Page 90 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

Lucy took the pin out. She held it between her fingers and looked at it, then reached past Carrington and set it on the nightstand. She came back and found the next one. The second pin loosened the updo enough that a heavy strand of near-black hair dropped against Carrington's neck. The hair was warm against her neck where it had been pinned. It fell to her shoulder.

Lucy took her time. There were five pins. She removed each one with the same careful slowness, setting them in a row on the nightstand next to the first, and with each one Carrington's hair came down further until it was loose to her collarbones, heavy and dark against the gray silk of her blouse. Lucy's fingers combed through it, and Carrington closed her eyes.

"Open your eyes. I want to see you," Lucy said.

She opened them.

"I want to see you properly. In the light. Both lamps."

Carrington's jaw tightened. She felt it—the old reflex, the one that said dim the lamp, turn the shoulder, pull the robe closed. Being seen—actually seen, head to foot, nothing hidden—made something clench in her chest that had nothing to do with desire.

She didn't dim the lamp or turn away.

"Take this off," Lucy said, touching the top button of Carrington's blouse. A small, mother-of-pearl button. One of six.

Carrington reached up and Lucy caught her wrist.

"Actually, let me."

Lucy undid the first button. Then the second. The fabric parted in a V that showed the hollow of Carrington's throat and the upper edge of a plain black bra. Lucy's fingers were warm and certain, and they didn't fumble. The third button, then fourth. The blouse opened to the waistband of Carrington's tailored trousers, gray, pressed, still perfectly creased even at this hour.

Lucy pushed the blouse off Carrington's shoulders. It slid down her arms and caught at the wrists where the cuffs were still buttoned, and Lucy undid those too, one and then the other, and the blouse fell to the floor. Neither of them picked it up.

Carrington stood in her bra and pants with her hair down and her arms at her sides and both lamps on. She could feel the light on her skin like something tactile. "Now you."

Lucy pulled the cardigan off in one easy motion and dropped it on top of the blouse. She started on her own button-down, but Carrington reached forward and moved her hands away.

"I'll do it."

The buttons on Lucy's shirt were larger, plastic, and unevenly sewn. Carrington undid them one at a time and tried to keep her fingers steady. She had not been steady the first time, on the cottage floor, or the time before that in this room with only the nightlight. She wasn’t steady now, but she didn't stop. The shirt opened and underneath was a white cotton bra, simple, nothing expensive. The skin beneath it was smooth and slightly flushed from the warmth of the room.

Carrington pushed the shirt off Lucy's shoulders. Lucy let it fall. She reached for Carrington's hand and held it, palm against palm, and her fingers were tracing the lines of Carrington's palm and the veins visible at the wrist.

"You're shaking," Lucy said.

"I know."

Lucy lifted Carrington's hand and pressed it flat against her chest, above the bra line, where her heart was. Carrington could feel it beating, quick and even, quicker than Lucy's face suggested. Lucy's face was calm. Lucy's face was always calm. Her heart was not.

Carrington undid her own pants. She pushed them down and stepped out of them and stood in her bra and underwear—black and plain, matched because she had chosen them this morning without knowing she would be seen in them, or maybe knowing, or maybe hoping. Lucy looked at her legs. Carrington's legs were long and pale, and she could feel herself wanting to cross them, hide them, sit down, or pull a blanket over her lap. She didn't.

Lucy unbuttoned her jeans. She wiggled them down her hips and stepped out of them and kicked them aside. She was in white cotton underwear, her bra, and her bare feet. Her hair was falling everywhere, and she looked like she owned the room.

Carrington reached behind her back and unclasped her bra. She let it fall off her shoulders. Her breasts were small and soft, and she was aware of them in the light, aware of the way the lamplight caught the skin, the nipples tightening in the cooler air. She dropped the bra on the chair with the coat.

Lucy unclasped her own bra and tossed it toward the chair. It missed and landed on the floor, but she didn't go pick it up. Her breasts were fuller, heavier, and they moved when she moved. Carrington wanted her mouth on them.

Lucy hooked her thumbs into her underwear and pushed it down and stepped out of it. She was naked, and Carrington looked at her. All of her. The soft curve of her belly, the dark hair between her legs, the strength in her thighs, the way her hips were wider than her waist in a way that made Carrington's hands want to fit around them. She looked and she didn't pretend she wasn't looking. Carrington pushed her own underwear down. She stood up, naked.

"Come here," Lucy said again.

Carrington went. Lucy put her hands on Carrington's hips, thumbs resting in the hollows above the hipbones, and pulled her close until their bodies touched — breast to breast, belly to belly, the brush of hair between Lucy's legs against Carrington's thigh. Carrington was so much taller that she had to curve down, and Lucy had to tip up. Their mouths met at an angle that wasn't quite right until Lucy's hand came up and held Carrington's jaw and tilted it.

The kiss was slow. Lucy kissed with her mouth open and her tongue touching Carrington's and then pulling back, then returning, and her hands moved from Carrington's hips to her waist to the small of her back where the skin was sensitive and thin and Carrington shivered.

Carrington's hands found Lucy's hair. She sank her fingers into it and the citrus smell was stronger now, closer. Lucy made a sound against her mouth, a low, soft sound, not a moan exactly, more like a hum, like something warm and involuntary.

The sound hung in the room.