Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I n the weeks leading up to Layla starting school, my daughter kept me busy. I’d been thinking long and hard since my near miss with Harper, and the reality of taking responsibility for Layla needed a better balance. I knew how losing Grace had felt, and I began to imagine how Layla would feel when the time came for Harper to go. It didn’t bear thinking about.
In truth, Harper was Layla’s mother figure and if Layla had a tenth of the feelings in her bones I had, I knew any parting of the ways would devastate her. Because of this, I felt there was no better time for Harper to have regular breaks and share the daily care of Layla.
Looking somewhat dejected, Harper was sent home to rest, giving me two full weeks to spend much-needed and long overdue time alone with my daughter.
Doing all the usual things, like fun inflatables, water parks, the zoo, and a couple of days spent over at Max and Sarah-Jayne’s, I got to bond with Layla in the most incredible ways. Building trust and becoming closer made me feel guilty and sad for all the precious moments in her life I had missed. I vowed then to try to go easier on myself and to be the best father I could from here on out.
Harper came home a few days early and although Layla was delighted to see her, she appeared somewhat reserved. By bedtime that evening, her behavior toward Harper had become ugly and defiant.
Through tears and tantrums, Layla’s constant refusal to comply with her routine tested Harper’s patience to its limits. A couple of times I went up to her playroom, but before I could interfere, Harper would frown and signal for me to leave with her eyes. I’d never seen anything like it from my daughter, and despite all we’d been through as a dysfunctional family, Layla had been blossoming into an adorable, sweet-natured girl.
Having no real idea what had come over my usually even-tempered, sunny child, I called Sarah-Jayne in desperation to ask for her advice because I had respected her parenting. Frankly, I was stunned when she told me what Layla was doing was a perfectly natural reaction to Harper’s absence.
Apparently, according to Sarah-Jayne, Layla’s challenging behavior was her way of checking whether Harper still loved her and contended children often try to sabotage relationships, when they are feeling insecure, to see if the person who’s supposed to love them really does.
There were two things I took out of the conversation. One, Harper was so important to Layla that leaving her for any length of time had made her feel insecure. And two, Layla had had no such reaction during the times I had gone away… or had she, and no one had told me?
Obviously, after learning all of this, I knew Harper and I had to work closely, and in tandem, to reassure Layla she was everything to us, and we knew this would be made more difficult with Layla starting school. It also sparked a conversation which gave us a stay of execution with Harper, who immediately agreed to extend her contract for at least another year.
Seeing my baby so insecure I was torn about letting her go. However, Harper reassured me all would be fine. And when the time came it was. Once again, Harper had known exactly what to do to make my baby feel settled and safe.
With Layla packed safely off to school, Harper stayed true to her word and took me in hand, devising a pretty stringent fitness program, which initially balanced, suppleness, core strength, and agility. “The cardio and endurance will come later,” she told me. “First, we need to relax your mind and body.”
For a nanny, she had the stamina of a workhorse and the strength of a grizzly bear… and the patience of a saint. No one—apart from those who had seen me train in the past—really knew how much effort it took to have the stamina and lung capacity to maintain a ninety-minute performance. The searing lights caused exhaustion and dehydration, and the vibrations from the equipment were pretty wearing on the body after half an hour or so.
Saying that, Harper had lived with us for years and I thought she knew me pretty well. She knew I was lazy and stubborn, and all exercise had lapsed, but she also knew from my fame I’d been extremely fit in the past, otherwise it wouldn’t have taken as long as it had, for the cracks in my health to show.
That first morning, as we headed back from dropping Layla at school, Harper chatted easily in my car, and all I could think of was making an ass of myself while she tried to teach me how to relax and learn to do her version of yoga. I knew she was good. A few times, not long after Grace had died, and I couldn’t sleep, I’d seen Harper by the pool at the break of dawn practicing yoga and meditating by the pool.
