across the bed. She watches me, her breath shallow, a puzzled expression on her face but I don't let her stay wondering for long. “I want this one wrapped around me when you come.”
I bend to take her in my mouth. It's as if I can never satisfy the craving I have for the taste of her, the sound of her whimpering as I suck, the female essence of her. I respond to every moan that leaves her lips with my mouth and tongue, licking, nibbling, entering, sucking until she calls out my name and arches her back. I feel her quivering with my mouth, my hands holding her thighs apart as she comes. That will never get old.
“Inside,” she says. “I want you inside me.”
I grab a condom within reach. I won't make that mistake twice. I slide into her slowly, though slow is the last thing I want. She's so fucking tight, I'd hate to hurt her.
“Harder,” she says, “and fast. Fuck me hard.”
I don't need telling again. I drive right into her, our bodies crashing together with a smack of flesh on flesh. I slide into her hard and sure, faster and faster, opening her to me, making her mine, all mine. I want to come right now yet I want this to go on forever. I plunge into her depths over and over until I can tell she's close again before I untie her leg and flip her over, pulling her hips higher so she's on her knees, her gorgeous ass in the air, her hands still secured to the top of the bed. I check she's okay.
“Yes,” she says. “Like that. Take me like that.”
Just as well because I'm so swollen, so hard, so fucking needy that I'm not sure I could stop. I want to fuck her six ways to Sunday, like a bull in the fields, primal and intense. She raises her hips a fraction and moans as if urging me on. It doesn't take much before I'm rutting into her from behind as hard and fast as ever, her hands gripping the bed post as I grab the soft flesh of her ass cheeks and power into her wet channel, never letting go until I feel her reach a peak around me and I grab her tight around the waist and hold still as I come deep inside her.
I untie her hands and pull her around so I can look into her eyes. Seeing the happiness there, I never want to look away.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Perfect.”
“You are that,” I say. Because she is. This is. Even if the circumstances we're in are not.
It feels like we belong together, Melissa, Lucy and me, but I can't keep Melissa here. She has a different future mapped out than the one she would have with me. She has her trip. Duncan expects her to return to work in his business. I have to grin and bear it. I have to get a nanny and let Melissa go on her way even though I know it will hurt. I will probably never see her again after she goes. But for now, she sleeps in my arms and it feels right she is with me and I am with her.
CHAPTER 19
Melissa
I can't believe I've been here two weeks now. I love being with Andrew and Lucy. I love this house. I love the little village. Looking after Lucy has been much easier than I expected, no trouble at all. And it's great to see Andrew smile when he comes home. I don't always have a meal ready for him if I'm busy with Lucy and he fixes dinner then. But sometimes I do and sometimes I bake for him and he loves that, says it reminds him of when he was a kid and he'd fight with his sister to be the one to lick out the raw batter left in the mixing bowl.
But I love it most of all in the night when there's no sound in the village and Lucy is sleeping peacefully in her crib and I'm in Andrew's arms, my need for him matching his for me. In the cool light of the morning, I blush thinking of the things we do with our bodies, our hands, our mouths, the things that I call out in the dark. Sometimes, Andrew looks at me over breakfast and smiles and I wonder whether he's thinking about those things too and I blush all over again, wanting him again, a bolt of desire running through me. My need for him never goes away.
He'll be on night shift soon, and I'll miss him in that big bed. But he'll have days off too, days when we can spend a lot of time together.
The village is so small, everyone seems to know everyone else. My second day here, I made a friend in the coffee shop that's also a grocery store and post office when I dropped in with Lucy to pick up a couple of things I forgot to get at the supermarket in Brampton Head. The girl behind the counter introduced herself and we started chatting. I ended up staying for an hour drinking coffee with Jasmine, seeing as Lucy was sleeping peacefully in her buggy, and so I've been dropping in there a lot ever since.
The next day, I met Andrew's neighbor, Beatrice, and she gave me a hug and welcomed me like she'd known me all her life.
“You look after those two,” she said. “It's such a pity for the little one. I'd have liked to look after her myself but I can't get about as quickly as I used to.”
I take Lucy to see her most days after that and when Beatrice's eighty-fifth birthday arrives at the start of my second week, I make her a cake and a card and we all go to see her. I can tell she’s delighted. Her family emigrated to Canada and she doesn’t get to see them often.
But no matter how much I'm enjoying living here it makes no difference. Andrew has lined up three nannies to interview today.
I think I got lulled into a false sense of security by how good our life has been together. As if we are in a bubble that circumstances can't affect. I think I managed to blot out that I'd be going in a few weeks and that it would be unlikely I'd ever see Andrew or Lucy again. In any case, my heart sinks when Andrew starts talking about nannies again.
