“Surviving isn’t nothing, Athena,” I said. She rolled her eyes. “Nietzsche says, ‘To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.’ I’ve forgotten that recently. You’re reminding me of it.”
She twitched in my arms, almost as if I’d stabbed her, and I wanted to apologize for it. To apologize for every hurt I’d sent her way, starting with the one I’d given her when I’d asked her to leave.
“I’m sorry I asked you to walk away that morning at Tristan’s.”
Saying Tristan’s name was like flicking the shutters closed on a window. Dani’s soft look was replaced with business Dani. Daniella. The ever-efficient professional. She pushed against my chest again, and I let her go.
“I have a lot to do today,” she said, moving to the edge of the bed. I sat up, leaving the sheets behind and wrapping my legs around her middle and my arms around her chest, trying to figure out how to bring back the woman who’d spoken my name like a prayer.
“You’re running,” I said, a whisper in her ear, before nibbling on the soft lobe and then placing kisses down her neck and onto her shoulder.
The tension in her body eased slightly, and she relaxed back against my chest, placing a kiss on the arm I had around her. I slowed my kisses at her neck, moving a hand to her breast, kneading, twisting, pulling. I was rewarded with a gasp and her breath coasting over my arm.
“Shower with me?” I asked.
She stilled before nodding, and I took it as the step forward it was. Her staying, me staying. I led her into the bathroom where I made her come apart with my hands and my body a few more times before we had to face the world.
As I dug through my dresser to pilfer any clean clothes I could find, she wrapped her arms around my waist, watching me shuffle through the old clothes. I pulled out an ancient pair of sweats and an even older Green Day T-shirt. She snaked out a hand to take an Aerosmith T-shirt. They were all from a time in my life when I thought concerts and skateboarding were my future. She slid the shirt over her head, and the look of her in my shirt was enough to make me want to take her back into bed and forget there was anything she had to do today.
A rumble escaped my lips, and she kissed me before laughing and pulling herself away. “I have to get to work.” She gave me a once-over as I slid on the beat-up clothes. “What is this look?”
“It’s the I-have-to-do-laundry look.” I grinned at her, searching for my clothes we’d tossed around the room and placing them in the hamper I’d set by the door.
“I have things to wash as well. When I’m done for the day, maybe you can show me where the laundry room is at?”
“Just give them to me; I’ll throw them in with mine,” I said.
She laughed at first, but then, noting my lack of a smile, said, “You’re serious.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“They’re female clothes. Some of them can’t just be tossed in the washer and the dryer without a care.”
“Athena, I’ve been doing female laundry for a while now. Even before living at Tristan’s, I practically lived with Angie.”
Her brow creased, and I realized I’d said the wrong thing again—other women’s names coming off my lips after hers had been on them all night. She turned and headed for the door, but I leaped over the hamper and grabbed her, pulling her hard to my chest.
“Ask me; don’t run,” I growled.
“What if I don’t want to ask you?” she said, chin up, confidence hiding her true feelings.
“You do,” I told her, and it caused her to bristle.
“You and your SEAL ego. Even if I did want to ask, I don’t have time right now. I have things to do. I’m already hours behind,” she said.
“Fine, give me your laundry, go get things done, and then we’ll work on your self-defense skills. Afterward, you can ask me all the things you need to ask.”
“Excuse me? Did you say self-defense skills? Because I will have you know my father taught me plenty of self-defense skills. I’ve even drawn blood a few times.”
She did have moves. She’d escaped Fenway in an elevator when he was twice her size, but thoughts of the asshole senator only made me more determined to teach her.
“Trust me, I’ll be able to show you things he didn’t.”
Her eyes flared. “Challenge accepted.”
I laughed, and she left my room in nothing but a T-shirt. I followed, glancing both ways down the hallway to make sure that neither Carson nor Maribelle were there to witness her nearly naked body walking three doors down.
When we got to her room, she grabbed a hamper from the closet that matched the one in my hand. As she passed it over to me, she said, “No one has done my laundry except me since my mom taught us all as teens. Is this some strange way of trying to charm me more? You already got me in your bed.”
“Maybe I want to continue to charm you,” I said as I took her hamper and stepped back into the hallway. She looked both directions down the length of it like I had moments before.
“What?” I asked.
“I was just wondering what you’ve done with the real Nash Wellsley. If you find him, can you remind him I’d really like him to repeat that thing he did with his tongue and my―”
I kissed her, dropping the hampers and pushing inside her mouth to let her know I remembered exactly what I’d done with my tongue. I stabilized her before stepping away, removing all my body parts from hers. I grabbed the hampers and headed down the hall.
“Remind Dani that this real Nash expects
