Heat of the Moment (6 page)

“Relax, it's okay. Breathe, just give it a minute.” He squeezed his eyes shut and the muscles in his jaw ticked, while his neck muscles corded and throbbed.

She took a breath, and then another, and the pain subsided and was replaced by the need to move. She squirmed beneath him and he groaned as he slid out with tortuous slowness.

She locked her ankles around him and a voice in her head screamed, “No.”

Maybe it wasn't just in her head, because his laser-blue gaze locked with hers and he said, “I'm not going anywhere.” His hands grabbed her hips and he slid back in, deeper, harder.

She raised her hips and met him thrust for thrust, and, God help her, it was happening again. With every thrust of his hips, the energy gathered and filled her until she felt herself flying, shattering, crying out into his shoulder.

He buried his face in her hair and let out a growl, then collapsed on her and rolled them both over onto their sides, still joined. The movement sent a wave of sparks cascading through her. She slid her leg over his hip to draw him closer and kissed him.

Cam pulled Erin tighter against him, all her soft parts melting into his hard ones, the intense heat still surrounding him. Bliss, heaven, so wet. Skin to skin. “Oh God, no.” His eyes shot open and he felt the blood drain from every part of him.

“Cam? What's wrong?”

“I didn't think. This was a mistake.”

She shifted away.

“I've never done this before.”

Erin reached down and pulled the sheet up over her. “Done what, exactly? I find it hard to believe you've never had sex before. After all, you have a seven-year-old daughter.”

“I've never had unprotected sex. With my daughter's nanny, no less.”

“Nurse.”

“Whatever. God, what was I thinking?”

“You've never had unprotected sex?”

He shook his head. “Janie is the result of a broken condom. God, I can't believe how stupid—”

Erin raised a hand to stop him. “It's okay. I'm on the pill and I'm clean. I'm tested every six months, not that I've—anyway. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, thank God. Firefighters are all regularly tested too, so no worries on that front at least.” He fell back onto the bed—he'd just had sex with his daughter's nanny. He'd just turned into the world's biggest cliché. But the worst part about it was he couldn't wait to do it again. “Erin?” He looked at her then.

She recoiled. “Look, it's fine. It was a mistake—one that won't happen again. So let's just move on, shall we?”

“Move on?”

“Yes. I think that would be best. So, if you wouldn't mind—” She looked toward the door as if she were gathering courage to tell him to leave but she stopped. “Let's just pretend it never happened.”

He reached to pull her closer, but when he saw the do-not-touch look on her pale face he dropped his hand. God, he'd royally screwed the pooch this time. “Erin, come on. We need to talk about this.”

Her eyes looked glassy, or maybe it was just the play of light. He hoped it was the light. He hoped she wasn't holding back tears, and he hoped even more that if she were, she wouldn't lose the battle. He'd rather fight a five-alarm blaze with a sprinkler hose than face a woman in tears.

“I think we've already talked it to death.” She let out a laugh that contained no humor and stood, pulling the sheet around her, leaving him lying there naked, and then skirted the bed on her way to the bathroom. “Good night, Cam.”

“Erin.”

She closed the bathroom door and locked it.

It wasn't that easy to get rid of him. He stomped over and knocked on the door.

No response.

“Erin, open the door.”

Nothing.

He considered his options. Hell, one good shove and he'd be through the damn thing, but he couldn't very well break into his nanny's bathroom. “Erin, I'll leave now, but this is not over.” He heard the shower turn on. “Fuck.”

***

Makeup could only do so much, and Erin was by no means an artist when it came to applying it. She did her best to cover the bags under her eyes, but the bloodshot lines that streaked like lighting through them were beyond masking. She needed Visine—the big bottle.

She took one last look at herself and went downstairs, determined to pretend nothing had happened the night before. As long as Cam played his part, she'd get through it.

Erin couldn't believe how stupid she'd been.

What had she thought Cam would say? Yay, me. I slept with my employee?

But that was the whole thing—she hadn't thought.

She'd done nothing but feel. And everything about being with Cam had felt so right. That was, until the words “Oh God, no” speared the bubble of elation and happiness that had surrounded her. Proving that she'd never been so wrong about anything in her careful, ordered life.

She had another three weeks of living under the same roof with Cameron O'Leary pretending nothing happened, that his words hadn't echoed through her, making her feel hollow and used.

Another three weeks of living in a home with a family she wasn't a part of.

Another three weeks of being nothing but the help and playing fifty-card pickup with the remaining shards of her self-respect.

Cam's words had bulleted through the locked bathroom door and ricocheted around her mind all night long: “This is not over.”

