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“Putting together an outfit out of the clothes she brought with her. Your sister is taking Ciara and her two boys to a local block party.”
“Brave woman.” The moment of relief he felt when he found out the problem was only about clothes did not last when he thought about the guys that would be at the block party looking at his pretty daughter. He told himself she was too young to even think about looking pretty for a boy.
Blake tugged him into the shower and he was glad his sister had given him a lemon-scented bodywash that had seemed too feminine at the time. He’d thought he would never use it, and just set it on a bathroom shelf, but, of course, Blake had found it and when she put some in her hands and started smearing it all over him, he knew he would be buying some more.
The scent would forever remind him of this sexy gorgeous woman and having her hands all over him. He washed her in return, even her hair, but he could not help detouring to lick her breasts, his hand going to her clit. Things got so heated up that Morgan was about to step out to get a condom, but she came so fast, it surprised him. He loved how responsive she was. Then Blake dropped to her knees and took him into her mouth.
Morgan had pictured her full lips on him so many times in this very shower when he’d had to use his hand on himself, but the reality was even better than what he’d imagined. She worked him until his legs were wobbling and she would not stop even when he warned her he was about to come. Nope, she lapped up every bit of him.
When he was able to catch his breath again, he sank down in a squat, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her like there was no tomorrow.
Last night had already been the best sex he’d ever had in his life. And he was no innocent boy. After making love on the sofa, they’d gone to the kitchen for a snack and ended up screwing on a kitchen chair with Blake straddling him. He loved that because he could hold her butt as she moved up and down on him, her arms around his neck, her breasts at the perfect level for his mouth to suck and nibble. They made love twice again in his bed, and then when they woke up spooning in the wee hours, he had to take her from behind.
Now, as they stood in the kitchen making breakfast, it felt so familiar and so right. They often cooked together and cleaned up together. In fact, they did so many things together each day that Blake had become an integral and important part of his and Ciara’s lives in only two months.
After last night he was not sure where they would go from here. But he was mature enough to know it could not stay in the “sexy fun” stage forever. Especially not with a woman like Blake. It would have to either get more serious or fall apart. And both possibilities scared the hell out of him.
Morgan set a mug of coffee with half and half and no sugar for her on the breakfast table in the kitchen. Yeah, he knew exactly how she liked her coffee. She fixed his toast with strawberry preserves and no butter, just the way he liked it. He put ketchup on the table for her scrambled eggs, even though he’d told her many times putting ketchup on eggs was a sacrilege. She always made sure there were either fresh or frozen blueberries in the house because he ate them every day.
After breakfast, they went outside, across the backyard, and descended the stairs leading to the beach. As they walked hand-in-hand along the Sound, Morgan realized he had never felt so content and so happy. Was it just the excitement of being with someone new? Could it possibly last if he and Blake became a couple?
Whoa. Put on the brakes, man.
Morgan was not anywhere near ready to take on the whole wife and marriage thing. And Blake not only seemed okay with that, she had also told him when he hired her that she would be trying to get a teaching job next year. The distress that surged through him at the thought of that happening—at the idea of Blake leaving—was a shock to him, but he decided it was way to early to even think about it.
Luckily she was a few feet away picking out some stones for a project Ciara was working on. So he made himself pause and slow down and stay focused.
Which Blake was apparently able to do, because when she walked back to him she said, “Have you decided whether or not to tell Ciara about our pretend engagement?”
He nodded, hoping Blake agreed with his decision. “I’m going to tell her not to answer the landline because it might be her mother or something important about the court case and it is better if she not get caught in the middle of it. Which is actually true. And no one can come on the property without going through the gate buzzer with the security camera. You and I monitor that, and Ciara’s knows not to let any stranger in.”
“All right.”
Morgan listened for any nuance in Blake’s voice that might reveal her disappointment that he was not going to let his daughter believe they were engaged. Or was it showing in Blake’s quiet response with no opinion offered when she usually had one? So he added, “I don’t want to risk hurting her. And whatever this is between us is so new…” He left it hanging in the air.
“I agree,” Blake said. “Telling Ciara might create unforeseen results that then create more problems down the road.”
He reached out his hand for hers. “Are we good? You and I?”
“We’re good.”
9
That week they went back to their work and school routine as if nothing had changed. On the outside, Blake was handling it well, but in the privacy of her room, she was mired in confusion and regret. She had crossed a dangerous line and was not sure she could go back. Even before last weekend, Blake had been crushing on Morgan something fierce. Now she had fallen for him, hook, line, and sinker. No two ways about it.
She tried to figure out if he was also feeling at least some of what she was but could not tell. So, instead of retreating to her room after Ciara went to bed each night, as had been her habit, Blake started hanging out in the kitchen or the TV room, hoping Morgan would join her.
And he did. They shared tea and snacks one night, another they’d had a beer, and they watched TV and talked. At first they kissed a little. But one of them usually pulled away before anything went too far. The strange thing was they had done everything in reverse. Running a household together and caring for a child together like a married couple had come first. Then came the romance and sleeping together. Now they were playing the “getting to know you” type of games that usually led to all of it. The kinds of things people did when they met and began dating.
Morgan was not a big talker, but she got him to explain about his work. That although he and his employees had to train in firearms and fighting arts, the goal was to never need the use of force. They had to anticipate issues so they could cover and evacuate the principal—that was the person they were guarding—and keep them out of harm’s way. And that environments played a role, a rock concert being different from a corporate conference or diplomat’s arrival.
One night she fell asleep on his shoulder while they were watching a boring thriller. Yeah, that sounded like an oxymoron, but Blake found most of the them boring and predictable and had to admit she and Morgan did not have the same taste in movies. He’d carried her to her room and when she woke up as he set her on her bed, nothing happened except him giving her a sweet kiss on her forehead and saying goodnight.
Even though they got along great when it came to caring for Ciara and sharing homey family dinners—and that he’d actually once told her she was perfect—Blake was beginning to see that the serious romantic relationship she had hoped for was not going to happen.
She could sense it now from the way Morgan acted toward her, keeping things more and more in the friend zone. And she had a hard time accepting the fact that what they’d shared was nothing more than one wild weekend filled with two days of almost constant sex and touching and intimacy, and now they were supposed to transition into being just two friends, one of whom worked for the other.
She chastised herself for so easily getting lost in fantasies of Morgan and Ciara being her husband and child and losing sight of her goal to find a teaching position. As much as she loved Ciara, Blake knew she could not go on like this for too long. Especially if Morgan ever got involved with another woman. It would shatter her completely. For now, she would pretend to be his fiancée whenever he needed that to help him with the custody case, but how long could she go on pretending she was not falling in love with him?
