Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (117 page)

As if on cue, images of my night with Natalie
flitted through my brain. I groaned as I stood up, feeling the heat jolt
through my body straight to my groin at the memory of how she had felt wrapped
around me, how tight and hot she’d been, the sound of her moans in my ears. It
was the best sex that I’d had in my entire life. I’d thought about it at least
four times a day every day since I’d left her apartment in the morning after
our tryst.
I’ll probably never get that
again, but Christ, it was good.
I clenched my teeth, finally managing to
get my car door unlocked and open. I couldn’t quite fight the thought—terrible
as it was—that there couldn’t possibly be a woman that Katie could match me
with who would be as good in bed as Natalie had been.
Stop thinking that way. It’s not just about sex. If it was, you could
just hire a professional.
I pushed the thought of sex with Natalie out of
my mind and climbed into the driver’s seat, throwing my laptop bag into the
passenger side floorboard and shoving the key into the ignition.

Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I
fumbled for it and after nearly dropping it as clumsily as I had my keys, I saw
that it was Natalie. I tapped accept and brought it to my ear. “Hey, I was just
leaving work. You ready for the practice date of your career?”

“Oh God, Zeke, I’m so sorry, but I have to
cancel on you again,” Natalie said, sounding like she was almost on the verge
of tears.

“What’s wrong?” I closed the car door and
stopped in the midst of pulling my seatbelt on. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she told me quickly. “Brady’s
just sick again.” She cleared her throat and I frowned to myself, worried about
the adorable little boy and his obviously distraught mother. “You know kids
that young are just—basically walking petri dishes,” she said, almost laughing
in a sad way.

“Is he all right?” My heart beat faster in
my chest as I pictured a deeply sick little boy in my mind; Brady looked so
much like his mother that it was hard for me not to feel for him, above and
beyond the normal level of worry that any sick toddler would make me feel.

“I think he’ll be okay,” Natalie said.
“He’s running a fever and coughing like an old man with COPD, but I think it’s
just a cold.”

“Well don’t hesitate to take him to the doctor
if he gets worse,” I told her. “If you’re worried about a hospital bill…”

“No—no, I really don’t think it’ll come to
that, but if it does I have insurance,” she said. “Thank you, though. I
really…I really appreciate it. I just won’t be able to go out knowing that he’s
so sick, you know?”

“I totally understand,” I said. I did—but
I was also disappointed; even if it was no one’s fault, I couldn’t help but
feel bummed that the date that I’d had Trevor put so much work into was falling
through at the last minute. “You take care of Brady and we’ll reschedule. No
sweat.”

“Thank you again, for being so
understanding,” Natalie said. Her voice sounded like she was at her breaking
point, and I wondered if Brady was worse than she was letting on.

“If you need anything, you have my
number,” I told her.

“Thanks. God—I sound like a broken record.
I should go check up on him.”

“I’ll check in a few days from now to
reschedule. Go take care of your boy.” I ended the call and dropped the phone
onto the passenger seat of the car with a sigh. There was no need to hurry home
anymore. There was nothing waiting for me for the night except for maybe a beer
and—if I was lucky—a decent TV show. I decided that I’d go to the gym instead
and put Natalie out of my mind unless she needed help.

VOLUME III

Chapter
Twenty-One

Natalie

“Mama! Bear!” I looked over at the TV;
Brady was playing with the car that Zeke had gotten for him during our last
official date, while watching something I’d put on from the kids’ nature
channel. I smiled, but I could only be glad that Brady hadn’t spoken up while
I’d been on the phone with Zeke, only a moment before. If he had, and Zeke had
heard, I might have had a hard time explaining the chipper, cheerful sound of
my son’s voice when he was supposed to be sick as a dog.

I had thought—I had hoped—that I could put
aside the fact that I’d slept with Zeke and just go on my practice date with
him as scheduled. But the closer I got to the time to get ready to go, the more
and more I’d felt the cold panic building up inside of me. I felt too guilty; I
felt too weird. I couldn’t make myself do it.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure which was
worse: the guilt I felt about sleeping with Zeke or the guilt I felt about
lying to him about our practice date. From the hints he’d dropped in the days
between when he’d spent the night with me and a few hours before I’d canceled,
he’d worked hard on figuring out a good date idea for us. I had heard the
disappointment in his voice when I’d told him I’d have to cancel.
It almost would have been better if he’d
gotten pissed off at me over it.
I took a deep breath and sighed.

