I wish I could see what he looked like.
His voice is low, like a constant murmur, always offering quiet instructions as I jump to fulfill his every whim. Something about the way he asks for what he wants from me with complete confidence, without the slightest bit of embarrassment or uncertainty—it makes my skin tingle all over, almost like he’s actually touching me.
“Spread your legs, Cici,” he urges through the microphone. “Let me see you.”
I don’t hesitate, parting my thighs wider in front of the camera so he can see exactly how wet I am. Exactly how turned on he’s made me.
“Touch yourself,” he commands. “Touch your clit.”
I circle my fingers around the little bundle of nerves, feeling sparks in my belly with every swipe. “Like this?”
“Just like that,” he groans. “You’re so pretty. So fucking wet.”
“I wish I had your fingers instead,” I coo, a practiced act that is hardly an act with him. I actually wish that I did.
“I’d give you more than fingers,” he promises huskily. “I’d have you full of my cock for the rest of the weekend.”
“Yeah?”
“Would you like that, Cici? Would you like to come on my cock?”
“Mm-hmm.” I move my fingers a little faster. “I wish I could see it.”
“Maybe you will,” he murmurs. “If you want.”
I nod, my lashes fluttering. “I want it. I want you.”
“You have no idea how much I’d like to fuck you, Cassie.”
Cassie?
That’s not right.
He only knows me as Cici.
My eyes fly open, surprised to find my camera has disappeared, Aiden sitting in its place and watching me intently. His eyes burn as they drink in the way I’m touching myself, and even though I’m shocked that he’s here, my only thought is to beg him to come do this for me. To touch me with his hands and his mouth and his cock until I can’t even remember my own name.
“Cassie.”
His voice is clearer now. Stronger. Touching my skin like the brush of fingertips. He says it again and again as I work myself faster and faster, feeling my orgasm so close that it makes my legs shake. I know if I do what he’s asked of me, he’ll close the distance and do all the things I want him to.
I’m so close. So impossibly close. And he’s still watching me, and I just need a little more, and I’ll—
I shoot out of bed, still sweating and flushed and out of breath—all from a damned dream. I can still see Aiden’s eyes on me even now, and the memory is enough to ensure there is a very real tingling between my legs.
Get it together, Cassie.
Obviously, I still haven’t completely come to grips with my discovery this morning, my conversation with Aiden last night still fresh on my mind. I’m still on edge with the knowledge that the man whose house I’m living in, and who for all intents and purposes is my boss—has seen me naked. Has seen me naked a lot. It makes me equal parts flustered and “I would like to crawl into a hole and die, please,” and thinking about all of the things Aiden has paid to watch me do sends me into a tizzy.
God, the things he has paid to watch me do.
Not to mention all the other questions that pop up whenever I think about it, which admittedly has been most of the night, since I’ve barely slept. Questions like: Where the fuck did he go? Why did he suddenly disappear after mentioning that he wanted to meet me? Meet me for real? Not only do I have to relive the embarrassment of what had turned out to be nothing more than cyber–pillow talk, but I have to relive it in person, face-to-face with the person who even now, even a year later, still holds a dominant corner of my thoughts whenever I am careless enough to let them stray.
I reach blindly for my phone and check the time. It’s still early, but I know that anytime now Sophie will be doing her morning zombie walk down the stairs and expecting breakfast. Breakfast that we will now be sharing with Aiden, who I now know is A. What a horrible time to push him to spend more time at home. I think this might be my punishment for ogling my shirtless boss.
God, how in the hell did I manage to form a crush on the same man twice? One who is as out of my reach now as he’d been then? It’s not like Aiden will ever be interested in me outside of the job he hired me to do. Especially if he finds out I’m the same woman he left behind like a box of old rocks.
It’s so ridiculous it doesn’t even feel possible.
Still . . . I’d always wondered what A looked like. Given the nature of our relationship, it hadn’t even struck me as odd that he interacted with me via voice chat only. It was a common practice that I had more than become accustomed to, but I won’t pretend that I hadn’t (and haven’t since) spent countless hours wondering what sort of face might have gone with the low, hushed voice that would quietly direct me to touch myself in a myriad of ways. The reality of it is . . . decidedly more than I could have ever expected, given that sometimes it seems like Aiden was specifically designed with the sole purpose of driving me to distraction.
