Nanny Next Door (11 page)

Just a friend, huh?

“Are you nervous about your new job?” she asked.

“A little,” Lacey said. Although it wasn’t the work so much as the guy who was supposed to be picking her up.

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” her mom assured her.

A horn blared outside and Lacey’s head swung back to the window in time to see a truck pulling into the driveway. She strained to see who was in the driver’s seat. His face was concealed in shadow, but she could tell the person was male, and large.

“Sounds like your ride is here.” Her mom stepped up beside her and looked out the window. The horn blared again. “You’d better go.”

“See you later,” she said, darting out the door and over to the truck. She grabbed the handle and flung the door open.

“Hi,” a cheerful voice said. “You must be Lacey.”

The guy’s light brown hair was shoulder-length and he was really cute. But he wasn’t Jordan.

“The one and only,” she said, trying to disguise the disappointment in her voice as she hopped up on the seat. The interior of the truck was dusty, the carpet was filthy with clumps of dirt, and a pair of heavy work gloves lay on the seat between them.

“I’m Mike,” he said, waiting for her to buckle her seat belt before he backed out of the driveway. “Did you know elephants are the only animal that can’t jump?”

She blinked. “What?”

“It’s true. Every other mammal can jump, but not the elephant.”

“No kidding.”

“Did you also know you can lead a cow upstairs, but not down?”

Lacey shook her head. “Nope, didn’t know that, either.”

“Most people don’t.” Mike glanced her way. “Is your hair always green?”

“Sometimes it’s purple.”

“Cool.” He looked genuinely impressed, and he was so cheerful, Lacey couldn’t help but like him. Even if he wasn’t Jordan.

“Did you know a duck’s quack doesn’t echo but no one knows why?”

She couldn’t resist a smile. “You’re just full of animal trivia, aren’t you?”

“Not just animals. My brain is bursting with useless facts. It’s a gift. Everyone on the crew calls me the Professor.”

“Really? Who else is on the crew?”

Mike, the Professor, told her the names of all the crew members, which she couldn’t help notice were almost all male, but he didn’t mention Jordan.

“I met someone in the office yesterday—I think his name was Jordan,” she hedged.

“He’s Angie’s kid. She puts him on whichever crew needs extra workers.”

Mike chattered nonstop while he drove, soothing Lacey’s frayed nerves. It was hard to be jittery around someone who kept her smiling constantly. But as they pulled up to the house where they were scheduled to work, and she saw Jordan leaning against another truck drinking bottled water, her heart went berserk again.

What was wrong with her? She’d liked guys before and never felt this weirded out.

“Jordan, I’ve got your new recruit,” Mike called as they headed toward him. “Her name is Lacey.”

Keep your cool,
Lacey reminded herself.
Don’t let him know you’re interested.

“Hi,” she said in the detached, I-couldn’t-care-less-what-you-think-of-me tone she used when she didn’t want people to know what she was thinking. Jordan stared at her, his eyes slowly taking everything in from the top of her head down to her feet, until she felt naked. He was
huge
—at least a foot taller than her and twice as wide.

“We met yesterday,” she added to break the monotonous silence, and still he stared at her. It wasn’t a good stare, either. This blank stare said she was invisible and not even worth his time. A stab of anger suddenly replaced her nervousness.

“What’s your problem?” she heard herself say.

“Do you have sunblock?” he asked, and she was so surprised he’d spoken, she lost her voice for a second.

“S-sunblock?” she stammered.

Jordan walked to the passenger door of the truck he’d been leaning on and reached in the open window, grabbing a small bottle off the seat. He tossed it to her. It was a tube of sunblock.

“Put it on, then meet me in the back.” He walked away and she watched him, seeing several other workers already laying bricks at the side of the house. She turned to say something to Mike but he was unloading supplies from the truck they’d arrived in. He probably hadn’t heard their conversation. If she could classify what they’d just had as a conversation.

“Hey,” Mike said, coming up behind her with an armful of tools and a flat of petunias. “Did you know thirty-eight percent of America is wilderness, but Africa is only twenty-eight percent wilderness?”

