Chapter 17
Kieran
brOTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER
please tell me my security camera is lying to me
KIERAN
your security camera is lying to you
brOTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER
Kieran you have your own kitchen…and your own groceries…and your own money to buy whatever you please
so tell me why the hell you were at my house stealing my cereal
KIERAN
yours tastes better
I’m cornering her in the kitchen, my arms on either side of her, locking her in my embrace. I brush my lips across the shell of her ear, smiling to myself as she shivers from the mere whisper of a touch.
“One word and I’m yours,” I purr.
Her head drops back to my shoulder, her chest rising and falling with her heavy pants. “I want you, Kieran. Always you.”
Spinning her, I clutch her face in my hand before trailing the other one down her body, over the swell of her breasts before slipping my hand beneath her skirt. “Only me?” I ask, my voice thick.
“Only you. I only want you to touch me,” she moans.
“Tell me you’ve been waiting for me.”
Her head is nodding frantically, her fingers clutching my shirt. “I have, I—” She gasps, her lips parting and her eyes widening as I slip a finger inside her. I smash my lips to hers as she groans inside my mouth, her hips rocking into my touch—
Gasping awake, with my dick painfully hard, I blink through the morning light spilling into my room.
Figures. The first night I sleep in my own bed I dream of Layla.
I want nothing more than to wrap my hand around my cock and tug but it only takes one look at the clock on my bedside table to know the woman responsible for it being painfully hard is downstairs right now with my daughter.
Ever since I found out Layla is a virgin, it’s been at the forefront of my mind, along with her list. Now that I know it’s all her firsts…
Fuck, this train of thought isn’t helping my dick go down.
Throwing the sheets off, I decide to take an ice-cold shower.
Running my hands through my wet hair, I find Layla in the kitchen with Emmy standing on her helping stool, Layla singing softly to the music playing from the speaker.
Leaning against the kitchen doorframe, I take her in for a moment.
My cock begins to twitch as she keeps that plump lower lip between her teeth, concentrating on whatever she’s cooking, and it’s in this moment that I truly realize how far gone I am for her.
Clearing my throat, I savor as both my girls turn toward me.
I plant a kiss on the top of Emmy’s head before moving to the fridge and grabbing a bottle of water.
“What has you so focused?”
Layla huffs. “Pancakes.”
“Pancakes?”
At hearing the humor in my tone, she spins to face me, cocking a hip. “Don’t laugh at me. I’ve never made them before and they keep burning.”
Glancing down, my lips twitch. “You have the stove up too high, sunshine.”
Her mouth pops open to form an O. “Too high?”
I dip my chin. “Too high.”
My hands grip the bench behind me, white-knuckling it as images of my dream come back to me. Maybe Layla’s right, I am a manwhore, because I’m watching her, the way her cheeks heat, and all I can think about is how in the dream she—
Layla’s phone buzzes on the bench beside me. Quickly averting her eyes, she moves back to the stove, turning the heat down. “Can you see what Bella said?” she calls over her shoulder. “I was texting her asking for help.”
Fuck, this girl has no idea how cute she is.
Shaking my head, I pick up her phone, only for my smile to drop and my heart to plummet. My skin turns clammy, the phone in my hand slick, and all I can seem to do is blink at it.
“Kieran?”
Layla’s voice sounds far away, as if I’ve started floating on a cloud. I’m no longer in my kitchen, just watching as a spectator.
Layla walks toward me and before I can try and compose myself, before I can get a handle on my emotions, I hand her the phone. “You have a date…Red.” It takes everything in me not to spit the nickname out, to not choke on the very thing she wouldn’t let me call her.
But she’ll let some twat from a bar call her Red.
Why couldn’t I?
I don’t know why it feels like I’ve swallowed acid. I don’t know why burning hot betrayal slices through my chest.
Layla isn’t mine.
She isn’t my girlfriend.
She’s just my nanny but…why does it feel like she’s mine and I’m hers?
Why does this fucking hurt so much?
She takes the phone from me and I get that telltale energy sizzling down my hand from the touch. I want to savor it but it feels wrong now, like I can’t feel this way around her. Almost like her touch has burned me, and I rip my hand away as if it has.
My chest starts to restrict, my hands shaking, and I know what’s going to come. I know what this feeling means.
I need air.
I need air.
I need air.
“I have to go.”
“What about the pancakes?” comes her soft voice and that softness shatters my heart and soul. Of course someone as kind, sweet, and caring as her wouldn’t be caught dead with a man whose own mother didn’t even want him.
“Just lower the stove temperature. Slow and steady wins the race,” I hear myself murmur, but my voice sounds detached. I feel detached.
This is all wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
“I have to go.”
I can hear her calling my name, can even hear Emmy saying Daddy, but I can’t face them, not right now. They both will see the utter devastation of my heart breaking across my face.
Before I know where I’m going, my legs are carrying me across the street with just one thought pounding through my heart.
Why am I never good enough?