Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Dare
Three weeks. It’s been three weeks since we said goodbye. Since you’ve said anything to me…
Mom’s cancer is back, but she won’t let me come home. Says she’s going to beat it again, but I can hear it in her voice she doesn’t believe it.
Why tell me something she feels deep down isn’t the truth? Don’t I have the right to prepare for the worst, too?—Athena
It’s not your fault.
I couldn’t breathe—I couldn’t exhale without the oxygen taking the whole truth with it. This was all my fault. I’d left her all those years ago, and if I hadn’t, she wouldn’t be here.
“All you’ve done is try to protect me,” she said and punctured the inflating truth in my chest.
Protect her… it was the only prerogative strong enough to suppress the truth.
I shuddered, the words like the tip of a knife poised under the tip of my chin. A threat. A promise. A reminder. Telling her who I was would make her wary of the only man willing to do anything to keep her safe: me.
From Ivans. From Belmont. From her ex. They were criminal pieces of shit who didn’t deserve to breathe in the same universe she lived in. But so help me, neither did I.
And not even for how I’d hurt her all those years ago, but for who I was in this moment—a man who still wanted her beyond all reason. I kept my distance not because I worried she might figure out the damn truth, but because the way I wanted her was irrational. Uncontrollable. Unreasonable.
“Athena…”
My thumb stroked the back of her hand one last time, her skin like rays of sunshine straight to my cells, and then I drew my hand away. I had to. If I didn’t…that warmth would melt my restraint. It would loosen the long-tightened knots from their moorings and set a need free that hadn’t been fed in years.
My eyes slipped from their hold, sliding from her wrist along her arm until it disappeared beneath the soapy water where the rest of her full, naked curves dwelled.
Fuck. I jerked my head to the side and swallowed down the hiss that threatened to slip through my lips, a hot traitor ready to reveal the secrets of how damn bad I desired her. I shut my eyes for a second to clear my thoughts, and instead I was greeted by the memory of those curves sprawled on the bathroom floor like a wounded siren.
Of course, my first instinct was for her safety. Her comfort. But now that that was handled, instinct gave way to a sea of images that churned around me. Her hands splayed on the ground, hair falling over her shoulders, her chest heaving. Her full breasts hung with their tight berry tips, waiting to be laved and worshipped.
My mouth had pooled with saliva, and my tongue was so thick and starving with want, I could barely speak.
And now they were inches from me. Just below the surface of the water. It would be so easy to lift her up just an inch or two so I could worship them. Feast . Sate the beast inside my chest, turning me gaunt with want.
“I really know how to pick them, don’t I?”
Fuck. I bit into my cheek and flung my eyes open.
“Don’t do that,” I rasped and shifted my seat to adjust my hard dick, my piercings digging painfully where they were wedged inside my jeans. “This isn’t your fault.”
“Then how do I only attract men who want to use me—hurt me? Kill—” She couldn’t finish.
“It has nothing to do with you. Nothing. You hear me?” I heard myself. The frustration etching my tone, the anger elevating my voice.
I balled my hand into a fist to stop it from moving. If she only knew how many times I wanted to reach for her—how many times I had to stop myself from touching her. Comforting her. Drawing her to me and never letting go.
“No?”
She rested her chin on her knees, her gaze staring blankly in front of her. She looked so…small. So fucking defeated. And yet, she hadn’t broken down. Hadn’t cried. Hadn’t freaked out. What the hell kind of woman held her cool after all that?
“No,” I practically growled.
“Then why can’t I see how bad they are for me?” Her head tipped to the side so one cheek rested on her knee, and her haunted stare was aimed directly at me.
I couldn’t stop myself. I reached out and brushed my fingers on her cheek, loving the way it made her breath catch and color rise to where my fingers touched.
“Because you don’t see the bad, Athena. You only see the beauty.” If finding the good in everyone were a moral treasure hunt, she would be as rich as Croesus.
“You think so?” Her tongue slid along her lips, and it took every strength I had not to send my thumb following it.
“I know so.”
The blush on her cheeks deepened, and just as she turned into my hand, I managed to pull it away. Before I touched something I shouldn’t. Before I touched something I wouldn’t be able to let go.
“I still can’t believe Brandon…”
Dammit, I knew I should’ve punched the fucker.
“He owes a lot of money to a lot of bad people.”
“Not that,” she murmured. “I believe that.” Her sigh broke off another piece of me. “I just can’t believe I never saw it after years together. Never realized he was still gambling—that he had a problem.”
“When—” I stopped and cleared my throat. “When did you two meet?”
