Page 10 of The Live-In Temptation (Steele Brothers of Starlight Cove #2)

CHAPTER NINE

XANDER

It was late by the time I got home the following evening.

I hadn’t planned it that way—we’d been one person short today, so the shift had run long and paperwork had stacked up—but maybe minimizing my time at home wasn’t a bad thing.

Not when Chloe and Emma were still finding their footing.

And definitely not when I couldn’t take a full breath without catching a trace of Chloe in it.

Eventually, things would level out. She’d settle into the job, I’d get used to her being here, and my body would stop reacting like a hormone-addled teenager every time I caught a whiff of her shampoo.

Or so I fucking hoped.

I unlocked the door and strode inside, immediately tripping over something as I went.

“Daddy!” Emma yelled, running straight for me. “Chloe found all the missing shoes!”

I picked her up before she could crash into me, holding her as I glanced down and spotted the culprits. All six of them. “I see that. Did they need to go right in front of the door?”

“All the matching pairs deserve prime placement, Chief,” Chloe said. She was leaning over the kitchen island, wearing an oversized hoodie and a pair of skintight leggings, her hair piled in a ridiculous mess on top of her head, and goddammit.

Goddammit .

All I could think about was bending her over that island while I stuffed her full of my cock. Or laying her out on top of it while I feasted on her cunt until the evidence of just how much she loved my tongue dripped down my chin.

And after the way she’d hungrily drunk me in when I’d run into her after my shower yesterday morning, I wasn’t sure she’d stop me.

“Yeah, Daddy!” Emma said, pulling me out of my misplaced thoughts of fucking the hell out of my pain-in-the-ass nanny. “Prime pracement!”

I cleared my throat and looked to my daughter. “Uh-huh, and the pairless shoes?”

“They’re in the shoe orpha-midge,” she said very seriously, wrapping an arm around my neck.

“Do you mean orphanage?”

“That’s what I said.”

“That seems very official.”

For some unknown reason, I glanced again at Chloe, who only smiled back, the picture of serenity.

As if she hadn’t made my cock twitch with one look in her direction…

with one hint of her scent. As if she weren’t a chaos demon sent straight from hell with the sole purpose of driving me out of my goddamn mind.

“Come see!” Emma pushed against my chest until I set her down. Then she grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the corner of the living room, her body practically humming with excitement.

What had once been a lovely, beautiful, empty space now held a house made from a decorated cardboard box, complete with ribbons down the front, tied back like curtains. And, of fucking course, glitter.

Everywhere.

“This is where they stay, Daddy.” Emma dropped to her knees and arranged the shoes like they were dolls in a dollhouse. “So we can take very good care of them until they find their pairs. Kind of like Dottie did for me after Mommy went away. Right, Daddy?”

The way she said it—so matter-of-fact—nearly broke my heart as much as the words themselves.

Thank god for the older neighbor who’d looked after Emma until CPS had located me.

Thank fucking god. I hated the thought of my little girl, alone, grief weighing her down, and not knowing what was happening.

My throat tightened, that familiar heaviness of guilt and regret sitting squarely on my shoulders. It was so goddamn heavy some days, it was hard to breathe. But better I carry it than her. After all, it was mine to bear.

I tugged Emma toward me and hugged her tight, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Yeah, peanut. Just like that.”

If I thought running into Chloe in the hallway while wearing only a towel or picturing her bent over the kitchen island was bad, neither of those instances had anything on the sight of her when I got home Wednesday night.

I walked in—careful not to trip over any more shoes—shut the door behind me, and turned around to find Chloe bent over in front of me wearing only skintight leggings and a sports bra.

A yoga mat was stretched out beneath her, and her ass was at the perfect height for me to grab.

To step right up behind, grip those lush hips, and fuck this infatuation straight out of me.

“You’re doing great, doodlebug! Excellent Downward Dragon,” Chloe said, reminding me that my daughter was, in fact, in the room.

Emma stood next to her in an inverted V, her hands braced on her very own yoga mat, and gave a loud roar. Cosplaying the dragon, I assumed. But even my daughter being adorable as hell couldn’t distract me from the temptation that was Chloe.

Not to mention the X-rated fantasies of her that had been playing on a constant loop through my mind.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, closed my eyes, and muttered a soft, “Fuck.”

And then I did the only thing I could. I turned on my heel and stalked off to my bedroom to hide my very prominent, very inconvenient, very persistent hard-on and get my shit together before diving into Daddy Mode.

Though we’d managed to avoid any other post-shower run-ins, I wasn’t sure Chloe standing in the kitchen in her pajamas was any better. Especially when those “pajamas” consisted of shorts so tiny they might as well have been panties, and a sweatshirt so big it might as well have been a dress.

Logically, I knew she had bottoms on under it. But I couldn’t see them. And because I couldn’t see them, it was easy to imagine she was walking around with a bare pussy beneath all that material.

Every day that passed, it was getting harder and harder to tamp down my body’s reaction to the infuriating woman.

We stood side by side in the kitchen, her humming something softly under her breath and me trying valiantly not to lose my shit before I’d even left for work.

This was usually my time—the early morning before Emma woke up, a dark kitchen, and nothing but silence.

Now, Chloe was here.

Humming.

Smiling .

Taking up space like she owned it.

Not just in the kitchen but in my goddamn head.

We reached for a mug at the same time, our fingers brushing, and a jolt of electricity I had absolutely no business feeling shot down my arm.

“That’s mine,” I said, sharper than necessary.

Just more proof this woman absolutely undid me without even trying. And I hated every goddamn second of it.

Chloe glanced at me and raised a brow. “Sorry, Chief. Didn’t think you’d be territorial over mugs.”

“Didn’t think you’d be in my way every morning,” I said before I could stop myself.

As if I needed the reminder of Monday morning—or every morning that had followed. Didn’t matter if every other encounter between us had been innocent. That had only been on the surface. Because god knew I’d fucked her in seventeen different ways in my mind.

It was only the early hour that made my voice husky and definitely not anything to do with remembering the lust in her eyes when she’d run into me straight out of the shower.

Lust that was in her eyes even now.

It would be so goddamn easy to lean in. To crowd her against the cabinets, brace my hands on either side of her hips, and kiss her.

I could lift her onto the counter, slip those tiny shorts to the side, and sink inside.

Could bend her over it and fuck her from behind.

Could sink to my knees and feast on her like she was my last meal. I could?—

“Daddy! I can’t find my sparkle sweater!” Emma called from upstairs.

Her voice was like a bucket of ice water poured over my head, effectively breaking the horny trance I was in.

And reminding me what a monumentally bad idea it would be to cross that line with the woman tasked with caring for my daughter.

I cleared my throat and stepped away from Chloe, unsure what to say to brush aside the want she’d no doubt seen in my eyes.

So, in the end, I didn’t say anything at all. Just turned around and left. Walked away from the flame that was Chloe Bradshaw before it could burn me again.