Undeniable You (Sapph in the City #4)

Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

Jo

I’d barely slept and now Larison was ready to face this head on and I just did not want to do that. If we talked then everything was going to change and the idea of that made me want to throw up.

Even if we talked and said “hey, we like each other, but let’s not let it affect everything” it would , and we’d have to deal with that.

I’d quit my job before she fired me. It would be awful, but I’d do it. For her.

There was no halfway with Larison. Not for me. Now that these feelings had developed, there was no putting them back in the box or turning them off.

Fuck. What a mess. What a complicated and twisted mess. I’d known the second I saw her in the café that she was going to change my life. A woman that gorgeous couldn’t help but cause absolute chaos and mayhem.

Should have listened to my intuition, but I’d been too desperate for a job, and also horny.

Fucked over by my own libido.

I should find something to distract myself, but all I could do was pace around my apartment and try to ignore my upset stomach.

I hadn’t answered Larison’s messages because I didn’t know what to say. She wanted to talk, and I didn’t, so I stopped answering.

I knew that if I told Reid what was going on, she would tell me to get my head out of my ass and talk to Larison, which was exactly why I hadn’t reached out to Reid.

A knock on my door made me nearly jump out of my skin.

There was only one person it could be.

Someone must have let her into the building and now there was no way for me to pretend I wasn’t home.

Fuck.

I opened my door and found her breathing hard as if she’d run up the stairs.

“I’m sorry for just showing up, but I had to talk to face-to-face,” she said, just pushing past me and coming inside. Okay then. This was happening. I tried not to throw up. Waves of ice cascaded over my skin as Larison looked around and then turned and faced me.

“You just left last night and didn’t give me any time to process anything you said. And you didn’t really tell me what you meant by having feelings. Because that can mean a lot of different things.”

I clenched my shaking fingers together and took a deep breath, my entire body trembling.

“I like you, Larison. I like you a lot . I have from the first second I saw you. And I shouldn’t have taken the job knowing that, but I thought it would go away. I thought it would stop and then it got worse and I need this job.”

Larison listened to all of that, her brown eyes steady on my face.

“I’m not going to fire you, Josephine.”

Fucking hell. My name again.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them, she’d taken a silent step closer to me.

“Falling for someone isn’t a crime, Jo. And you’re not the only one who had feelings like that when we first met.” She licked her lips and then I couldn’t take my eyes away from her mouth.

What would kissing Larison be like? Life-altering, probably.

“You, um, like me?” I asked and made a face. I sounded like I was in middle school.

“Yeah, Jo. I do. And I did the same thing. Hoped it would stop or go away, but then you had to go and be wonderful to me and my daughter and I had no chance.” She laughed softly and I could smell her hair and I wanted to run my fingers through it and watch the colors change in the light. I also wanted to do less sweet things like drag my teeth down the side of her neck and kiss her until she moaned.

Both. I wanted both.

So distracted by all those thoughts, it took a second for her words to break through and make sense.

“Maybe, I mean…maybe you like me because you’re paying me to be nice to you.” That was a fear that was very real to me. That her gratitude for me coming in and helping her would get mistaken for desire.

Larison shook her head. “ No . It’s not just that you’re good with Juniper. It’s those times when you stayed late and played with her hair and talked to me and the way you made dinner and just…you. It’s just you, Jo. Everything about you. I can’t stop thinking about you all the time. Wishing you’d walk back through the door.”

Oh. Well. That was a lot to process.

“Are you sure?” I asked, my voice croaking. I really needed her to be absolutely clear with me.

She laughed. “Yes, I’m sure, Jo. I’ve been very sure for a while, but I didn’t know if you felt the same way and I’d be a pretty disgusting human if I told you any of that while you were working for me. I would never want to pressure you into anything.”

“You wouldn’t,” I said immediately. “I know you wouldn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

Yes, I was really fucking sure, and this talking was starting to go in circles so I was going to do something about it.

