Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Autumn
My stomach twists, just as I do in bed, unable to fall asleep despite how exhausted I am after the flight.
I didn’t tell them goodnight—another woman did.
I mean, Mrs. Schwartz is their nanny, who was great with Shayla’s brood, but still.
It should have been me, not someone the kids just met.
Did she know that Benjamin needs his back patted and the vibrations of her chest from humming to lull him to sleep?
That Sebastian needs to be held, but not too close, or else he’ll fight to get loose?
Did Mrs. Schwartz braid Josephine’s hair too tight?
Or was it all lumpy and uncomfortable when she laid her head on her pillow, and she’s just as awake and uncomfortable as I am?
Ugh. I’m being ridiculous.
Is this what Shayla felt each time she had to take Lainey home, leaving Grayson behind, before she and James were together?
This is exactly why I didn’t want to babysit kids that aren’t family.
I get emotionally attached, as we Fischers are prone to do, and as Josephine has to me—except multiply it by a million when it comes to all three of Forest’s kids.
I died a little inside each time I looked at my Josie, wanting to crush her in a bear hug, only stopping myself from doing so because Forest was watching us like a hawk. Asshole.
Dammit! See? I’m too attached, because Josephine isn’t my anything. “Terrible” wildly understates how I feel when it comes to her and her little heart, and I hate myself for breaking it.
I flip onto my back in bed and kick my sheets and comforter off with a growl of frustration, shoving the linens to the end of the bed.
It’s been three hours since Dad and I went to our separate bedrooms after sharing a silent room-service snack—well, he’d had loads of questions for me, none of which I could or was willing to answer.
If only I had been able to say goodnight, I’d be fast asleep by now…
Another half hour has me saying, “Fuck it!”
Tiptoeing out of my room with the keycard and my phone, I step into my satin house slippers and exit the suite, run down the hallway, then jam my finger over and over again into the elevator button until the doors slide open. Outside of Forest’s suite, I text him:
I’m here. Let me in.
His reply comes surprisingly quickly in the form of sweeping his door open for me, his hair sticking up every which way as he rubs his eyes. Was it hard for him to fall asleep, too?
I swerve around him, ignoring the way my belly swoops at the sight of his bare chest, tight abs, and thin pajama pants that don’t hide a damn thing. “I didn’t tell them goodnight.”
He croaks in a raspy voice, “Who?”
“The kids, asshole. Who do you think?”
He crosses his arms. “Try again.”
“The kids,” I say through a clenched jaw, forgoing another insult that’s on the tip of my tongue. “I want to check on them and tell them goodnight. Which room are they in?”
He points to a closed door on the left of the large living space decorated in creams and gold.
Using the flashlight on my phone, which I turn down to the lowest setting, I push into the room as quietly as I can.
At least three of us are sleeping peacefully, though Josephine looks like she might have been crying, her eyes slightly swollen.
She’s clutching a stuffed bunny rabbit close to her chest, which is likely damp with tears.
Carefully placing a knee on the queen-sized bed, I lean over and press a featherlight kiss on her brow, her braid much messier than one I would have made. I knew it!
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here earlier, Josie,” I tell her.
My heart speeds up when she stirs but doesn’t waken. I do the same with Sebastian, who’s lying beside Josephine, and I pull the comforter up, tucking them in tighter with the A/C blowing at full blast in their room.
Benjamin’s crib mattress is set lower than his at home, so I almost have to climb in, wincing when the railing groans, in order to lean down far enough to kiss his cheek, where he’s swaddled up nice and warm in his sleep sack. I drop my head, gritting my teeth when a flash goes off behind me.
“You freak!” I whisper-yell at Forest when I leave the kids’ room, shutting the door with barely a snick of sound behind me. I don’t need or want to wake Mrs. Schwartz and have her get all up in our business. “Give me your phone!”
He juts it high in the air out of reach. “No!”
I shove him backward, where he stumbles through an open door on the right of the suite.
When I try to shove him again, he sees it coming, dodging to the side.
I lose my balance and crash forward against the end of his king-sized bed.
When I scramble upright, I find him trying to leave, and I dart across the room.
Grabbing the waistband of his pajama pants, I haul him backward with surprising strength.
