Chapter 22 #2
“The library,” I said, recalling what I was talking about again.
“It was a safe place for me. So many books, all the books I could read. For free.” I shrugged.
“Old habits die hard. And I don’t have the bank account to buy a Kindle, let alone the books that I would stock it with.
Books are still free at the library, so I can read as much as I want.
And call me a purist, but I love holding a physical book, smelling it.
” I smiled shyly. “I would’ve pegged you as a Luddite too,” I added, in reference to his e-reader.
Because I was afraid to look at Beau any longer, I reached forward for the tablet that had been lying on the coffee table beside my library card. I loved how they looked beside each other. Like they belonged there.
Beau had been reading before work, Clara puttering with her dollhouse in the corner. He’d never left it in a common space before, and I’d stared at it for a long time after I’d put Clara to bed. The devil inside me wanted to open it, find out more about Beau by invading his privacy.
But I didn’t want to have to invade his privacy to get to know him.
“Can I?” I gestured with the tablet to ask permission.
Beau wasn’t looking at the tablet. He was staring square in my face. His head tilted slowly in a nod.
I smirked in triumph, a little forced because I didn’t know how to act. Beau’s energy seemed dangerous in an infinitely exciting way that made my nipples harden.
It only took me a second, a couple of taps to lose my breath completely. My heart skipped, then it felt as if it stopped completely.
“I’ve read all these books.” I squinted, looking at his Kindle library, my eyes raising to peer at him as I catalogued the titles. I’d read every one since I arrived here.
Heat crawled up my neck at a few specific titles. The romances. The spicy romances.
My eyes flickered to the icon that declared them as read.
Beau had read all the books I’d read. It wasn’t a coincidence.
Maybe a couple of the biographies could’ve been a crossover between our interests.
Maybe. But I doubted that Beau had independently chosen to read metaphysical self-help books, history about female rulers, or feminist bibles about reclaiming agency and strength.
And Beau definitely wasn’t reading romance just by chance.
He’d seen me. I’d let him see me. Every time I waited up for him, every time I had free moments, I’d been in shared spaces with my books.
Mostly because I liked to model that for Clara—people reading books instead of scrolling on their phone.
Not that she had anyone in the house doing that.
I very rarely saw Beau on his phone. It was a small detail that I found very endearing.
Waylon had been glued to his. And the couch.
I’d had to repeat myself countless times to get him to even acknowledge that I’d spoken, and when he did reply, he didn’t even lift his gaze.
Didn’t even give me the basic respect of looking at me when he was speaking to me.
As if I didn’t matter. As if whatever pulled him in that little phone was infinitely more important than his wife.
Beau looked at me. Every time we spoke. Every time I entered a room. I’d thought it was with mere annoyance. That he never really saw me. But things had changed since that pivotal night, and I was beginning to comprehend just how much was loaded behind those glares.
He saw me.
And he saw the books I was reading, buying them and reading them too.
My mind buzzed with what that meant, my heart racing in my chest. Slowly, I looked up at Beau, all the moisture evaporating from my mouth.
Again, he was looking at me. Centering me to the spot, to this earth. My breath caught at the tense way he held his limbs, the twitch in his jaw and the fire in his eyes.
Before I could entirely register what I was doing, the Kindle was tossed across the room. I noted the dull clatter, noticed that Beau didn’t so much as flinch, didn’t take his eyes off me.
Then I gently put my glass on the table. When I reached forward and took his from him, our fingertips brushed, and I felt fireworks.
As soon as Beau’s glass was set down beside mine, I turned, moving slowly, purposefully.
The wild, desperate, horny animal inside me wanted to pounce. Wanted to have as little time as possible between being apart from Beau and having my body plastered to his.
But I didn’t want it to be that—a furious, rushed moment that could be explained away as a one-time thing. I wanted Beau to know exactly what I was intending on. I was asking for permission, telling him what I was doing through my slow crawl across the sofa.
I was giving him the chance to stop it.
He didn’t.
I could barely breathe, and I could’ve sworn my heart had climbed up into my throat. My skin was on fire, my pussy had a fucking heartbeat.
Even as it was happening, I felt that I’d remember this moment until the day I died. Time stretched into eternity. I’d forever remember it as a split in my life. For better or for worse, my life would never be the same.
The moment was so quiet, so slow, that I could count my heartbeats. Beau sat frozen in place, his chest heaving visibly and his eyes blazing.
But then he wasn’t frozen anymore.
And life was no longer slow and quiet.
His hands went to my hips, and he dragged me on top of him, so I was straddling him. It was immediately clear how much he wanted me. How big he was.
I’d known he’d be big; he was the epitome of big dick energy. I’d seen the outline through his jeans, but feeling it was a whole other story. It scared me a little. Mostly, it just turned me the hell on.
I let out a sound that was a mix between a moan and a gasp as his hard cock pressed against the thin fabric of my PJs. Right into my pussy.
I almost came. From just that contact. From him being hard and magnificent, where I was soft and so vulnerable.
His other hand wrapped around the back of my neck, pulling me to him.
Finally, a voice inside me cried.
Finally, we would kiss. My lips ached for it.