“No, Mike, I didn’t,” she said, tossing the sunblock back through the truck window. She would rather cover herself in battery acid than use Jordan’s sunblock. She also had the sinking feeling this was going to be the longest day of her life.

Sydney was disappointed, but it wasn’t as if they didn’t have the next night, and the next.

Though she hadn’t fallen asleep until after 2:00 a.m., Sydney woke early the next morning to see Lacey off on her first day of her first official job. After she showered and dressed, she dumped the ingredients for spaghetti sauce in the slow cooker and set it to simmer. At eight, she locked up behind her and crossed the lawn to Daniel’s house. Usually he unlocked the door in the morning so she could come in and take care of April while he got ready for work, but today it was locked. Figuring he’d probably forgotten, Sydney used her key and let herself in. She expected to smell coffee brewing, and hear the shower, but the house was dead quiet. Had he forgotten to set his alarm?

She cracked open his bedroom door and peered inside. Daniel was still in bed, snoring softly. If he didn’t get up soon he was going to be late.

She slipped into the room and sat on the edge of the mattress. She wasn’t sure what he was wearing under the sheet, but from the waist up he was naked. And
beautiful.
His chest was wide and muscular and sprinkled with dark hair, his stomach flat and defined. She considered taking a quick peek under the covers. She even reached for the edge of the sheet, but it seemed wrong to take advantage of him while he was sleeping.

She gently shook his shoulder instead. “Daniel, wake up.”

He snapped awake instantly—no doubt a cop thing—looking up at her with bleary eyes, then glanced over at the clock. “Hey, what are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

“I came to watch April. I thought you had to be to work by nine.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I thought I told you, I switched with Dave again. I’m working the afternoon shift. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s okay.”

“I would get up and make coffee, but April woke up at four and didn’t go back down until almost six. I’m beat.”

“Go back to sleep.”

She stood, but Daniel grabbed her wrist. “You don’t have to go.”

“I should let you sleep.”

“Why don’t you slide in with me?” He pulled back the sheet and scooted over to make room for her. She was a little disappointed to see that he was wearing cotton pajama bottoms. But climbing into his bed? She wasn’t sure if that was such a hot idea.

“Maybe I shouldn’t.”

“Nothing is going to happen.” He patted the bed next to him. “Come on,” he coaxed. “I like to cuddle.”

What woman in her right mind could resist a sexy man who wanted to cuddle?

She climbed in beside him. He tucked her against him, spooning her so that her back was against his chest, his skin still warm from sleep.

Oh, this was
nice.

It had been a long time since she’d snuggled in bed with a man. It was something she hadn’t even realized she’d missed until now.

She must have been really exhausted because she fell right back to sleep. When she opened her eyes again Daniel was sitting on the edge of the bed, pressing soft, teasing kisses to her bare shoulder. He smelled like soap and toothpaste, and his hair was wet. He was dressed in jeans and nothing else.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” he said.

She stretched and yawned. “What time is it?”

“Eight forty-five. I guess you were tired. You passed out cold the minute you laid down.”

“Why are you up?”

“I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up and showered. And made coffee. I thought I could make us breakfast.”

“Is April awake?”

He shook his head. “When she’s up in the middle of the night she usually sleeps in late. She probably won’t be up for another hour and a half at least.” He leaned down, pressed a very soft kiss to her lips and then whispered against them, “Why? Did you have something other than breakfast in mind?”

He had no idea how tempting that was, considering how disappointed she’d been last night. But she wasn’t sure how she felt about their first date taking place in his bed.

But he was kissing her lips and jaw, working his way over to nibble her ear. And she could feel herself melting.

“We’re supposed to be taking this slow,” she reminded him.

“We are,” he said, kissing the curve of her neck. “We won’t go any further than you want. Say the word and I’ll stop.”

In that case, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to fool around a
little
bit. She beckoned him closer with a crook of her finger. He climbed in beside her with a grin.