“In college.” A sad smile brushed her cheeks. “I was in this…shell…after my mom died. Not spiraling, just orbiting. Brandon was vibrant. The life of the party. He wouldn’t let me stay in my orbit and pulled me into his. And it was good—what I needed.”
Because she hadn’t had me.
“I’m sorry about your mom.” And I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’d written the words so many times in those first few months after I’d heard the news, but I never sent them. Not when she wrote to tell me. Not when she wrote about the funeral. Not when she begged me.
“Thank you. She was sick for a long time.” Judy Holman was a saint, and everyone used to say that was why God called her home sooner than the rest. “Part of me used to wish she’d been alive to meet Brandon, but not anymore. Obviously.”
Two times, Judy had survived breast cancer, but the third time…the third time was it. And it was quick. They’d found the cancer right after I’d left for basic training, and she was gone by Christmas.
Athena shifted in the water, and a wince creased her face.
“How’s your hip? You went down pretty hard.”
“Less bruised than my pride.” She sighed heavily. “What am I missing?What is it about me that only attracts men who want to use me or hurt me?”
The band around my chest tightened. “That’s not true.”
“It is true.” She couldn’t see me, but somehow, her stare felt like she saw right through me. Right through all my lies to the truth. “Every man I’ve loved has hurt me.”
I tensed. “You loved Ray—Rick?” That didn’t fit with what she’d said before.
“No.” She reared up, sloshing water against the side and dipping the surface low—dangerously low—on her chest. “Not him. Before I met Brandon, I loved someone who…hurt me.”
My heart beat heavily, all its sharp, broken pieces puncturing fresh holes inside me. This was it. The moment I had to face the man in the mirror and the pain I’d caused her, and I deserved to do it without the opportunity for forgiveness or redemption. Because God help me, I knew she’d give it.
I didn’t trust myself to hear my name from her lips or what it would do to me, so I asked instead,“What did he do?”
Her lips peeled apart, her chest rising and falling tempestuously—and temptingly—at the edge of the water.“Why are you going to arrest him, too?”
“Maybe.” I gritted my teeth. “Maybe something worse.”
“He…” Left me. Abandoned me. Promised me the world and broke his promise. I filled in all the appropriate possibilities, and she went with none of them. “Disappeared.”
What? No. Anger bolted through me. Disappeared wasn’t enough—wasn’t bad enough.
“What do you mean?”
“We were high school sweethearts, and after graduation, I left for art college, and he joined the military. I thought we were going to make it work, but I never heard from him again. I wrote to him. Waited to hear from him—for him to come home. Even when my mom died… nothing.”
“He sounds like an ass,” I ground out, my fist flexing on the edge of the tub. “As bad as the rest of them.”
She laughed softly. “I don’t think so.”
Goddammit, why couldn’t she just hate me the way I deserved?
“I think he didn’t know how to tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“That I wasn’t worth it.”
There it was—the exquisite pain I’d been searching for.
“You’re wrong,” I said, my voice hoarse from stretching through all my sharp barriers.
“How do you know?”
This time, I didn’t even try to stop myself from reaching for her because, fuck it. Fuck everything except making it crystal fucking clear to this woman that she was worth everything. Every goddamn thing.
She shivered at the first brush of fingers, and I felt like an ass for surprising her with the touch, but I didn’t stop. I brushed damp strands of hair from her cheek and then continued trailing my finger along the side of her face. Her ear. Her jawline.
“Because you’re perfect. And any man who can’t see that isn’t a man but a fucking fool.” And I was the biggest of them all.
The catch of her breath was like a jumpstart on my heart, and the way she turned her face into my hand was the kind of thing that would’ve brought me to my knees if I wasn’t already on the ground.
And then, something even worse happened. Something I hadn’t expected—something I never should’ve been close enough to make possible.
Her soft lips pressed to the edge of my rough palm in an unmistakable kiss, and my cock jolted against my jeans.
“Athena…” I couldn’t hold back my groan, unable to fucking see straight with how hard I was . It couldn’t be normal. It definitely didn’t feel survivable. I angled slightly and stretched one leg out, barely able to breathe again as my dick throbbed along the side of my thigh.
Fuck. This couldn’t happen. She couldn’t happen. I turned to pull my hand away, but she grabbed my wrist, stopping me with the trail of her touch up my arm. My shoulder. Finally, to the side of my face.
I was worse than a fool—worse than an asshole. I was a villain for the way I let myself want her…and the way I let her continue to want me without knowing the truth.
“How did you get this scar?” The pad of her thumb carefully traced the newly raised flesh.
