by Lexy Timms
Jamie tangled a hand in his hair and tugged him a little closer. “Get on with it, then,” she said, not quite managing to keep the smile from her voice.
So bossy,” he said, and then he wasn’t saying anything at all because his mouth was on her, and Jamie was pressing a hand to her own mouth to keep from making any kind of noise that might wake the twins.
Alex took his time about it, his tongue lapping at her clit with long, slow strokes. Jamie clutched at the sheets for something to hold onto, and her toes curled against his back. One of his fingers slid into her, then two, knowing exactly where to stroke to send pleasure arcing up her spine like fireworks. He sucked her clit into his mouth, flicking his tongue against it, and pleasure exploded through her, carrying her over the edge in a wash of heat.
“More?” he pulled back long enough to ask, his voice gravelly and low, and didn’t wait for her answer before his tongue was on her again.
“Fuck,” Jamie breathed behind her hand, hips rocking up into the heat of his tongue. “Alex.”
He chuckled, and tremors of pleasure shuddered through her with the vibration of the sound. It was a matter of minutes before he’d worked her up to another orgasm, her body exploding with ecstasy, and then she sank back against the bed, panting.
“No more,” she said, batting at his head with her hand. “Come up here.”
Alex slid easily up to lean over her again, mirth in his blue eyes and a crook in his smile. “Does that mean I’m forgiven?”
“Forgiven?” Jamie echoed. “You’re wonderful. I don’t think I could be mad at you if I tried.” She reached down and wrapped a hand around the back of his thigh. She whispered, “I want you inside me.”
“Thought you’d never ask,” he teased, and leaned down to kiss her.
His hands shifted her, turning her onto her side so that he could wrap himself around her back as he slid into her, working himself in and out. “I love you,” he breathed against her ear, pausing to nip at the lobe with his teeth. “You’re amazing, Jamie. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to share my life with.”
Jamie rocked back against him, hands on the arm against her stomach, and felt a different kind of warmth heating her from the inside out as he went on with the whispers.
“You’re the best choice I’ve ever made. You and the twins, you’re everything.”
“I love you, too,” Jamie said, voice catching in her throat with pleasure and emotion. She lifted one of her hands so she could reach back and curl it against the back of his head, holding him close. He buried his face against her shoulder. “You’re absolutely infuriating and I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
“Good,” he whispered, “because I am never letting you go.”
Wrapped in his arms, his voice in her ear and the smell of him all around her, Jamie felt like the perfect, beautiful person he described. The woman he saw her as. She let her eyes slid shut, just taking in the sensations, and then he was moving a little faster behind her, both of them crying out as they came. In the aftermath, they lay tangled together, just breathing, and for a few more minutes the world outside stopped existing entirely.
“I’ll go have the paternity test done later this week,” Alex said a little while later, when they were curled up together in the dark, waiting for sleep to come.
“Thank you,” Jamie whispered, leaning up to kiss him.
“And I want you to get a nanny.” Before she could protest, he pressed a finger over her lips. “Give me just a minute to explain why. Christine comes to help take care of them in the afternoons, but only sometimes. And I know you’ve been tired lately. You spent all day taking care of them today. Sometimes you deserve a break. I promise you that having someone else help sometimes so you can get some sleep or some work done isn’t going to make them any less yours.”
His finger dropped away, and Jamie laid her head against his chest, giving herself a minute to think about it. Alex was right that she was tired. She was exhausted right down to her bones most days, even when she was happy. It was a lot of work to take care of twins, and trying to do that and the PA job for Reid Enterprises was going to be too much if she didn’t take a break. She’d been fighting that knowledge since the twins were born.
Sighing, she nodded against Alex’s chest. “Okay,” she said. “You get the paternity test, and I’ll get a nanny.”
Alex’s arms tightened around her. “Thank you,” he said, echoing her words back at her. His hand slid through her hair. “Now sleep, baby. Tomorrow’s going to come early.”
Jamie curled closer against the warm body of her husband, and let herself obey.
Chapter 12
“So there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Mark looked up from the papers on his desk to find his brother leaning against the edge of the doorway. He tipped his chair back a little, looking up at Alex with a question in his expression. “Go for it.”
“Jamie and I are going to hire a nanny,” Alex said. “It’s just too much for her to try to take care of the twins and work at the same time, and I want to make sure she doesn’t run herself ragged. But I think it’ll be easier for her if the nanny doesn’t stay in the main part of the house. So I was thinking about putting her in the apartment.”
“And you want me to move out,” Mark concluded.
“I’m not going to throw you out on your ear or anything,” Alex said. “If we have to, we can make it work. But it would be easier if we could have the apartment to use.”
Mark grinned at him. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve actually been planning for this. There’s a little bachelor pad built into the club house, over the restaurant. I figured one of the employees could live there if they needed to. Or I could.” He smiled. “Looks like it’s going to be me.”
“Thank you,” Alex said, “for being so understanding about it. Anything you need, you’re still more than welcome to let us know.”