This is going to be the most awkward breakfast in the history of breakfasts.
I manage to pull myself out of bed, knowing that if I don’t, Sophie will come looking for me, or worse, Aiden will—and Aiden in my bedroom is not something I’m equipped to deal with yet. So I force myself into my robe like that fickle bitch universe didn’t drop the mother of all surprises on me only hours earlier, tying it tight as I shuffle to the bathroom to tame my hair into something slightly presentable. There are dark circles under my eyes, which I guess makes sense, given how little sleep I got last night, and I splash some cold water on my face in an attempt to wake myself up more.
Not the best I’ve ever looked, but I guess it will have to do.
I can hear Aiden and Sophie’s voices upstairs in the kitchen when I leave my bedroom, closing the door behind me and taking a deep breath to steady myself before I join them. Because of course they’re both already awake. I tell myself that I can do this, that I can pretend like nothing is wrong and keep doing my job—because I need this job—reasoning that Aiden has long forgotten about our past at this point, and that I can do the same thing.
They’re both sitting at the counter when I reach the top of the stairs, both laughing about something I didn’t hear as Aiden reaches to ruffle Sophie’s sleep-mussed hair. I notice that Aiden looks as tired as I feel, sporting the same dark circles and a bit of a five-o’clock shadow to boot. It’s completely unfair how much better tired looks on Aiden than it does on me. Although, I highly doubt we are tired for the same reasons. I find a bit of comfort in that, at least. Aiden wasn’t up half the night thinking about the person at the opposite level of the house.
He notices me then, the bright green and soft brown of his eyes turning my way before his lips curl in a careful smile—almost like he’s worried he might spook me. I guess that’s fair, given that I practically ran away from him last night.
“Good morning,” I offer, trying my best to look like the sight of him doesn’t make my heart race.
Sophie turns to notice me. “Cassie! Tell my dad that chocolate chips are better than blueberries.”
“Well, that depends,” I tell her, stepping closer to the kitchen. “In what context?”
“For pancakes!” She shoots her dad a disgruntled look. “Dad says blueberries are better because they’re healthier.”
“Well, he has a point,” I say, taking the open barstool on the opposite side of her. I hear Aiden make a triumphant sound before I lean in closer to Sophie to lower my voice. “But chocolate chips are way better.”
Sophie beams, shooting her dad a smug grin. “See? Told you.”
“Fine, fine,” Aiden laughs. “I guess I’m outnumbered.”
He catches my eye then, looking at me in a way that feels like a question, and that same fluttering sort of panic sparks in my chest, my heart pounding a bit harder as a flood of memory washes over me. I bury it deep as I give him a smile that hopefully says anything but “you used to watch me touch myself.” All I can hope for now is that he doesn’t ask about my strange behavior last night, because I am not confident that I will have any explanation to give him that will make any sense. I know that telling him the truth is not an option, because the most likely outcome of that will be him kicking me out of his house and out of his life, for the second time, I might add, and there is more at stake now. Not just the money, which I desperately need, but also the connection I’ve formed with Sophie. I can’t abandon her now, not when I’ve just gotten her to trust me. She doesn’t deserve any more disappointment.
And if there is a small part of me not ready to see Aiden disappear from my life again . . . Well, I tell myself that it is normal, and not completely pathetic, to feel that way.
“So . . . will you make pancakes?”
Sophie’s expectant question draws me out of my fervent thoughts, tearing my gaze from Aiden’s and meeting Sophie’s instead as I pretend to consider. “Hmm. I don’t know. Your dad told me he was staying for breakfast today, and since he seems to be anti–chocolate chips, it might be a problem.”
“What?” Sophie turns toward Aiden excitedly. “You’re staying for breakfast?”
His eyes crinkle with a smile. “Yep.” He reaches to tap her nose. “Gonna try to make sure I’m here for breakfast more often.”
Sophie’s entire face lights up, but I find myself watching Aiden. I can see it, the way he notices that such a simple thing makes all the difference in his little girl, can see the way it pleases him, and it sets off an entirely new sensation in my chest—one that is warm and fuzzy and strange. It makes me happy, I realize, to see the two of them happy, and I also realize it has nothing to do with the strange history between Aiden and me, and everything to do with this tiny little family that is slowly worming its way into my heart.