She was here and she looked so good and she’d said that she liked me and all of that had gone directly to my head and my pussy and had clouded my judgment so was I really responsible for my actions right now?

Leaning forward and upward, I eliminated the space between us and kissed her. A gentle press of lips. A greeting. A question. A wish.

Her entire body jolted against mine. I’d surprised her. That movement made me pull back, worried I’d done the wrong thing. Misread all of her signals.

Her eyes stared into mine as her lips parted.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted.

“You didn’t have to stop.”

Oh .

Before I could consider her words, she had reached for my face and brought it back, being the one to initiate this time.

Now I was the one who was stunned.

A little whimper echoed in my throat as Larison kissed me. And she kissed me. Little kisses, deep kisses, devastating kisses. She’d change it up, giving me these intense, slow licks and then pull back so much that our mouths were barely touching before sucking on my bottom lip and completely scrambling my brain.

This woman was trying to kill me with kissing, and she was doing a masterful job.

If I’d had any hope or plan about how kissing her would go, she’d erased it, along with all of my other thoughts. I couldn’t even hear anything except the pounding of my heart in my ears.

One moment her mouth was dominating me and the next her eyes were staring into mine and she was giving me the kind of smile that made me think illicit thoughts.

“Oh, Josephine,” she said, her voice not sounding very steady. She rested her forehead on mine for a second and let out a breathy laugh.

Her hand stroked the back of my neck and I discovered that I’d grabbed onto her waist and was holding on for dear life. I relaxed my death grip on her but didn’t fully let go because I didn’t want to. Larison had the kind of soft belly and curves that I wanted to lick and bite and worship for hours. The kind of body I wanted to hold and take a nap on, but also have on top of me and crush me into the mattress.

I exhaled, my entire body trembling and oversensitive and on fire.

“What happens now?” I asked.

Larison licked her lips and I forgot what I’d just said.

“I’m not exactly sure. But I think I need to kiss you again. Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice so loud that she laughed. “I mean, yes.” This time I whispered it.

“You’re so cute.” Larison said, and I smiled so big it made my cheeks hurt.

“Am I?” I wanted to be cute. I wanted to be cute and adorable and irresistible. I also wanted to be sexy and hot and arousing. I could be both, right?

“Yeah, you are,” she said, tucking some hair behind my ear. It was down because I hadn’t really put much effort into my appearance today. All I wore was a pair of ratty old shorts and an oversize T-shirt from my undergrad university that had been washed so many times it was almost falling apart.

Larison, on the other hand, looked incredible. She wore wide-leg pants with a leaf pattern on them and a light blue ribbed T-shirt that showed off her body and made my mouth water. Her hair was up in a high ponytail and her makeup was light.

“Kiss me. Please,” I said, sounding whiny but not caring. I’d get down on my knees and beg if she wanted me to. I mean, I’d get down on my knees for any reason for her. Happily. I would do absolutely anything for this woman.

Larison grinned before capturing my mouth again, making me dizzy as she devoured me. Things got messy and desperate fast, and I couldn’t help the little noises I made as Larison pressed against me, walking us backward until we hit a wall. Her fingers dug into my scalp as her other hand stroked up and down my side lazily. At odds with the way she was attacking my mouth. I kissed her back with as much enthusiasm, but there was no question as to who was dominating, and I was happy to let her.

This time when we pulled apart, we were both gasping. Larison held onto me, and I could feel how much she was shaking, which was satisfying. I wasn’t the only one who was completely wrecked.

“God, I want you so fucking much,” she said, startling me. Larison almost never swore, so the fact that she had said fuck made me feel pretty damn good.

“I thought I was going to pass out when I saw you in the café. I’ve never met someone I’ve felt that way about so fast,” I admitted.

Larison licked her bottom lip. “I know exactly what you mean.”

She pulled back just a tiny bit and I wanted to follow her. Where was she going.

“We should… We should hit the pause button for a second.” Her words hit me like a speeding train.

“Oh. Yeah.” I sounded like a petulant toddler deprived of cookies.

