Page 92 of The Nanny and the Nerd
“Teammates?” he questioned with a thread of curiosity lacing through the word.
“The word employee sounds so cold and detached. I’ve been working on AI-77 for less than a month, and everyone has made me feel so welcome. It’s more of a partnership and team effort, don’t you think?”
Rowen twisted a lock of her hair but didn’t respond.
She tensed. “Maybe I’ve got it wrong,” she began when she felt him shake his head.
“No, you’re right. This is the first time I haven’t micromanaged my teams, and the results, so far, seem to speak for themselves. I’m guessing it’s pretty obvious to the outside observer, but I’m not good at relinquishing control,” he conceded, his voice sounding far-off.
She turned to face him. “It’s never easy to give up control when it’s related to something so personal and so important.” She cupped his face in her hands and pressed a whisper-soft kiss to his lips. “I’m proud of you. I understand what’s at stake with AI-77.”
She might not have published anything yet, but she knew what it was like to take an idea and turn it into something that comes from the heart—from the depths of your soul. And he wasn’t only sharing his vision with an editor or a proofreader or a cadre of writing contest judges. No, thousands of eyes scrutinized his creation. Every day, this man took a leap of faith, and he’d come a long way in a few weeks. And it wasn’t only at Gale Gaming. This shift occurred in his personal life, too.
One night, when they’d found his Game Boy and dominoes hidden in Phoebe’s dollhouse, and the child had been on the verge of tears as she tried to justify why she’d taken the toys, he hadn’t gotten angry with her. Instead, he’d changed tack when it came to those pieces of his past. Now, Phoebe could play with his cherished Game Boy and treasured dominoes whenever she wanted. But there were conditions. She had to agree to be careful and only play with the toys at home—no tossing them into her backpack to sneak them into school. It was a big step for him. After he’d shared the story of his tumultuous childhood with her, she knew what those items meant to him. What warmed her heart was knowing that Phoebe meant more and that he was able to let his niece interact with that part of him.
He continued twisting the lock of her hair—an endearing habit he’d picked up that always made her heart skip a beat. Like really skip a beat. Before Rowen, whenever she came upon that line in a work of fiction, she’d deemed it cliché and overused, but she couldn’t deny that it happened every single time he slipped his hand into her hair. “I can’t take all the credit for the way the teams have rallied,” Rowen said as a grin bloomed on his lips. “They do get to work with the real-life version of Princess Amelia. That’s motivation alone!”
Ah yes! The golden-haired, brown-eyed Princess of the Five Kingdoms was no longer a superfluous, well-endowed damsel in distress.
Penny schooled her features. “I’m grateful you signed off on Amelia’s physical features and outfit modifications I suggested. She looked more like a busty barmaid than a powerful princess.”
He released the lock of hair, and in the space of a breath, he flipped her onto her back like she weighed nothing. She gasped, laughing as she stared up at this man. And yep, that heart of hers skipped a beat—or twenty, watching as Rowen raked her body with his heated gaze, then zeroed in on her cleavage.
“Do you have something against busty barmaids, Ms. Fennimore?” he teased as he settled himself between her thighs.
“Only when their breasts take away from their inherently bad-ass qualities. There has to be a balance. Amelia’s a force to be reckoned with. She doesn’t need to distract anyone with her boobs,” Penny countered, wrapping her arms around Rowen’s neck.
“I’m pretty distracted,” he disclosed with a wicked grin, then kissed a sizzling line from her shoulder to the hollow of her neck.
This man!
A cascade of tingles engulfed her body—a body that was oh-so-ready for round two. But aping,ping,pingthat had nothing to do with the snap, crackle, and pop going on between them sent her sexytimes tingles packing.
She and Rowen froze. “Phoebe!” they whispered, wide-eyed.
Yep, that trio of sound coming from their phones could only mean one thing. Phoebe was awake, and if they didn’t want to get caught doing the naughty, they needed to get their naked asses in gear!
And this alert was no joke.
Early one morning after Phoebe had almost caught them acting out what could be best described as an X-rated version of AI-77 and Princess Amelia doing it every which way from Sunday, Rowen, in his tech genius-ness, devised a solution. The child had an iPad on her desk where she could access her morning schedule. They’d encouraged her to be more independent in planning her day, and the little girl loved having her very own piece of tech in her room to do just that. And like a disciplined soldier, Phoebe checked her schedule each morning, and her login triggered an alert on their phones. Usually, Rowen was already back in his room, pretending to wake up alone, but they must have lost track of time—something they’d been doing more and more these days. It was hard to watch the clock when she had her very ownhard, hot nerd rendering her near delirious from multiple orgasms.
Still, they’d come up with a second line of defense.
The problem?
It only gave them seconds to prepare.
“Plumber or IT?” he whisper-shouted, bolting out of bed, then whipping his robe off the hook and tying it securely around his waist.
Penny twisted her mane of sex-mussed hair into a bun. “Plumber! You were IT on Monday,” she answered, pulling on her sleep pants with the speed and dexterity of a seasoned firefighter, suiting up to battle an inferno.
“Or should we go with book on a high shelf?” he countered, confusion marring his features.
All right, their second line of defense against the ridiculous excuse defense, veered strongly toward the totally lame realm. But it was the best they could come up with. Case in point, the I-needed-help-reaching-a-book-on-a-high-shelf defense. That idiotic response was born out of a need to explain why, after doing it against the wall and knocking several books off the shelf in the process, she needed help retrieving yet another book. Luckily, Phoebe had bought it, and blessedly, they hadn’t stripped down before knocking out that quickie.
Penny grabbed her robe. “No! We used the book-on-a-high-shelf excuse on Thursday! Hurry! Get in the bathroom! It’s plumber or bust,” she called as the door handle to her bedroom began to turn.
Nineteen
