“Doesn’t mean I want you here with her.”
Pain flashes across her face before she quickly tries to tuck it away. “Why did you say that?”
“Because I’m an asshole,” I tell her simply so she knows. It’s not an act. It’s a fact she can rely on. “What happened today with her?”
She shakes her head. “Nuh-uh. That’s something you’ll have to get from her. I will not betray her confidence in that. She was not a threat to herself or to others, so I’m not obligated to say a word.”
“I don’t like you having secrets with my daughter.”
“Sucks to be you then.”
Damn her.
“She asked me to teach her how to cook, and I’d like to, Landon. I think it would be good for her.”
I take an involuntary step forward, my blood heating, my body humming with a steady cocktail of endorphins. “You’re in no place to tell me what is good for my daughter.”
She puffs a sigh, her head falling back as she stares up at the glass ceiling, muttering something I can’t hear under her breath. It’s likely a dig at me, so I don’t ask.
The problem is, I know she’s right.
Stella has wanted to learn how to cook for years. My human dumpster will eat anything she gets her hands on, but I’m not stupid enough to pretend I don’t know why she wants to do this. She even subscribed us to a mail order thing for a while that shipped boxes of food and recipes to follow. But she was only eleven then, and I wasn’t much help, though I tried to be. I offered to have someone cook our meals for us in the past, and Stella dismissed the idea.
I should kick Elle out—out the door and out of our lives—but now there’s no way I can. Stella’s obsession with her has me grasping at straws, searching for loopholes when I already know there are none. Stella is making her move, and as always, it’s checkmate because I’d do anything to make her happy.
Even if it’ll cost me dearly.
“She knows how to make enchiladas,” I throw out. Carter taught her that since it’s his specialty.
“And what else?” Elle challenges.
My parents don’t cook. They have Sophia, their personal chef. She’s been with the family for years. That’s how I grew up, so I don’t know how to cook either. Reese did all of that, and if she were still alive, Stella would be doing that with her mother. Not seeking misplaced attention from a virtual stranger. The truth remains, no matter what I do, I can’t bring her mother back, and one day when Stella realizes she should hate me, I hope she clings to this. I’d build her a thousand greenhouses. Hire a James Beard winning chef to teach her.
But she wants Elle.
“Why do you care? What’s in it for you?” I question instead, shutting the doors behind me for no real reason other than I don’t want Stella to watch as I prowl toward her teacher like a tiger after its prey.
Elle visibly swallows, taking a step back and bumping into the table behind her, her hands flinging back, grasping on to the edge as it shakes. Her pupils dilate as if she knows I’m thinking about stripping her naked and devouring her.
I make you nervous, Elle. I make your heart flutter. Your skin heat. Your pussy wet. Fuck, I can practically smell how turned on she is as I get closer. See how aroused I make her as it darkens her eyes.
“I know what it’s like to lose someone you love and feel like you have no one else.”
That’s when I freeze. Dead in my tracks. The blood that was funneling south turns to ice in my veins.
“You’re not her mother.”
Hackles rise. “I’d never try to be. But she needs a friend.”
“You’re her teacher. Fourteen years her senior. Are you that out of options?”
She lets out a humorless laugh as she folds her arms over her chest and glares. “Yeah. Maybe I am. Maybe my only friend has a family of her own. Maybe I ran out of a bad situation and now I find myself here with not a whole lot going on other than my job. But Stella asked me to help her learn how to cook, and she has a greenhouse you built for her, loaded with fruits and vegetables. I like cooking. I like Stella. I don’t like you. With your permission, I’d like to teach her how to cook.”
“I can’t have you here, Elle. I can’t smell your perfume in my house when I walk in the door. The last thing I can tolerate at the end of a long day is how your smile makes your eyes more green than brown or the way your hair looks when you play with the ends of it—the way you’re doing now.”
She releases her hair instantly, her hands going back to the table, but it makes no difference. It’s already mussed. The way it looked after my hands ran through it. Sexy. Disheveled.
“Believe me, the last thing I want is to be anywhere near you.”
I do believe her, which is why I’m taking another step, anxious to prove her a liar.
Suddenly I’m hovering over her, my size and proximity a likely weapon when she’s the one disarming me completely.
“So how do we solve this?” My voice is a whisper, the sound husky. Hoarse. I want to wrap her hair around my fist and yank her toward me. Spin her around in place and spank her ass red. Her pussy would drip for me, but only after she begged me to would I fuck her like the world was ending, putting us both out of our misery. Or maybe that misery is all mine.
“You trust me—”
“I don’t.”
“I won’t hurt her.”
But she has so much power to. More than she even knows.
My hand comes up, my fist curling until my knuckles graze the soft flesh of her cheek, gliding up along the fragile bones poised beneath her silky skin. Every night I jerk off. To her. Her alone. The way she stares up into my eyes. Headstrong. Surefire. Brazen. Her gorgeous mouth. Those full lips. My cock slurping between them.
I want her in a way I don’t remember wanting anyone. Not… fuck, not ever. And how do I reconcile that? I loved my wife in ways I will never love another woman. But she and I… we were easy. Flawless.
Everything with Elle is difficult. Blemished. And yet I crave her in this moment more than my next breath. The breath that’s already ragged. Corrupt. Needy. My vixen.
My knuckles flatten out, curling up into her hair, and her breath hitches. “Stella goes to your house.”
“All right.”
“Only two days a week. No more.”
“Fine.
“I need you to sleep with your window closed.” Because though I’ve had mine locked, I still stand beside it, straining to hear if she’s crying. Desperate to catch a glimpse of her. Who makes you cry, Elle? Who possesses those tears and how do I make them go away?
She shakes off my hand at that, not pleased at all with me. In fact, I think her hand is ready to fly. “You spy on me?”
My hands fall to the table, right beside hers, pinkie to pinkie as I bracket her in. My nose hits her neck, just at the base of it, right where it meets her shoulder. I take a deep inhale as I slowly glide up. She hates me, and yet she’s not pushing me away. Slapping my face the way I deserve. No, she’s trembling against me. And not in fear.
“Landon.” My name on her lips. It’s a demand for answers I’m not giving, but her voice is not as smooth or in control as it was. It vibrates through me and that deep, dark abyss in the pit of my gut suddenly doesn’t feel as bottomless as it did seconds ago.