“How you doing in there, little man?” I
came out of the kitchen and threw myself down onto the couch, watching the TV
for a few seconds to figure out what it was that Brady was watching. He looked
up from his car and beamed at me. My little boy held up the car Zeke had given
him and toddled over to where I sat, waving it a little bit.

“Mr. Zeke’s car,” he told me importantly.
“Mr. Zeke is nice.”

“He’s very nice,” I agreed, feeling that
guilty lurch in my stomach once again. He was too nice; that was kind of the
problem. Brady looked up at me, his face screwed up in the effort to
concentrate enough to figure out how to say what was on his mind.

“You go see Mr. Zeke? Tonight?” I had
mentioned that I was going to be seeing him—I was surprised that Brady even
remembered that.

“Not tonight, sweetie,” I said, keeping my
smile firmly in place. I didn’t want Brady to even think that there was
anything amiss.

“You like him,” he pointed out. “He likes
you.” I laughed.

“How do you know that, bug?” I reached out
and pulled him onto the couch with me.

“You smile with him,” Brady told me
matter-of-factly. “Not the others.”

“You haven’t seen me with any of the
others, though,” I pointed out.

“When you talk,” he said, correcting me.
“You smile when you talk.”

“How do you know he likes me, though?” He
giggled.

“He looks at you,” Bherady told me. “Like
daddies and mommies.” I raised an eyebrow at that.

“Let’s look at what’s happening on the
TV,” I told Brady. “Looks like there are some funny gorillas coming up—you
don’t want to miss that!” I was relieved when he turned his attention back onto
the TV. He played with his car meditatively as he watched the gorillas
interacting on the screen, and I relaxed a little bit.

I got up and finished making dinner for
the two of us: chicken and rice with green beans, something that would be easy
for Brady to eat, that he wouldn’t argue over. I’d started him on vegetables
when I’d first weaned him, so apart from asparagus and spinach, he was mostly
willing to eat veggies, but there were certain ones that he turned his nose up
at from time to time even if he’d liked them before.

I called Brady to the kitchen table and he
brought the damn car that Zeke had bought him with him once more; I didn’t want
to argue the point, but I couldn’t help but feel awkward at the reminder of a
guy that I really didn’t want to think about in that moment.

By the time I had fed Brady dinner, given
him a bath, and gotten him into bed, I was exhausted. I sat on the couch in the
living room and tried to watch TV—quietly—but all I could think about was Zeke.
It wasn’t just the guilt that I felt at having lied to him that bothered me; it
was the fact that I had let him come to my house, that I had let things go so
far with him. It had been a mistake from the beginning to the end.

But in spite of the fact that I knew it
was a mistake, I couldn’t help reliving the unofficial date. Brady had had no idea
that Zeke had come over; Zeke had managed to leave before Brady woke up in the
morning, which we’d agreed on as soon as we finished having sex. We both knew
that the situation between us wasn’t a permanent thing—he would go on to dates
with matches that the agency set up for him, and I could go on to coaching
other clients, possibly eventually finding a man to date myself, not just
someone to coach.

Why
did I even let that happen?
In the moment, it had seemed so
obvious to me, but looking back on the not-date that I’d had with Zeke, sitting
on the couch we’d been on when I’d decided to have sex with him, it was a
little harder. He was gorgeous—that much was obvious, and I couldn’t deny it,
even when we’d first started working together. He was charming, smart, and
funny. But he was a client. He wasn’t for me.

