All day, I’ve thought of her. This is a goddamn problem.

And all day, I’ve tried to stay away, engulfing myself in work projects, only checking in with Alana through texts. It’s a tough spot to be in. On one hand, I wanted to go home during lunch and see the baby (and her) or come home early to spend time with Liam before bed. But now, because of the way I lost control around her, I feel like I can’t go home.

I can’t stay away either. I have to face this situation.

Entering the house, I hang my coat and lock up for the night, heading straight for the bar to pour myself a Jack and Coke. What happened was a one-time thing, Alana. It can’t happen anymore. I told her this last night, but this time, I have to enforce it. I’m the boss here, goddammit, and the older one by about seven years. I think I can keep the monster inside the pants.

Heading into my office, I surround myself with books and papers in the hopes they’ll keep me more professional. Staying away from her bedroom would be good from now on in general, too. And if you hear her masturbating again, leave her the fuck alone, Kase. Sinking into my leather chair, I lean back and sip from my tumbler.

I’ve been with hundreds of women. When it’s clear there’s mutual physical connection and no hazard for hooking up, I take that shit. Why not? We all need sex, and all it takes it two willing adults. But that’s it—that’s where the liaison ends. I’ve lost two too many women I love in this life to invest any more emotion into anyone else. I’m done with close relationships—parental, best friend, or romantic. I’m so good at letting go, at nipping it in the bud before it even has the chance to bloom, that I’ve been confounded all day.

Why Alana?

Why can’t I get the nanny, of all women, out of my mind?

She’s gorgeous, sure, but all the women I’ve slept with are out of this world beautiful. It just comes with the territory, with the money, and hey, I keep in shape, too. She’s also smart, but I work with lots of smart cookies, so I have no fucking clue why I can’t stop thinking about her.

Maybe it was the innocent way she gave herself over to me. Trusted me. Her reaction made me feel she needed someone—needed a man to take control. Too many women I’ve fucked don’t need shit from me. They all get along by themselves. But Alana looked like she could’ve used a good fuck, and let’s face it—there’s nothing wrong with that.

Before I can think about the situation another second, I hear light footsteps outside my door. Stay strong, I tell myself. But the whisky is already taking the edge off, as well as making me bolder, so by the time she appears in my doorway—this time in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and hair in a swishy ponytail—I’m already wishing I could leave the house again.

“Mr. Hardwin, can I talk to you?”

“How was Liam at bedtime? Sorry I couldn’t be here. Things got sticky at work.” I hate sounding like a deadbeat dad, but I needed the space. At least for a day.

“Better than he’s been with me so far. I think we needed the time to get used to one another.” Her voice oozes like honey. There’s a tad of southern in it. She also leans casually against the door instead of standing stiff and professional like usual.

“Excellent,” I tell her, swirling the amber liquid in my glass. “And how were you today?” I ask, following up with, “You can take time off if you need it. I realize you didn’t have a break today.”

“Oh, I’m fine. Too tired to go anywhere at this point. But uh…I wanted to say something…”

“No, let me. Look, Alana, I don’t know what happened last night. I guess before we’re anything, we’re man and woman first. So let’s just say that pheromones hijacked the situation. It’ll never happen again.”

Her face freezes. Eyes wide, she stares at me, assessing my words and analyzing their meaning. “Right.” One word she utters, but it carries so much heaviness, I have to think that maybe she’s disappointed.

Fuck, I’m disappointed.

Because she looks so fucking beautiful right now, even after a full day of caring for an infant. An infant who even isn’t hers, which is exponentially harder. Maybe I’m reading her wrong, but it seems like we’re not done here. We’ve only just started, and nobody has to know about this. “That is okay…isn’t it, Miss Frasier?”

“Well…”

I stand and come around the desk, stopping a couple feet short of her. Even from this distance, I can smell her skin and hair, freshly shampooed and blow-dried. Whether she showered after Liam went to bed for herself or for me, I don’t know, but I do know a woman will always get clean if she wants to get dirty.

And dirty is the only thing I can focus on right now.

“What is it about you, Miss Frasier?” I take a step forward and slide a finger through her hair. There’s a slip out of place and I can’t help but pull it down, frame it around her face, then graze her chin. “Why can’t I get you out of my mind?”

“I’m…not sure, Mr. Hardwin.”

Both my hands scoop around her face. Her eyes close, her lips part, and I can feel her trembling the closer I get. Alarms sound in my head—abort, abort!—but I can’t stop. I can’t stop because we’re two human magnets who can’t stop themselves from connecting, nor do we want to. I’m hard as fuck and growing harder with every moment. There’s electricity in the shrinking between us.

