Maid to Crave (Man Maid #2) (22 page)

“I had a meeting with Tim’s boss yesterday afternoon and he told me that my job was safe. I guess they are cutting a position after all, but not mine. They figured out who did the majority of the work on the migration project based on how much time I was logged into my remote connection and what was being done. When they approached Tim about it and advised him that his position was going to be cut since I’d done the majority of the work, that’s when he told them we were engaged,” she said. “He wanted us to pretend to be engaged to save his own position…not mine. He basically told them that if they fired him, I would most likely quit, too. They actually wanted to fire him about two weeks into the project, but didn’t for fear they would lose me, too. He used me to save his own job and lied to me…so I broke up with him.”

“So you talked someone into watching Zach overnight and then drove nearly six hours just to tell me that your job is solid,” he said.

“No. Zach begged me to let him spend the night in the basement with Caleb. Then when Ian showed up to hang out and agreed to stay over just in case either one of them needed something, I went ahead and drove six hours. Because you said that you didn’t share well and that you wouldn’t make love to me anymore as long as I was still engaged to another man…even if the engagement was a temporary one. And now I’m not engaged,” she said, shifting so she could look up at his handsome face.

He was as sexy first thing in the morning as he was when he fed her raspberries and fruit dip. She looked at him, unable to drag her gaze away even for a moment.

His green eyes sparkled and his grin widened. “So you drove six hours for a piece of ass?”

Tell him!
Her soul began to chant in rhythm to the increased beats of her heart. Swallowing hard, she took a deep breath and said, “I drove six hours because against my better judgment I fell in love with a man who thinks I need to drink milk so I’ll grow up and potentially develop boobs.”

She forced herself to meet his gaze and not look away this time. His mischievous grin turned to a look of hunger. His gaze moved to her mouth. Rolling until he’d moved her onto her back rather than lying on his chest, he looked at her as though trying to judge if she was telling the truth. Then he kissed her softly on the lips. In true Seth fashion, his kisses brought her body awake and set her on fire. Soon enough he had her whimpering and begging him to make love to her.

Before joining his body with hers, he said, “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I fell in love with a woman no bigger than a minute, but who is the single most giving person I have ever met. She’s nerdy, but incredibly fun and able to keep up with me in more ways than one. This woman has starred in some of my wildest and sexiest dreams
ever
and then I found out not too long ago that what’s between her legs is just as amazing as all the rest of her.”

Instead of the feelings they’d shared with each other making things weird, they just made being with him even better. They spent the remainder of the day together walking through a nearby greenhouse and a local park. After having dinner together, they went back to the motel where he asked if she planned to head back or wait for him to get done at the show so they could drive back together.

“Maybe I’ll go to the show. Do you happen to have any one dollar bills? I’ll trade you however many ones you have for bigger bills,” she teased.

“You may know how to striptease, but let me give you another lesson…the bigger the bill, the more the dancer is willing to do for it,” he whispered against her mouth with his sexy grin before kissing her. “In other words, just hang on to that fifty for the show.”

Between the dance he did for her at the show and not liking the way other women touched him at the show, she couldn’t get enough of him. They ended up calling Caleb and Ian about keeping Zach for another night and then renting the motel room for another evening. Just when she started to fear he might think she was depraved, he proved that his need for her was just as great. By the time they turned her car toward Dayton in the early morning, she felt sure his dancing days were over. From this weekend on he would only be dancing for her…
in private.

“You’re sure? Not even once a month? You saw the kind of bank I can make in a single night,” he teased once they hit the highway.

“I don’t share well, either.” She laughed, settling in for the long drive back home.

The next couple of weeks flew by and soon enough Zach was out of school for the summer. The more time Tori spent with Seth the more she wanted to spend with him…and with Zach home now during the day, it was harder to find time alone. Wanting to ease Zach into the idea of her and Seth being a couple, they made every effort to keep their hands to themselves when he was around. Caleb, Addie and Addie’s cheerleading friends were a huge help in keeping Zach busy.

