Page 24 of The Live-In Temptation (Steele Brothers of Starlight Cove #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

XANDER

I thrived on order and structure, so that naturally bled over into my surroundings. Which meant I had always kept my house spotless.

That had shifted dramatically when Emma and her stuffed animals and toys and more hair ties than a four-year-old needed had moved in with me. But even my preschooler had absolutely nothing on the tornado of disorder Chloe had brought with her.

Since she’d moved in, there seemed to be a sheen of glitter on everything. Like a preschool rave gone wrong—or incredibly right, if it was her you were asking.

I pretended I didn’t notice. Just like I’d pretended not to notice exactly how quiet it was in the house without her here tonight.

She was out with Quinn, Luna, and Sutton, probably giving them a carefully edited recap of our midnight encounter in the kitchen the other night.

Did I love that everyone would know I’d made out with my nanny while grinding my cock against her like I was trying to start a fucking fire? Not particularly.

But it was fine. I was fine. Remaining calm. Mostly.

Or I had been anyway. At least until the lines between what I knew for certain had happened—the cookie dough, the kiss, the feel of her hands on me—and what I’d only dreamed—me catching her reading a spicy book and then telling her exactly how to make herself come while I watched—started to blur.

Because there were things I remembered that hadn’t ever happened in my dreams, no matter how many of them she’d starred in.

For one thing, Chloe always started wearing my hoodie, but she ended completely naked. Every fucking time.

For another, she was never surprised or embarrassed in my dreams. She was all in from the get-go. No hesitation. Not a coy bone in her body.

Which was why the snippets that kept floating through my mind didn’t add up.

Chloe in my hoodie, her pajama shorts hiding the sight of her playing with her pussy. Her cheeks flushing a deep red and her stuttered responses when she’d found me in her doorway. The way she’d said my name when she’d come, whispered into the dark instead of screaming it like I was used to.

But it hadn’t been real. Couldn’t have been.

Because if it had been, that meant I’d not only watched my nanny make herself come, but I’d told her how to do it. Demanded how she did. And then I’d gone on like nothing had happened.

Nothing had happened. Right?

Except I could still hear her moans and those soft little whimpers. Could still see every ounce of that hunger in her eyes as she stared at me—something that had been even more apparent during our snowball fight yesterday when she’d ended up on top of me.

I’d seen something else in her gaze as she’d stared down at me. Something that looked a hell of a lot like disappointment. Like she’d just realized I fucked up somehow… That I wasn’t the guy she thought I was.

I didn’t know what the hell I’d done to earn that look. And I didn’t know why the hell it bothered me so damn much.

“Daddy, it’s your turn,” Emma said, pulling me from my thoughts. And not a moment too soon.

My daughter gestured to a dining chair as if it was a throne and she was two seconds from crowning me Glitter King of Starlight Cove.

Across the table, Atlas sat while Laurel had her head bent low over his hand as she painted his nails.

Painted Atlas’s nails.

Atlas. As in six-foot-six former professional tight end and the man people around Starlight Cove referred to as “the big mean one.” He sat with the resigned patience of a man waiting for his turn at the DMV while Laurel decorated his rough, scarred hands with a color called Cotton Candied Clawz .

My brows lifted at the sight. “You let her paint your nails?”

Atlas leveled me with a stare, his gaze unflinching. “Why wouldn’t I?”

I held up my hands in surrender. “Absolutely no reason at all. Just surprised.”

“This one”—he tipped his head toward Laurel—“can never pick a fucking color, so I’m always the guinea pig.”

“That’s a whole dollar in the swear jar, Uncle Atlas!” Emma cut in, eyes wide.

Keeping one hand steady for Laurel, he reached into his pocket with the other, pulled out a dollar, and slid it over to my daughter. “Worth it, little bean.”

She grinned and grabbed the cash before running it over to the jar that was filling up far too quickly for my liking. But after living for thirty-eight years with absolutely no filter, I found it hard to suddenly turn that on.

“Can I paint yours , Daddy?” Emma asked, bouncing on her toes as she stood in front of me. She had her hands clasped together beneath her chin as she hit me with those eyes—the ones I’d figured out on day fucking one would have me hacking off my own arm if only she asked.

I blew out a heavy sigh. “Seriously?”

She stuck out her bottom lip, her shoulders sagging. “Uncle Atlas is doing it.”

“And if Daddy Grump can do it, so can Fire Chief Growly Pants,” Laurel murmured, her focus locked on the precise painting of Atlas’s nails. “What’s a little sparkle between family?”