I shivered, her touch inflicting a new kind of wound on my skin. Invisible. Immovable. Indefinite.
“Capturing a man who worked for Ivans, who hurt a friend of ours.” My voice cracked when she reached the intersection of the scar with my lip. “He liked knives.”
“I’m sorry.”
Was she sorry his knife found my face? Or was she apologizing because her touch had now migrated onto my lips ?
“Don’t be,” I murmured for either scenario, watching unabashed desire darken her eyes.
It was…breathtaking, the freedom of her expressions when she couldn’t see anyone else’s reaction—when she couldn’t judge herself or worry what others might think. And it was heart-stopping to feel her touch.
I inhaled and closed my eyes, savoring the warm press of her fingers in the way she felt mine.
Later, I could pretend this would feel the same if it were any woman. That I was coming out of my skin for the sole reason that I hadn’t let any woman touch me in years. But it was only another layer of lies to hide the truth behind: no other woman’s touch would ever make me feel this way.
Even Amira. Even with the way I’d wanted her and cared for her—even with the way war and danger had intensified those feelings to the point of folly—it still didn’t compare to the heat of Athena’s touch. The way it was so hot, it seemed to cauterize wounds I thought would bleed forever.
My eyes went wide, and I grabbed her wrist. “I should go.”
She sat forward, moving onto her knees. Her next inhale teased the pink edge of her nipples, and I realized I was being tortured.
“Why?”
My jaw locked so tightly, the tension rippled onto my skull. “It’s not…right.”
In fact, it was every definition of wrong.
“Right?” Her breathless laugh killed me. “Every right man has turned out to be wrong for me. Maybe I need to try a wrong one for once.”
“I can’t…” And I needed her to not let me. “Not with you here. Like this.”
Her brow creased, pain lancing her gaze. “Like what? Blind? ”
I hissed.“Jesus—no, that’s not what I meant.” Words, reasons, logic—she was twisting them all. “I mean, you’re vulnerable?—”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Athena…”
“I’m blind, not incapacitated. Just because I can’t see doesn’t mean I can’t think or know what I want.” Her hold tightened on my face, her thumb positioned right under my lips, and I couldn’t tell which one of us she was pulling closer.
No.
This shouldn’t happen.
Couldn’t.
I needed to stop. Back away. Run.
Instead, I remained an inch away from her face—a breath away from her perfect, tempting mouth—and asked, “And what do you want?”
Her full lips parted, and her tongue wet them like an executioner sharpening his blade. My body went taut, and the pulse that pounded in my ears only served to pump blood to my aching cock. This was going to kill me. She was going to kill me.
“To kiss a man who wouldn’t hurt me.”
I let out a soft groan. “Athena…”
Her forehead touched mine, and she breathed,“Are you going to stop me?”
I wish I were that man.
A stronger man.
A better man.
But I wasn’t.
I was nothing more than a man who’d lose his mind if she didn’t kiss me now.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
The first touch of her lips to mine was the second explosion I’d experienced in her presence, and this one I wasn’t sure I’d survive.
It had been years…so many years. My body went into shock, stilling completely under the play of her soft mouth. She was sweet and forbidden like alcohol on a recovering alcoholic’s tongue—except the desire I felt wasn’t one-hundred-proof, it was bulletproof. Unstoppable and deadly.
Her mouth pressed and played over mine, a gentle but determined exploration.
I never thought it would happen like this. In all the years since Amira, I thought, at some point, I’d weaken and cave. That I’d be the one who reached for a woman despite what the last one had cost me. But I hadn’t reached for Athena—I hadn’t kissed her. She’d kissed me.
And instead of the kiss being part of an injury that wouldn’t heal, her embrace was like a balm over an open wound.
I held steady until the first swipe of her tongue—the soft pink tip I’d tracked so many times over her lip now made its first pass across mine, and there I crumbled. The shield of my restraint constructed of piecemealed strength, that touch tearing away an integral part of the foundation like the Jenga piece that sent the tower toppling.
A deep sound rumbled through my lips, ushering with it my tongue to tangle with hers. I slid my hand to her hair, fisting the damp mass to angle her head and deepen the kiss. Water sloshed in the tub as she roseup to meet me .
“Dare,” she panted, nipping at my bottom lip until my mouth claimed hers once more.
Dammit . I needed to stop.
Her tongue stroked mine, wiping every thought from my mind except how that same motion would feel along the length of my cock. Distantly, I registered her fingers curling around mine, pulling my hand from her face, and I prayed she was coming to her senses because God knew, I seemed to have none when it came to her.
