Falling for the Au Pair (3 page)

              “I’m doing what I can,” I tried saying with a calm voice, but then I heard Rachel’s laughter and Audrey’s singing. They were coming and soon they would be reaching the house.

              There wasn’t anything I could do in such a short period of time. I thought about jumping to Matt, to take his gun away, but it could as easily make the gun fire in the struggle. A few seconds later, I saw the two of them; hand in hand, singing some cute, adorable lullaby. They never looked more innocent.

              “Look, daddy’s here,” I heard Audrey say with a smile, not realizing the danger.

              When Rachel made a move to run to me, I quickly raised my arm and told her to stop. Maybe it was how hard my expression marked my face, because Audrey was quick to pick up Rachel. I saw when she noticed the man in front of me had a gun. Her eyes went bigger at the same time her hold on Rachel grew tighter.

              “If you’re not going after him, I’m killing him myself!” Matt yelled, waving his gun in every direction he could, even to Rachel and Audrey’s direction.

              “Hey, hey, I’m going there now myself. Let’s go there together. How’s that?” I said, taking a few steps closer to Matt.

              “Thomas.” I didn’t like Audrey’s scared voice.

              “Just go inside, honey. And wait for me,” I said while entering their line of vision when Audrey ran inside the house, to safety.

              It was in the car, when I was taking Matt to the precinct, that I realized I had called Audrey honey. It felt intimate and real. I liked it.

I loved it, actually.

When I got home a few hours later, exhausted in a way I’ve never been before, Audrey welcomed me. I didn’t even had time to lock the door behind me when a strong pair of arms were around my neck. It was our first touch, and it was overwhelming. I stood there, unmoving, tired as hell as Audrey hugged me. For a few seconds I closed my eyes. Her body against mine was too good to pull away.

And so I didn’t.

Her smell of lilies assaulted my nose and I instantly felt calm.

              Her hands moved to the back of neck as her forehead rested on my temple. “Are you okay?” she whispered. That voice installing itself inside my chest like it was made to be there.

              “I said once you shouldn’t worry about me,” I murmured back, my eyes finding Rachel sleeping in the couch.

              I felt Audrey nodding against my right cheek, her warmth taking over me and overloading my senses. I didn’t even move. My arms were dead next to my body, unable to hold her back because I was too afraid that the moment I did let go, it wouldn’t have a way to turn back.

Audrey’s lips touched my chin, sending chills all over my body and making an erection that would take forever to come back from.

              “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said, her breath invading mouth and my nose.

              I couldn’t look at her, it was too much. “I need to take a shower. Take Rachel to bed,” I didn’t want to sound so hard, but maybe I was. I disentangled myself from her and went straight to the bathroom, where not even a cold shower would solve my problem.

Chapter Three

He had called me honey while a man with a gun was standing right in front of him. Even though the situation was horrible, and the waiting for him to come home was even worse, was it wrong to be happy with something so small and trivial?

I’ve never been more happy when I saw him enter the front door, in which was why I couldn’t control my emotions, not even my body. I was so glad he was okay, safe and sound, and in one piece that it was too much for me. I threw my arms around him, rested my worried face on his temple and kissed him in such an intimate way. He didn’t return any of my gestures, didn’t even held me, and right after, he went away. I wasn’t going to lie…it hurt. I shouldn’t even have done that, and still I had wanted something in return.

I was ready to cry, that’s how embarrassed and stupid I felt. But one look at Rachel made me swallow all that inside. I picked her up and went to the hallway. I passed the bathroom, where I could hear the water running and stopped for a second. Thomas was in there, naked. The water was probably cascading down his hard muscles behind that door. And even though he didn’t feel the same way about me, I wanted to go in there and be with him.

How crazy was I?

Resting Rachel’s sleepy tiny body to her bed made me calm and at peace. I kissed her on the forehead and went straight to my bedroom, where a long night would take place.

*****

After a long and cold shower, I went to take care of some things around the house. I didn’t want to go to bed, I needed to keep moving. After half an hour, I was in Rachel’s room, watching her sleep as a little angel she truly was. And she was sleeping there, safe and sound, because of Audrey. Audrey who had turned around when the gun was raised at their direction. She protected Rachel, as she was protecting her every day. Giving and filling her with life again.

Without knowing how, my steps lead me to her room.

There she was. Sleeping in the darkness while her ginger hair glowed with the little light the moon provided. I walked and sat on the bed, watching her as a need too strong filled every muscle in my body. I wanted to be strong, to move away. I wanted to have the strength to turn her away from me forever. But…

She was light and joy.

A diamond so bright that outshined even the sun.

She was life itself.

*****

Feeling a weight on the right side of my bed, I woke up to find Thomas. I couldn’t see his face, only blackness. I knew it was him because I knew the shape of his body.

“Mister Abram, is Rachel okay?” I asked, sleepy, while scrubbing my eyes.

              I heard him take a very deep breath. “Yeah. Sure. Rachel’s okay,” he whispered, almost inaudibly.

I found that strange – his voice, the way he had entered my room, how he was sitting there without moving a single muscle. I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel his stare on me. And then there was the way his deep breathing filled the silence of my room, making my heart speed faster.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” he said, with a fake laugh. He turned his face and I saw his profile. God, he was just perfect and had all the right lines. “Rachel’s okay. I just wanted to make sure you were okay and I found you sleeping. I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

              He stood and took a step toward the door. Without knowing what came over me, I left the bed and found his hand, in which was cold. There was no reason for him to be that cold, he was in the shower the last time I saw him.

