by LJ Evans
“Last chance,” I said, my voice an ache of desire and remorse because I knew taking this step would end in nothing but pain. I was used to pain. It was a trade-off every SEAL made. Pain for warrior status, but it also damaged you. I just didn’t want the damage to leak onto her.
“Challenge accepted,” she said, her voice a husky mix of desire and wariness. Then, she was kissing me, maneuvering me toward the pull-out bed I slept on every time I was there.
I tugged away for a moment just so I could memorize her. She was breathing heavily, her breasts rising and falling with the motion. She was the most stunning woman I’d ever seen. A landscape I’d never be able to forget. I went to my duffel bag, dug inside, and came out with a strip of condoms.
When I rejoined her, her eyes were on the strip, and I thought maybe she’d back down, the condoms a splash of ice water over us. But like so many of the things I got wrong with her, she didn’t back down at all. Instead, she took me in her hand, stroking and teasing, making me even harder as she met my gaze as she’d done all night. Each of us daring the other to concede, and neither of us doing it.
We landed on the bed in a pile of skin and nerve endings. I wasn’t gentle because I don’t know how to be. I was all aggression and force, but she didn’t seem to care. She met it with her own. When I yanked her to me, touching every place I’d learned over the years that made the women I was with moan, tremble, and shake, she returned the touch with her own. My lips and tongue followed my hands. She arched and cried out, her body convulsing with expectation and relief. But she didn’t stop or slow down. Instead, her movements became faster. She straddled me, taking the condom and sliding it on me. Confident. Strong. Athena.
When she settled on me, I was gone. The clouds. Mount Olympus. That was all I could see. Shimmers of light and sound, and her dark hair swathed me in its secret garden as it swung over my face. My hands skimmed her front, pulling her toward the summit until we both reached the peak and dove off.
She laid her head against my chest, running a finger along the scar that went from my neck, along my collarbone, out to my shoulder. Running a finger along the spirals of my tornado tattoo. And I wondered if she was trying to call my bluff again. To see if I’d call or fold.
I’d already folded. I’d folded the moment she’d bawked at me. Maybe before. Maybe I’d folded the very first time she’d ever entered my life with her bright-blue eyes and daredevil smile.
Dani
MISTAKE
“Now that I'm thinking sober,
Don't you try to get no closer.
I'm just gonna get my car and drive, and drive.”
Performed by Demi Lovato
Written by Peiken / Pringle / Haywood
My body was deliciously sore. It was sated and happy. That was what I registered until I also registered the arm still draped across my waist, holding me tucked against a wall of muscles with my back and bottom tucked against his core. My skin broke out in prickles of awareness, goosebumps coating the follicles.
Nash.
Shit.
I would have loved to use the excuse of being drunk. It was the excuse I would definitely be using with him, but the truth was, I hadn’t been drunk when I’d undone my bra and sat on his lap. The alcohol had slowed me down, removed some of my guards, but it hadn’t made me forget who I was or what I was doing.
Instead, I’d just given in to the sensations my body had been craving. I’d let myself have a night of passion and sin. It had been too long. Too many nights of silent loneliness. With a touch, a blaze of light and smell and sensations, I’d found something different than any other time I’d been wrapped in a man’s arms.
Then I doubted myself. Doubted my senses. Maybe I’d just forgotten what it felt like to have a man caress me. I hadn’t had sex with another man in well over a year. Since Russell. Since the night of the Chinese Embassy reception which had started Mac and Georgie’s relationship but somehow saw the end of mine.
Russell had wanted me to stay that next morning, and I hadn’t. I’d dressed in the clothes I had in a drawer in his room and left. It was pretty much my fault that when his ex had called, hoping he’d meet her for a drink to discuss what had happened between them, he’d gone to her instead of coming to me.
I hadn’t given him all of me.
I couldn’t. I probably never would give all of me to any man. Last night with Nash… It was the closest I’d ever been to giving someone my hidden pieces.