“God, don’t pout like that. It makes me want to kiss you again,” she said, and my eyes went wide with surprise. Larison saying things like that to me was new and incredible. I wanted to hear more. I needed to know how much she wanted me.

I exaggerated my pout even more and looked up at her through my eyelashes, making her laugh.

“Brat.”

I grinned. “I could be. If you wanted me to.”

She made a painful sound. “Jesus, Jo.” She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“What?”

“You’re making me think about too many things.”

I stepped closer to her and ran my hand up her side, causing her T-shirt to ride up just a little and give me a peak of skin.

“What kind of things?”

“Jo, we need to…” she trailed off, gazing into my eyes.

“We need to what?”

She blinked at me. “You made me lose my train of thought.”

“Sorry,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not even a little bit sorry.”

“No, I’m not.”

Holy shit, flirting with her like this was intoxicating. I wish we’d been doing this the entire time.

“Why don’t we sit on the couch so we can talk?” she asked.

“Sure.”

I waited for her to sit down and then I basically sat in her lap, my legs draped over her and my arm around her shoulders. I’d considered straddling her, but that was probably pushing things too far. I would straddle her sometime in the near future. Hopefully we’d both be naked.

“Jo, what are you doing?” she asked, her eyes wide as she looked up at me.

I kept my face innocent. “Sitting. Am I doing it wrong?”

Slowly she shook her head. “You are trouble. It’s all coming out now.”

I grinned at her and tried not to freak out when her arms wove around my waist.

“What did you want to talk about?” I asked.

Larison let out a breath. “Well. This. Us. How we’re going to move forward. You’re still going to work for me, but what about outside of working hours? How do you picture this going?”

I pictured it like dragging her to bed and keeping her there until she literally passed out. But that wasn’t what she was asking.

“I mean, I guess we could have our work hours and our personal hours. We clock in and clock out. Don’t do dating things during work hours.” I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. I didn’t like them, but I knew they were right. We’d need to have some kind of demarcation.

Larison nodded. “Okay, that makes sense. So once you clock in, we just don’t have any touching or kissing or flirting or any of that. I also don’t want to confuse Juniper. I know this is a lot to ask, but can we keep things not in front of her? Is that okay?”

Her hand moved up and down my spine, and I wanted to purr like a cat and beg her not to stop.

“Yeah, that’s okay. I totally get that it’s kind of complicated with her.”

Right. Juniper. Larison had a daughter. It wasn’t that I was just remembering that now, but things had changed between us and I was about to become more than just her nanny. Larison and I dating was a little more serious than dating someone who didn’t have a child.

If things got serious, I’d have to consider the fact that I could become a parent. Stepparent. What would happen if we broke up was also a huge consideration.

“Wait, before we talk more about logistics, I just need to know: are you serious about this? Because I can’t do something casual. If you’re in, you’ve got to be all in. I know that’s a lot to ask, but that’s just how my life is. There’s a reason that I don’t date or do any of this. I’ve just…” she trailed off, her hands pausing on my body. “I didn’t expect this, Jo.”

She looked up at me and I fought the desire to kiss her again. Fuck, I wanted to kiss her. I needed it. Like food or air or water.

“I didn’t either. You’re not the only one who’s been avoiding dating. I can’t let anything derail me from getting my degree. Are we crazy for doing this?” The last few words slipped out of my mouth without even a thought.

Larison gazed at me for a long time. As if she was searching for something. I was desperate for her to find it no matter what it was.

“I don’t know. That’s my honest answer. But I think we at least owe it to ourselves to try.”

I couldn’t walk away, and I couldn’t say goodbye. Not without seeing what we could be together. Not without kissing her hundreds of times. Not without giving this my best. Larison and Juniper both deserved my best.

“I think the right way to start this is with honesty. So I’ll tell you that I’m scared. I’m scared as fuck. I’ve never dated anyone with kids before. And I know I’m Juniper’s nanny, but this would change our relationship. It just would. And I’m terrified of messing up.” I had to lay it all out on the table. Let her know exactly how I was feeling. Not let my anxieties fester until they broke us up.

