God, did I want to reach out and squeeze them. Kiss them. Suck on them. Shit, I was harder than I’d been in ages. Seeing her, feeling my balls get heavy, made me realize this was more than a mistake. It was the nightmare the shrink had asked me about. One that had my body shaking inside. I couldn’t walk away, and yet, I couldn’t stay, and nothing would come of this but bitterness.
Dani leaned in and whispered, “See something you like, Otter?”
I licked my lips and groaned.
“Dani.”
She stood, coming around the table without a single wobble, but I knew she wouldn’t be approaching me if she hadn’t been drinking. We’d always had a barrier between us that neither of us had crossed. But now, I couldn’t stop staring at her. All of her. Her eyes, her body, her soul. And I hated myself and the gods and Mac for being her brother.
She sat in my lap, straddling me, the tips of her breasts brushing across my bare chest as she did so. I didn’t stop her.
“Kiss me,” she said. Another dare. Her eyes held mine. The challenge laid out.
I bit back another groan. Trying not to touch her. Trying not to feel her hard nipples against my own. My fingers clenched into fists on either side of her on the table. Not moving. I could sit in the same position for hours―days―if I needed to.
“No,” I said, holding her gaze.
“No?” she breathed out. The shock on her face made my lips quirk, releasing some of the tension in my body.
“Has any guy ever said no to you, Athena?”
“Yes,” she said quietly before her chin raised and her eyes flared back to life. “You want to.” And to prove her words, she moved her center just a hair against my rock-hard penis that was threatening to jump through my cammies.
I did want to. I wanted to bite that pink lip and punish her for punishing me. Torture her with kisses and fingers until she begged rather than dared.
“I do. But kissing you wouldn’t stop at kissing.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s kind of the point here.” She waved a finger between my naked chest and hers.
“I can’t,” I told her, my voice thick with desire and regret. “Because I can’t offer you more than a night. An amazing, sweaty, gods screaming, hot night—but still only one night. And Mac would kick my ass.”
“My brother has nothing to do with this and would never find out. I’m a grown woman. I know what I want, and it definitely isn’t more than one night.”
She kept laying down the challenges, and I knew if I accepted this one, I’d end up being exactly what they called me: Nash the Ass. Nasty. Nasty Ass Shitty Human.
“He’s one of the only friends I have left,” I said so deeply and so quietly I wasn’t sure they were words, but she heard them.
Her eyes softened, and she looked away for a moment. Her features were strong and beautiful. A profile that would have inspired Michelangelo. A profile that had inspired Tristan to start painting her. I’d stared at the half-done portrait a thousand times whenever I’d gone in the studio. I’d told Tristan the truth. She was missing something essential about Dani in the painting.
When Dani’s eyes swung back to mine, there was sadness in them. I couldn’t stand the sadness. I didn’t want her feeling sad for me. I didn’t deserve it. I hadn’t earned it in any way.
As she brought her hand up to my face, it shook. I realized that coming around the table, sitting on me, daring me to kiss her, had been brave and courageous. She’d taken a risk, and I was rejecting it. I was already an ass.
“You―”
I cut her off with my lips against hers. The sweet scent of her wafted over me, tickling memories of the lemon geraniums back home in Georgia. Sweet and citrusy, making me long for sweet tea and honey. It took her a moment to realize I was kissing her, and then she was pushing back, full lips pressing against my own, still daring me. Daring me to continue.
And I did. Because how could I stop? I grabbed that bottom lip with my teeth, and she responded by touching her tongue to my lips, and I let her in. Tongues weaving together as if they were dancing like lavender blowing in the wind.
My hands found her smooth back, pushing her against me, crushing her nipples against my muscles. She wasn’t soft like Angie had been. She was her own wall of muscles, the tight cords blending with my own.
My thumbs swirled at her side, and she arched into me. The kiss, the touch, launching memories of home that I hadn’t had in a decade. That I hadn’t had in so long it was as if the place had been forgotten in someone else’s dream. Kissing her made me feel like I’d somehow returned there like Dorothy tapping her heels together three times. I was standing in the fields, a wild bouquet I’d gathered in my hands, running toward the house. Wind and sunshine and scents blinding me.
My hand moved from her waist to the front of her yoga pants, and as I slid my palm down her front, she moaned a delightful little moan. A moan that was truly my undoing because I knew I couldn’t get away without hearing that multiple times. I was addicted with one touch and one sound.
In sniper training, you’re taught to use all of your senses, to open
