Page 146 of Nanny and the Beast

I glance over at her. The cold wind blows her curls back. She looks like a scene from a movie.

“It puts images in my head,” I say. “Of you on your knees. Looking up at me with those big eyes as you call me Mr. Sinclair. Just like you did this morning.”

Her lips pop open in surprise.

“Is your mind always this dirty?” she asks.

“You’re the only woman I fucked in over a decade,” I say. “Not to mention, you’re a complete knockout. It’s a miracle I don’t have you chained to a bed in my basement.”

“I really found myself a gentleman.” She shakes her head, making her loose curls rearrange themselves on her chest.

I’m fascinated by every little detail about this girl. This obsession should scare me to death, but I can’t bring myself to approach this analytically. I lost all common sense the second I kissed her lips.

“You need to stop looking at me like that, Mr. Sinclair,” she says, looking at me from underneath her lashes.

She’s toying with me on purpose now. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

“You’re going to pay for this tonight,” I say, wrapping my arm around her small waist.

She giggles and slips away from me. She skates backward, keeping those beautiful eyes on me as her speed picks up. Every step she takes is graceful, her skates cutting soft lines into the ice.

When she turns and glances over her shoulder, I hold my breath.

If I were an artist, there’s no doubt that she would be my muse. I’d write poems about her eyes. I’d sculpt marble to encapsulate the beauty of her form. I’d paint portraits that show her spirit.

She spins for me now, gathering speed as she spins once, twice, three times. Her limbs are a blur as she moves. I hold my breath as she leaps into the air. She levitates there, unbothered by gravity. She spins twice in the air before her skates land gracefully on the rink, light as a feather.

She’s lost in her own world now.

My chest seizes with a foreign emotion I haven’t felt in ages.

Love.

I think I love this girl.

Just as I think that, she slows. Her arms unfurl like the petals of a flower opening. Her cheeks are flushed as she stops and looks right at me. Whatever she sees on my face makes her smile widen.

She skates toward me.

“Show-off,” I say, holding her waist as she stops before me.

“I was trying to impress you.” She tilts her head to the side.

“Where did you learn to skate like that?” I ask her.

“Every kid who grew up in Ravenwood knows how to skate,” she says. “It’s basically a rite of passage. How is it that you never learned?”

“Outdoor activities have always been more of my sister’s thing. I was more into computers and video games.”

“The lake is beautiful in the winter,” she says.

I nod in agreement.

I’ve been to the Ravenwood Lake before. It freezes over every winter, and the place fills with kids skating and hanging out.

“They sell this hot chocolate there that’s to die for,” she says. “It tastes like heaven after an hour or two of skating. My mom used to?—”

She breaks off. Her cheeks redden, and I know it has nothing to do with the cold.

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