Larison went back to stroking my spine and I settled closer to her, reaching up and pulling the elastic out of her hair so I could get my fingers in it.

“I’d be worried if you didn’t consider Juniper in all this. I could never be with someone who treated my daughter as an afterthought, or as someone who wasn’t a massive part of my life. Because she is. Juniper is my first priority, and that will never change.”

Fuck, this woman was incredible. Juniper was so lucky to have a mom like Larison who would burn down the world for her. Who would also teach her daughter to stand up for her values and never back down. It made her even more attractive to me. So attractive that I didn’t know what to do with all of it.

“Fuck, I have to kiss you right now,” I said, and without even waiting, I did, capturing her mouth and showing her how much I agreed with her, how all in I was.

We should have talked more, but our priorities shifted into making out and I was absolutely fine with that.

Those sparks I’d felt when we’d first met hadn’t flamed out and they weren’t momentary. The longer I was in her presence, the more I wanted her. Needed her. Was completely obsessed by her.

This thing between us was undeniable now.

Larison laughed in her throat as I did my best to get my hands under her shirt so I could touch as much of her silky skin as possible.

“Mmm, I think we should hit the brakes,” she said, leaning back. My eyes popped open and I gave her a wounded look.

“Stop being so cute, it makes me want to make impulsive decisions.”

My fingers slid through her hair and I never wanted to stop touching her. We’d just need to be attached to each other from now on. She could strap me on her back or something.

“But impulsive decisions can be the best ones,” I said, still pouting a little.

Larison rolled her eyes. “You know what happened last time I made an impulsive decision to talk to a guy at a bar with gorgeous blue eyes?” She raised both eyebrows.

“I’m going to assume her name starts with Jun and ends in iper.”

Larison snorted. “Yup. Now you know. Blue eyes are my weakness.”

She’d never spoken to me about Juniper’s dad. It wasn’t hard to assume that he wasn’t in the picture. That maybe he’d never been in the picture.

Larison shifted me until I was sitting next to her on the couch, still tucked up against her though.

“His name is Josh,” she said.

“Of course it is,” I said, making her laugh.

“Of course it is,” she agreed. “Anyway. I had just graduated from high school and was working summers scooping ice cream. I’d gone out with some friends and caught his eye across the bar and even though I wasn’t of age, one of my friends had a case of beer in his trunk that we shotgunned in the parking lot, so I was pretty hammered already. Not ideal for making good decisions. And I’d always been a sucker for guys with dark hair and blue eyes. He was pretty and I was weak, and one thing led to another and then my period was late.”

She closed her eyes and I scratched my fingers against her scalp.

“Oh, that feels good. You’re distracting me.”

“Sorry,” I said, withdrawing my hand.

Her eyes popped open. “I didn’t want you to stop.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, and something flashed in her eyes. Oh, she liked that. Noted.

I went back to scratching her head and she continued. “I really didn’t know anything about him. He was just here for the summer. He worked on fishing boats and all he cared about was having a good time. I don’t even think he had a bank account. But he’d been interesting and exciting for that one night.”

Her expression turned contemplative.

“But not for more than that,” I said.

She nodded. “Not for more than that. I didn’t fight him, though. I knew I had my family’s support. If I hadn’t had that, I might have made a different decision.”

That made sense. It was a little uncomfortable talking about this, but it was part of Larison’s past and someday, Juniper was going to want to know about these things. Part of me wanted to find Josh and dismember him for abandoning not only his daughter, but Larison too. But he wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth thinking about for even a few more seconds. Which was probably how long he’d lasted, but I wasn’t going to say that to Larison. There was a chance she didn’t even remember.

“Ugh, enough about him. He’s already taken up too much of my time and energy.”

“Do you ever check up on him?”

She shook her head. “No. I mean, it would be easy to find him online. I know that. But I don’t want to. I want to think about you. And me.”