For a while all they did was kiss, and kissing him was so nice, it was enough. He touched her face and rubbed her back, combed his fingers through her hair—nothing overtly sexual. But that didn’t stop her from getting crazy turned on. After a while she was the one who was having trouble keeping her hands to herself. And she began to wonder if her plan was an unrealistic one.

She’d forgotten it was supposed to feel like this. So…
good.
For years, sex had been a duty. Something to tolerate, not enjoy. And then there had just been…nothing. No wonder her libido was slamming into overdrive. It hadn’t been out to play in a
long
time. And Daniel wasn’t doing enough playing.

“Hold on.” She sat up to pull her shirt over her head, tossed it on the floor, then settled back down beside him.

He was grinning. “You trying to tell me something?”

“Maybe we don’t have to go
quite
that slow.” Although, with her past experience, she couldn’t help but fear that she was destined to disappoint him. What did she know about pleasing a man? Near the end of her and Jeff’s physical relationship, she hadn’t done a whole lot more than just…lie there. And wait for it to be over. There had been a time when she enjoyed sex, but that was many years ago. She was sure, with practice, it would come back to her.

Daniel kissed her neck, her shoulder, then she felt him pulling her bra strap down and tensed.

He stopped and looked down at her. “Too much?”

Too much, too little. “I’m just a bit out of practice. I don’t want to…disappoint you.”

“Sydney, that isn’t even a possibility. Besides, all you have to do right now is let me make you feel good.”

Make her feel good? But what about him?

He slid the lace cup down, exposing her breast, and pressed an openmouthed kiss to her nipple.

She moaned and dug her fingers through his hair.

He bared the other breast and took it in his mouth, sucking hard, and for the life of her she could no longer recall why she thought going slow was a good idea. All she could process in her hormone-drenched brain was that she wanted
more.
She wanted to touch him. Feel him. But when she tried he intercepted her hands.

“Just you,” he said.

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the uppermost part of her stomach, then another just below it, then another, gradually working his way down.

He reached the waistband of her shorts, tracing a path across her stomach with his tongue, from one side all the way to the other. Sydney was so turned on, her thoughts were murky and unfocused, and the ache between her thighs was becoming unbearable. Daniel was going too fast, and not fast enough. And all she wanted was for him to touch her.

Expecting him to kiss his way back up to her breasts, she gasped when he pressed his mouth to the inside of her right thigh instead. The sensation was so foreign and erotic—and
good
—she gasped, jerking involuntarily.

He pulled back and looked up, as if he thought he might have gone too far. “Too much?”

Yes, but not in the way he thought. It was so good she felt completely out of control. And she
liked
it. If he stopped now she honestly didn’t think she could stand it. “Don’t stop.”

He unfastened her shorts and sat up to tug them down. She lifted her hips to help him.

She expected him to lie back down beside her, but instead he lowered his head and kissed her again. This time higher, using his tongue to tease the crease where her body met her thigh.

She moaned and arched, her thighs falling open. Her wanton behavior should have embarrassed her, but she was walking the fine line between arousal and bliss, a place she hadn’t ventured anywhere near in longer than she cared to remember. Daniel pressed her thighs even farther apart. The he pulled her panties aside and dipped his head.

The reaction was instantaneous. She cried out as pleasure wrenched through her. So perfect she wanted to sob, and laugh, and cry.

When she couldn’t take any more, she pushed at his head, pulling her legs closed, saying breathlessly, “Too much.”

Daniel grumbled a protest, trying to gently pry her legs apart. “Let me do it again.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. One more time.”

She shook her head. “Too sensitive.”

She wasn’t used to this. Her body had been ignored for so long, she needed to take her time. Besides, what about his pleasure? He must have expected something in return.

He started kissing his way back up her body, every touch of his lips causing a thrilling little aftershock. He settled beside her, but when she reached for the fly of his jeans, he stopped her.

“Don’t,” he said.

“Why?”

“I meant what I said. Right now all I want is to make you feel good.”