The basement was flooded with weak light. It was morning. Double shit.
I sat up, the movement rocking the uncomfortable sleeper couch Nash called his bed. Nash mumbled something.
“What time is it?” I asked.
He groaned. It wasn’t quite the sexual groan of the night before, but it still lit up my body. I ignored it. His hand found its way to my inner thigh, rubbing, tantalizing me, making me remember what it had felt like to be cocooned in arms so strong it was as if nothing could break them. As if he―we―were invincible.
“Tristan is going to be here any minute,” I said, more to myself than him.
“What?” The hand on my leg froze.
“Tristan. She’s going to be home this morning. She stopped just over the border because Hannah was cranky. Otherwise, she would have been home yesterday.”
“Fuck!” He was up in a flash, pulling on his cammies, not even bothering with the briefs which had landed somewhere else the night before.
He had a stack of clothes on a box. I grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it on, and when I turned around, he was staring at me. Green eyes clouded and dark in the morning twilight.
“What?”
“She’ll kill us both if she finds you here.”
I laughed and looked for my yoga pants, sliding them on. “She already knows I’m here. I’ve been watching Molly.”
“No, here,” he said, looking around his space. The space that barely had any mark of him on it but had a whole stack of boxes labeled Darren’s.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. She isn’t going to tell anyone,” I said, twisting my hair and pulling the hairband I had left on my wrist the day before over the loose strands, getting it out of my face.
“She can’t know,” Nash said, and that was when I heard the regret in his voice. It had been there last night, and I’d ignored it. Today, the remorse skittered around the brick walls of the basement and collided with my heart. No, not my heart, my pride. I wouldn’t be embarrassed. We’d had sex. So what? We were two consenting adults. It really was no one’s business.
I headed to the stairs, and he caught my wrist, halting me. “Please, Dani. She can’t know.”
His face was full of guilt as if he’d cheated on his wife or girlfriend. It hit me. His relationship with Tristan. He’d always been close to her because of Darren. They had acted like a family. Like siblings. And I’d never thought he’d want more from her than that. It would be slightly creepy, like wanting Vinnie if something happened to my sister Gabi.
But I didn’t understand any other reason why he’d react so strongly.
“She’ll never forgive me,” he said.
I met his gaze as I always did, but what I saw there had me sealing my heart closed. I’d teased him about making himself at home there, but that was exactly what he was doing. Making a home. For him. For Tristan. Their souls had both lost the same thing and were now trying to find relief.
My soul became an ice sculpture. My soul didn’t matter. This moment between the two of us couldn’t mean anything. Which was fine. I’d said it was a one-night thing, and I’d meant it. I had. I just meant it even more now.
I pulled my arm from his grasp and started up the stairs, throwing back over my head, “Don’t worry, Pretty Boy, it wasn’t exactly my finest moment. I’m not going to go wagging my tongue about it.”
When I got to the top, I couldn’t help but slam the door as hard as I could, wishing he’d stay downstairs, but he didn�
��t. He followed on my heels. I got to the kitchen and realized I’d left the enchiladas out all night. The food I’d made for Tristan was wasted. Tears suddenly overwhelmed me, but I clenched my teeth, blinked my eyes, and tossed the food in the garbage before soaking the dish. I turned to find Nash tossing the empty whiskey bottle in the recycle bin before he returned to the table to pick up the cards. I didn’t think anything of it until he flipped the hand that had been mine over.
I knew the moment it registered to him, because his eyebrows went up, and his hands stilled on the cards―on the three of a kind that had been mine. I’d actually won the hand, but I’d been tired of playing. I’d been tired of skirting around the wave of desire and tension that had filled the room. I’d wanted to know what it would be like to be touched by someone that could set my nerve endings humming just by being in the room.
He looked up, and I looked away for the first time, unable to meet his gaze. I grabbed the crystal glasses from the table and stuck them under the hot water.
“Dani…” His voice was still full of torture—a Navy SEAL how you will never, ever hear them.