I shut the door quickly and engage the lock so he can’t escape again.
Breathing heavily, I slowly turn and press my back against the door, then make a show of kicking off my slippers.
Forest’s half-naked body is bathed in the pale moonlight slanting through the large picture window.
He skates his lusty gaze down my body when I sway my hips like I’ve seen Bailey do.
The hem of my silky, white pajama shorts is edged with lace that brushes the very tops of my thighs with each step, my matching cropped camisole ghosting across my heated skin.
“Forest?” I ask sweetly, craning my neck so I can look up into his eyes.
He swallows hard. “Yeah?”
My belly flutters when I press a finger to his chest and lightly drag it down his hard torso between his pecs.
Wow, that feels nice, and I want to do it again…
with my tongue. “If you don’t give me your phone…
” I smile and tilt my head, dragging my finger lower beneath his belly button, making him shiver.
“I’m going to tell everyone and their mama that you have a foot fetish. ”
“I do not!” he says, his pitch rising.
“Prove it.” I stop at his waistband, his abdominal muscles flexing beneath my fingertip. It’s nearly impossible not to look to see if his dick is hard. “Show me your phone, or the first person I’m going to tell is my dad.”
Forest suddenly collapses on the bed and rubs his forehead. Damn. I was kinda hoping he’d fight me a little more. Begrudgingly, he unlocks his phone and hands it over, then throws himself backward with an arm across his face.
I grin with victory when I pull up his photo app.
My smug attitude melts as I swipe through dozens of photos he’s taken since we met.
Only two are of my bare feet—one taken when I had fallen asleep in the nursery the first time I babysat.
The second is one I hadn’t known he’d taken at work, sometime after I’d gotten my pedicure, when I had been standing near him at the printer.
And of course there are a few of the expected photos of me bent over, because he’s a freak, as I well know, yet oddly, I don’t mind them as much as I thought I did, and I have the impulse to rub my thighs together.
What really draws my surprise is the number of sweet close-up shots of me with the kids.
My favorite is the one of Josephine’s bright smile when I was braiding her hair.
Another favorite is from that same night in the nursery, with Benjamin lying on my chest, his adorable chunky face totally at peace in his sleep.
The third is the one that really has my heart melting: it’s of me kissing Sebastian’s temple on the plane, our arms wound tightly around each other.
The last picture in his album is that of a selfie Forest had taken at some point tonight of him and the kids…
without me. I should have been here. If I had, maybe Forest and I would have taken our first photo together.
Maybe he even would have texted it to me, so I could look at it anytime I want…
“Forest?”
He slowly sits upright, bending over with his elbows on his knees, his hair falling forward to shield his face. “Let me put in my two weeks’ notice before you complain to HR, and I’ll go quietly. You won’t have to hear or see me again. Okay?”
“Sorry, that’s not going to work for me,” I say, locking the phone and tossing it on a small table to the side.
“Look, I know what I did is wrong, but can’t you at least give me—” Forest’s jaw drops open when he looks up just as I finish pushing my shorts and thong down. “Oh, fuck, angel.”
“I’d rather ride your face again than go to HR, if that’s okay with you.”
“Hell, yes, it is.” Forest lunges for me, grabs my waist, and lifts me off the floor. He’s much stronger than he appears, easily manhandling me, which I didn’t know I’d find ridiculously hot.
You learn something new every day.
Flinging himself backward on the mattress, he settles me on his chest. “Come here and sit—”
I cut him off mid-sentence, already grinding on his handsome face, my hands braced above his head. He may be a freak with a taboo fetish, but at least he’s my freak for as long as it takes for him to make me cum…which won’t take long, seeing as he knows exactly how to get me off now.
“Forest, baby, yes,” I moan quietly, gripping his head between my legs.
My mouth falls open with a longer, higher-pitched moan when he pushes a finger deep into my pussy experimentally, and that only makes it all the better.
“That’s it, baby.” I widen my knees, bearing down a little more. “Make me cum. Please, please, please.”
Forest is an enthusiastic partner, never growing tired as he massages my clit with his tongue, firming the pressure as he pushes a second finger within me. My favorite vibrator pales in comparison to the way he works the pleasure out of me.