She took one more look at herself in the vanity mirror. The makeup looked like a mask. She debated making a run for the front door. It was her day off—she could skulk out, go back to her apartment, look through her mail, and maybe take a nap. But no, she'd admit to being a coward, but not that big of a coward. Just big enough to wait until she'd heard Janie clop down the steps toward the kitchen before leaving the sanctuary of her room.

She wasn't proud of it, but would grudgingly admit to using Janie as protection. She wasn't up to facing Cam alone. She wasn't up to hearing the excuses, or worse, the apologies. She wouldn't be able to avoid it for long, but she'd avoid it for as long as humanly possible. Dog years would be better.

Erin swallowed back her nervousness and stepped into the kitchen. Cam leaned against the counter beside the coffeepot.

Janie slid out of her chair and right into Erin's path. “Erin, you're finally up,” Janie said with an excited bounce. “Are you coming with us to the park after breakfast?”

“No, sweetie. I wish I could but it's my day off and I have other plans. But you and your dad will have fun. It's a beautiful day.” Erin hadn't looked at Cam, but she felt the heat of his gaze.

“Coffee?” Cam asked.

She checked her watch and shook her head. “Actually, I'm running late so I'll just go. Have a nice day.”

She waved a hand and turned.

“I'll walk you out. Janie, eat your breakfast, I'll be right back.”

Erin didn't slow down, but Cam caught up to her before she could shut the door. “Are you running late, or just running?”

“What I do on my day off is none of your business.”

“When will you be home?”

Home. His home, not hers. She realized then that she'd never really had a home. Sure, she and her mother had lived in plenty of places, but not one of them was a home—not the kind of home Cam had with Janie. “Do you give your employees curfews?”

He winced. “I was just wondering if you'll be home for dinner.”

She wrenched open the door of her car and climbed in, jamming her key into the ignition. “No, I won't.”

He stood there, holding door. “Erin, look—”

“No, you look. I'm off the clock. If you want to talk to me, you can do it on your own time—not mine.” She tugged the door closed, though she knew if he wanted to keep her there, she'd never have the strength to fight his hold.

She was thankful Cam gave in and took a step back from her car. She drove off, watching him grow smaller in her rearview mirror, his hands stuffed in the front pockets of his jeans, staring as she fled.

***

Cam knew Erin was mad. He deserved it. Could he have fucked things up any worse than he had? He didn't think so.

Maybe Erin would get over her anger enough to talk to him when she came home. He didn't know what he was going to say, or how he'd make things right, but from the way she'd run out of there, it looked to him like he'd have plenty of time to think about it.

He'd been up all night listening for her footsteps, afraid she'd leave and never come back. Not that he could blame her. The worst part about it was that he knew he'd hurt her. He hadn't meant to, but he had. He'd been so panicked when he'd realized he hadn't protected her. He would never intentionally put a woman at risk. And when he thought he had . . . well, he'd lost it for a few seconds, but that was all it took to destroy the most amazing sexual experience of his life.

“Daddy? How come you're standing in the middle of the street?” He blinked, focused his eyes on Janie, deftly erasing the vision of Erin wide-eyed and naked, straddling him. Janie leaned out of the door, one arm holding the doorjamb and the other the storm door, feet on the threshold, her little body bowed out.

“I don't know.” He started back across the lawn, feeling more fatigued than he'd like to admit. He was used to being up all night. He was even used to constant stress; neither was new to him. But today his exhaustion was different—it was as if someone had parked a fire truck on his chest.

“You've been out there forever. I poured milk on your cereal and it's turned to mush. You said you'd be right back. Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.” He sat at the table in his new spot—the spot across from Erin's. In the center was a vase of fall flowers. He wondered where Erin found a vase. He hadn't known he'd even owned one.

Janie had set the table, a folded napkin sat on a placemat to the left of his bowl and a tablespoon to the right. Placemats that Erin had found somewhere in her hours of reorganizing his house.

In the week that Erin had been there, she'd somehow managed to leave her mark on every place he looked. She'd been a whirlwind, rearranging everything from the hall closets to his bookshelves—hell, even his medicine cabinet wasn't off-limits.

Erin claimed it helped her think when she was stuck on her thesis.

He'd spent one very enjoyable evening watching her thoroughly trash his office. She'd emptied the wall of bookshelves while wearing yoga pants.The waistband and hem of the tank she wore didn't quite meet, leaving a few inches of smooth and muscular stomach exposed. All her bending and twisting and stretching and reaching had him grateful the newspaper covered his lap. She eventually returned all the books to the shelves using her own form of the Dewy Decimal System he termed the Erin Crosby Color and Subject System. He had no clue how to find anything but it sure looked pretty—just like her. His office became awash with a riot of color and life, something he realized Erin added to everything she touched—including him and Janie.