I closed my eyes and thought about the
actual incident itself. It was too easy by far to remember how it had felt to
fall into bed with Zeke, how he’d felt inside me. If I’d gotten turned on just
from kissing him—and I definitely had—then sex with him was enough to make me
wish I was one of Katie’s clients, so that I could have the chance of feeling
like that every day for the foreseeable future. He might have been a little
rusty, but it was apparently like riding a bicycle. I shuddered, my hands
beginning to wander over my body a little bit as I remembered his touch, the
feeling and taste of his lips, the feeling of his cock. He was huge—at least by
my standards—and he had looked even more glorious naked than he had in his
stylish, expensive clothes. My heart beat faster in my chest at the memory of
his muscled body, lean hips, the wheat-colored trail darting down from his
navel towards his erection. Zeke had been absolutely mouthwatering.

And, he would be absolutely mouthwatering
for some other woman, within a matter of months. I gave myself a shake and
tried to pay at least a little attention to what was going on in front of me on
the TV, but it was useless. Zeke was going to be matched with some other
client, who would start a family with him at some point. He would forget all
about me, more than likely, and he would go on to get married and have kids. I
had to think about my own future. I couldn’t tell Katie about what happened,
and until I managed to figure out how to re-enforce the boundaries that should
exist between Zeke and me, I had to put off seeing him again. It was only too
easy to think that he would probably push for more—at least a kiss, if not
another night together.

You
could always quit your job and date him yourself, you know. You’d be a great
candidate—you know him already, and you know what his weaknesses and strengths
are.
For about a minute, that thought was so tantalizing and so bright and shining
in my head that I seriously considered calling Zeke and inviting him over. But
I’d have to explain about Brady if I did that. I wasn’t prepared to admit to
lying to him. I sighed, scrubbing at my face, and decided that I was going to
give myself a long, hot bath—but that brought Zeke to mind, as well, with the
reminder of the things he’d bought for me at Lush. I couldn’t do anything in my
own home without thinking of the guy.

If I dated him, though—if I quit my job to
avoid the professional conflict and dated him—there was no guarantee that it
would work out. Sure, I knew his weaknesses and strengths, and I knew all kinds
of strategies for getting him to act the way that I needed him to and to
communicate effectively with him to get him to tell me what he needed, but that
wasn’t all there was to a good relationship. Sooner or later, the odds were
good that we’d end up breaking up. And then, I would end up losing him as well
as being without a job. There was no guarantee, either, that I’d be able to
find another job quickly after leaving the agency, especially if I came clean
to Katie about why I wanted to leave.

Glancing in the direction of Brady’s room,
I knew that I would have to keep my job. It kept us afloat, and I couldn’t put
Brady’s health and lifestyle at risk just because one of the clients I worked
with was good in bed and reasonably charming. I had to be responsible. I
decided to take a shower instead and get an early night. Maybe with some decent
sleep, I would figure out a way to make things right between Zeke and me. I
obviously couldn’t let things get to the point that they had a few nights
before, ever again—I had to make sure that we kept things professional between
us. I could lose my job if there was ever any whisper that I’d kissed—much less
slept with—a client that I was coaching. I couldn’t risk that.

I cleaned up the apartment and went into
my bedroom, making a beeline for the shower. I kept the door open in case Brady
woke up and needed something, but my mind was a million miles away even while I
scrubbed and shaved and shampooed and conditioned. I couldn’t get rid of the
nagging sense of guilt I felt for what I’d done. I would have to come clean to
someone eventually; I couldn’t tell Katie and I definitely couldn’t tell any of
my coworkers.

I got out of the shower, dried off, and
threw on a nightgown before crawling into bed. Big mistake. The pillowcases,
the sheets, still smelled a little bit like Zeke—even though I could have sworn
I’d washed them. I groaned and flopped onto my back, trying to keep from
breathing in the scent of Zeke’s sweat, soap, and cologne that lingered.
I just have to get him out of my head. I
have to think of him as nothing more than another client and forget everything
we’ve done beyond that.
I laughed at myself in the darkness. I had studied
enough psychology to know how stupid the idea of forgetting something
consciously was.
What I need to do is
find a guy I can actually date—someone who isn’t a client.
I thought of the
kind of guy it could be, but even then it was too easy to notice that the traits
lined up almost perfectly with Zeke. I fell asleep unsatisfied, upset at
myself, and still gnawing myself from the inside with guilt at what I’d done.