It had all gone too far.
/> I was pillow sniffing.
Time to cut myself off.
Chapter Sixteen
My head was pounding. I had definitely had too much to drink the night before, and not enough sleep. I’d gotten home at four and Dakota had woken me up at eight when Poppy had a nightmare. Going into Dakota’s bed without locking the door to my room or the bathroom had been stupid and sloppy. It was amazing we hadn’t gotten busted.
Which would have completely been my fault.
I had spent the night out with Matt and Carson wishing I was at home with Dakota. A couple of women had expressed interest in talking to me and I hadn’t wanted any part of it. There was only one woman I was interested in and she liked sushi and dancing and my daughters.
My drunken thought had been to barge in on her and tell her that I loved her, that I wanted to be together, forever, out in the open.
But fortunately even my bourbon-soaked brain had understood that she was half-asleep and not all that thrilled to be woken up, so I’d just passed out holding her.
Now, having calmed Poppy down from her zombie nightmare, I watched Dakota loading the dishwasher, and I couldn’t hold my feelings in any longer. She’d given me her cider out of sympathy and had made me scrambled eggs and toast to thwart the effects of the booze. It was a small thing, but it meant the world to me. No one had ever taken care of me before and I appreciated it. She was a good woman, with a lot of love to give.
I wanted her to give it to me.
Poppy had gone into her room to watch videos in bed on her tablet. I had a feeling she might fall back asleep. Willow was still sleeping. We were as alone as we were going to get.
I stood up and went to Dakota. I ran my hand down her spine.
She turned and gave me a questioning look as she closed the dishwasher. I didn’t usually touch her outside of the bedroom. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We need to talk.” I stared at Dakota, reaching out and entwining her fingers through mine.
She looked down at our hands, then met my gaze. “About what?”
“I know it was my fault this morning. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Thanks for your quick thinking.”
“It’s okay. We didn’t actually get caught.”
I cleared my throat and pushed on. “We can’t keep doing this. Sneaking around, having sex. Eventually we’ll get caught and that would be really bad for the girls. This arrangement isn’t working.”
We needed to be more. Something official.
I wanted more. I wanted something official.
But before I could spell that out, she shocked the hell out of me by misinterpreting what I was saying.
“I see. I understand. I guess it makes it easier for me to tell you then that I got a job offer last night as a backup dancer.”
“What?” That caught me completely off guard. The shift in topic was unexpected and I still had brain fog from lack of sleep. “Wow. That’s great news.”
“If I take the job I will be on the road for the next six weeks.”
That hit me like a punch in the gut. “Oh. I see.” What the fuck was I supposed to say?
This had been the plan all along. For her to find another job and move on. I was supposed to be looking for a new, permanent nanny, which I hadn’t done. I hadn’t even tried. Maybe subconsciously I had wanted her to stay.
She clearly did not want to stay. She didn’t want to take our relationship to the next level.
I had just accidentally given her an easy out by leading with the fact that secrecy was not working. I was mentally kicking myself. I should have led with my feelings about her, not the reasons why our secret bangfest couldn’t continue.
“It’s with Sneak. I guess reaching out to him for Willow’s birthday shout-out put me back on his radar.”