In between his books, he had found a rock she and Janie had picked up at the stream they'd sat beside while having a picnic lunch on a nice day. He had also spotted an old blue Ball canning jar filled with colorful buttons Janie had collected that they sometimes used during math lessons. On his desk sat an art project, a small cardboard box they'd glued colorful fall leaves onto, shellacked, and filled with pencils and markers.

“Daddy?”

He hadn't noticed, but he must have been staring off into space. His attention snapped back to Janie. “Janie?”

She wrinkled her nose the way she did whenever she was trying to put pieces of a puzzle together. “Did you and Erin have a fight?”

He'd never been so tempted to lie to his daughter before. All through her illness, he'd told her the truth. He might not have volunteered information, but he refused to lie when answering her questions. “Not so much a fight, just a case of bad communication—she misunderstood something I said and it hurt her feelings.”

Janie nodded looking like she was seven going on seventy. “Did you say you're sorry?”

“I tried to explain, but—”

“She drove away. Yeah, I sorta kinda watched.”

“It's not nice to spy. I told you to eat breakfast.”

“Sorry.” Janie sounded anything but. “She's coming home later, isn't she?”

“She said she would.”

“Good, then wait until she comes home and then tell her you're sorry for saying something stupid.”

“What makes you think I said something stupid?”

“Because Erin doesn't get mad about stuff unless it's stupid or hateful. You're not hateful.”

Smart kid and even smarter nurse/nanny. What he'd said was stupidity incarnate. He was still trying to come up with a proper parental response when Janie wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed her cheek against his, the scent of Ivory soap, Cocoa Puffs, and his little girl surrounding him. “I love you, Daddy, even if you say stupid things sometimes.”

“That's good, because I love you no matter what too.” He kissed her cheek, took an extra-long second to hug her, and then set her on her feet. “I'll get the dishes, you get your sneakers on, and we'll head to the park.” He gave her a pat on the bum and she took off like a shot.

It took him a lot longer to get up the energy to stand than it took Janie to run up the stairs.

Erin pushed open her apartment door, dropped her bag and the stack of mail she'd collected on the table, and walked directly into her bedroom.

She shed her clothes on the way like leaves in an autumn windstorm. She was mentally and physically exhausted—all she could think about was pulling down her blackout shades, crawling into her own bed, and sleeping away the rest of the day.

She wished her brain had an on/off switch. Unfortunately it was stuck on repeat, intent on reliving every second of the last two disastrous encounters with Cam. She turned her face into the cool pillow and realized she was crying. She'd never cried over a man before, but then she'd never been thrown so far off-kilter by one either. One second she'd thought she'd died and gone to heaven, then she pulled the Go-Directly-to-Hell card. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

A banging at the door thundered through the silence.

Kendall.

Erin had called her on the way home and left a voice mail canceling their plans for the evening. The banging continued. And knowing Kendall, she'd bang on the door until someone called the cops, and then she'd take all of her anger out on them before turning it on Erin.

Erin got up, reached for her robe, and dried her tearstained face with the tail of the terry-cloth belt. “I'm coming.” She didn't even look through the peephole; she just unhooked the chain and pulled the door open.

Kendall stood with her fist at face height, ready to either punch her or beat on the door more. In her other arm she held an alarming array of long garment bags, probably containing formal dresses for the benefit Erin had bowed out of—unsuccessfully, from the look of things.

“You didn't get my message?”

Kendall stepped inside, giving Erin no choice but to back up—Erin was barefoot while Kendall wore sadistic, dominatrix-like boots planted shoulder-width apart. She quelled her with a once-over and back again. “Did you get the license plate number of whatever it was that ran you over and dragged you a few miles?”

Erin clenched her teeth so hard, her jaw ached and her temples throbbed to give variety to the pain. She shook her aching head, regretting her inability to hold back tears. Crying did nothing more than give her a horrible headache.

“I know what you look like when you're sick, and this is not it. What's wrong?”

“I'm not feeling well.” Which wasn't a lie. A night of no sleep, self-recriminations, and a double dollop of disillusionment was enough to make any woman look and feel like not-quite-dead-yet road kill.

Kendall continued her visual autopsy. “You had sex.”

Erin was well aware of that fact. She was sore in places she'd forgotten she'd had. Actually, she was sore in places that she'd never felt before.

