Chapter 15 Evan
“Are you being nice to her?” my sister asks me over the phone, relaying the entire conversation to my mother, back in Wyoming.
“I’m not not being nice to her.” I stand outside the house, rummaging through my bag for my keys.
Flo’s legs had been rashy for too long for my liking, and I finally figured out that the laundry detergent I had used to wash her sheets must have been irritating her skin, since the hives were mostly just on her legs.
Until she then washed her clothes, and suddenly, she was red all over.
It seems to have worked because I was met with a relieved and grateful Flo the next day. I think she’s made herself enough iced matcha lattes to fill a lagoon, too.
Gracie hums. “Do you like her? I mean, you’re not immediately blabbing on about all the terrible things she’s done.” I can hear the smile in my sister’s tone. “Do you have a crush or something, Evan?”
“I’m a thirty-three-year-old man, Gracie. I don’t have crushes.”
My mother cackles from the background, and I just know these two are going to have a field day when this conversation is over.
“I miss you, my boy!” my Mom yells, followed by another laugh, and I can already tell they’ve both had a few too many old fashions—their drink of choice.
“I miss you, too, Mom.”
“Are you doing anything for your birthday?”
To be honest, I’d forgotten that my birthday is coming up. “No, definitely not.” I find my key and open the front door, and I’m immediately greeted by my son, dressed in a more than questionable outfit.
He wears a long red cape and a red T-shirt with muscle padding I got him last year for Halloween, and a maroon lacy bra over his head. The two cups cover his ears, and he holds them as he zooms around the room, making whooshing noises, one fist out in front of him as if flying.
Since Flo and Leo dropped Cheese off at a special rabbit sanctuary the other day, where they were promised they could come and visit anytime, my son’s been a crazy ball of energy, claiming he wants to be a superhero who saves all the homeless animals in the city.
“Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me,” I mutter to myself, but Gracie only laughs.
“What? Has your nanny finally done something bad?”
“She’s lending her undergarments to my son as toys. I have to go.” I hear my sister’s bellowing cackle for a second, but I cut the line and throw my phone and bag onto the couch, calling Flo’s name.
She appears in the kitchen doorway, apron on, hair up, looking much too like a wife and mother, and I grit my teeth together and ignore the fact that she looks good standing in my kitchen. It’s something I’ve come to accept I’ll probably never have—a wife.
“Oh, hey. We just finished making cookies. They’re sugar-free, so they might taste like crap, but I wanted to try them out.” She wipes a smudge of what looks to be chocolate from her cheek, smiling at me.
It feels too fucking normal looking at her like this. Why am I wondering what it would feel like for this to be my normal? Our normal?
“Daddy, look at my new earmuffs!”
That comment causes Flo to blow a raspberry, and she shoots my son a thumbs-up. “Looking mighty fashionable, my dude.”
I lower my voice as I say, “Why the hell is my son running around with your bra on his head?”
“He took it out of my bag and said it’d be perfect for his costume. I wasn’t going to take his new earmuffs from him.”
“They’re not earmuffs, Flo.”
“I know that, and you know that, but he doesn’t know that.” Her eyes hold amusement, and they shift down to my boisterous son rushing upstairs before she drags them back to me, cocking a brow.
“Trouble,” I mutter as I stare at the ceiling, shaking my head.
“All you cause me is trouble.” I look at her now, my jaw clenched.
“You shouldn’t just leave anything lying around for him to take.
What’s next? He’s going to pull a vibrator out of your bag, thinking it's some kind of weird-shaped rocket ship?”
Flo chuckles. “Don’t be ridiculous. I leave my vibrators in the cabin.”
My heart skips a beat. Images of Flo pleasuring herself with her toys in my cabin, just forty feet away from me, pop into my mind. And they’re stuck, filling every crevice. Every corner. Every cell. They immediately rush to my dick, and there’s no way of stopping them.
I bet she looks fucking mesmerising coming apart, but I’m not just imagining it happening in the cabin alone. I want her under me, nails scraping my back as she arches into my chest, her mouth forming my name over and over again.
Great. A pulsating boner is not what I need right now.
That was meant to be a joke.
Flo’s tinkering laugh brings me right back down to Earth. “What? Shocked that a woman actually pleasures herself?”
