I make a garbled, choked huff, buoyed by the teasing tone in her voice and the fact that she wiggles her toes. If we were alone, I’d ask if she’d allow me to massage her feet with some lotion, then her calves and her thighs, and finally her clit. Fuck, it’s so hot to imagine.
Autumn seems to startle, perhaps forgetting she’s angry with me, for reasons I still don’t understand. The second she looks up at me, she scowls. “Pretend I didn’t say that.”
“Nope,” I say, leaning back against the changing table with my arms and ankles crossed, watching the angel rock my youngest son to sleep.
As I thought she might, her eyes begin to drift shut. It’s only minutes later that she and Benjamin are fast asleep. Quickly running to tell Josephine to wait a few more minutes, I get my phone and return to the nursery. I gently move Benjamin to his crib, then get a few close-up shots of my angel with my camera. If Josephine wouldn’t be so disappointed, I’d leave Autumn where she is.
“Wake up, angel,” I whisper, cupping Autumn’s cheek,even daring to steal a small kiss on her lips before her eyes finish fluttering open.
“No more of that, BigDawg,” Autumn says with a yawn.
“No promises.”
She rolls her eyes, arching her back when she stretches her arms high above her head after I help her from the chair. The belt on her robe comes loose, revealing a tiny, silky pajama top that hardly covers the lovely swells of her breasts.
Autumn catches me staring, for which I make no apology before silently following her down the hall to Josephine’s room.
“Finally!” Josephine says, sitting cross-legged on her bed with her watercolor pad on her lap, having painted another family-style picture of the five of us. “That took forever!”
Once Autumn finishes braiding Josephine’s hair into the most complicated braid—a carnation? Coronation? Something like that—I quickly catch up to Autumn in the entryway. I spin her around and slap my hands over her shoulders against the front door.
“What things?” I ask.
“Let me go,” Autumn says, crossing her arms beneath her breasts, pushing the material of her top down enough that a sliver of her right nipple peaks above the collar.
I want to tug the hem down to bare her breasts, then take her nipple in my mouth. Get her so worked up that she begs me to take her to bed, where I’d keep her all night long. I step closer, my toes butting against her slippers, which I wish she hadn’t put back on. The pair she’d left in my hotel room is currently hidden in my closet, and I have no plans on giving them back.
“You said we wanted different things. I’m not letting you go until you tell me what those are,” I say firmly.
Autumn works her jaw before lifting her chin. “I don’t want to have to take another one of those pills because the man I’m casually fucking is irresponsible. Now move.”
I react as if I’ve been struck. “Casually fucking?”
“What else would you call it, BigDawg? I mean, the sex was hot, but it’s not worth making either of our lives ‘harder’ by accidentally getting tied down to each other for the next eighteen years.”
I can’t move a muscle, reduced to ashes by her words. Tied down? Would she really find being with me so awful?
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says with a sneer when I can’t respond fast enough, and she successfully shoves me away, escaping through the front door.
Chapter Fifteen
Autumn
The office is as tense as ever. Forest and I have been on our best behavior since the meeting with my dad, assuring him that we were perfectly capable of maintaining a civil, professional relationship and that there would be no further problems. With my eye on being promoted to Senior Advisor in a few years, and eventually taking my dad’s position when he retires, I’m not risking my job or reputation by carrying on with someone who, beyond comprehension, has so easily been able to get under my skin. I’ve done enough damage as it is.
And so, over the past week and a half, outside of completing the tasks required of me, I’ve done everything to ignore Forest and the way he trails his eyes up and down my body, pausing on my stomach, whenever I walk past his desk. The only time my resolve falters is when I go to his house to help put the kids to bed.Hiskids, not mine, as I remind myself every time I cross the street and step through his door. I’ve set a dangerous precedent. I know that. Mom knows that. Dad definitely knows that. But there’s no fighting how much I carefor Josephine, Sebastian, and Benjamin, so I don’t even bother trying.
I snap my laptop closed to hide the wallpaper I’ve set on my screen of his kids playing in the backyard when Forest ventures to my side of the office, coming around the left side of my desk and standing way too close for comfort. I don’t want him to see the wallpaper. Neither do I want him to see how much I appreciate his rugged look in his cable-knit sweater and pressed, dark blue jeans. He’s dressed down for Casual Friday, so his thick, golden hair isn’t combed back as tidily as usual. I want to run my hands through it so badly that I physically have to sit on them to stop myself from doing just that.
I keep my gaze averted when Forest sets the stack of papers I’d just printed for him on my desk. With one large hand gripping the back of my chair, he bends and taps his index finger on a column of figures he’s highlighted.
“Looks like there is a new account that was mislabeled. The Carsons should only have three college savings accounts.” He drags his finger to another highlighted cell. “And when did Mr. Carson’s life insurance double?”
“When Mrs. Carson found out their social media manager’s baby belonged to Mr. Carson.” What an interesting phone call that had been. “Mrs. Carson gave me the whole story of how she had hired a private investigator when her husband suddenly started getting spray tans, traded in his truck for a sports car, and took up ‘hot yoga’, though his gear never showed any signs of use.” They may play the happy, down-home couple in front of the camera for all their followers, but I’ve since learned that their lives are much different behind the scenes.
“Wow,” he says, shifting so that his thumb brushes my back.
I lean forward to escape his touch. “Mrs. Carson said shefound it easier to forgive him if she had another few million dollars coming her way once he dies. You know he has that lung condition.”