The teenagers had come over to swim in the pool while Caleb enjoyed sitting outside in a lounge chair soaking up the sun. Addie’s best friend Kaitlyn was teaching Zach to swim and Seth was doing something with Ian this evening. So while she had the house to herself, she decided to finally call her father back. She squared her shoulders and prepared herself to hear one of his self-righteous and hypocritical speeches while she dialed the number.

“So these medical bills my money paid for…were those for this stripper friend of yours that Kara told me about?” her father asked not even five minutes into the call.

“Actually they were for his brother, but I guess since Seth was the one having to pay the bills…Yeah, I guess you could say it was to help out my stripper friend,” she replied, wishing her father could see her rolling her eyes across the phone lines.

“I’m not one to preach at you, Tori, but you have to be careful with those types. They will use you…bleed you dry before you know it and then they are gone. I don’t want to see that happen to you. Until I can be sure that this…
friend
isn’t just after you for your money, I feel it is best not to make any more deposits into your account,” he said.

Money she’d never touched personally wouldn’t be missed, but rather than arguing that point, she simply said, “I understand.”

“I also don’t want to tell you how to live your life, but you need to consider that Zach is at an impressionable age. I mean, you don’t want him going to school and telling his friends or teachers that his mother hangs around with strippers, do you?”

William Stewart had only ever seen his grandson twice, once not long after Zach was born and again when Zach was around two years old. Her father didn’t even send cards or birthday gifts, but
now
he was suddenly concerned with his grandson’s moral upbringing? What her father wasn’t saying, but what she was hearing loud and clear, was that he disapproved of her choices. After all, in the unlikely event the press found out he had an illegitimate daughter, it would look even worse if she were hanging around with people of ill repute.

She couldn’t help but appreciate the humor in the situation. In a little more than two months’ time, Seth had stepped up to become a better father figure to Zach than she could have ever expected to find with a man her father would have approved of…a man like Tim Silver. Better yet, Seth’s army buddies and brother were like replacements for the extended family that Zach had never had. Tomorrow was Sunday and they would all be coming over for a cookout and swimming, and Tori found herself looking forward to that much more than she had ever looked forward to a visit from her father or sister.

“I don’t think there is much fear of that happening since Zach has no idea that Seth dances. Besides, thanks to your charitable donation to pay for a voter’s medical bills, Seth’s dancing days are all in the past. He’s on his way to becoming an architect instead. That’s a good profession, something I think is commendable, don’t you?” she asked, trying desperately to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“People like that don’t change, Tori. Your mother was proof of that. If you never take my advice on anything else…at least consider that bit of counsel and spare yourself the trouble,” he said.

“So I guess I was
your
trouble?” she asked and felt herself smiling. Perhaps she had a little of William Stewart in her after all because she was enjoying making him squirm now.

“You take what I say all wrong, Tori,” he replied. So now she was trouble
and
wrong…

“Look, I just wanted to call you back, and see how you were. I didn’t call to argue or fight,” she interrupted.

“We are doing fine. How are you and Zach?” he asked.

After the niceties were finished, she hung up and went back to work, stopping periodically to check that Zach was lathered in sunscreen. When Addie and her friends left, and Zach and Caleb came inside and went to the basement to play video games, she took a break and went online. Finding a post about one of Ian’s upcoming fights, she clicked the link, which took her to Ian’s personal page. She read about the fight and was about to go back to her own personal page when another post caught her eye.

Ian’s friend Jess had tagged him in a thank you message. Clicking on the message, Tori was then redirected to Jess’s personal page. The message thanked Ian for his assistance with her workout routine earlier that morning. Above that, she was shocked to see pictures and a video of Seth…
dancing
.