Before they arrive, Andrew moves Lucy's crib back into his room and I get Lucy into her best little outfit—a little pink dress, white leggings and white cardigan, a pink bow in her soft baby hair. She looks as pretty as a picture.
The first prospective nanny, Miss Baxter, must be in her fifties. She looks a bit fierce and her sour expression makes me think she doesn't like her job though I'm sure she has a lot of experience. My heart sinks. Surely, Andrew won't leave Lucy to this woman. But Miss Baxter is hardly inside the house before she's checking out the bedroom.
“I'm used to bigger houses than this,” she says. “In my last place, I had my own wing, an apartment attached to the main house. It made it very convenient for looking after the children while maintaining my privacy and that of my employers. I'm afraid that room will not do at all.”
“Not quite the Mary Poppins type I had in mind,” Andrew says when she leaves two minutes after her inspection of the room. “I thought I was supposed to interv
iew them.” He runs his hand through his hair, clearly not expecting the task of finding a nanny to be so hard.
“Maybe you need someone younger who doesn't expect a mansion,” I say, though the first nanny would have suited me better than someone young, someone Andrew might fall for. There's no way I could imagine Andrew getting together with nanny number one. But then, what does it matter really? I'll be gone on my travels by the time the nanny moves in.
Andrew and I have a coffee and play with Lucy while we wait for the next appointment. Lucy is getting a bit fractious so I give her a bottle to calm her down. I have her over my shoulder patting her back when the second nanny, Miss Jamieson, arrives.
“Oh, this is Lucy?” she says. “Delightful. I always think they're best when they're babies. So much easier to manage than a toddler. And you only have one? Excellent. No more on the way?” A barrage of questions follows. The woman talks like a runaway steam engine, asking and hardly waiting for an answer. After half an hour of not getting a word in edgeways except when the woman paused for breath (a seemingly rare event), Andrew thanks her for her time and shepherds her out of the door.
“I think it was nerves,” I say.
“Hers or mine?” He laughs. “I thought she'd never shut up. And she only likes babies. Is she going to leave as soon as Lucy takes her first steps?”
“I hope the next one is better.”
“Me too or I'll definitely be looking for another agency.”
But when Helena arrives, I want to change my mind about hoping for a better nanny. She seems perfect. Too perfect. She's young. She smiles. She's pretty with long, smooth, very fair blonde hair and blue eyes. Straight out of Scandinavia I think, but her English is perfect too. She asks the right questions. The bedroom is fine for her. She's friendly.
I hate her on sight.
She takes Lucy from me, and the baby, the traitor, gurgles up at her and gives her a big toothy smile.
“Would you like coffee?” I ask. For some reason, I want to get out of the living room. Andrew is chatting fine to Helena. He can manage on his own.
“Oh, no,” she says. “Hot coffee and babies don't mix.”
I think guiltily of the times I've sat with Lucy with a mug of coffee beside me on the little table in the living room or at the kitchen table. Andrew too. Of course, we're careful. But maybe we shouldn't be having tea and coffee at all. Or hot chocolate. No? All those coffee shops back home would be going out of business without the mothers meeting their friends for coffee. Maybe that's some professional nanny rule I don't know about. No drinking coffee on the job.
“I'd like a glass of water,” she says and so I go into the kitchen to get it for her and while I'm there I hold my wrists under the cool water. I'm being stupid. She'll be good for Andrew and Lucy. It hurts, but I won't be here. I'll be miles away. If I say it enough I might remember that. And when I take the water back, I try not to let my heart drop. Andrew is showing Helena Lucy's bed in his room. I'm going to Paris and Amsterdam and Rome. It will be an exciting trip. My girlfriends are green with envy. So why do I just want to stay here?
This nanny seems perfect. Much as I don't like to admit it, I have to give her credit, and hell, Andrew needs someone. There's no point wishing a bad nanny on him. He has enough on his plate. But I can still hate her, can't I?
CHAPTER 20
Andrew
Melissa is unusually quiet after nanny number three drives off. She busies herself taking away the glass. I catch up with her in the kitchen cleaning things that don't need to be cleaned.
“Was there something about Helena you didn't like? Because I'm sure your instinct about these things is better than mine.”
“No, nothing at all. I thought she was perfect. Even if the other two hadn't been terrible, she would still have been a great choice.”
“I thought she was perfect, too. Too good to be true?”
“I don't think so. She seemed genuine to me.”
“I'll miss you when you go.” Somehow it seems like she needs to hear that just now. And it's true, I will. And not just in my bed. Though I will miss her there, so badly it hurts already to even think of it.