A moaned escaped my throat, one that didn’t pass unnoticed.

              Thomas stopped, lowered his head to where my hand still touched his own and then my eyes finally met his. It was dark, but there was the light’s moon creping through the window, passing through the curtains. And his eyes, God, his eyes looked haunted. Like he was in pain but didn’t want to say anything. As if he didn’t want to let anyone know the true depths of his soul. I knew him enough to know he was a strong man. A man who would take the world’s pain inside himself before it could hurt anyone else.

              “What about you, Mister Abram? Are you okay? You’re so cold,” I whispered, looking up because of how taller he was.

              “You’ve been living in my home for four weeks now, Audrey. Please call me by my name,” he murmured back with that deep voice. And there was the accent. Jesus Christ, the accent. Only his voice, with a few words, made things to me. I could feel my entire body screaming for release. For his touch. His kisses. Everything burned.

              Without realizing, my thumb had started to make circles on his rough hand. “Sure, Thomas,” I said with a little smile when I found my breath.

My heart pounded in my chest while I continued to touch his hand, sweat soon mingling because of how different our temperatures were. But the greatest assault wasn’t of how I was touching him in such an intimate way, it was how he was gazing at me. I’ve never seen him like that. As if he was trying to control a beast inside himself. His gaze went to my eyes, to my lips and my collarbone, as though he didn’t know where to look first or if he was trying to figure out what to do or where to touch. We stood there, in the middle of my room, in the complete darkness, gazing at each other for I don’t know how long. It could have been years and still it would’ve not been enough.

“Stop that,” he said after an eternity of gazing, wanting, needing.

His nose almost touching mine, I made myself say, “Stop what?”

“You know well what.”

Finally realizing I was still making circles on his hand, I lowered my head to ours hands and stopped the movement. In that moment I thought about why he just didn’t move away and why he asked for
me
to stop it. He could easily just turned away.

Hearing his rapid breathing directly in my ear sent chills throughout my entire lustful body. “What if I don’t want to stop?” I asked, lifting my head and being inches away from his lips.

Hearing my words, Thomas closed his eyes, turned his head from me and took a deep breath. “Please, don’t.”

“Don’t what?” In an involuntary movement, my hands went to his chest, resting on a wall of pure muscle. “God, why are you so cold?” I asked again, not letting him answer my first question.

“I-I was outside. I took the thrash away,” he murmured, still not looking at me. A few seconds passed without any of us say anything. I only stood there gazing at his neck with this intense feeling of kissing that glorious and inviting skin while he still looked away with his shallow breathing. I loved the way his chest moved against me. With a slow movement, I placed my palm right on his heart, where hard thumps made the hairs on my body stand up. “Is that what you do?” The sound came strong, startling me.

“Do what?”

Finally turning his face to me, inches from my lips, he said, “Seduce the father of the children you take care of.”

It was like a kick to the stomach, a knife on the back or a slap in the face – just pick one. Ever so slowly, I slid my hands from him. Without taking eye contact, I tried my best to not let it show how he had affected me. I left my face blank.

“This is my first time as an Au Pair,” I whispered. “I surely told you…” and then my voice broke. “…that, Mister Abram.”

Silence.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

“I apology-”

“I’ve just never-” we said at the same time. I swallowed and when he didn’t make a move to say anything, I went for it. “I’ve never felt something like this before. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” I pretty much said it to his chest. It was difficult to say something like that to his face where seconds ago he had practically verbally assaulted me.

“Never felt what before?”

Frowning, I gave him my back. Now that I had opened that door, I couldn’t just close it. Embracing myself with my arms, I did my best not to look like a scared little girl, even though I knew I was one at that moment. I was in complete darkness with a man, not a boy, where I was about to say something that could completely send me packing. I could never see Rachel again.

Turning to him, I was about to say,
hey forget it, it’s nothing
. I would laugh and everything would come back to normal, but then I saw his face, his expression toward me. I knew his wife had passed away a few years ago, and I knew he felt lonely in the first week I had working with him. It was there, written on a face that I haven’t even seen smile.

Sure, I saw him laugh and smile with Rachel, but it didn’t quite ever reach his eyes. He stood there with only a pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt with a possession look in his eyes. Like he wanted me the same way I wanted him. Realizing I wasn’t the only one feeling things, I decided to take a bold move.

As if I was about to be bare in front of him, I let my arms fall. “I feel this…hm…attraction. I don’t know how to describe it, I just feel this knot inside my belly every time I look at you. I have this need to touch you in which I have to control it.” There was a few seconds of silence. “It feels like I can’t breathe.” He took a step forward and then another. “Like at this exact moment. My body is pulsing…” I could barely whisper with his proximity. “…begging for you…” Then, my back was on the wall, along with his hands inches away from my waist and my head. His knee touched the inside of my thigh, making me open up for him while I moved my leg and rested on the back of his own. His strong erection pressing, touching my most intimate, needing place of my body. “…begging for you to be inside me.”

It was hard to breathe, hard to even think when a man like him was pressing against me on a wall in the complete dusk of night, with a bed right next to it. Where anything could happen.

“Jesus Christ. Stop. Just stop it,” he said, his voice deep and desperate. He didn’t touch me, his hands were glued on the wall, inches from my body while his hips pressed and moved against me.