“Relax,” Mark said. “I know you’re not kicking me out of the family. Seriously. It’s about time I got out on my own anyway, or you’ll never get rid of me.”
Alex finally cracked a smile. “Well, you could always earn your keep as the live-in nanny.”
“Not on your life,” Mark shot back. “There might be women out there who think it’s hot when a guy is good with children, but I’ve never met one who would be interested in a male live-in nanny.”
His brother laughed, and walked away. Mark shook his head and got back to work.
***
It was a matter of a few days to get everything ready to move. Jamie wasn’t nearly as easy about it as Alex had been. She seemed to go back and forth between suggesting that Mark live in the mansion proper, or that the nanny did, and reconsidering whether or not she wanted a nanny at all. Mark tried his best to reassure her that his feelings weren’t even a little bit hurt by the request that he give up the apartment. When he suggested that maybe it was about time for him to be living on his own again anyway, she’d looked at him sadly and made him promise to start joining them for a Sunday dinner that was apparently going to be a new tradition.
“How does Alex feel about that?” Mark asked, taking a bite out of one of the donuts he’d brought by as an excuse to spend a little more time with his sister-in-law before he officially moved out.
“Alex will be fine with it,” Jamie said, giving him a smile that Mark was pretty sure meant his brother had no idea what he was going to be walking into.
Good for her. Someone had to keep Alex on his toes.
“You going to invite Christine, too?”
“That was the plan,” Jamie answered. “And Dad. Everyone in the family, pretty much.”
Mark noticed Jamie definitely hadn’t included her mom in that round up, and he didn’t blame her. Going on what he’d heard about the way she’d treated both of her daughters, and the incident where she’d just shown up at the house and talked to Jamie like crap a few weeks ago, he didn’t think she exactly qualified as family.<
br />
“Well, I’m not going to say no to more of Murray’s cooking,” Mark decided, pausing to take another bite of donut. “That’s one thing about the apartment that I’m definitely going to miss.”
“You know you’re going to be living above a restaurant, right?” Jamie pointed out. “I’m sure that you’ll have plenty of good food to choose from, even if your chef isn’t technically your own private one.”
“He could be my own private one, as well as head chef at the restaurant, if I paid him enough,” Mark said.
“Either way,” Jamie laughed, “you’re not exactly going to run out of good meals.”
“True,” Mark agreed. “Very true. This is why Alex keeps you around. You’re always right.” He glanced down at the screen of his phone, checking the time, and shoved the rest of his donut into his mouth. Erica was going to be around to help him move any minute. Alex had offered to help, too, but when he’d gotten Erica’s offer Mark had brushed his brother’s off. He could see his brother any time he wanted. He couldn’t always arrange alone time with his gorgeous golf instructor.
“Flattery isn’t going to do anything for you,” Jamie said, laughing. “So whatever you’re trying, you can just stop now.”
“Trying?” Mark pulled on his best innocent look. “I’m not trying anything. I’m totally harmless.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” she shot back.
Outside, a car pulled into the drive with a crunch of tires over gravel. Mark stood. “That’s probably Erica. I guess I should get going.”
Jamie stepped in for a hug, and Mark gave it to her, holding her tight for a moment before stepping back. “I’m going to miss you.”
“It’s not like I’m leaving the country. You’ll see me again this weekend.”
“I know.” She pulled on a smile. “It’s just not quite the same, you know?”
“Can’t live on my brother’s generosity forever. It’s just time. It’s been time for a while and we’ve been stalling. All of us. There is nothing wrong in this. I promise. I’m actually looking forward to it,” Mark answered. “I’ll see you Sunday, Jamie.”
“See you then.”
Outside, Erica was stepping down from the cab of a truck that she’d pulled up to the end of the parking space closest to the apartment. She waved at him, and Mark lifted a hand in return, trying not to stare. He had only ever seen her in golf gear, neatly tailored and sophisticated. For moving day, she’d traded the usual out for cut-off jeans and a t-shirt that was a little too big for her, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. It was a good look.
A very good look.
“I think we should be able to get a lot of your stuff over there in one load,” she said as he got closer. “But if there’s anything extra we can always come back for it.”
“There’s actually not too much stuff in the apartment. All of the furniture is my brother’s. We should definitely be able to get it all out there in one go, especially if we put anything extra in the backseat of my car.”
“Good to hear,” she said. “Shall we get to work, then?”
“Follow me.”
Mark led her through the gate and around to the apartment, propping the door and the gate open so that they wouldn’t have to deal with them while they carried stuff out. The back and forth made talking a little hard, and they mostly worked in silence.
“So,” Erica said when they’d moved most of the stuff out of the apartment and were sitting on the tailgate of the truck for a break, “not to sound like I’m judging, but shouldn’t your brother maybe be helping you here?”
“Alex is at work,” Mark said with a shrug. “He takes a lot of pride in his company, and he’s very hands- on with the running. Jamie practically had to drag him away when they first started dating. It’s gotten better now, and he’s promoted a good guy to Senior Advisor. It will finally take some weight off his shoulders. Getting him to acknowledge that he doesn’t have to spend quite so much time at work is going to be easier said than done, though.”
