Page 40 of Learn Your Lesson

And I stood there in my kitchen with one hand scrubbing over my jaw, wondering how the hell I was supposed to resist that woman when she did shit likethis.

• • •

After bath time, I relieved Chloe of her duty, taking over and reading Ava a book.

Of course, I didn’t get far into it before she was begging me to join a hockey team, saying she was ready and that Axel Swann in her class was on a hockey team and why couldn’t she be, too?

I promised her I’d look into it with my heart squeezing painfully in my chest. One, because I had no idea if I could find a league of girls, or one that would allow a co-edsituation. And two, because the thought of her getting hurt was enough to make me want to lock her in this bedroom of safety until she was twenty.

Still, I would have had to have been blind not to see how much joy justpretendingto play had brought her tonight. I vowed to actually follow through on this promise and see if I could get her somewhere to play. At the very least, I could hire a coach for her. Maybe I could even fund a small league of girls if we had enough interest.

My mind was still spinning with those thoughts as I read to my daughter. She passed out just a few pages in, clutching her new jersey tight to her chest after begging me to let her sleep with it.

As if I could say no to the first thing to make her smile in I couldn’t remember how long.

I kissed her forehead once she was asleep, slipping out of her room and down the stairs with a long sigh leaving my chest. I was sore as hell from practice and the string of games we had, and we had another home game tomorrow night.

We were just a few games away from our bye week — and as much as I hated to rest too long during the season, I was looking forward to the break.

When I made it downstairs, I re-heated the leftovers Chloe had mentioned before sitting down on the couch. I had twoJeopardyrecordings to catch up on, and I played the first one before taking a bite.

Damn.

How the hell did she make noodles made out of a fucking vegetable taste so good?

I shook the thought from my head, doing my damndest not to think too hard about the woman in my pool house as I settled in for the episode. Being upstairs with Avahad helped me clear my mind a bit, and I remembered staunchly why I needed to stop having fantasies about my kid’s nanny.

She was the firstgoodone I’d ever had, and I’d be damned if I messed it up because my cock seemed to react every time she did something nice for me or Ava.

Okay, so maybe I was kidding myself with that. It wasn’t just when she treated Ava like her own, or when she did something around the house that she really didn’t have to, or when she made my life easier by doing what — in her words — was thebare minimumof a babysitter.

It was that she was fucking gorgeous.

It was that she walked around here every morning in that stupid robe with no bra on, and that she was sexy as hell even when she wore the most colorful, outrageous outfits. It was that she was witty and quick to call me on my shit. It was that she cared for three asshole cats like they were her kids and listened to more true crime podcasts than anyone I knew. It was that she spent an entire evening with my teammates’ partners, even though I knew it was out of her comfort zone.

Every small, ridiculous thing about her turned me on.

Which was a real fucking problem.

“What isBack to the Future?”

I blinked out of my haze, finding Chloe sauntering into the living room with a full glass of white wine in one hand, and a half-stitched project in the other. She was freshly showered, her hair damp and held back with a fuzzy headband — which was good, considering she had some sort of goopy green shit slathered on her face.

The giant t-shirt she had on was thin and stretched out like it’d been worn for years. It was navy blue and saidManifest the Matriarchy.It was so oversizedthat it made it look like she didn’t have pants on, but I caught a sliver of the small sweat shorts she had on underneath it as she walked across the living room.

It was the first time I’d seen her thighs, and from the way my heart stopped beating and my cock jolted to life, you would have thought I was a twelve-year-old boy sneaking my first look at a picture of boobs.

“Do you mind if I join you?” she asked, hesitation making her pause at my lack of reaction to her entering. “I know this is your space, but it gets kind of… quiet out there in the pool house by myself.”

I was still gaping at her, because apparently her body broke every fucking cog and wheel in my stupid brain.

“I can go,” she said, already turning when I finally found my voice.

“Please, sit,” I managed, clearing my throat. “Sorry, long day. My brain isn’t firing.”

Chloe offered a shy smile before she sat down at the opposite end of the couch from me with her eyes on the screen, completely oblivious to how she’d rendered me stupid. She took a sip of her wine before setting it on the side table.

“What isPulp Fiction,” she said. The contestant on my TV mirrored her question, and Ken Jennings confirmed it was correct.