“They were fighting over me. You know how it is. Married or not, the women can’t leave me alone,” Brady tossed out.
Georgie smacked him on the shoulder, and Ava rolled her intriguing, dual-colored eyes. “The women or the men? Which is it this week?”
Brady laughed and shrugged. “I’ve never actually bedded a man. Can I help it if they flock to me like sheep to the shepherd?”
“More like a wolf,” Ava said in her husky voice. “And you torture them with your flirting and then leave them stranded.”
“Fun is fun,” Brady said with a wink.
Georgie and Ava couldn’t be alone for too long without the men they adored seeking them out, and now was no exception. Mac and Eli joined us, wrapping the women in their arms. They were all so insanely in love. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t witnessed it firsthand with Mac and Georgie myself. There was just something that had drawn them together. The universe. Their DNA.
A natural draw you couldn’t resist. My eyes flicked to the corner of the yard again. He wasn’t there this time. Tristan and the baby were at the table alone.
A hand hit my shoulder, and I knew as soon as it did who it was. I hated my treacherous body for knowing it before I even looked. I hated my treacherous body for so many things these days.
“Dance with me?” he asked in my ear, the heat of his breath coasting over my skin and waking up every nerve ending I’d been fighting in the last twenty-four hours.
The music was slow. Sultry. Which meant his request was a dare. Like I’d dared him to play a game we shouldn’t have played. I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell him to go put his hands on anyone else—or preferably, on the one person he wanted them to be on. But I wasn’t going to make a scene. The argument Truck had caught us in the night before had been bad enough.
My magenta dress that was supposed to ward off confrontation wasn’t doing its job. True, Georgie had chosen the color for the bridesmaids’ dresses, but it was still supposed to send signals of peace and not conflict. Peace was the last thing I felt as I let him take my sweaty, sticky hand in his.
I let him lead me to the dance floor, and I let my traitorous body tuck itself up against his. I could feel eyes on me again. This time, they weren’t his. It was Mac and the others. When we twirled, I looked over Nash’s shoulder to where my brother had Georgie pulled up against his chest. Our eyes met over the distance, and I knew exactly what Mac was thinking. It was the same thing I was thinking.
What the hell was I doing with Nash Wellsley?
Nash twirled me back the other way, and all I could see was a vacant table at the corner of the yard. “What are you doing, Nash?” I sighed, and before I could stop myself, I added on, “Shouldn’t you be dancing with Tristan?”
He frowned as if my words confused him and then said, “You keep running away before I can say what I want to say,” he said.
I stiffened. “I haven’t been running.”
“You forget, I’ve been trained to stalk, hunt, and chase. I know when someone’s running. Especially from me.”
I rolled my eyes. “I swear to God, you Otters have bigger egos than politicians.”
“Confidence isn’t the same as ego.”
“Potato, potahto,” I said.
“Are you ever going to let me apologize?” he asked, his voice going down a notch, causing my loins to squeeze together reflexively.
“God. It was sex, Nash. Good sex, but that was all it was. I’m sure you’ve had more than your fair share of it. Isn’t the SEAL motto women, beer, and fun?”
“It wasn’t good sex, Athena.”
I wasn’t sure what hit me the hardest—the denial we’d had good sex or the nickname he’d started calling me last weekend. I wasn’t sure I could handle either. It hadn’t been just sex to me. It had been one of the best sensual experiences of my life. He’d brought me to the brink over and over more damn times than any one man had done before. Not on his own. Not without me directing exactly what I needed and wanted. So, for him to think it had just been ho-hum…it stabbed at the wound I was already trying to heal.
Even though I knew my face didn’t reflect my thoughts, Nash read them anyway. Just like he’d found my tells that no one had ever found before. He spoke low again as if he was afraid to say the words. “What we did to each other… I could do that every night for the rest of my life. It wasn’t just good. It was earth-shattering.”
As if to prove his point, I could feel his arousal against my leg as his thoughts went to the same place mine did. To skin on skin. It gave me little pleasure to know his body was as much of a traitor as mine.
I was just getting ready to give a snide remark when Brady tapped Nash on the shoulder.
“Sorry, I’m going to have to claim Dani from you. I have to leave in a few minutes, and I have some business to discuss,” he said.
Nash looked like he wanted to object, like he wanted to punch Brady square in the nose, but then Tristan came up to us as well. Hannah was passed out on her shoulder, and Tristan had the diaper bag in her other hand, clearly on her way out.
“Is it okay if we leave?” she asked Nash.
His face was unreadable as his arms dropped from my waist, taking my soul with him. I felt empty and small without his arms around me. I felt vulnerable.
“Sure,”