“No… I’m not.” I don’t get nervous, but I’m finding it harder and harder to stop the twisting and turning of my stomach. “I’m… just shocked we’re having this conversation.”
She runs a hand through the strands of hair flopping from her claw clip. “You started it, and to be honest, vibrators are usually better than men at finding the clit.”
This woman needs to stop. There’s no way she just said the word clit in front of me, and now all I can think about doing is crashing my lips to hers and showing her how much better than a vibrator I can be.
That glint in her eyes—sharp and amused—is burning hotter than it should, almost like she’s daring me to say or do something.
I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I know better, yet here I am, letting my eyes trace her body for longer than is appropriate, like a fool.
I don’t know why I ask what I do next. “Have you used them since being here?”
Flo’s blues widen briefly before they settle back into their usual almond shape, and her lip flicks up in a smirky smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I would. I really would.
“That’s why I asked, trouble.”
She purses her plump lips. “Yes.”
“In my cabin?”
“Yes.”
“God,” I grumble, scrubbing a hand down my cheek. My dick tightens. “Did you finish?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts up without meaning to, Flo flashes a mischievous smile. “Why? Worried about my sex life?”
“Did you finish, Flo?”
She gulps, eyes flickering with arousal. “Yes. I finished.”
My legs carry me towards her, and suddenly, I’m close. A little too close. “What were you thinking about?”
Her eyelashes flutter. “I don’t know if you want me to be honest about that, West. We’re trying to be professional, here.”
“Does this look professional right now, Flo?”
She smiles, playful and flirtatious.
And I’m so close to snapping.
“Can we play hide and seek?” Leo’s voice is loud as he appears behind me, and I inhale, taking a large step away from Flo as if she’s about to burn me. He gazes up at both of us with saucer-like eyes, his milky teeth on show as he beams.
“Sure, bud, let’s play.” I need the distraction. Badly.
“I’m sure your dad wants some time for you and him, so I’ll finish clearing up the kitchen and head back to my cabin. Is that okay?” Flo asks my son, who shakes his head with a pouted bottom lip.
“Please play. I want you and Daddy to hide!”
Releasing a laugh, Flo agrees, ridding herself of the dirty apron and placing it in the washer. Leo begins to count, and I put my hands over his and move them to cover his eyes—he has a history of cheating during hide and seek—before ascending the stairs.
I can smell Flo behind me, crisp and sweet, but I tell myself to get it together before I do something I’ll regret. Touching her leg back at Nathan and Mae’s house was probably already going too far, but just having my hands on her did more for me than any woman ever has.
I enter my bedroom and squeeze myself into the closet, which means I have to hunch down so my head doesn’t hit the top.
Leo continues to count, but the numbers sound jumbled up, since he only knows how to count to sixteen.
For some reason, he always says, ‘Fartteen’ after.
I have no idea where he learned that from, but I’d bet good money that it’s Bennett’s doing.
It’s almost pitch black in the small walk-in closet, except for the little crack where the two doors meet, which lets a sliver of light in. I hear more footsteps, closer this time, and then the closet doors fly open, revealing a giggling Flo.
“Move over.”
My eyebrows fly into my hairline. “What? No, there’s no room in here.”
“He’s coming.” She nods towards the stairs where I can hear Leo ascending. “Now move over because there’s no way I’m losing a game of hide and seek like this.”
There’s barely enough room to move, but I force myself aside, and Flo shuts the door behind her. Her shoulder brushes mine, her ass settling against my thigh as she stands in front of me, with there not being enough room for us to stand next to one another.
It smells like cedar and musk in here, but then her apple shampoo fills the air, and suddenly, it smells like her. A secret part of me hopes that her scent will rub off on my clothes, so I can smell her all day. Every day.
My eyes slowly adjust, and I glance down to see her peeking through the small closet crack before she peers up at me.
“This is the second time we’ve been in a closet together.
I feel like it’s becoming our thing.” Releasing a small laugh, she covers her mouth with her hand, realising Leo is padding down the hallways upstairs, calling our names.
Our thing.
It feel like I’m on fire. It’s taking all of my self-control to keep my dick from hardening as she brushes up against me, and I only just got rid of my boner.
I close my eyes for a second to breathe, trying to ground myself, and I reach up to brace my hands against the frame above us, fingers twitching.