“I came here to tell you something, but now I forgot what that was.” She breathes, nostrils flare as they fight for breath.

“You’ll think of it later, I’m sure.” Running my thumb across her lip, I watch her mouth open as her tongue darts out and both lips wrap around my finger. My cock swells even more. I have to feel this mouth around me in much the same way.

“I wanted to do for you what you did for me last night,” she says quietly.

“Twice.”

She nods, as heat flushes through her face and neck. “But I’m scared. I’ve never done it.”

Whoa. She’s never done… “Done what, exactly?”

“Used my mouth.”

“To suck a cock, you mean? Like this one?” I take her hand and press it against my pants so she can feel what she’s up against. I’ve never met a woman who’s never sucked dick before and I think my brain cells just died by three hundred percent.

Nodding, she inches up against me, so we’re pressed together. I feel her tits spreading and her heartbeat pounding. I have to have her. Fuck everything I said before. It was all bullshit. The bullshit ravings of a madman. I’d be stupid to give this up. Tilting her chin up, I run my index finger along inside her mouth to get her to open up and then I plunge my mouth and tongue into her open, needy mouth.

I taste the sweetness of her tongue, suck in the softness of her lips, and guide her hand to my belt. With trembling fingers, she begins to unbuckle me, and once she’s pulled down my shorts and freed the fucker, she pulls back awkwardly to look at it.

I almost want to laugh. “Don’t worry, it won’t bite unless you want it to.”

Her eyes say it all. She wants to do something with it, but she doesn’t know what and her inexperience is as charming as it is heady, making me drunk with pure lust for Alana. “What do I do?” she asks.

“Come here.” I take her hand and move to the desk then point to the leather chair. “Sit there and take it in both hands.” After she does and is looking up at me with those virginal, sexy eyes, I tell her, “Kiss it. Pretend it’s the best lollipop you’ve ever seen in your life.”

When she wraps her two, tiny hands around my bulging shaft, I have to bite my lip to keep from losing it. What is it about seeing a woman holding your cock, looking so small compared to you, so vulnerable but still so full of lust for your body? “Like this?”

“Just like that,” I say. My balls feel tight underneath me. “Take it into your mouth, Alana. Suck on it. Softly. Then pull it out of your mouth as you suck on it at the same time.”

She follows my instructions, and I make sure to help by holding her chin and pushing my veined, impatient dick into her mouth. As she sucks on it, I feel the tightness and the wetness of her mouth and suddenly want more. I want to see her naked, see her bouncy tits, and feel her slick, wet pussy. I want it all, I want it now.

Pushing Alana back, I take back my cock and stroke it lightly. “Open your blouse…take off those jeans. The panties, too. I want to see you undressed.”

“Yes, Mr. Hardwin,” she says. I take in this moment—this gorgeous young woman who works for me unbuttoning her shirt, exposing her gorgeous round tits in a white bra, then pulling her jeans down around her ankles. When she slides off her panties, I already know what I want next.

Reaching forward, I pull down the cups of her bra to reveal succulent pink nipples, and for a moment, I forget everything else. I force her to sit back and kneel down to take them into my mouth. Flicking those nipples with my tongue, I wrap my mouth around each one and suck.

Once my cock strains and begins to ache, I lean back against my desk and feed Alana’s hungry mouth. “Open wide.” I slide my dick into her mouth, and she catches on quickly. Good thing she’s smart, because I don’t need to tell her anything else. She begins sucking and stroking and gagging herself and coughing all without my help.

“Is this good, Mr. Hardwin?” she says.

She’s gotta be fucking kidding me. She’s a pro is what she is, and suddenly, I can’t think of anything other than coming inside her mouth. But her moans last night were some of the most delicious I’d ever heard, and my mind suddenly decides that it wants to hear them again before coming. “Touch yourself.”

Big hazel eyes look up at me, questioning.

“Touch yourself. Make yourself come while you’re sucking on me.”

Taking my cock and slapping it on her tongue, she shoves the whole thing back into her mouth, and this has to be the goddamn happiest day of my life.

Yes, while you’re feeding on my man meat. Holy shit. She may not have much experience with an actual, live man, but Alana has definitely spent a lot of time thinking this through. Hence the masturbation before bed. The girl knows what makes her happy.

“Beautiful,” I say, because there’s no other way to describe the scene before me.

I watch my cock slide in and out of this gorgeous woman’s plump mouth, ripe tits exposed, wet pussy bare, legs spread open, as she begins to finger fuck herself while slurping on my dick. Could life get any better? Yes. If I had this every day, for example, and after this, I may have to. I never stick with any woman more than a handful of times, but I might have to make an exception.