It’s something that could be dangerous, and that, unfortunately, does have everything to do with Aiden and our strange history.
I watch them continue to chat happily as I slide off the barstool to start busying myself with pancakes, a strange influx of emotions keeping me quiet with my own thoughts as I consider all that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours. I am well aware that there is some part of me that will always wonder what happened with A, or rather, Aiden, I guess, but I know that my best course of action is to bury every emotion I have that is connected to anything we shared a year ago, bury it deep so that it can’t ruin what I’ve found with this little family that I so desperately want to find happiness. Because the one thing I’m sure of, more than anything else . . . is that Aiden can never know what I know.
No matter how badly I want to ask.
It’s still bothering me later when I’m stepping into the campus building of St. Augustine’s, trudging to the lab room to find my seat before class starts. I’d been excited about today, since we’re working with the Anatomage table—but now I’m preoccupied with thoughts of the past and the present all colliding to make for one very confusing living arrangement. I miss the instructor’s introduction entirely, huddling over my desk as I chew the end of my thumbnail.
It isn’t until we break for group study that my lab partner, Camila, finally comments on my strange behavior. “What’s up with you? You were barely paying attention when she was explaining how to use the table settings.”
“I know,” I sigh, flipping through the instruction guide. “Just some weirdness at home.”
“Oh. Are you still nannying?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Is it the kid? You said she was nine, right? I have a niece that age. They can be mean as hell.”
“No, no, she’s great,” I assure her. “Just some weird adjustments on my part.”
“Uh-huh.”
Camila looks at me with a cocked eyebrow before leaning over the large, lit-up table to take the veins away from the digital cadaver so that she can get a closer look at the bones of the wrist. “You said it was just the kid and her dad, right? That’s got to be weird. Living with a strange guy.”
“He’s not strange,” I insist. “They’re both really great.”
It’s just that the dad has told me exactly how to make myself come on numerous occasions.
But I can’t say that.
“My abuela says that a young lady living with an unmarried man is a recipe for disaster.”
“Thanks,” I mutter. “That makes me feel better.”
Camila laughs. “She’s also, like, eighty. So I tend to tune her out sometimes.”
I can’t help but think of Wanda, the timeless bachelorette, wondering what she would have to say on the matter. I roll my eyes. She’d probably just tell me to bone him and get it over with.
“Camila,” I start carefully, thinking an impartial third party might be just the thing I need. “What would you do if you met someone you used to know . . . really well, but they don’t remember you?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Does that actually happen? Do you mean from childhood?”
“No, not childhood . . . It’s complicated.”
Camila stops playing with the settings on the table, glancing over at the instructor, who is deep in conversation with another group having difficulties. “How well did you know them?”
I mean . . . he’s watched me play with my nipples.
“Pretty well,” I say instead. “But it was more of an . . . online friendship.”
“Hm.” Camila taps her chin. “If it was mostly online . . . it does make more sense that they might not place you. Maybe you should just tell them? They’d probably be happy to realize it was you. Unless it ended on bad terms or something.”
I frown down at my feet. There’s no good way to explain the way that Aiden, or rather A, and I parted ways. Which is to say we didn’t part ways at all. He just . . . disappeared.
“Things ended kind of weird.”
“Well,” Camila says, “maybe it’s a good thing they don’t remember then, yeah? Could be hella awkward otherwise.”
She goes back to the table to start separating the metacarpals; her words bouncing around in my head to make me both relieved and strangely . . . more depressed.
Maybe it’s a good thing they don’t remember.
Then why does it make me feel so shitty?
Aiden keeps his promise that week to make himself more present in the mornings and early afternoons, making sure that he spends as much possible time at home before he has to leave for work. A week ago, this would have elated me, but now that I know what I know, it means I am constantly on edge. I tell myself that if he hasn’t recognized me by now, there is no chance that he will. I mean, the mask and the wig I wore during my time on OnlyFans seem to have done the exact job I meant for them to, and I know that I should be relieved that Aiden seems to have no inkling of the fact that he is living with a woman he’s paid to touch herself many times over.
So why does it sort of bum me out? I don’t want Aiden to recognize me. He can’t.