I hated it. I hated the regret. I hated I’d let myself give in to my physical needs. I hated I’d given this man—who was already tortured with remorse because he’d come home when his friend had not—one more thing to feel bad about.
I steeled my back, schooled my expression into my poker face, and finally met his eyes. “Jesus, Otter, you act like what we did meant something.”
An undefined emotion crossed his face before he controlled his expression. The emotionless SEAL was back. There were only two sides of Nash: sardonic and teasing. Or nothing.
“If I’d known having a one-night stand was going to be so hard for you to handle, I wouldn’t have dared you,” I quipped, returning to the last-minute cleaning of the kitchen, making sure nothing was remaining of our game or our sex. Like my bra and tank top that were on the floor by the table. Like his belt and his shoes and socks.
I picked up all the items, shoving his into his hands. Our fingers collided, an energy that was like a battery charging, hot and full of electricity, shot over my skin, and I cursed at myself as I pulled my hands away from him.
“I’m going to go shower,” I said.
“Dani,” he breathed out again.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” It was childish and stupid, but I didn’t know what else to say. Wasn’t sure how else I could keep my voice calm and sassy before I escaped the room.
I headed upstairs to Tristan’s bedroom and the walk-in shower. The shower big enough to have sex in. That had a seat for just that purpose, even though the realtor would say it was for shaving your legs.
I sat with my head in my hands, letting the water spray over me. I’d been stupid.
It wasn’t the first time, but hopefully, it would be the last. I’d been stupid the night of The Oriental, too, getting into the elevator to look for Russell in the rooftop bar. My ego had denied the fact that he was standing me up. My heart hadn’t wanted to believe it. It had led to a disaster. This was no better. I’d been foolish, and it had resulted in a mess that was going to take a shit ton of digging to get out from under.
♫ ♫ ♫
The house was chaos. People in and out. The wedding planner, directing furniture in and out of the house and backyard like a dictator directing their soldiers. I’d retreated to the kitchen to make a call. At least the kitchen was fairly quiet as the caterers had already done everything they could do for the day and had left. I hit the off button on my phone after reassuring myself that Georgie’s mom was only a few minutes away. Georgie deserved to have her mom at her wedding. Every woman deserved that, if humanly possible. Since I loved Georgie almost more than my sisters, and I’d known how to make it happen, I’d used a little good, old-fashioned D.C. bribery to get Manya a very temporary visa.
Georgie’s mom had forty-eight hours to make her appearance and get back out of the U.S. That was all they were giving her in the country, and if she violated those terms, they’d be hunting her down with a black ops team.
I wanted to flick my cheek at the thought as it brought my mind back to a certain member of the black ops forces. A certain SEAL. He, and his hands, and the way my body had reacted to both were on repeat in my brain. Just like the beautiful sensations of his muscles colliding with mine. The way he’d been rough and gentle all at once. A gentleness I wasn’t sure he even noticed in himself.
I hated it.
I hated him.
But I hated myself more for being the one who’d started it.
I needed to get a job and get as far away from all of this as possible. But for the next two days, I was building a steel vault around myself because I couldn’t avoid seeing him. Eli, Truck, and Nash were Mac’s best man and groomsmen. Ava, Raisa, and I were Georgie’s bridesmaids. We had an entire evening of rehearsals and a wedding to get through where Nash and I would be close to each other.
My brother came into the kitchen, grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, and then leaned against the cabinet next to me. Our shoulders touched. He was dressed down for him. Jeans and a button-down shirt instead of his Navy uniform.
“How you doing?” he asked.
“Fine, why?” I asked, heart thudding, hoping Nash hadn’t done something stupid like apologize to my brother for our night of sin.
His eyes narrowed. “We just haven’t gotten to talk much. I miss you, but now you’re all squinty-eyed and making me wonder exactly what is wrong.”
