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“I want you to do it.” Katie grabs my hand so that she’s holding on to each of us now. “Please please please? I’ll eat all my dinner if you do it. Please!”
Maren’s eyes meet mine over Katie’s head.Please please please kindly but firmly tell my daughter no.
Please say yes?—
I shove that thought from my head. I absolutely, positively do not want to put my hands on my nanny. Nope. Not at all. It’s weird and wrong andwhyis my pulse thumping like this?
“If your dad is okay with it,” Maren says. “And you have to poop in the potty next time you need to go.”
Katie bounces on her tiptoes. “I poop in the potty.”
“You really don’t have to,” I say to Maren.
Maren shakes her head. “It’s really okay. I miss flying. And if it makes Koala Bear happy, well...”
Right. This is about Katie.
Now would be a great time for my timer to go off. Surely the broccoli is almost ready?
I run a hand over my face. “Um.”
“To the stars,” Katie says. She is bursting with excitement. “Do her, Daddy, do her!”
Clenching my jaw, I take a deep breath through my nose. Will my pulse to steady. I did two tours in Afghanistan, for fuck’s sake. I can do some cheerleading moves for my kid, no problem, even if she is making accidental sexual innuendos along the way.
I can do this.
I repeat those words to myself as I force a grin. “Okay. Just once.”
“Just once,” Maren says to Katie. “Then how about we set the table for dinner?”
Katie nods enthusiastically. “But you fly first.”
Maren’s cheeks are definitely pink as she looks at me. “All right. So I’ll stand here...” I move right at the same time she moves left. Her shoulder collides with my chest, her handbrushing my stomach. The scent of fresh-cut flowers fills my head. Her perfume? It’s too delicate to be shampoo.
Whatever it is, it’s sexy, and I like it. Pressure builds in my core.
“Sorry,” we blurt in unison.
Maren laughs as she carefully steps in front of me, her back to my front, her fists on her hips again in that fucking adorable cheerleading stance. “It’s okay. I haven’t done this in a minute, so I’ll do my best to stay as stiff as possible.”
For the love of God, can you not say that word?
“Put your hands here,” she motions to her waist, glancing over her shoulder but not meeting my eyes. “You’ll have to keep your grip relatively firm so you can lift me.”
I silently gulp for air as I step forward so that our bodies are... way too close. Is the air conditioning not working? Jesus Christ, I just had the unit for this floor fixed. It should be pumping ice cold air. But I’m sweating fucking bullets.
“Go, Daddy, go Daddy, go, go, go Daddy,” Katie is chanting.
I close my eyes. The things I do for this kid.
Opening them, I do as Maren told me and put my hands on her waist. She’s so tiny and my hands are so big that they almost wrap all the way around her body. A shockwave of... something rips through me. Flexing my fingers, I wonder how she can feel so soft and so strong all at once.
“See how I keep my body straight?” Maren asks Katie, apparently oblivious to the desire roaring to life inside me. “Now it’s easier for your daddy to lift me up.”
I clear my throat. Give the very short leash I keep that desire on a mental tug. “Do I, uh, just pick you up and lift you straight up, or...”
Maren cuts me a saucy glance over her shoulder. “Unless you want to toss me all the way into the air? I’ll need ten or so feet to do a split.”
