He licks the palm of my hand before moving back to his feast.
“Yeah, me neither. At least I can make one customer happy. I have zero regrets, isn’t that awful? She had it comin’.”
After about thirty minutes, I hear him descending the stairs. It doesn’t take him long to find me still in the corridor by the back door. He’s changed into a pair of black sweatpants and a white t-shirt. He holds a fresh towel in one hand and reaches the other down to me.
Sliding my hand off the friendly dog, I take his hand and let him pull me up.
He leaves me with a towel in my hands and crosses to the other side of the kitchen.
“I think we need some rules,” he says.
I frown. “What? No. I can’t do this.”
“Number one, you need to be honest with me,” he continues, ignoring me. “I need to know if my daughter is acting up, you can’t—”
“You’re not listening. I’m not doing this. I don’t need your rules or how-to’s, I am done. You want to know how last night went? I’ll tell you. I wanted to scream. I’m no expert, but I don’t think nannies should scream.” I start pacing the room as he watches me. “She was impossible. If I was behind a bar, I would have thrown that little patron out.”
“Nicole, you can’t hose her down in the backyard if she’s refusing to take a bath,” he adds with a softer tone.
“She’s clean, isn’t she?” I shout defensively.
“That’s not the answer.”
“I agree. It’s how to get things done. When vendors were late with deliveries, we were late with payments. Guess what, they were never late again.” I dust my hands for dramatic effect. “Problem solved.”
“You can’t do that every time. It doesn’t teach her anything. And my yard is a mess.”
I glance absently in that direction and lower my head. But it’s not because he’s yelling at me.
Stop, stop.
I close my eyes. It was nothing. It’s not the same thing. I wasn’t hurting her.
“Why didn’t you tell me last night was hard?”
I open my eyes warily. Now is not the time to have a mental breakdown.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew I was lying?”
He raises a brow. “Because I was disappointed. Not only did I take you for a better liar, I thought you’d be just a tad more mature.”
It’s a punch to the gut. Both those statements. The second a little deeper.
“Are you firing me?”
“No. But I am putting you on probation. If you keep lying or…going off script…we’ll need to revisit this. One month.” His voice is strained, like he’s sorry to have to throw me out in that timeframe.
He must be forgetting who he’s dealing with. Challenges and ultimatums are my love language. I walk up to him and shove the unused towel into his chest, which hitches under my palm.
“One week,” I grit.
Tearing his eyes off my lips, he looks into my eyes. “Fine.”
I’m on the balcony in my bedroom, shirtless and frustrated. If I still smoked, I’d light one up right now. Followed by another one.
And then…. I would jerk off picturing myself shutting that sassy mouth with mine. Gripping her damp arms as she struggles free because she’s not done mouthing off at me and then succumbs to my demanding mouth. Her slim but strong body would melt into me with a moan. Our tongues would dance while I lifted her and pressed her against the wall. She’d respond by rocking her hips against my erection.
Fuck. I run my hand through my hair when the woman of my dreams drops to her knees in my mind, sucking the anger out of me.
