Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
He made a noise of pleasure before his touch melted into a kiss that was achingly slow and sweet. A tiny, rasping moan vibrated between us, but I couldn’t be sure who made it as his hand hooked under my knee. I thought we were just kissing goodnight, but I could feel how hard he was again. My insides felt suddenly hollow, and I ached to feel him inside me.
“I want you.” The scrape of his teeth against my neck was unnecessary—I was already done for, my insides screaming yes. “I want you in my bed, spread out under me, crying out my name.” Yes, God, yes. Between his touches and his kisses, he whispered how I should stay with him for the night, how we should finish what we started, how he needed me.
But those temptations were in French, so I knew he didn’t really mean them. Or maybe it’s more that he knew he shouldn’t. So I’d pulled away. I said good night and made my way over to my own bedroom door. He didn’t follow. And now, the following morning, it’s like the air between our rooms still carries that charge.
Please don’t come out, I find myself thinking.
Please come out.
This is ridiculous. I make a frustrated noise and swing left, forcing my feet to move one step after another. Down the sweeping staircase I go, because there’s no servant’s staircase here.
Servant. Domestic helper. That’s what I am—who I am to him right now.
Primrose Elizabeth Whittington, you almost had sex with the man you despise.
What were you thinking?
What was he thinking? What was he drinking?
This is not how you safeguard Emmy’s job. You’re supposed to be looking after his children, not kissing him in darkened kitchens or letting him make a meal of you.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner right there on the countertop. The man does have an appetite.
For God’s sake—get your brain out of the gutter!
I am the good Whittington. The sensible one. I’m not prone to flights of fancy, and I don’t let men turn my head. Or generally have them make me come so well I see stars born in my head.
I begin to stomp unhappily as I push away the memories of last night. I am a professional, I remind myself. I might not be a professional nanny, but as a doctor, I’m acutely aware of the importance boundaries. Yet I burned through them last night with the restraint of a pyromaniac with a flamethrower.
Welp, I’m reinstating them this morning because, as the custodian of Emmy’s career, I’m doing a piss-poor job of things. I’ve taken a reasonably straightforward assignment—a weekend looking after children—and twisted into something ridiculously complicated. Hello, annoying him so much he blackmailed me into staying a month as punishment.
At the bottom of the stairs, I turn right, barely noticing the way the morning light spills through the arched windows. Or how it gleams from the gloss of the grand piano as I pass.
“If I can’t make you come, you can leave.”
I almost stumble at the remembrance of his sultry dare. And the way he held me. Why the heck did he raise the stakes to three times? I mean, technically, I can leave now because I only came twice. Two and a half times?
I give my head a shake. I’d convinced myself what happened at the club was a fluke, but that’s not why I took up the challenge. I craved the experience. Craved him.
But that doesn’t mean I expected him to prove me so spectacularly wrong.
And God, I loved it, until I didn’t. Until Sylvie’s little voice called out from the stairs. Panic, guilt, regret—those feelings and more washed through me. It wasn’t until that moment I acknowledged how reckless we were being.
Yet at his bedroom door…
My brow creases. I need to do better. I will do better. Last night is over. Done. It was just a game, a flirtation that got wildly out of hand.
It was an experiment—yes, that’s it! An impromptu experiment, and the data proves I’m not broken. I’ve just been dating the wrong kind of men.
It seems an older man tickles my metaphoric pickle.
Someone gruff and grumpy butters my biscuit.
A man who is ever so slightly arrogant rocks my socks. Who am I kidding? The man is way arrogant.
I need a man who is good with his mouth (in both senses) because being challenged really turns my crank. What ruffles my truffles is a someone who’ll give as good as he gets. Someone who makes me want to kiss him one minute and stab him with a cake fork the next.
Looks like I might need therapy.
But at least I know I have a type. Which means there is no excuse for getting nekkid with M. LDH again.
The kitchen comes into view, and a fresh wave of nerves settles low inside. I gird my loins, mentally at least, because I have no idea what that would look like physically. But I will not forget my good sense just because he just looks my way. Or because I’m picturing his penis in my head again.