I need something to do with my hands because I am a millisecond away from shaping her waist, pulling her closer to me and taking her up on that ‘practice’ offer.
“Your dick is rubbing up against my ass.”
My eyes snap open, and I swallow, feeling a frog in my throat. “No, it’s not. Your ass is rubbing up against my dick.” The words flow fluidly from my mouth, and my abdomen contracts with each syllable. “You’re really testing me here, Flo.”
“Why?” I can hear the smirk in her tone. “Tempted by something?”
“You have no idea, trouble.”
Her chest expands at the nickname, and I like the effect it has on her.
“Is that something you say to all your nannies? That they tempt you?”
My voice is barely above a whisper as I say, “No, but I’ve also never been dick-to-ass with one of my nannies, either.”
“I can turn around if it’ll make you more comfortable?”
Absolutely not. Seeing her sparkling blues right now will push me over the edge of the cliff, and I won’t be able to stop myself from kissing her. And once I’ve kissed her, I’ll want more.
“Don’t you dare.”
She titters in response, and we let the quietness hang after Leo’s footsteps die down.
“I think he’s gone,” Flo mutters, voice all breathy as she leans back a few centimetres—I can’t tell if it’s intentional—and places her shoulders into the space between my pectoral muscles. She fits so perfectly.
“Yeah, I think he has.”
Suddenly, the closet doors fly open, and Leo stands in front of us with the cheesiest grin spread on his lips. “Found you!” He does a little victory dance, holding his hand up for a high-five from both of us. “Okay, your turn to count!” His cape wafts in our faces as he rushes off.
Flo twists and glances up at me, eyes dropping down to my lips for a fleeting moment.
“You still have chocolate on your face,” I say as I instinctively use the pad of my thumb to wipe it from her soft skin. It’s so smooth, and her body shivers from my touch.
“Thanks.” Flo steps out of the closet, but I don’t fail to notice the way her eyes catch on the bulge in my pants, her face glowing as she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, teeth grazing against it.
“Don’t say a word.”
She holds up her hands defensively, cheeks balled up as she grins. “I don’t have to.”
“Okay, what’s got your panties in a twist?” My head inclines as I address Bennett, who’s sitting on the bench looking out onto the practice field, arms crossed and cap pulled down so far on his head that he’s almost eating it.
He’s sulking today.
His gruff response is, “Nothing,” as he focuses on Sam getting a quick calf massage from Cam across from us. He glares at me as I laugh at him, before howling in pain when Cam digs into a particularly painful spot.
“You’ve been moody since the evening at Mae’s, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bennett Quinn without a smile on his face. So, what’s the matter?”
“Don’t talk to me as if I’m your son. I’m not a child.”
“You sure look like one right now.” I nod to his slouched posture, pinched eyebrows and pouty bottom lip. “You’re reminding me of Leo when he doesn’t get his own way.”
“Maybe I’m making up for all the lost time I’ve spent not being a little bitch.”
That makes me chuckle, but I slap my friend on the back, hoist him up so he’s standing, throw his cap to the ground, and scruff up his almost black hair. “I can’t believe me, of all people, is having to cheer up someone else.”
Bennett sighs, scratching at the back of his neck as his lips tug in a smile. “You are a moody bastard.” But then he blinks. “West, man to man, if a friend of yours was putting themself in a position you don’t think is right for them, what would you do? Like, if you saw something that they didn’t?”
Well, that’s cryptic. “Um, wanna give me some more context?”
“No.”
“Ermm, okay, well, I’d probably say something to them? Tell them to get their head out of their ass?”
Bennett nods, but I can see him internally cringing. “I can’t say that to her.”
That sparks my interest. “Her?”
He clicks his tongue before grabbing his helmet from the bench. “I’ve already said too much. Forget this conversation ever happened, West.”
“Well, I’m not going to be able to do that, am I?”
Bennett claps my back as he pushes his helmet onto his head. “Sorry, can’t talk. I’ve got to get my head in the game.”
“Sure, whatever you say, Troy Bolton,” I mutter as he jogs back onto the field—Gracie’s favourite childhood film—rejoining the drill he’d taken a quick break from, leaving me furrowing my eyebrows in confusion.