After a few days of awkward breakfasts and tiptoeing around him, I am grateful to be out of the house, taking Wanda up on her offer of dinner and using it as a chance to clear my head. She and Sophie instantly hit it off, which I expected, the little girl’s spunk matching Wanda’s in a way that didn’t allow for any other outcome. Like calls to like, after all.
“Now, be careful with those,” Wanda chides as Sophie picks through an assortment of souvenir shot glasses. “Some of them are older than you are.”
Sophie shows her one in particular. “Did you really get this from Alaska?”
“You’re damn right I did,” Wanda says. “I used to travel a lot when I was younger. Wanted to collect one from every state.” Wanda points down the hall. “Got some photo albums in my bedroom,” she tells Sophie. “Go get that red leather one on my bookshelf, and I’ll show you some pictures.”
Sophie’s face lights up with a nod, and she bounds off down the hall in search of her prize, leaving Wanda and me alone.
“You wanna tell me what’s up with you?”
From the couch, I frown at my friend, watching her study me from where she sits at her padded rocking chair on the other side of the living room. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t give me that,” she huffs. “You’ve been distracted since dinner. I know when something is wrong with you, girl.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I argue. “It’s been a long day.”
Long week is more like it.
“Now, you know I’m not ignorant, so why act like it? I can tell when you’re worked up about something. So why don’t you spill it before that girl finds my album.”
I laugh dryly, leaning to let my face fall in my hands. “Is it that obvious?”
“It is to me.”
“I don’t even know how to begin to tell you what is up with me.”
“Just open your mouth and tell me what’s bothering you,” she grouses. “It’s not that difficult.”
I glance toward the hall to make sure Sophie is still out of earshot, taking a deep breath just to let it out slowly. “It’s about my OnlyFans.”
“Did you boot it back up? Because I told you that you could—”
“No, no,” I say, shaking my head vigorously. “I’m not doing it again, but . . . I never told you why I deleted my account.”
“Gave me some bullshit about getting tired of it,” Wanda says. “How anyone gets tired of easy money is beyond me.”
“Well, I mean, that was true, but not . . . entirely true.”
“Oh boy.”
“It’s embarrassing, okay?”
“Honey, I wear a Poise pad every day. What the hell do you think you have to be embarrassed about with me?”
I smile despite everything, shaking my head as I fall back against the couch cushions in a slump. “There was a guy.”
“There always is,” Wanda sighs.
“He was . . . I mean, I know he was a subscriber, I’m not completely delusional, but he . . .” I blow out a frustrated breath. “God, it sounds so stupid.”
Her expression turns sympathetic, and it only makes me feel that much sillier. “Got too close, huh.”
“He seemed different. We . . . I mean, he watched me like everyone else, but we . . . talked too.”
“Well? What happened?”
“He disappeared one day. We even set a date to meet up, but then he just . . . didn’t show. He disappeared after that. I thought . . . I thought he liked me. Isn’t that dumb?”
The old sting settles in my chest as I remember sitting in a coffee shop for over an hour before realizing that he wasn’t coming.
“First of all, you assume any fault to be had is with the man. You have good tits and a better brain, and that means you are automatically hands above the rest.”
I can’t help it, I laugh. “Should we put that on a T-shirt?”
“Just don’t be calling yourself dumb over some man. I don’t wanna hear that again. Got it?”
I smile wistfully. “Got it.”
“So I gather this mystery dummy isn’t as gone as you thought, right?”
“How did you know?”
“I’m old, Cassie. I know everything.”
“I . . . yeah. He isn’t.”
“Did he contact you?”
I make a choked sound that I think is supposed to be a laugh, covering my face with my hands. “It’s Aiden.”
“Pardon?”
I pull my hands away. “It’s Aiden.”
“Your boss?” It might be the first time I’ve ever seen Wanda look speechless, and it only lasts a good ten seconds before it turns to anger. “Did he hire you because of that?” Wanda pushes out of her chair, pointing a finger at me. “I swear on all that’s holy, I will put this hip implant to good use and put my foot right up his—”
“Shh. He didn’t know,” I tell her, looking back at the hallway to make sure Sophie is still back in the bedroom. “He still doesn’t know.”
“Then how the hell did you figure it out?”
