Liam
As if in a trance, he left his room and made his way outside the slightly open door of his daughters’ room, the soothing words of the song like a siren’s call.
“Lay you down now, and rest, may your slumber be blessed…”
“Soft and warm is your bed, close your eyes and rest your head…”
He looked on as the heavy eyelids of both his girls slowly shut. In that moment of tenderness, he forgot himself. He forgot that Sunny was just the nanny, an employee brought into the house to do a job.
As the last haunting notes trailed off, Sunny looked up, surprise flitting across her delicate features at finding Liam watching with naked emotion on his face. The sadness in the crinkles around his brooding eyes seemed to shatter her calm resolve.
“Oh, Liam…” she whispered, unthinking as she rose from the bed and crossed the space between them.
Her small hands gently cupped his stubbly cheeks, the pads of her thumbs brushing away the shimmer of wetness gathering beneath his eyes.
Liam sucked in a sharp breath, his broad shoulders tensing beneath her consoling touch. But instead of shrugging her off with his typical reticence, he found himself leaning into her comforting embrace.
The floodgates broke again.
Great, heaving sobs racked his muscular frame as he crushed Sunny to him, burying his face in the crook of her neck as anguished noises ripped from his throat.
Aware that the girls had only just dozed off, Sunny quickly led him out of the room and into the TV den. She hugged him again. She seemed to sense that he needed to feel, to touch.
All of the pain, the incalculable grief Liam had been drowning in for the past months came bursting forth in hot, furious waves crashing against her.
Sunny held him close, murmuring soothing sounds and stroking his hair as he unleashed the torrent pent up inside. The salty tracks of his tears trailed down her chest, dampening the cottony fabric of her camisole as he clung to her.
It wasn’t just his wife’s memory that broke the dam.
It was everything — his lonely struggle to be a good father, the constant press of responsibility weighing on his shoulders, his relentless drive on the ice to stay on top of his game even as his body aged and betrayed him.
Life without Kate had been an exhausting slog, one he endured only for his daughters’ sake, knowing they deserved far better than his empty husk of a soul could provide.
Until Sunny.
The vibrant nanny had breathed new life into his dark recesses and seemed to reignite the spirits of his daughters with her infectious optimism.
And now, pressed against the delicate curves of her body, he was overcome by the scent of her.
The warm, feminine fragrance of coconut and honeysuckle enveloped his senses, conjuring fresh blooms and sultry summer evenings.
It was light and sweet, different from Kate’s preferred lavender, but equally potent in rousing long-neglected cravings in him.
As the sobs slowly subsided into shuddering breaths, Liam became hyper-aware of Sunny’s closeness. How soft her flesh was pressed against his heaving chest with each exhalation. How one of her hands had drifted to his wide back, tracing soothing circles.
He should pull away. She was his employee, a woman almost a decade his junior. But Liam couldn’t summon the willpower to break the connection, not now that she was this close to him. Not now that he had her in his arms. Finally.
Then Sunny tilted her face up, eyes glistening with shared sadness and… something else. Something heated and questioning as her gaze caught on his parted lips.
Liam froze, reason warring with the primal urge rapidly heating his core when confronted with her dewy beauty this close up.
It was Sunny who decided for them both, stretching up on her tiptoes to brush her mouth against his in a gossamer caress. A broken groan escaped Liam at the first electrifying brush of her full lips — an unexpected shock lancing through his brittle defenses.
This was reckless, inappropriate, everything his muddled brain railed against. Yet Liam craved that searing jolt of feeling, the blazing reminder that he was still a living, breathing man beneath the emotional deadweight he carried.
Reason was shattered.
With a low growl of surrender, his arms banded around Sunny’s trim waist, hauling her against his rigid frame as he leaned down and brushed his lips lightly against hers. She whimpered into the hungry exchange. He deepened his kiss, pressing his lips against hers.
Lost.
They were both utterly lost to the primal cravings, to the blistering heat consuming them as they kissed. Liam cupped his large hands around her back and lifted her into the air as if she weighed nothing, then gently placed her on the plush couch, laying her down.