Scrolling through the pictures and watching the video were made more painful coming so soon after the conversation with her father. Had William Stewart been right? She’d felt certain Seth was fine with not dancing anymore. In fact, he’d said himself that the two shows he’d done a couple of weeks ago were his last on-stage performances. He had volunteered to give up dancing…so why would he offer to quit and then not?
Why lie?

Seth had definitely lied by telling her that he was doing something for a friend of Ian’s instead of telling her that he would be
dancing for a room full of women
. Based on the party decorations, the dancing appeared to be more of a weird joke at Courtney’s baby shower than anything blatantly sexual, but Tori still felt hurt that Seth hadn’t told her what he was really doing. As friends, he’d told her a few of the antics that went on at the clubs where he worked. Had things between them changed so much that he could no longer tell her those things?

Logging off her computer, she went in search of Zach, explaining that it was time for bed since they had a big day tomorrow. She said goodnight to Caleb as well and told him she was going to bed herself. Really, she wanted Zach settled in bed so she could escape to her own room before Seth came home. She couldn’t deal with the hurt she felt right now, couldn’t handle seeing him right now, and they both had a ton of things to do in the morning to get ready for the cookout.

She lay awake long after hearing Seth come in and go to the basement. Should she wait and see if he said something to her about what he had really been doing this evening? Would it be better to go downstairs right now and confront him? Ask him why he didn’t tell her when he was the one who’d offered to quit dancing? Sure, she had enthusiastically approved of his plans to stop dancing and go into architectural design, but it had been his idea. She had supported the idea more because he seemed so excited to be out from under the debt and free to choose whether or not he
wanted
to dance.

If he had decided he wanted to continue dancing after all, why didn’t he tell her about it? She’d never said anything negative about his second job. She had confessed not liking to watch other women touch him, and though she had been speaking truthfully, she had only admitted it because he had asked her about it. However, if dancing was something he really wanted to do, as long as he kept his promise to be faithful to her, she would have accepted it.

She finally fell asleep after tossing and turning for most of the night. She was awakened by Zach opening the door to her room and climbing up in her bed.

“How many minutes until the cookout, Mommy?” he asked after lying still for about ten seconds.

Knowing she needed to get up and get things ready for lunch, she said, “Everyone should be here in about ninety minutes, so we better get busy. Did you eat breakfast yet?”

“Yep, Caleb and I watched cartoons and ate some cereal just like every day,” he replied. “You better hurry up and get ready, ninety minutes isn’t very long.”

Then Zach was off the bed and out of her room. She managed to shower and get ready for the day quicker than she thought. She feared that as heavy as her heart was, it might slow her down, but amazingly she found herself downstairs in record time. Entering the kitchen, she found Ian chopping up vegetables like a professional while Seth cut up chicken and steak that had marinated overnight. Caleb was making kabobs out of the vegetables and meat. Zach sat next to Caleb handing his “bro” wooden sticks that had been soaked in water.

They all looked up, but only Seth did a double take upon seeing her standing there. When the doorbell rang, she was never so grateful for an escape in her life. His face told her that he knew something wasn’t right with her and she didn’t want him asking about it in front of the others. As she made it to the door, she was surprised to find Ian’s friend Jess and her college professor friend Courtney standing on her front step, each holding a side dish. Tori could only think of Courtney’s part in the video starring Seth the exotic dancer. Opening the door, she forced a smile, invited them in and then showed them to the kitchen.

Upon entering the kitchen, Jess set the bowl of salad she carried on the counter. She smacked Seth on the arm gently, smiled at him and then looked at Ian and said, “You missed a good time last night.”

“I can see that kind of good time in the comfort and privacy of my own bathroom mirror, but I appreciate the invite just the same,” Ian replied, rolling his eyes. Then he glanced at Courtney, a look of discomfort—or jealousy?—flared before he continued chopping the vegetables.

Against her will, Tori felt tears burn and found herself leaving the kitchen, hoping they didn’t notice she was gone. She’d almost made it to the stairs when Seth stopped her by saying, “Are you okay, Tori?”