Page 65 of The Baby-whisperer and the Brute
The reality of kissing Sully and touching his body, of feeling him touch me had beensomuch better than what the book had described. It was going to be hard to forget. I mean, you couldn’tunfeelsomething.
Dropping into a chair at the kitchen table, I rested my face in my palms. How was I going to manage these last few weeks living under his roof... when all I dreamed about was being underneathhim?
I’dhaveto manage it... somehow.
We would go back to being employer and employee, and at the end of the summer we’d go our separate ways. Then I’d move on to my new life—whatever and wherever it was—with my heart intact.
* * *
After collecting and washing the remaining dishes, I started a load of laundry then went upstairs to go to bed.
On the way to my room, I passed the home theater and heard noise coming from inside. Peeking in the open door, I saw the outline of Sully’s neck and head as he watched something on the giant screen.
It was a sports program—boxing. If I wasn’t mistaken, one of the fighters on the screen was the guy who was challenging Sully for the World Heavyweight title next month, Travis Diggs. He must have had a fight tonight, or maybe it was a recording of an old fight Sully was watching to prepare.
Seeing the man strike his opponent, the power behind his punches and the rage in his fierce eyes and expression, I shuddered. I didn’t want Sully to get into the ring with him.
But it wasn’t my decision to make, and not that many minutes ago I’d just ensured I would have no influence on his decisions now or in the future.
He wouldn’t care about my opinion, and in a matter of weeks he wouldn’t know about or care about my decisions either.
Sullivan Reece wasn’t mine to worry about and protect—no matter how much I might wish otherwise.
Chapter Twenty
New Source of Willpower
Sully
My body still vibrating, my hands still tingling with the thrill of having touched her at last, I put as much distance between myself and Angelina Rappaport as possible.
I’d called her Angel tonight for the first time—the first time out loud anyway—and that was what she’d felt like in my hands, soft and sweet and too good to be true.
As it turned out, those moments of exquisite closenesshadbeen. I felt like a fallen angel myself, cast from Heaven straight to Hell where I would be cursed to burn for her forever with no relief.
What had happened? What had I done wrong?
I didn’t think I’d pushed that hard or that far. Certainly I hadn’t done nearly half the things I’d been fantasizing about.
And she’d definitely been right there with me for at least a few minutes. But I’d blown it by moving too fast. I’d scared her. And then she’d scared me right back by threatening to leave.
I was more than scared actually. I was terrified of her leaving me—and the girls of course. My first thoughtshouldhave been for them.
That proved how hard I’d fallen for this woman in spite of all my vows to play it cool, keep it professional, and use my famous self-control.
Ha!If my trainer and sparring partners could only see me now, a knotted mess of unrequited longing.
Well, I’d have to tap into some new source of willpower because there was no way I would risk running off the best thing that had ever happened to my daughters. And to me. We all needed her too much to let her get away.
Angelina was like a dessert that was too beautiful to eat. Delicious, but to have it, you’d have to destroy it.
Even if I never got to kiss her and touch her like that again, I had to have her in my life in some capacity. I’d take whatever I could get—and probably a whole helluva lot of cold showers.
Grabbing the remote, I turned on the big screen and the DVR, hitting play on the fight I’d recorded earlier tonight. I hadn’t even heard what the outcome was thanks to my date with Bree then being at the hospital with Claire then alone with Angelina andthoroughlydistracted.
No. No re-living that scene. Put it out of your mind. Time to concentrate on work.
I steered my mind back to the fight, which was beginning now on the screen in front of me. The only thing I knew about it was that it must have been epic because I’d gotten a text from the promoter asking if I’d watched and asking me to call once I’d seen it.