“If you had sex with Cam, why do you look like a raccoon that tried to tango with a truck? Was it horrible? Is he into scary kink? Is the size of his penis an inverse reflection of the size of his hands and feet? I'm only asking because Cam O'Leary wears what the nursing staff swears is a size fourteen shoe, and even I've noticed how big the man's hands are—it's difficult not to when every nurse in the hospital talks of little else.”

Erin had never noticed the size of Cam's feet or hands, and she couldn't believe the size of his penis in relation to his hands and feet was the subject of discussion and speculation for an entire staff of single female nurses.

Kendall gave her a you're-so-naive head shake. “You'll catch flies with your mouth hanging open like that. Now answer the question.”

“Fine. Long story.” She counted the answers off on her fingers. “No scary kink. And no inverse reflection.”

Kendall rearranged the garment bags over her arm, “Do you really think that ‘long story' schtick is going to work?” Her voice went up an octave and she spoke so slowly Erin might have been confused with a remedial preschool student on the wrong side of the bell curve.

Kendall strode into Erin's bedroom where she laid out the garment bags on the bed. “I brought you shoes to match, now all we have to do is pick out the perfect dress and you can tell me your very long story of woe while I fix your hair.” She tapped her top lip with two fingers, like a little lip drum roll. “I'm thinking a dramatic updo—very sexy.”

“I'm not going.”

“Oh, yes, you are. You are not backing out on me last minute. If you're not there, who am I supposed to talk to?”

“Your fiancé?”

Kendall waved her hand like she was swatting a gnat. “No, silly, he's supposed to talk business to everyone else at the table. He doesn't have time to talk to me.”

Erin wanted to smack Kendall and tell her to get a clue. The man never had time to talk to her.

“And believe me, I have to listen to David schmooze so often I can recite whole conversations like a good Catholic can recite the mass without the need for a priest—well, except for the readings, because those change.”

Erin sank onto the one spot on her bed not covered with dresses. “Yes, I know.”

“Besides”—Kendall ignored Erin's sarcasm—“there's a friend of David's I want you to meet.”

“No, Kendall.” Erin shot to her feet and tightened the belt on her robe. “This is where I draw the line. The last thing I need, after last night's disaster, is another one of your setups.”

“This is not a setup, it's an introduction. And what made last night so horrible? You haven't told me anything remotely resembling a disaster.”

“And I won't. You'll have to take my word for it.” There was no way she would tell another soul what had happened. Not even her best friend. “Suffice it to say, it wasn't the act that was the problem; it was Cam's immediate reaction afterward.”

“It's natural for a man to second-guess his actions. Cam O'Leary has always struck me as a very deliberate person. He just doesn't seem the type to fall into bed with someone. The fact that he did just that, and that the someone was an employee at the time, would definitely be enough to freak a man like Cam out. Give him a break. Did he apologize for whatever it was he said?”

“No.”

“Let me guess.” Kendall drumrolled her lips again. “You never gave him the opportunity. Somehow I'm not finding this at all shocking. Hmm . . . I wonder why?”

“Because you're just that good? Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.”

“I won't. I'll be too busy twisting yours.”

***

Cam carried a sleeping Janie to bed at ten. She'd been trying to wait up for Erin, and he didn't know which of them was more disappointed that she'd lost the battle.

By eleven he was pacing.

By eleven thirty he broke out his police-ban radio, worried that Erin had been in an accident. How many women had he pulled out of smashed cars with the Jaws of Life?

When headlights cut through the window, he let out a relieved breath—that was until he saw her. Cam blinked his eyes, wondering if maybe the headlights had done something to his vision. She glided up the front walk like someone you'd see on the red carpet. She wore a champagne-colored gown that made her look like a cross between a Grecian goddess and one of the faeries that filled the bedtime stories his mother had told him. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a complicated mass that made him want nothing more than to dig his fingers into it, find the pins, and take them out one by one. Well-placed tendrils escaped to curl around her cheeks and jaw and highlight the length of her graceful neck.

Erin fumbled through her jewel-encrusted clutch, pulled out her keys, and unlocked the door. The room was lit only by the small lamp on the entry table, so he wasn't sure whether or not she saw him sitting there.

“You're home.”

“I've returned to work. This isn't home—not to me. This is my job.” Erin didn't turn toward him; as a matter of fact, she turned away—giving him a view of the back of the dress. It was held up with straps that looked like large diamond-encrusted chains, and went straight down her ballerina-worthy bare back, meeting just above her bottom in a jewel-encrusted hollow circle which was ruched with the skirt, highlighting her backside to perfection.

“Where were you?” He took a deep breath and memories of their every second together flipped through his mind like cards through a Vegas dealer's hands. His fingers itched to touch her; her scent surrounded him, called to him, taunted him. He closed the gap between them, but even though he was closer to her, he wasn't close enough. He doubted he'd ever be close enough. “I was worried.”

