Chapter 34
Mia
I TRULY BELIEVE IF someone told Jameson Knight—the man who carried a pistol like it was an extra appendage and took care of men like Trent easily—that he’d be spending his Friday morning with us arguing over bunny necessities, he would have had them evaluated for head trauma.
“Why does it smell like a barn down this hall?” His voice carried into the study as I placed the water dispenser onto the side of the wired cage. My classroom space did sort of smell a bit like hay, but there was no way he was going to object when he saw Franny’s face.
He stepped in, holding that steaming cup of espresso he always had, and wrinkled his nose. “Mia, I know I agreed to Archer taking you both to get this thing … but is it supposed to smell like that?”
Franny popped up from moving the shavings around. “Daddy, meet Wednesday!” She pointed excitedly toward the black bunny she’d picked out and beamed. “I think she likes her new home since she pooped three times already.”
Jameson blinked twice and then looked at me. “The rodent smells.”
I responded with a saccharine tone. “Your garage smells like oil and gasoline and is full of dirty metal bikes.”
“My Ducati isn’t just a bike.” He looked ready to fight. “And it doesn’t defecate in a room next to my cigars.”
“Your cigars in your office are just fine.” I held up a hand before he continued. “Don’t forget, you agreed to this.”
“I was emotionally blackmailed,” he grumbled, but Franny had picked up the bunny and walked over to her dad.
“Want to hold her, Dad?”
Before Jameson could say no, she was holding out the squirming ball of fur, so he had to take it. Nothing else could be done when Franny looked at him like that.
He sighed, muttering under his breath as he shot daggers my way before he set down his espresso and took the bunny. Never had I seen him look so uncomfortable. His posture was stiff, his brow furrowed, his arms outstretched. “She won’t stop wiggling.”
“Hold her bottom, Daddy. She’s a baby. She needs cuddles. Mia, hurry! We need a picture of Daddy and me with Wednesday.” She stood next to her dad and smiled big, pulling the rabbit close to Jameson’s stomach.
I grabbed my cell and snapped a picture just as Jameson’s eyes widened. “She just peed on me.”
“Really? I think that means she likes you!” Franny said, vibrating with excitement, swiping Wednesday back from her dad to go set her in the cage.
I walked up to Jameson and pecked him on the cheek as he told me, “Remind me again why we need a bunny.”
“According to Franny, I’m lonely in this house.”
“I’ll show you lonely in your bedroom tonight, Darling. You owe me.”
I patted his cheek. “Fine. You probably earned it by being such a good daddy.”
He groaned at my innuendo, but then his phone buzzed. He frowned when he read the text, and before even looking up, he stepped back and murmured, “It’ll be a late dinner for Franny and me. Valerie’s coming over.”
My world screeched to a halt. The record scratched, time stopped, and my bubble popped. “Everything okay?” How could I ask anything else? The words Are you still going to sleep with her? weren’t exactly appropriate considering he didn’t know I would listen to them before in the first place.
Plus, this was supposed to be casual considering there was a contract in place. I knew that. I’d told myself that time and time again, even though I was playing pretend that this was the perfect relationship half the time. “No worries. I’ll just eat here, or Archer and I can go grab—”
“Eat dinner here. I don’t see why he’s needed.” Of course he didn’t. His jealousy was warranted, but mine wouldn’t be.
So, I let him walk away and let the unease fester under my skin for the rest of the day. Franny and I took care of Wednesday, and I pretended my heart wasn’t in my throat while we had a tea party with the fluff ball.
When Rosy came to collect Franny, she eyed me warily and mouthed, “Talk later?”
She knew what I knew. Valerie was back.
As the sun dipped low in the sky, I sulked back to my bedroom and stared out at the trees. I’d have a life after this, one I could rebuild with my sister from a huge payday, but I wouldn’t have Franny. Or Jameson. Or whatever this imperfect life was.
And I hated myself for wanting it, for wanting something that was out of my reach. For wanting someone to want me the way I wanted them.
I’d wanted my parents to love me the way I loved them too. But that didn’t happen.
A sense of needing to belong hit me so strong that I found myself dialing my mother’s number.
Two rings. It’s as far as I always got before the call was ignored.
So easily, I was dismissed. So easily, I didn’t fit into their life.
I needed that reminder, and a reminder from Jameson too.
I could have covered the vent. Or gone to shower, but I sat there listening after I’d told Archer I didn’t need company and had eaten dinner by myself.
Sure enough, her laughter bubbled up through the vent, and she murmured his name affectionately. Immediately, my body tightened.
This was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong to be listening to them. I got up and stomped over to the bathroom to undress. I threw my clothes off angrily, frustrated that he was about to do what he always did with her. I could hear it in her tone, in how her laugh dropped low.
I shoved my panties down just as I heard his deep voice command something. I slammed the bathroom door because I knew that tone. Instead of turning the shower on, I snatched a towel to wrap around myself and headed back through that door so I could listen for just one more minute.
Maybe I’d hear something that would totally turn me off so I didn’t have to think about him with other women anymore. Hopefully, he’d call her a terrible name and that’d be the end of it. Sitting on my bed, I leaned toward the vent on the back wall.
“I know it’s been a while for us since you’ve been busy … but absence makes the heart grow fonder and all, right, Jameson?” She had that familiar rasp to her voice like she was ready for him to have his head between her legs, ready for him to take her roughly the way I was used to hearing.
“Does it, Val?” His tone sounded especially cruel tonight, probably because he’d missed having her like he always did.
He seemed to enjoy commanding her in a way he never did me.
“I’m not sure you missed me at all after I found out who you spent your time with a week and a half ago.
After hearing that information, I’m quite sure I didn’t miss you at all. ”
“Jameson, what do you mean?”
“You went to Trent’s the night I turned you away. Did you not?”
“I … Oh, Jameson. I’m so sorry about Trent. Please. I shouldn’t have ever talked with him. Just choke me, okay? Put your hands on my neck and shut me up if you don’t want me to talk. Come on. I want it. Please. Want me over your desk again? I’ll turn around. I’ll be quiet.”
There was silence, and it stretched so long that I imagined he might have been doing what she asked. I could only imagine if it were me, how he’d bend me over, how he’d stare at me, how he’d grab me right before he entered me.
But it wasn’t me down there in that office.
It was another woman.
I ran to the bathroom and turned on the shower to scorch my skin, to try to gain control of the anger. If he wanted someone else, I didn’t need him, I told myself.
Instead, I could get myself off. I plunged my fingers inside myself as pleasure but also jealousy coursed through me.
I hissed at how easily my fingers slipped in.
My emotions pumped adrenaline through my veins and unhinged some part of me that I couldn’t control.
I almost growled when my thumb moved over my clit in the same way he would have done for me, and then I moaned at the feeling of imagining his fingers instead of mine pumping into me.
I thought of him, and I couldn’t stop. It was the mixture of emotions I’d been trying to avoid.
I knew I shouldn’t have any sort of feelings for him.
He was supposed to just be my boss after all, but they were growing in me all the same.
I pushed myself closer and closer to the edge, not able to think of anything but his piercing, blue-eyed stare.
I lost myself in the tornado of pleasure that was laced with a fear that I’d fallen too far with him already. But the white-hot euphoria that came with thinking his fingers were curling into me instead of my own caused an orgasm to lash through me so fast that I nearly blacked out.
With my breath coming much too fast and the water running cold over my body, I heard someone pound on my door.