“Do you love it?” I ask. I have to hear it. I have to hear that rawness in her voice, the one that tells me she’s finally let go of all pretenses.

“Yes, Mr. Hardwin.” More slurping and sucking, and I know I’m about to lose it, but her first. I need to hear that sweet moan.

“Tell me.”

“I love sucking your cock. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you.” I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll take it. She cups my balls, cradling them. Good, because they’re going to need it. Her other hand flies across her clit, blurred fingers pushing toward the finish line. The more she dips into that slick wetness, pulling out more juices and using it to work herself into a frenzy, the less I can control myself anymore.

“Do it, Alana. Fucking come.”

All of a sudden, her open mouth shoves forward onto my cock, pushing it as far back as it’ll go while one hand fondles her own breast and the other pats her clit over and over. Tears squeeze out of her eyes, as she chokes me back. Then, sliding back in the chair, she throws her head up and lets out the longest, achy, delicious groan I’ve ever heard. With her head tilted back, chin up and mouth open in ecstasy, she trembles with the residual waves of her orgasm.

Seeing her nipples harden and the wave of prickly pink wash over her light skin, I can’t hold on any longer and move head of my cock near her mouth. “Open, Alana. Show me what you would do for me.”

Her tongue sticks out, flat and beautiful, and right there, accepting this clear invitation, I empty my balls right into her mouth. Creamy ropes of cum squiggle onto her lips and tongue, and I stroke and stroke again until I’ve given it all to her and there’s nothing left of myself. Fuck! So fucking good. So wrong! And so weak.

I’ve never hated such an amazing moment so much. Kase Hardwin has always maintained control. Kase Hardwin has turned himself to stone over the years, so much that he can’t feel anymore, and that’s the way he likes it. Yet, I feel such peace, such communion with this woman that I bend down to kiss the mouth stained with my lust, and savor it as long as I can, because I can’t continue to let this happen. Even if I build a walled gate between her section of the house and mine, even if I have to strap a chastity belt to her body, or fuck—even to mine—I can’t do this again.

This is asking for trouble. Huge trouble. All it takes is one employee to file a complaint against me, but how can there be any grievances when this is so damn mutual?

I turn around and zip up, collecting myself as best as I can. Catching my breath, I have to think of what to say. Do that everyday, please? No, that won’t work. Never leave this house, Alana—you’re perfect? No, too desperate. But that’s how Alana makes me feel. Like I need her.

And that is the most dangerous feeling of all.

Because I don’t need anyone, least of all a woman.

“What does this mean now?” The question slips quietly across the room, and I know I’ll find her buttoning up and almost finished getting re-dressed.

I turn and see her standing, jeans back on, buttoning up the last button. Her hair is mussed, and her lips are raw red from kissing and sucking. She’s both beautiful and annoying as hell. How could I be so stereotypically male and succumb to pure sex that way without an ounce of restraint, especially after a self-given pep talk?

“This means we fucked up again, Alana,” I tell her. I know it’s not what she wants to hear, but that’s the fact. We did it again, allowing our bodies to control us. This can’t possibly be good for our professional relationship nor that with Liam. I don’t care how amazing that blowjob was. “Time for bed. Thank you for caring for Liam.”

“Your son,” she says, clearly irritated.

“What?”

“Your son. Why don’t you ever say ‘my son?’ You always say Liam.”

Her gaze is unflinching. Angry. Hurt. Not because of how I address Liam, but because this is all she can do to relay her true feelings. She’ll take the proud route and refuse to admit how much my words hurt her, but she’ll take it out on something else I’m doing.

“I say Liam because that’s his name.” I give her a cold glare to ensure she doesn’t bring it up again. Nobody knows—nobody except Evie—that Liam isn’t my son, and Evie’s gone. So unless Alana’s been talking to my dead best friend’s ghost or she’s psychic, there’s no way she could know the truth.

“I just find it odd,” she adds. “No worries, Mr. Hardwin. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

“You just did, though.”

Her lips now a thin line, I can see I’ve struck a nerve. I’ve fucked things up with her, but that’s the way it needs to be. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t imagining…”

“Imagining what?”

“A connection. Between us. But clearly, you have none. Goodnight.” Breezing past me, taking the scent of sex and overindulgence with her, Alana leaves.

I close my eyes and breathe her in for the last time. Because I can’t let a woman control me like this. I’m my own man, and I don’t need anyone, especially not some fresh-out-of-college girlie making me feel bad for a decision I know is right. Closing the door to my office, I return to my desk, take what’s left of my whisky and Coke and slam the fucking thing back.