*
Next day after his shift, Andrew moves Lucy's crib into my room. "Of course," he says, coming out, job done. "We'll have to move it back when I interview nannies. I'll need to change agencies if they don't come up with someone soon."
Did he have to remind me of how temporary this is right now when I'm feeling so happy? We hardly slept at all last night. He brought pillows and a quilt through and we lay on the floor in front of the fire. He didn't want us to part and neither did I. I can't help it. I've fallen for him. Hard. But does he not care it's going to end soon with his talk of nannies? I already care more than is healthy for me.
But then he kisses me and I am lost with his mouth on mine, his scent, his hard body against me.
When Lucy gurgles from her play mat on the floor, we spring apart like guilty teenagers and it's time to follow the routine, get dinner and settle her down in her crib in my room. This feels different. Different to the spontaneous combustion on the couch and the living room floor. We planned to do this. For some reason that makes me feel more nervous than ever. Once Lucy is asleep, I ask, "Okay if I take another bath?"
"Go for it," he says. "I'll come in and wash your back if you like."
And he does and I do like it, the hot water from the sponge running down my back, down my front. His shirt ends up soaked.
When Lucy cries out, he goes to her and I get out, dry myself and slip on a thin white satin robe.
"I wish I could keep you here forever," he says when he comes back, running his fingers over my nipples so they harden and show through the fabric. "I'd like to tie you down, so you couldn't go anywhere." It's as if he's answering my earlier worry about nannies. "But I can't do that to you. You have your whole life to live."
"Maybe I don't want to go anywhere right now, maybe I want to be tied down," I say fingering the sash from my robe, in what I hope is an obvious way.
"Is that right?" He grins at me. "Dirty girl. I like you dirty. I like you clean as well, fresh out of the bath, but I especially like you dirty. Let's see how dirty I can make you."
CHAPTER 18
Andrew
I pull the sash from Melissa's robe and she gasps. I don't know if she was serious or not about tying her up so I move slowly and deliberately when I take her hands and wrap the ribbon from her silky robe around them, ending with a simple bow. She could get her hands out easily enough if she wants. But it seems to me she's not trying to escape.
I lead her to my bed for the first time. It has a wooden frame with solid posts in all four corners. I lay her on the bed and raise her hands over her head.
"Is this what you mean by being tied down?" I ask as I tie the sash to one of the bedposts at the top of the bed. "You know, I'll be able to have my wicked way with you once I've got you tied up and I might just have to lick you until you beg."
Her giggling response is music to my ears, and when she tests the restraints, although they aren't that secure, she pretends she can't move.
"Do you want me to untie you? Just say the word."
She says "No," and shakes her head too as if I wouldn't understand either the word or the gesture alone. She doesn't want there to be any doubt. She wants this!
Spread out on my bed, her white robe has fallen open a couple of inches but I make a point of wrenching it fully open, baring her to my gaze. She gasps and writhes against the restraints. Fucking beautiful!
I get between her legs, spreading them open. "Maybe I need to tie these down too." I run my finger gently down the inside of her thigh. First one then the other. "What do you think?" She doesn't answer. She fucking wants this! But I need her to say it.
"You want me to tie your legs?"
She nods.
"Say it."
"Yes, tie them."
I grab a couple of neckties from my drawer. I don't wear them much. I can't think of a better use for them.
"Just gonna tie one here," I tell her and I tie one of her feet to the bottom corner opposite her hands so she's spread out right across the bed. She watches me, her breath shallow, a puzzled expression on her face but I don't let her stay wondering for long. "I want this one wrapped around me when you come."
I bend to take her in my mouth. It's as if I can never satisfy the craving I have for the taste of her, the sound of her whimpering as I suck, the female essence of her. I respond to every moan that leaves her lips with my mouth and tongue, licking, nibbling, entering, sucking until she calls out my name and arches her back. I feel her quivering with my mouth, my hands holding her thighs apart as she comes. That will never get old.
"Inside," she says. "I want you inside me."
I grab a condom within reach. I won't make that mistake twice. I slide into her slowly, though slow is the last thing I want. She's so fucking tight, I'd hate to hurt her.