I kicked him in the shin playfully, trying my best to put on my game face. “What could honestly be wrong with me? I’ve been lying around watching streaming TV for weeks. It’s the least interesting thing I’ve done in twelve years.”
Mac knew all my tells, and I was doing my best to not rub my finger along the counter. It was a tell I hadn’t even realized I had until Nash had raised his eyebrows at it. Damn, that man would not get out of my head.
“Walking away from something isn’t always what we think it’s going to be,” he said, eyes concerned. His own pain at walking away from the Navy and not being there to stop the op which had ended with the death of a friend was at the forefront of his brain these days. A year was not enough to heal those wounds. I wasn’t sure a lifetime was, but Georgie was helping him do his best to get through it.
“I have no regrets about leaving The Hill,” I told him truthfully. I didn’t. It had been time. “I just need to find something to do before my brain turns into a TV mushroom.”
“There you are,” the wedding planner said as she hustled into the room. “We’ve been waiting for both of you in the backyard.”
I wasn’t sure if a wedding planner should look as frazzled as this one did. Shouldn’t they be the calm in the storm? But I was grateful for her interruption so Mac wouldn’t continue to stare and get me to cough up one of my secrets.
“Let’s go before Georgie thinks you’ve backed out,” I teased.
“She’d never think that. She knows me too well,” he returned seriously.
“It’s a good thing, because if you did, we’d keep her and throw you to the wolves.”
He laughed, and we headed to the back just as the doorbell rang. “I got it,” I told him. “You go on.”
When I opened the door, it was to a woman who looked like Georgie but with blonde hair. She looked even more like Georgie’s sister, Raisa, but taller. All three of them had a similar bone structure. Delicate and strong all at the same time, their Russian heritage screaming from their noses and chins. “You must be Mrs. Leskov,” I said, sticking out my hand.
“It’s Manya, yes. And you are Daniella?” she asked and then hugged me. It was unexpected. “Thank you for getting me here for Georgie. I do not have enough words.”
The driver came up with her bag, and we left it in the hallway as I led her through the house to the backyard. Georgie and Mac were talking to Ava, Eli, and Raisa. It took a moment for
Georgie to realize who I had with me, and then she was running toward us and wrapping her mom in a fierce hug. Her sister followed behind with a matching surprised expression on her face.
“You’re here. How are you here?” There were tears in Georgie’s voice, which brought a corresponding set of tears to mine as I stepped away.
Mac and I passed each other. “Thank you, Gooberpants.”
It was said with a tease, but I heard the choke of emotion in his voice as well. “Stop with the Gooberpants before I arrange a toast for tomorrow that will ensure Georgie’s the one running for the hills.”
He just laughed and kept going.
I was walking toward Ava and Eli when my whole body started tingling. I knew before I even turned my head back to the house that Nash had arrived. He walked out the French doors and sidled up to Mac, but his eyes met mine over the distance. Just like we’d found each other so many times before.
I looked away, but it was too late. His dark, muscled body clad in a pair of jeans and a button-down, not unlike my brother’s, embedded itself into the photo album of Nash pictures I had stored in my head. The civilian clothes on Nash’s muscled body looked molded onto him, accentuating every single line. Thankfully, we didn’t have to say anything to each other because the planner was calling out for us to take our places. Truck and his wife, Jersey, had called to say their connecting flight had been delayed. They would make it in sometime tonight, but it wouldn’t be in time for the rehearsal. Which meant my brother-in-law, Vinnie, was taking his place temporarily. At least I wasn’t stuck with Nash. He was walking in with Raisa behind me.
The early October air had held on to summer, leaving everyone sweating and ready to jump into the pool hidden beneath a temporary, parquet dance floor by the time the rehearsal had barely started. I could feel Nash watching me, but I refused to glance his way. I wouldn’t let myself be drawn in by his sex appeal again. It was just sexual frustration. At least, that was what I was telling myself. Unfortunately, there was so much of it building up between us that we’d barely hit the relief valve. It was still ready to explode.