“Personally,” Erica said, “I think that what he does sounds really boring.” She smiled at him. “I can’t imagine spending all day cooped up in an office hunching over a computer screen. Give me a green under a clear blue sky any day.”
“It’s not so much the office part that I don’t like,” Mark said, “as it is the fact that when I was working for Alex I was putting all my effort into someone else’s creation. He’s my brother, and I love him, but I wanted something of my own, you know?”
Erica leaned back on her hands, tipping her head up to look at the sky. Mark’s eyes followed the line of her throat. “I think everyone does,” she said. “Some people find that in work. Some find it other places. But all of us want to create. It’s part of what makes us human, that urge to bring something into the world that we can be proud of.”
The door to the house opened, and Jamie stepped outside, carrying a glass in each hand. “You guys want some lemonade?”
“That would be fantastic,” Erica said, straightening up again and reaching out a hand. “Thank you so much.”
“I’ll take a glass, too, Jamie. Thanks.”
Jamie handed both glasses over with a smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more like a housewife before,” she said.
Mark laughed. “You? A housewife? I don’t think so, Jamie.”
“No? You can’t see it?” She placed both hands on her hips, tipping her head to the side. “Maybe I should be wearing an apron to really strike the point home.”
“If you’re going to go that far, just throw on the ’50s dress and some pearls to go with,” Erica said.
“Vacuum in my high heels?” Jamie suggested, turning her smile on the other woman. “It’s good to see you again, Erica.”
“Likewise.” Erica lifted the lemonade to her lips and took a drink, sighing happily. “Thanks again for the drink.”
“Not a problem,” Jamie said. “Just give a shout if you need anything.” She looked at Mark then, and her expression said that she knew something. Mark was pretty sure just what she’d guessed, and if her half-hidden smile was anything to go by, she approved of the attraction she’d seen between him and Erica. Of course, he could be reading the look entirely wrong, but Jamie had been not-so-subtly interested in how his romantic life was going. It looked like he had the Jamie seal of approval on Erica, at least. He raised his eyebrows at her, motioning to the side with an almost imperceptible tilt of his head. Jamie’s smile widened. Definitely approval. “I’m going to head back inside,” she said. “You two let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do,” Mark said.
She turned and headed back toward the house, and Mark turned to look at Erica, pausing to take a long drink of lemonade before he spoke. She’d been right. It was good.
“Do you create at work?” he asked. “Or through something else?”
“I teach,” Erica said. She drew one leg up so that her foot rested on the edge of the tailgate, wrist resting on her knee. “That’s an act of creation in itself. You may not be building something that you can touch with your hands, but you’re passing on knowledge. Giving someone something that they didn’t have before.”
If Mark hadn’t been kind of enamored with her already, he was sure this conversation would have made it happen. Not only was she gorgeous, but she was incredibly talented, and intelligent in a way that really turned him on.
The only problem was he didn’t know if she felt anything like the same way about him. “I’m glad I can offer a space that lets you create, then,” he said.
She smiled at him.
For just an instant, Mark thought that he saw something more than friendship in that smile, but the moment passed and he wasn’t sure again as she tossed back the rest of her lemonade and slipped off the tailgate to land lightly on the gravel. “Guess it’s time to finish up,” she said. “Should one of us take the glasses into the house?”
Mark hurried to finish his drink. “I can, if you
want,” he said. She handed hers over, and he took it. “Be right back.”
Jamie was in the kitchen with the twins. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps, and Jake lifted his head from his paws for a minute to watch him, then promptly went back to sleep.
“How’s it going out there?” she asked as he set the cups in the sink.
“It’s going,” Mark said. “We’ve got most of the stuff out of the apartment and into the truck, so we should make it out to the club before it gets dark, which will make it easier to unload.”
“And Erica?” Jamie prompted.
Mark turned to look at her. “What about Erica?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know exactly what I mean about Erica. You can’t stop looking at her.”
He sighed. “I guess it’s kind of obvious.”
“Are you going to ask her out?”
“Should I?” Mark rested one hand against the edge of the counter. “I’m not sure asking employees out is the best idea, to be honest. If she’s not interested, it could become a problem. I don’t want to lose my best instructor because I couldn’t keep my romantic interest to myself.”
“Well,” Jamie said, leaning past him to pick up a washcloth so she could clean the twins’ hands. “Look at Alex and me. We did fine.” She smiled. “Better than fine, actually. It may have been a little rocky in the beginning, but that was more about your brother’s stubborn inability to communicate his feelings than the fact that he was my boss.”
“So you’re saying I should go for it?”
“I’m saying if you don’t then you’ll never know what might have happened,” Jamie said. “So it’s up to you. Is it better to know? Or to keep on wishing when she might have said yes?”
“You know that thing I said about you being right all the time? I stand by it.”
She laughed, and Mark started toward the door, pausing just inside the kitchen.
“Thank you, Jamie.” He smiled. “For everything.”
“That’s what sisters are for,” Jamie said. “Now get out there and find out.”