"Harder," she says, "and fast. Fuck me hard."
I don't need telling again. I drive right into her, our bodies crashing together with a smack of flesh on flesh. I slide into her hard and sure, faster and faster, opening her to me, making her mine, all mine. I want to come right now yet I want this to go on forever. I plunge into her depths over and over until I can tell she's close again before I untie her leg and flip her over, pulling her hips higher so she's on her knees, her gorgeous ass in the air, her hands still secured to the top of the bed. I check she's okay.
"Yes," she says. "Like that. Take me like that."
Just as well because I'm so swollen, so hard, so fucking needy that I'm not sure I could stop. I want to fuck her six ways to Sunday, like a bull in the fields, primal and intense. She raises her hips a fraction and moans as if urging me on. It doesn't take much before I'm rutting into her from behind as hard and fast as ever, her hands gripping the bed post as I grab the soft flesh of her ass cheeks and power into her wet channel, never letting go until I feel her reach a peak around me and I grab her tight around the waist and hold still as I come deep inside her.
I untie her hands and pull her around so I can look into her eyes. Seeing the happiness there, I never want to look away.
"You okay?" I ask.
"Perfect."
"You are that," I say. Because she is. This is. Even if the circumstances we're in are not.
It feels like we belong together, Melissa, Lucy and me, but I can't keep Melissa here. She has a different future mapped out than the one she would have with me. She has her trip. Duncan expects her to return to work in his business. I have to grin and bear it. I have to get a nanny and let Melissa go on her way even though I know it will hurt. I will probably never see her again after she goes. But for now, she sleeps in my arms and it feels right she is with me and I am with her.
CHAPTER 19
Melissa
I can't believe I've been here two weeks now. I love being with Andrew and Lucy. I love this house. I love the little village. Looking after Lucy has been much easier than I expected, no trouble at all. And it's great to see Andrew smile when he comes home. I don't always have a meal ready for him if I'm busy with Lucy and he fixes dinner then. But sometimes I do and sometimes I bake for him and he loves that, says it reminds him of when he was a kid and he'd fight with his sister to be the one to lick out the raw batter left in the mixing bowl.
But I love it most of all in the night when there's no sound in the village and Lucy is sleeping peacefully in her crib and I'm in Andrew's arms, my need for him matching his for me. In the cool light of the morning, I blush thinking of the things we do with our bodies, our hands, our mouths, the things that I call out in the dark. Sometimes, Andrew looks at me over breakfast and smiles and I wonder whether he's thinking about those things too and I blush all over again, wanting him again, a bolt of desire running through me. My need for him never goes away.
He'll be on night shift soon, and I'll miss him in that big bed. But he'll have days off too, days when we can spend a lot of time together.
The village is so small, everyone seems to know everyone else. My second day here, I made a friend in the coffee shop that's also a grocery store and post office when I dropped in with Lucy to pick up a couple of things I forgot to get at the supermarket in Brampton Head. The girl behind the counter introduced herself and we started chatting. I ended up staying for an hour drinking coffee with Jasmine, seeing as Lucy was sleeping peacefully in her buggy, and so I've been dropping in there a lot ever since.
The next day, I met Andrew's neighbor, Beatrice, and she gave me a hug and welcomed me like she'd known me all her life.
"You look after those two," she said. "It's such a pity for the little one. I'd have liked to look after her myself but I can't get about as quickly as I used to."
I take Lucy to see her most days after that and when Beatrice's eighty-fifth birthday arrives at the start of my second week, I make her a cake and a card and we all go to see her. I can tell she's delighted. Her family emigrated to Canada and she doesn't get to see them often.
But no matter how much I'm enjoying living here it makes no difference. Andrew has lined up three nannies to interview today.
I think I got lulled into a false sense of security by how good our life has been together. As if we are in a bubble that circumstances can't affect. I think I managed to blot out that I'd be going in a few weeks and that it would be unlikely I'd ever see Andrew or Lucy again. In any case, my heart sinks when Andrew starts talking about nannies again.