But she didn’t pull my hand from her skin. She moved it. Down her neck…over her collarbone…
“Athena.” I tried to catch my breath—catch the reins of my control again—but I wasn’t fast enough.
The gentle shackle of her fingers lowered my hand to her breast, the soft weight filling my palm like a bomb with a dead man’s switch. To hold her—touch her—risked my life. But to let go…to let go assured sudden death.
“Fuck,” I hissed, black spots striking like mallets in my vision.
“Please,” she murmured, holding my hand to her breast for another second before letting it go—before trusting me to give her what she needed. She shouldn’t trust me. “I dream of you…touching me.”
A curse erupted from my lips, and the world started to tilt as I let desire take me under. My hand moved on instinct, kneading and teasing the weight in my palm. Memorizing every inch of its softness and the feel of its firm peak, storing how perfect she was—how perfectly she fit to me—deep in the caverns of my mind where all my fantasies sprung from.
This would be enough—it would have to be. I wouldn’t let myself take more.
But then her soft moan reached my ears like a siren’s call, drawing me and my resolutions deeper into the depths of desire.
Growling low, I wrapped my free hand around her neck and took her mouth savagely. My tongue plunged deep into her mouth, sparring against hers, but she wouldn’t stop moaning. She’d wanted this. She had no idea who I was or what I was, and still she wanted this. I wouldn’t judge her for that, but neither would I pretend to be something I wasn’t.
I wouldn’t pretend to be sweet and considerate and gentle when the reality was I was a man starved of intimacy for almost a decade. An animal. Feral for her. So, this kiss was nothing like the first. This one was a warning. A threat. It marched straight into the promise of punishment that lacked all remorse.
And in return, her kiss back lacked any hesitation.
She clutched the sides of my face like my mouth was her only source of oxygen.
“You’re perfect,” I rasped, and then locked my lips to the corner of her neck, sucking hard as I kneaded her breast. “So fucking perfect.” I was drunk…drugged…unhinged the way my mouth moved lower, hungry for more.
Her hands slid from my face, her slender fingers coiling in my hair, pulling me harder to where her nipple strained for my touch. I pinched and rolled it in my fingers, doing everything I could to keep my mouth away.
But everything wasn’t enough when faced with her breathless, “Please.”
A deep groan split from the seam in my chest as I faced the tub from the outside and moved her so she did the same from the inside. Unseeing, she stared at me as she tipped back, the rosy peaks of her breasts sitting like ripe fruit above the water.
For a second, I let myself stare and stare and…suffer. I grabbed the edge of the tub as a wave of desire crashed th rough me, the intensity of it threatening to make me black out. When it passed, I let out a tight exhale.
I was going to have a permanent imprint of my zipper in the skin of my cock and punctures to the fabric of my jeans where the metal ends of my piercings broke through. But there was nothing I could do. One touch—even to adjust myself—and I knew I’d come. That was what the woman of my dreams naked in front of me did to a man who’d spent the last eight years in celibacy.
“Dare.”
I closed my eyes, letting the weight of my name on her lips bear down on my shoulders. Later, I’d realize just how much heavier this would make my guilt. But right now, there wasn’t anything in this world or the next that could’ve stopped me from lowering my head to her chest and capturing one perfect nipple between my teeth.
Water splashed over the edge as her body jerked. “Don’t stop.”
Never .
Hands tangled in my hair, holding me tight as I licked and sucked the velvety, firm peak. Her moans and whimpers were like a hail of gunfire falling all around me, and the only way to make it stop was to give her what her body craved.
I circled and flicked my tongue over her nipple, memorizing what each movement did to her. The way it made her move. The sounds it drew from her lips. I reached my hand to her other breast, ready to pleasure it the same, but I never got the chance.
She grabbed my wrist and sank it below the water with all her might. And like the perfect anchor, my fingers plummeted straight to the depths between her thighs.
I growled, my teeth biting into the tender skin of her breast as my fingers spread the soft folds of her pussy. God, I wished the water was gone—drained—so I could feel how wet she was for me. But it was better it wasn’t. The water kept me from her—kept me from mauling her like some rabid beast.
“Yes,” she moaned, squeezing my forearm when I pushed two fingers inside her.
“Is this what you dream of?” I dared to ask, lifting my gaze up her body and taking one breath. And then another.
“More.”
My cock pulsed hard and began to leak. Fuck.
“As you wish.” I captured her other nipple in my lips and set my tongue to the same rhythm as my thumb over the swollen bud of her clit.