She has only been here a short time, but she has been a breath of fresh air in my life. I've smiled again. We've laughed. We have routines. Lucy is crying less, sleeping better. I’m getting a break, not just when I leave the baby with Beatrice and go shopping or run errands. I'm getting a break just to sit there, read a book, cook a meal, and I have time and energy left to play with Lucy and time and energy for Melissa. “Lucy will miss you too. But me more than Lucy and not just because you're good with her.”
“I'm pleased to have been of service.”
“Oh Melissa, don't be like that. You know it couldn't go on longer than six weeks. You're going away and if you don't go on your trip or you don't go back to America because of me, your dad will kill me.”
“It's not about what Dad wants. Don't I get any say in it? He doesn't know what I want, what's good for me.”
“Well, being a nanny isn't what you want either, is it? Unless that's what you always wanted to do but I don't think that's the case, is it?”
“No, I never thought about doing that but it seems to me you've gotten yourself a cozy little number here, a succession of girls who are good with Lucy. I bet you can't wait to take the next one to bed either.”
“Melissa! It's not like that at all.”
“Well, what is it then? That's exactly what you thought this afternoon, isn't it? I bet you were thinking, it worked with Melissa, so it's bound to work with the next one too. Lucy's bed will be out of your room before I even get to Paris.”
“That's just not true. I care about you, Melissa. I don't want to spoil your plans. I know we shouldn't have done what we did, but I can't regret it.”
“No, you're right. We shouldn't have gotten involved at all.” She glares at me and the doorbell goes.
Did one of the nannies leave something behind? Fucking inconvenient right now. But when I open the door, Duncan is standing there.
“Flash visit,” he says. “Last minute decision. I have a meeting in London tomorrow but I thought I'd call in and see my only daughter and old pal.”
Melissa gives her father a hug. “Hey! Why didn't you tell us you were coming?”
“I thought I'd surprise you,” Duncan says, “but I called from Heathrow to let you know I was on my way in the hire car and left a message. I didn't want to miss you if you were just popping out to the store or something.”
Neither of us looked at our phones in the last couple of hours. We were too busy interviewing Helena and arguing.
“We've been interviewing nannies all afternoon. There's only the couch, but if you can put up with that, you're welcome to stay.” I say that because Duncan and I go back a long way, and what else could I do? My old friend, Melissa's dad, over from America, wants to talk and drink beer as usual. But all the time, I'm thinking fuck! I need to talk to Melissa. I want to reassure her and make things better between us and there's no way I can do that with her father here.
CHAPTER 21
Melissa
It's good to see Dad, but did he have to arrive right then, when I was about to tell Andrew what I thought of him and his scheming ways? I can't even glower and sulk as I want to, but I can be formal, polite. He will get the message. I leave them to get dinner ready while I busy myself playing with Lucy.
When we sit down at the table, the chat is all between Dad and Andrew. I give Lucy some cereal and she smiles back at me. At least, one of us is happy.
After a while, Dad says, “What's up with you? England not suiting you?”
“There's nothing wrong with England.” Crap! He knows me too well. He can tell I'm in a mood.
“Love troubles?” he asks. Could this get any more embarrassing?
“No.”
“What then? There's something wrong.”
“I'm fine.”
“If you say so.” He turns to Andre
w. “You know damn well when they say fine, they're not fine. Her mother is the same.”
Andrew laughs. I stamp my foot on his. It doesn't stop him.
I get up. I've had enough of this. The tortuous meal is over. “Hey, you two chat. I'll give Lucy her bottle and bath and put her to bed, then I'll turn in myself. I'm beat anyway.”
“Has he been working you too hard?” Dad laughs and Andrew joins in. I guess he can't really do anything else but it doesn't improve my mood.
Lucy cheers me up a little. She's so sweet, so vulnerable. I can't be angry when I'm with her. I sit in the living room feeding and bathing her while Andrew and Dad set the world to rights and discuss sports results in the kitchen with not a care in the world.
I try really hard not to slam my door when I go to my room in case I wake Lucy. But I might have banged it a little hard.
“God help you coping with her moods,” I hear Dad say.
Thanks for nothing, Dad.
It takes me ages to fall asleep. I'm fuming. Hurt and fuming. I've just been stupid. I knew I shouldn't have gotten involved. My own stupid fault. Stupid. Stupid Stupid. I'll leave in a few weeks. He'll be happy with that perfect Scandinavian nanny. I was right. It turned out she was from Sweden. Wherever she's from, it doesn't make any difference. Andrew has spoiled my whole trip. But I did it. I did it to myself. Stupid stupid me.
*
Dad leaves after breakfast to go to his meeting in London. “Great to see you both,” he says. “Sorry it was just a fly-in-visit. And Melissa, cheer up or Andrew will have had enough of you before your six weeks are up. I hope she hasn't been too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” Andrew says, smoothly.
It's like I'm some kind of joke.
