Page 175 of Nanny and the Beast

“I’m the air you breathe now, angel,” I say. “I’m the only thing you need.”

She melts against me, trusting me so implicitly. She thinks that despite everything, I’m a good man. I wonder if she’d think the same if I told her about all the sick things I’ve done.

If she could hear the twisted thoughts in my head, she might try to escape me.

But I’m not going to let that happen.

She arches into me, hungry for my touch.

“I bet you’re wet from sucking on my cock,” I say. “You like being treated like my little whore, don’t you?”

She bites down on her bottom lip and looks at me with those bedroom eyes.

All I want to do is spend the rest of the night making love to her. I want to enter the paradise that the world turns into when the two of us are lost in each other.

I kiss her again, softly this time.

When I pull away, she looks dazed, like she’s forgotten about her plans for the night.

“Come on, I’ll walk you to the car,” I say, pressing another kiss on top of her head.

There’s so much trust in her eyes when she looks at me. It makes me want to put the whole world at her feet.

As we walk down the staircase together, I scan the surroundings out of habit, making sure everything’s in place.

“Um, do you have any plans for the night?” Emma asks.

I’ll be meeting Alaric for drinks at Elysium. Even though I don’t have anything to hide, something stops me from telling her about it.

“I’ll be waiting for you to come back,” I say instead, squeezing her hand.

I help her into her coat before we step into the night. It’s a quiet night, but the temperature has plummeted. There’s a certain stillness in the air, like everything is holding its breath.

“I’ll never get used to how beautiful the stars look here,” she says, tilting her head up at the sky.

I follow her gaze.

It looks like someone took a paintbrush to the sky and fitted it with more stars than there are supposed to be. Everything twinkles down on us, but it’s the look on her face that I’m enraptured by.

She lights up my entire world just by being herself.

“There’s an observatory nearby,” I say. “I’ll take you and the kids there sometime.”

“Really?” She looks back at me.

Anything for you.

“Yes, really,” I say.

She smiles at me. “When?”

“Whenever you wish,” I say.

She’s looking at me like she knows things about me I don’t know myself.

With an unusual heaviness in my heart, I walk her to the Porsche.

“Are you sure you won’t let me drive you?” I ask.

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