I hear a splash.
Instinctually I go for my gun, my piece hanging from a belt dangling behind the door, and then I stop myself and remember where I am. It’s probably a bird or a cat. I’m more likely to need a net than a Glock. I take a breath and focus, shaking off the last few minutes of sweat, guilt and desperation.
It only takes a few seconds to feel normality creeping back in as I stand once again in the moonlit glass corridor of my own home, and for a moment I forget about the noise as I relax, but as my eyes adjust to the change of light, I see a shape in the water.
I damn near growl.
One of the neighbourhood kids has snuck into the pool again. Little shits. Probably drunk or high. I’m about to storm out there and unleash all of my pent up frustration when whoever it is surfaces, their long red hair covering their face, and for a brief moment I see freckles that sparkle and shimmer.
And my heart begins to race.
Mackenzie.
My brain processes this slowly. My children’s nanny is taking a swim. In my pool. Against my direct instructions, and somehow this makes me angrier. I slide open the door as she pushes away from the edge and the sound makes her falter, dipping beneath the surface before she spins around.
‘I thought I’d made myself clear. No swimming,’ I half-bark, half-hiss.
She stands up, her long t-shirt clinging to her little frame like a second skin, every curve of her upper body visible, every rib undulating as she breathes.
‘No, you didn’t,’ she says indignantly, collecting her hair and sweeping it behind her shoulders. ‘You said, through there is the pool.’
‘I was-‘ I start, then I stop, blinking. She’s right. Fuck. ‘It was implied.’
‘It’s hot,’ she says as if it’s a bullet point.
‘And what if the girls see you?’ I jab, pointing upstairs in the vague direction of their bedroom windows.
She frowns and blinks as if somehow I’m being unreasonable. ‘They’ll see their nanny swimming in their pool?’
‘In a fucking t-shirt?’
‘I don’t have a costume,’ she shrugs, looking down, and I can’t stop myself from following, my eyes focusing on how hard her nipples are beneath her-
‘Then don’t swim,’ I snap, looking back up.
‘So you can swim? But I can’t?’ she says, pointing at me.
I frown, taken aback. How fucking dare she? ‘I’m their father.’
‘And I’m their nanny,’ she says, then she tilts her head. ‘Are you sure this isn’t because you don’t want to see me swimming?’
’No,’ I snap.
‘So you do want to watch me swimming?’ she says.
I snarl. ‘No.’
This little brat is running rings around me. For a few seconds neither of us speak, then ever so slowly, Mackenzie submerges herself and begins to drift backwards, not taking her eyes off me, insolently raising her long legs up until they’re floating, her toes pointed. Then she starts to gently scissor-kick her way back toward the far end and my eyes are irrevocably drawn to the dark gap between her thighs and my heart begins to race as my dick hardens.
‘It’s okay,’ she says suddenly as if she knows what I’m thinking and where I’m looking, her voice sweet and inviting. ‘You can watch me if you want?’
I curl my fingers into my fists. ‘This isn’t appropriate,’ I say, but I know I’ve lost the moral high ground.
‘Not appropriate?’ she says as she reaches the shallow end and stands again, water cascading down her tight little body. ‘Why?’
I am impotent rage.
I’m about to scream at her about taking a photograph of me, but then I realise that by doing so, I’d reveal my own dark secret. Nothing this little brat is saying is wrong, but every ounce of inflexion she’s placing on her words is inciting me.