Arriving home, Harper got out of the car already dressed in tight yoga pants and a tiny white tank top. She began setting out mats by the pool as I went into the pool house to change. Matty was talking to Harper by the door and smirked when I came out wearing a pair of gray sweats and a T-shirt.
“I’m telling you now, Cole, you’re gonna sweat in those. I wouldn’t be surprised to see you down to your briefs by the time that girl is finished with you.”
Smirking, I raised an eyebrow. “You wish, Matty. I know seeing me in those is your secret fantasy. But I have news for you, real rock stars don’t wear underwear.” I winked. “Besides, I’m not that unfit, I’ll have you know.”
“We’ll see,” she called after me as she made her way back to the house. As I walked over to where Harper was already warming up I was stunned when she suddenly stuck her tight little ass in the air. Placing her head down between her arms, she proceeded to stretch one leg up through her hands, pulling her already tight yoga pants even more taut. A rough swallow stuck in my throat as my cock stirred. Fuck. My hand flew to the back of my neck at the sight of her perfect ass cheeks and my mouth went dry.
“There you are!” she exclaimed, turning to look at me. “I found this extra yoga mat, so you won’t get knee burn from the patio.” The mention of knee burn triggered a sexual connotation.
“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t mind a bit of knee burn if the activity’s been worth it,” I replied, and almost choked on my own words.
Harper flushed pink and tucked some stray strands of hair behind her ear. “Trust you,” she scoffed, a little embarrassed and rolled her eyes. Shaking her head, she shrugged off my comment and spread her feet in line with her hips to steady her gait.
My gaze fell to her bare feet and slim ankles as she moved, and I slowly dragged my prying eyes up to her face, but not before I noticed she’d discarded the tiny tank, baring her curvy tan midriff. Her ample voluptuous breasts were held together in a black Lycra sports bra, displaying her perfect cleavage. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The last thing I had meant to do was check her out, but I had, and my dick had responded in a salute of lustful delight before I had time to compute what I’d done. Harper was a beautiful woman, but I hadn’t realized how truly smoking hot she was before.
It was crazy but true. I’d seen her hundreds of times in her swimsuit, in shorts and tops, and dressed up to the nines, but I’d never felt lust like I had when I took her in. It felt all kinds of wrong, and guilt washed over me for finding her so appealing.
“Are you ready?” she asked innocently, with a frown on her face. I guessed it was clear to her my mind wasn’t focused on yoga.
“Sure,” I replied, shaking my arms out and moving my head from side to side in my effort to shake the new pent up feelings I had. At the same time I was wondering how quickly I could pretend to pull a muscle to get the fuck away from her.
“Okay, we start like this,” she instructed, placing her palms together and holding them right in front of the perfect cleavage I’d already noticed and was fighting hard to ignore. I trained my eyes on her hands for a second, but they digressed to the perfectly squashed breasts behind them, then I noticed her nipples were hard. Fuck me.
If anyone in my past had ever told me I would feel as awkward as fuck about staring at a pair of pert tits, I’d have had a smart-assed answer. However, that was in a whole other life; because I was so hard up I felt like a ready schoolboy after finding a secret stash of porn.
I felt relieved when she took her hands away and talked me through various positions she wanted me to try, before she proceeded to show me a series of stealthy moves, designed to loosen my shoulder joints and increase their flexibility.
What I actually saw was a range of ways to showcase Harper’s tits and ass to the best of their ability as she cut through all the pose changes.
At one point I almost called a halt, as my groin was fucking with my mind, but I somehow struggled through, mainly by staring over her shoulder and thinking about how Peter should redesign the shrubbery bushes over by the south wall. When I looked back at her I swallowed roughly, wondering how I was going to make it to the end of the session without her noting the sizable bulge in my sweats.
If Harper did notice, she never said, but once she’d gone through another impressive set of positions, involving stretching her arms, that included pairing her hands around her back like she had at the front, she smoothly moved onto working our hips. Watching her contort her tight little body became torturous when I hadn’t been laid in a while.