“He has a scar,” I answer quietly. I point to my belly. “Right here. He told me about it once. It’s not . . . It’s too big of a coincidence not to be him.”
“Does he know about yours?”
I reach unconsciously to rub my shoulder. “He’s seen it.”
“Recently?”
“No, of course not. There’s no way he wouldn’t put two and two together if he saw it again. It was back when I still had my channel. He was . . .” My eyes turn toward the floor, and I feel a squeezing sensation in my chest. “He was the only one I ever let see it.”
“So he definitely doesn’t know who you are.”
I shake my head. “He can’t know.”
“But aren’t you curious why he—?”
“Of course I am, but . . . he disappeared for a reason. He obviously wasn’t as invested as I was, and don’t you think it would make him feel awkward to know who I was? Awkward enough to fire me, I’d wager.”
“Shit.” Wanda crosses her arms, frowning at the carpet. “You think so?”
“I mean, would you want some woman you saw naked and then cyber-dumped living in your house? I can’t exactly think of a more awkward situation than that one.”
Wanda taps her foot aimlessly, thinking. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Right. Like I said, awkward.”
“So what are you going to do?”
I throw up my hands. “What can I do? I just have to make sure he doesn’t find out. If he hasn’t put it together by now, I think it’s safe to say he won’t. As long as he doesn’t see”—I frown as the marred skin on my back prickles in reminder—“I think it will be okay.”
“But will you be okay?”
“I . . .” I press my lips together, a tightness in my chest that hasn’t gone away in the last week. “I’ll be fine. It’s old news. I mean . . . I’m over it, and I need this job.”
Wanda looks unconvinced. “Mm-hmm.”
“I’m fine,” I stress. “Seriously.”
“Cassie, only liars say they’re fine. You know that right?”
“I don’t think that’s right.”
“Sure it is. I know more than you.”
“You can’t always play the old card whenever it suits you.”
“It’s worked okay so far,” she says with a shrug. She looks at me with concern then, peering over her glasses. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, girl. Just . . . be careful.”
“I found it!” Little footsteps patter down the hall, drawing our attention. Sophie comes back into the living room with her leather-bound prize, looking entirely too excited for a bunch of old pictures. She plops the book down on the coffee table before sinking to her knees beside it. “Do you have any pictures of polar bears?”
Wanda chuckles, settling back into her rocker. “Never did see a polar bear, sugar. I think you’ll find a great picture of a moose in there somewhere though.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “A moose?”
“Antlers and all,” Wanda says with a grin.
“Cassie, have you ever seen a moose?”
I shake my head. “Never.”
Sophie pats the spot beside her on the carpet. “Come look with me.”
“All right, all right,” I laugh, pushing up from the couch to join her on the floor.
Sophie points out every snowy photo from the album that catches her eye, actually squealing with excitement when she finds the aforementioned moose photo. Wanda tells her all about how they came across the massive creature, and while they talk, I think about what Wanda said.
Only liars say they’re fine.
It’s laughable, given how accurate it is, because the truth of it is that I’m not fine, not really. In fact, I’m living in a nightmare of my own making. A purgatory built on my own choices. Because I can pretend I don’t care why Aiden disappeared from my life a year ago, I can pretend that it doesn’t matter to me anymore, or at least, I could have, maybe . . . before I met him.
I’ve been lying to myself in all sorts of ways lately. I’ve been lying to myself and saying that I only want to make this work for Sophie’s sake. I’ve been lying and telling myself that it doesn’t matter that Aiden is A, because at the end of the day, this is just a job, he is just a guy, I am just the nanny, and there’s no reason to let any of this bother me.
But he has a face now. He tells jokes. He asks about my day. He kisses his daughter’s hair. He ruins pancakes. He listens to me when I tell him my concerns. He worries about how I’m feeling. And sure, he’s so good-looking it kind of hurts to look at him sometimes—but that’s not nearly as important.
Because as much as I would like to pretend otherwise . . . I like Aiden. As much as I thought I’d liked A. And as much as I tell myself again and again that I don’t want him to find out who I am and cut ties with me again because it would hurt Sophie, I know deep down it would hurt me too. It would hurt for him to disappear again, and knowing that is the most dangerous thing of all.
Especially since, if he finds out . . . that’s exactly what he’ll do.