I didn’t know why that word felt like a knot loosening in my chest. It might have been the calm, offhanded way she’d said family , as if it was a foregone conclusion that that was what we all were.

Or it might have been that family had felt ugly and poisoned for so much of my life but had suddenly shifted into something different in the past couple months.

Not something softer, but something more alive.

Something I was a part of again after intentionally removing myself from it for more than a decade.

“Come on, Daddy Pants Growly Chief!” Emma said, earning a laugh from Laurel. And even my stoic, imposing older brother cracked a smile.

I blew out a defeated sigh and placed my hand on the table like the reluctant sacrifice I was. “Fine. But only because I love you.”

Emma squealed and threw her arms around my neck, damn near choking me out with how hard she squeezed. She took the bottle Laurel had passed over and set to work on my nails, her tongue poking out between her teeth, her gaze laser-focused on the task at hand.

For all the good it did.

The first swipe of the brush across damn near the entire tip of my thumb looked like a unicorn bleeding out. The following swipes weren’t any better, each finger somehow worse than the last.

By the time Emma was done, my hands looked like the aftermath of a glitter bomb exploding at a crime scene.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered with awe. “Like a fancy dragon .”

Atlas choked on his beer, and Laurel snorted. And me? I didn’t know whether I wanted to immediately wash it off or capture this moment so it was frozen in time forever—my daughter beaming up at me like I was Superman and her beloved stuffed unicorn all rolled into one.

Emma climbed into my lap and hooked an arm around my neck, gazing down at her work. “Promise not to wash it off until LoLee sees, okay, Daddy?”

“Yeah, gotta make sure Chloe sees that masterpiece,” Laurel said dryly.

I grunted but otherwise didn’t respond. Mostly because I was trying very hard not to think about that woman.

The one who’d bellowed taunts while lobbing snowballs my way, then went breathless and soft as she straddled me, as if we hadn’t been at war seconds earlier.

The one who’d infiltrated the goddamn vents with her sunshine scent and who’d made the house feel too quiet without her narrating whatever domestic disaster she was about to unleash.

The one who’d gasped my name with her hand between her thighs, eyes wild and ruined as she came apart in front of me.

But I wasn’t supposed to remember her like that last one. Not vividly. Not in detail. Because it hadn’t happened…

Except, if it hadn’t, then why were my memories of her like that in full Technicolor? Why did they play on a loop in my mind every time she walked into a room? Why did I keep catching myself looking at her like I already knew the way she sounded when she broke apart?

I didn’t know what the hell that night had been. A dream? A hallucination? Just something I wanted so fucking desperately, I invented it entirely?

But if by some wild stretch of reality it actually was real and I was the only one pretending it wasn’t? Then I wasn’t the one in control anymore.

And that scared the shit out of me.

After Atlas and Laurel packed up the leftover Thai and headed out, I rested my hands on Emma’s shoulders and marched her toward the stairs. “Bedtime.”

“ Story time,” she countered, as if she were the world’s greatest negotiator—a very tired, sleep-drunk negotiator, currently dragging her blanket behind her up the stairs.

“Deal, but only one. It’s late, and you have school tomorrow.”

She heaved a deep sigh, as if my stipulation was utterly exhausting, but she didn’t argue. Telling me just exactly how tired she was.

After brushing her teeth and changing into pajamas, she climbed into bed, glancing up at me with expectant eyes.

“You want Goodnight Moon ?” I asked, stretching out next to her on the bed and lifting my arm for her to snuggle into my side.

She scrunched up her nose, looking up at me with a horrified expression, as if I’d suggested boiled cabbage for a bedtime snack. “Not books , Daddy. I want a you story.”

I raised my brows as I glanced down at her. “What’s a me story?”

“You know, make-believe. LoLee pretends so good . Like the moonfish and the astronaut duck.”

“The what now?”

“The moonfish and astronaut duck!” Emma repeated, excitement bleeding into her voice. “They had to ’scape space camp with a glitter bomb.”

“Of course they did,” I mumbled toward the ceiling before glancing down at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for another LoLee story tomorrow night?”

Emma shook her head, burying her face in my chest as she snuggled closer. “No, I want one from you .”

I blew out a long, deep sigh and tucked her in close, warmth settling in my chest at her choosing me—not Chloe, not a story… Just me. “Okay, okay.”