Getting down on her hands and knees, Harper darted a sideward glance in my direction. “This is called the table top position.” Personally, I’d participated in this familiar position a fair few times in my life, but I knew it as ‘the doggy.’
I crouched down to copy her, like she told me, but my hungry eager eyes were stuck firmly on her fabulous toned ass. “This is the cat pose,” she informed me, as she curled her hips inward then thrust her ass out, dipping her back, “and this is the cow,” she added, and my mind went straight to the gutter.
Then, just when I wondered why the fuck I’d ever agreed to doing this with her, she stuck her ass right up in the air. The sudden upward thrust was totally unexpected and had my jaw hanging slack while my tongue almost fell out of my mouth.
“Come on, you’re not trying,” she admonished, and I wondered how the hell to try what she was doing without showing the massive, raging boner tenting my sweats.
Slowly I crawled into position and went through the same moves she had shown me. “Great, you’re getting the hang of it.” I was most definitely hanging, if you catch my drift, but I flashed a grateful smile for her encouragement as I fought desperately to get my head back in the game.
If I had thought Harper’s previous demonstrations were enticing, I was ill prepared for some of the more advanced poses she pulled from her body when I’d informed her I’d had enough. Accepting I was new, she continued with her routine while I watched like some sick fuck voyeur. I swear by the time she was done, I had wished I were somewhere else entirely… like balls deep in a tight wet pussy.
From the positions she got herself into, I was convinced Harper had enough bendy talent to kiss her own ass, and I marveled at how unbelievably flexible she was, which did nothing for the state of my sex-starved mind. I pulled off my t-shirt to distract myself from staring at her.
By the time she had finished, there were several damp patches; one of which ran down the seam of her black yoga pants, and her midriff glistened with perspiration from the effort she’d put into her workout. Casting a glance over her body, I imagined her totally naked while she bent to drop the small hand towel she’d used to wipe herself down.
“Cooling down time,” she advised me, jolting my dirty mind in a new direction when she told me to lie flat on my back. Sneakily readjusting myself in my sweats, I did as she asked and cussed up a storm in my head when she crawled over and knelt beside me. Sweet Jesus, give me strength.
Having her so close beside me almost felt too much as her clean, musky feminine smell surrounded me. Warmth radiated from her tight sexy body as the sun caught her hair, and I swear her face was flushed to perfection, like she’d recently been fucked.
Leaning over me, her beautiful smiling face made me want to wrap my hand around the back of her head and pull it toward mine. Everything she was, suggested, and did, all served to add to the confused and lust-filled feelings I had running through me.
“All right, I know you’ve probably cooled down by now,” she guessed when cool was the last emotion I felt. “I’m going to make sure you know how to breathe properly to help get the most from our sessions.”
My self-awareness was at its peak. I had never in my life been self-conscious, but I was learning new capabilities being around Harper.
“I’m going to place my hand here,” she advised me, laying her warm sticky palm gently across the center of my abdomen. Her touch only made me want her more. Her ponytail briefly fell forward and grazed seductively across my chest. She smiled and flicked it back over her shoulder.
“And when you breathe out, I want you to pull your abdominal muscles in here.” She swept her finger lightly across my midsection and sent a small ripple of electricity across my body, making my insides clench in response. “Make them as tight as you can, like you’re tucking them up under your sternum. Each of the exercises I’m giving you will increase your core strength. Now, try to tense on an exhale to maximize the toning effect on your abs.”
Staring along her lovely toned arm and up to her face, I nodded and tried to do as she asked. “Shit,” I cussed when the effort of holding it for the ten seconds and realized she wanted showed me how out of shape I was.
“Don’t worry, looking at these abs,” she praised, patting her hand on my stomach before tracing her hands over the ridges of each one, “you’ll be tweaked and toned again in no time. These tight lines along here tell me you’ve probably got a lot of muscle memory.”
