I Like Being Watched

"It's sad, isn't it?" a male voice asked behind me, making me jump, cringing at myself for getting caught snooping.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have looked. I was just curious since Elsbeth left but there was no evidence that she'd cooked."

Blake Buchanan was somewhere in his mid-twenties, brown-haired, blue-eyed, dressed in jeans and a button-up. Young, confident, rich, but not snooty.

"Fitz likes having meal prep instead of daily cooking. I guess so he has some choice in what he is eating. Even though it all looks entirely too healthy to me. Unclench your hands, Wynn, I'm not going to tattle on you for looking. If you get the job, you will be looking at every inch of this house. I'm Blake. And this is really just a formality. Elsbeth usually weeds out the lunatics. I just make sure whoever she picks isn't too senile to get the job done."

Or too old to be hot enough for the cameras, I imagined, though I wondered if he knew about them, if he helped his older brother indulge in his little fantasies. Maybe Blake was just given the instruction to pick someone young and reasonably attractive, with no explanation as to why.

"I only spent two minutes with her, but she seems like a tough cookie."

"That she is. She once slapped me across the hand with a wooden spoon when I tried to sample something she was making," he told me, smiling.

I wondered if Elsbeth knew about the cameras, if she cared.

"Well, you should have known better," I teased, getting another of those charming smiles of his.

"So, Wynn. What do you do for a living?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, no one does this job because they are a house manager. We had a musician, a children's book illustrator, a cosplayer—and, yes, she took that very seriously in her spare time—, and I think the most recent was an actress of some sort."

"May I ask why there have been so many?"

"Oh, this and that. The musician got a gig on a small tour. The illustrator moved back home with her ailing parents. The cosplayer got pregnant and didn't want to do any of the cleaning. And the actress, well, her I am not sure about. She just up and quit. Maybe she was just flighty like that."

To be fair, she was.

And the fact that everyone else left the job because of some other kind of life event made any of the small worries I might have had about the position slip away. Perry likely was being—as was very on-brand for her—dramatic about the cameras. They probably were simply situated where there were valuables or around exits of various kinds, Mr. Buchanan wanting to keep an eye on his pricey possessions.

He might only view the footage as a security measure, but he was going to be pleasantly surprised by what he would find once I got the position.

And just like that, ten minutes later, I had all the forms filled out, was walking down the front path with a small binder full of household information—preferences about brands and scents that were acceptable or banned from the household, the names and locations of shops and dry cleaners—when a sleek black Lamborghini hummed up the drive, making me gasp and jump to the side as it nearly side-swiped me to get into its chosen space, which so happened to be beside mine.

The engine cut.

The door opened.

And out slid the most gorgeous man I had ever seen outside of a television screen.

Yes, he was primetime TV hot.

Maybe even late-night Showtime hot.

Standing at least around six-three, his body was strong, yet not overly jacked—a swimmer's body, one might call it, long and lean, wide of shoulder, but narrower at the waist and hip.

He had sharp slashes for cheekbones that created small hallows beneath. Under what could only be called a stern brow were striking eyes the color of morning skies illuminated with fresh light, so bright they almost hurt to look at, all the while begging you never to look away. They were made all the more dramatic by the rich, thick black lashes that nearly matched his dark brown hair. His jaw was a severe angle, so chiseled it looked as though it could slice your finger if you trailed it along that edge.

Generally speaking, my desire to be watched had nothing at all to do with the attractiveness of the man doing the watching. It wasn't about me being attracted to them, but rather their desire for me that seemed to fuel the behavior.

That said, there was no mistaking the thrill inside I felt, knowing a man who was that beautiful was going to sit down to rewind his security footage only to get something he hadn't bargained for, that it would make his cock stiffen, would make him reach up to undo a shirt button, would have him reaching under his desk to relieve the pressure that came with his need for release.