When she turned toward him, her gaze slammed into him with the force of a battering ram. The shock in her eyes made it clear she hadn't been aware of his nearness. Her eyes were made up, all smoky and sexy, and they looked bigger than usual, the color sharper either as a result of her anger, the low lighting, or the makeup.

Her eyes had haunted his every waking moment since she'd slammed the bathroom door on him last night. “Is something wrong with Janie?”

“No.”

“Did you have a call?” She opened her clutch and checked her phone. “I kept my phone on me.”

“No, Erin, it's just that I didn't know where you were or when you'd be—”
Home
was the word that wanted to fly off his tongue but he caught it before it escaped. For some unknown reason, the word
home
was a point of contention with her. “I didn't know when you'd return. Janie waited up for you, she fell asleep on the couch a few hours ago.”

“I'll see her in the morning.”

“Erin . . .”

She was no longer meeting his gaze—she stared over his left shoulder.

“I want to explain . . . apologize . . .” Beg for mercy was more like it, but that wouldn't be at all attractive.

“No, Cam. That goes against the ‘move-on-and-pretend-it-never-happened' agreement.”

“I never agreed to that. All I'm asking is that you hear me out, then I'll drop the subject forever. You have my word.”

“I think the words
‘Oh, God no'
pretty much covered it, don't you?”

“I already explained that—I didn't protect you and I've never put a woman at risk because of my lack of . . . planning. I freaked out for a second there. I'm sorry. I didn't handle it well.”

“Cam, it's not just that and you know it.”

“You're right. God, Erin, you're an employee. I took advantage—”

“Stop it, Cam. As much as I'd like to blame the whole thing on you, I can't. There's plenty of blame to go around and I accept my part in it. If it makes you feel any better, I'm not proud to say I had sex with my boss either. What do you say we both stop beating ourselves up over it and put it behind us, for Janie's sake. I have another three weeks on my contract, and if we both agree to forget it ever happened, we can get through it. Unless you'd rather I leave—”

“No.” Just the thought of Erin leaving had him reaching for her. Pinning her in place. Holding her felt so right, so natural; she fit against him like her body was specially designed for his, and all he wanted to do was kiss her. Okay, that wasn't all. He wanted to carry her to bed, strip off that dress, and make her scream his name until she lost her voice. He wanted to erase the last twenty-four hours. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted to hold her all night long. “I don't want you to leave.”

“Then I suggest you take your hands off me.”

***

The next morning, Erin woke to Janie bouncing on her bed. “Erin, you're home.” Janie launched herself into Erin's arms and hugged her tight. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too. Did you have fun with your dad yesterday?”

“Yeah, we went to the park and we played, then we went to Grandpa's house and had dinner with Grandpa and my uncles—Miss Lolly was there.” She wrinkled her nose. “She treats me like a baby, but Daddy says she means well. Then when we came home we made sticky popcorn and watched
Frozen
.”

“Sticky popcorn?”

“Yeah, it's popcorn with sticky stuff on top and you have to mix it around and let it cool. Daddy makes it. The sticky part is really hot so I can't help.”

“Caramel corn?”

Janie shrugged, “It's sticky popcorn and it's yummy. I saved you some.”

“That was very nice of you, thank you.”

“You're welcome. Daddy made me promise not to wake you until eight o'clock, so I waited just like he told me.”

“Your dad's not here?”

“No, he went to work early.”

Erin didn't know if she was grateful or disappointed. “Well, in that case, I guess I should get up and make breakfast—”

“Not for me. Daddy poured me cereal and let me eat in front of the TV while I watched
Frozen
again. It's my favorite movie.”

“That's nice of him.”

“Oh, I forgot—be right back.” Janie jumped from the bed and raced down the stairs, her little feet slapping against the floor. She was back carrying a thermal to-go cup before Erin could finish finger combing her hair. “Daddy asked me to give this to you and tell you he said ‘Good morning.'”

“Thanks.” Erin opened the top, which, thank God, was shut tightly. The welcome scent of coffee hit her. She took a tentative sip and found it hot and fixed exactly the way she liked it. Cam certainly didn't play fair. Being thoughtful enough to send a girl coffee in bed via the world's cutest seven-year-old messenger was devious in the extreme.

Janie sat cross-legged on the bed beside her, staring. “So you're not mad at Daddy anymore?”

Erin did her best not to choke on the coffee. “He told you I was mad at him?”

“Yeah, he didn't mean to say something stupid and hurt your feelings. Did he apologize?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Did you forgive him?”