Page 21 of Under One Roof

I reach up to fix it, settling it back over her shoulder, my knuckles skimming her collarbone. I shouldn’t, but I do… I let my fingertips glide over the base of her throat, her skin soft and begging to be kissed. She inhales deeply, her chest rising, and it’s enough to bring me back to earth. Back to the fact that I can’t be acting like this.

I can’t lose my fucking head.

“I’m sorry,” I say, removing my hand from her, and she dips her chin, her eyes on her socked feet.

“I don’t understand you.”

I grunt. I don’t understand me either.

I’ve never had this problem of dissociating. I’m so good at compartmentalizing, I should have a degree in it, but for some reason, I can’t with this girl.

This fucking girl who is too young for me.

Too good and sweet and my children’s nanny.

“I’m sorry,” I say again because I don’t know what else to say.

She shakes her head and lifts her gaze, those eyes that will haunt me tonight—and maybe every night—round in a way I know means she’s upset. I’ve upset her.

She mumbles something too quiet for me to hear, and I unthinkingly pull her to me, my palms around the backs of her thighs. I spread my knees, making room for her. “I can’t hear you, sweetheart.”

She tilts her head back and huffs out a frustrated sound. “I said…” A few seconds pass when she takes a deep breath then clamps her hands to my bare shoulders and meets my eyes. Hers blaze with anger, and seeing this fight in her stirs something in me. I appreciate her standing up for herself because I have a feeling she doesn’t do it enough, and I’m happy to be the outlet if she needs it.

“I said I don’t know what to do, Griffin. I don’t know what to do with you, with this, with my job. I don’t know what to do.”

I get it. I’m an asshole who can’t make up his own mind. One who wants her and can’t stop himself from giving in, permitting touches and moments like this. Only to turn around and ignore her because I’m too chickenshit to give in, yet completely unable to stay away.

So, I go with the simplest truth. “You scare me.”

Her fingers dig into my shoulders. I never want her to let go of me. “I scare you? Why?”

I skate my hands up and down the outsides of her thighs, letting my mind briefly drift to a different place and time. One where I could tug her shorts down and grip her ass, drag the tip of my nose over her stomach and between her legs.

“I don’t do emotions,” I tell her, and she outright laughs at me.

“This is you being emotional?”

Her incredulity stings. It shouldn’t because I don’t do emotions. But for her…

For her…

I lick my lips, readying myself to offer her another truth. “That’s why you scare me. You make me feel things.”

Her palms smooth circles over my shoulder blades and back, to my bone frog tattoo. She traces it, a reminder of why I compartmentalize. Why I need to.

“I don’t know what to do,” she repeats, and I shrug because I don’t know either, but I know I’m not quite ready to let go of her yet either.

I squeeze her thighs and drop my forehead to her stomach. Her hands come to the back of my head, her fingernails scraping along the column of my neck and up to my scalp. It sends goose bumps down my spine, and I groan into her middle.

“You should be out with someone your own age. Having fun. Not…here. Tending to me. Some guy who’s so much older than you with kids.”

“It’s the middle of the day,” she reminds me, with enough sass that I think it’s supposed to be a joke, but it doesn’t quite land. Because there is something else in her voice, too. Something that begs me to listen. “There is no guy. And even if there were, I doubt he’d want to take me out at one in the afternoon.”

I’d take her out at one in the afternoon. I’d take her out anytime, anyplace. Wherever she wanted to go. Because she deserves to have whatever she wants.

And it’s a problem.

“I can’t do this,” I say once I’m able to lift my head away from her. “We can’t do this. I never have an issue following through… Not until you.”

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