Emma squealed and kicked her feet, the hyperactive fallout of the cotton candy tub Laurel had brought over.

“But if I’m going to tell it, I need you to sit very still and be very quiet.”

She stiffened her body as if freezing in place and mimed zipping her mouth shut and locking it tight before tossing the imaginary key over her shoulder.

“Okay. Well.” I cleared my throat. “Once upon a time, there was a, uh…dragon.”

Emma perked up, her eyes going wide as she glanced up at me. “Was he big?”

“Very big.”

“Did he breathe fire?”

“Sometimes, but only when someone messed up his routines.”

She grinned up at me, her eyes bright and curious as she hung on my every word.

“Anyway, this dragon lived in a cave. Alone. Far away from his family. His cave was exactly how he wanted it—all the rocks just so and no glitter anywhere.”

“That sounds sad, Daddy.”

I huffed out a laugh. “Pretty sure only you and LoLee would think no glitter was sad.”

“What about the dragon? Was he sad?”

“He didn’t think so. Not then anyway. No one bugged him. No one moved his stuff. He was fine.”

“But wasn’t he lonely?”

My throat got tight, and I had to clear it a couple times before I could continue.

“Yeah, he was. But he didn’t know it. At least not until one day when a little dragon wandered into his cave.

She looked like him, except she was way cuter and her scales shimmered in the sun.

She was quiet but curious, and so full of questions, she talked through every one of the dragon’s naps. ”

Emma grinned up at me, her eyes heavy. “What was her name?”

“Her name was…um, Doodle. She didn’t mean to get lost, but one day, she was all alone. She didn’t know much about big, grumpy dragons, but from the second she walked into that cave, she decided he was hers.”

“Did the grumpy dragon like having her in his cave?”

“Very much,” I said, hugging her to my side a little tighter and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Even though it was scary at first.”

“That means the dragon was brave.”

I hummed in acknowledgment. “ Both of the dragons were brave. Very brave.”

“Then what happened?”

“The big, grumpy dragon and Doodle moved caves to be closer to their dragon family. And not long after…a unicorn showed up at their cave entrance.”

Emma gasped, glancing up at me with wide eyes. “A unicorn ? Like Pinkie?”

“Yep, a unicorn with painted hooves and long pink hair and a horn that was so beautiful, everyone stopped to stare. She left a trail of glitter wherever she walked and turned the dragon’s cave into a circus.”

“A real circus? With clowns?”

“Not a real circus, but it felt like one. She built a throne out of mismatched shoes, painted every room with rainbows, and invited moonbeams in for sleepovers.”

“Was she scared of the big, grumpy dragon?”

I huffed out a breath and shook my head. “Not even a little. She created a pillow fort in his cave and called it home. Just moved right in.”

“Did the dragon like that?”

I brushed the hair back from Emma’s face. “Not right away. At first, he growled a lot. But every day that passed, the unicorn made the cave a bit brighter and made the little dragon a bit happier. And every day, he growled a bit less.”

“Did the unicorn stay?” Emma asked, her voice soft and sleepy, half there and already half gone.

I blew out a heavy sigh and stared at the ceiling. Did she stay? Fuck, I didn’t know. The glittery unicorn from the damn story that made everything better wasn’t real. Just like the idea of someone sticking around wasn’t real.

People left—it was what they did. Hell, most of them didn’t even say goodbye.

And this unicorn? She didn’t do roots. She’d made that crystal clear. She was nothing more than glitter and mayhem and impulsivity. She was temporary.

Except I wasn’t thinking about the fucking unicorn. I was thinking about Chloe.

I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Chloe.

If it wasn’t remembering exactly what she tasted like, it was glimpses of her with my daughter. Laughing and singing and pulling my sweet, shy, broken girl out of her shell.

The mark she’d left on Emma and me and this house wasn’t going to be temporary at all.

Not when her scent still clung to the hallways, not when every room still echoed with the sound of her laugh, and sure as hell not when I could still feel her mouth against my neck, her lips against mine, as if I’d branded it there myself.

The worst part was she’d only been in my life for weeks, and already she had a lasting effect.

I wasn’t supposed to want her like this. And I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to notice how empty it felt in this house when she wasn’t here. Or just how much she’d made it feel like a home.

But this undeniable draw I felt to her was only physical. Just my body needing something I’d denied it for far too long. My increasingly graphic dreams were proof enough of that.

Chloe was nothing more than a forbidden temptation. One that was getting damn hard to ignore.