Harper’s hand continued to rest on my belly and for a second her eyes connected with mine. A flush reddened her face and she licked her dry lips before her hand trailed away and left my body. If I’m not mistaken, her thoughts aren’t exactly pure either.
“Okay, let’s do a little relaxation technique.” When she lay down beside me, her arm brushed against mine, and another small charge of electricity coursed through my sex-starved body. “Sorry,” she murmured before she tilted her hips and shoulders as she edged herself away.
Once there was a little more space between us, I swallowed awkwardly and gave a little cough as another wave of horny thoughts ran through my mind.
Sitting up quickly, I knew I couldn’t continue to pretend what was going on inside me wasn’t there. “Sorry, Honey, I just remembered something I need to take care of. I’ve gotta make a quick call to Derek. Thanks for the workout; I really enjoyed it,” I lied, standing quickly and taking off toward the house.
“Derek called, he wants you to call him back,” Matty called after me, as if divine intervention had occurred. I hurried through the kitchen and took the stairs up to my room.
“Thanks, I’ll grab a shower then get to it,” I replied over my shoulder, not trusting my flustered mood or the dick bobbing in my sweats not to show.
Stripping by my unmade bed, I made my way into my bathroom and stepped into my hot steaming shower.
As the force of the water jets pummeled my shoulders, I stood staring at the shower door until it went misty and as the bathroom vanity became obscured from sight, my mind fell into an array of thoughts I sincerely wished I didn’t have to deal with.
Chaos reigned in my head, invading my mind with a war I didn’t want to fight, but defeat was not an option, Harper was a no-go area.
My feelings swung between the never-ending grief about Grace, to the sudden heated desires I had for the deliciously enticing forbidden fruit who lived under my roof.
Then there were guilty feelings, because the woman who still held my fragile broken heart wasn’t here anymore, and this time it wasn’t only my groin that was nudging me in continual prompts to move on.
In the weeks since I’d been home, I realized I’d thought less about Grace during the day, but I hated that my mind was swapping her out in favor of inappropriate feelings toward Harper.
By the time I left the shower I was squeaky clean and emotionally wrung out, having come twice in my raw need to curb my desires.
It was only 11:00 a.m., and with Layla at school, I didn’t trust myself around Harper with all the thoughts running around in my head, so I picked up my cell and called my friend, Max, without another thought.
“Hey, Max, what would you say if I told you I needed a distraction?” I asked, a hint of amusement in my voice I certainly wasn’t feeling.
“I’d say, he’s right here. What did you have in mind?”
“Escapism,” I replied, because God knew how hard I was finding my reality.
“You’re in luck, Finley and Grant are here. My driver was just bringing the car around. Can you be ready in ten?”
“What’s the plan?”
“Day at the beach. Some surf, a few women, my ball and chain included,” he added in reference to Sarah-Jayne. “As a matter-of-fact, she suggested inviting you along, but after I saw you at your cookout, I figured you were nowhere near ready for climbing back in the saddle.”
Frowning at his comment, I knew exactly what he’d implied, but I had to get out of the house. “I’m not, but being at home… I could do with a change of scene for a few hours.”
“Grab what you need and maybe a change of clothing in case we make a night of it too,” he suggested, and then we concluded the call.
Pulling on some board shorts and a basketball tank, I stuffed some clothes in a garment bag and headed downstairs. When I entered the kitchen to grab some water from the fridge I saw Harper sitting at the table reading.
“Hey, I didn’t see you there. I’m going out for the day and I probably won’t be back before Layla goes to bed. Can you make sure she calls me after school?”
Glancing up from the e-reader poised in her hand, Harper gave me a look of surprise. “Sure, going anywhere nice?” I thought for a moment I heard a note of disappointment in her voice.
“Max and Sarah-Jayne invited me to the beach,” I informed her. Why I let her think it was only the two of them and me I had no idea, but I left the kitchen without correcting myself.