But he merely laid his forehead against mine, breathing heavily, posture rigid. His cock was still pressed against me, and I longed to move, to grind myself against him like a dog in heat.
“We can’t do this,” Beau groaned, holding me tightly by the hips but not pushing me away. He was holding me plastered to his body. He was holding me like he never wanted to let me go. “You are my fucking nanny. I’m technically your boss.”
“Then fire me,” I said immediately. “Fire me. Then I’m nothing.”
Beau’s eyes flared with an intensity I didn’t think I had ever seen in a man before. Certainly not one directed at me. “You are not nothing, Hannah. And there is no way in fuck I’m firing you. I would not do that to Clara.”
The mention of Clara’s name dampened my arousal somewhat.
I still wanted Beau more than my next breath, and I knew he wanted me that way too.
Maybe more. But still, in the midst of this, while a woman he clearly wanted was throwing herself at him, he was thinking of his daughter. What was best for her.
And that just made him ten times hotter. Made me want him ten times more, if that were even possible.
I licked my lips, considering.
Beau let out a low growl, his grip tightening as he bucked his hips.
When his cock surged against me, I let out a moan as pleasure spiked through me from the contact.
“Fuck, Hannah,” he growled, leaning his head against mine again. “You’re making it really fucking hard to be the honorable man here.”
“I don’t want you to be honorable.” My voice was little more than a moan. “I want you.”
He gripped me tighter still, almost to the point of pain, then he was up, and I was delicately placed on my feet in front of the sofa.
My legs barely held me upright. But I managed, watching as Beau paced the living room like a caged animal.
He was battling. Even now.
There was no more battling. Not for me. I couldn’t go back to whatever had passed for normal. Not now.
“You’re not going to fire me.” I hoped I was right, my voice husky. “What if I quit?”
Even saying the words tasted bad, my muscles rebelling at the prospect. Not just
at the thought of not seeing Beau every day, of not waking up in his home. But Clara. I’d fallen so deeply for that unique, happy little girl. She’d healed the broken child I had inside of me without me truly realizing it.
He stopped to stare at me. To glare. “No way in fuck,” he barked.
I nodded blandly, even though watching him essentially unravel into a caveman was irresistible. Even though my panties were probably ruined.
“If you don’t fire me and I don’t quit, then I’m staying here.” I stated the obvious.
Beau nodded curtly, the movement violent, powerful.
The cogs turned in my head until I found the bravery to state my terms. “If I stay, I’m doing it in your bed.” My heart raced as the brazen words entered the air, and I watched Beau go still as he registered them.
“If I stay, I’m not doing some dance where we pretend we don’t want each other. Ignore this.” I waved my hands between us. “I’m done denying myself. I’m done watching you deny yourself. Torture yourself.”
I swallowed down my nerves, not taking my eyes off Beau, whose expression was unreadable.
“And this isn’t going to be just sex for me,” I added.
“It won’t work that way. I understand that there are a million and one ways for this to fail, turn messy.
But it’s already plenty messy. And I’m prepared to deal with the fallout if it doesn’t work out.
But I’m not going to be just the nanny you fuck. I want to be yours.”
I sucked in a huge, painful breath as I hadn’t so much as inhaled during that entire spiel.
Where I’d gotten the courage to lay out exactly what I wanted, what I needed, was anyone’s guess. But I was proud.
And equally terrified.
Beau could say no.
It was the sanest, most realistic answer to my proposition.
He wanted me, yes, sexually. But wanting to fuck me and pursue a very tangled, most likely doomed relationship was an entirely different kettle of fish. Beau was a man who took no risks, who made sensible, measured decisions.
I was not a measured decision.
He didn’t know all my secrets, not yet, but what he did know likely told him this was going to be complicated.
I prepared. For the rejection that I was half expecting. For the disappointment. For the validation that I wasn’t worthy.
Instead, Beau was across the room in two strides, tagging the back of my neck and yanking me to him. Our lips crashed together in a soul-destroying kiss. It was hunger, it was dedication. Devotion. Worship. Ruin.
All in one kiss.
You would think that given all the buildup, the indescribable energy between us, the kiss would be frantic. If I had been leading the charge, I knew it would’ve been. A desperate mix of lips, tongue, teeth.
But I was not in charge. Beau was. And I instantly surrendered to him.
I expected him to kiss me with the hunger that was painted in his marrow.
But his lips gently met mine, coaxing them open. His fingertips caressed the underside of my jaw, moving against my lips like we had all the time in the world. Like he was savoring every second, every tiny area of my mouth.
It was romance. It was reverence.
I was barely breathing by the time he broke it, maintaining his hold on me.
“Hannah,” he whispered. “You’ve been mine since the moment you smiled at my daughter, since you talked about Kurt Cobain’s poetry, since you shook my fucking hand.”
All I could do is blink at Beau, my breath leaving me in a whoosh and my ears ringing at the admission.
I might’ve hoped for it, dreamed for it.
But never could I have thought my hopes and dreams would come true.
I’d long buried them in damp dirt in Virginia, along with scraps of my childhood innocence and joy.
Beau wanted me.
I was his.
I had been his.
Since the very start.