She was a siren, and her song of pleasure made me want to drown in her depths. It no longer felt like years since I’d touched a woman, but a lifetime. A lifetime because it was her. Because this wasn’t just mindless pleasure like I thought it would be. Because it meant something—because she had meant something to me once.
She rocked into me, her body asking for what her lips could no longer form.
“I dream of this,” I muttered, her tight heat around my fingers threatening to shred all of my sanity. “Of you needing me. Begging me. Completely vulnerable to my touch.”
After what I’d done to her, the way I still fantasized about her was an unforgivable sin.But her body mocked my guilt, her sex rippling around my fingers as they found the sensitive spot along her front wall.
“Yes,” she moaned, arching into my touch. The soft word sent my own body rocking forward, my groin bumping into the side of the tub.
I hissed in pain, in pleasure, and in insanity. And in that insanity, I reached for my cock without thinking…without remembering it would only make it worse .
As soon as my palm pressed to the strained front of my jeans, a violent need for release snapped through me like a whip. No. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to focus only on the sweet pebble of her nipple between my lips or the tight grip of her pussy around my fingers, but I couldn’t.
My stomach tightened. Air stopped entering my lungs. Some part of me decided it would be better to pass out than to touch myself with her like this…until her hand settled on my shoulder.
Maybe it was support. Maybe it was simply another plea for more. But my body—my own need—took it as permission.
My eyes flung open, need dilating all my senses into a single purpose: pleasure. A feral noise rumbled from my chest as Itore open the front of my pants and fisted my throbbing length.
And then it was everything all at once. The drag of my lips on her nipple. The press of my fingertips on her G-spot. And my firm grip yanking long, punishing strokes on my cock.
She had to know—had to feel my shoulder jerking under her hand—but I could pretend like her own pleasure erased it from her senses.
My tongue and hands all moved to the same rhythm, sending pleasure rocketing through us both until she couldn’t take it any longer. Thank God, because neither could I.
“ Yes!” She came with the sweetest cry, her body arching all her softness into me like the most beautiful offering…and one I didn’t deserve. From there, it was only my name on her lips as she rode out her release, and the sound of it was my undoing.
“ Fuck,” I groaned under my breath, feeling the pressure in my spine an instant before my own orgasm erupted. My cock jerked wildly in my grasp, shooting my release in thick streams against the tub and onto the floor.
She panted, her chest rising to my lips, and in return, my teeth sank into her skin, heaving in a breath like I took the oxygen directly from her lungs.There, in the riotous, blinding pleasure, it felt like we were the only two people in the world. No present. No danger. No past. No betrayal. Just Athena and me.
“Dare…”
Her voice found me in the darkness—it pulled me from the fantasy and back to the moment when I saw her beautiful, flushed face. Her eyes glistened with pleasure, similar to the way they’d glistened with tears the day I’d left her.
Fuck .
“Let me get a towel,” I said hoarsely, drawing myself away from her. “There’s water everywhere.” And my cum streaking the side of the tub.
I straightened and wiped the evidence of my failure from my pierced tip, carefully tucking myself back into my jeans and using my footsteps to mask the sound of the zipper.
The first towel I placed on the floor, wiping up the water, and then quickly over the side of the tub before tossing it to the side.
“You can stand up; I have a towel for you.”
I wanted to look—wanted one last look. But the guilt I’d expected—the guilt I’d hoped would give me a moment of reprieve—hit me with its full force, and I turned my head under the weight.
The sound of the water rushing down her body mocked my restraint as my mind just imagined all her curves anyway. As soon as she was upright, I wrapped the towel around her middle with almost robotic-like efficiency and guided her back to the bedroom, where I deposited her on the bed and pushed fresh clothes onto her lap.
“I’m just going to finish cleaning up the bathroom,” I said quickly, and I made sure to shut the door behind me so she knew I meant for her to get changed without me watching.
For five painful minutes, I stared at the damn tub that had been my undoing. The water. The woman. The want. I threw the towels in the hamper with a curse and returned to the bedroom. Thankfully, she was not only changed, but she was underneath the covers.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” I said, as though that would give me enough time to figure out what the hell to say.
“Dare—”
“Goodnight, Athena.” I strode toward the exit. Fled, more like it.
“I’m sorry.”
Her words stopped me like a gun to my back, and I turned. For the first time, I wished she could see me—see the way I looked at her.“Don’t ever apologize for that.”
She licked her lips, and my damn cock stiffened again. “But you’re upset.”
“I’m not upset with you.”
“Then what is it? Why do you feel like what we did was wrong?” Her question gutted right to the center of it.
So I gave her as much of the truth as I could and prayed it was enough to stop this from ever happening again.
“Because if you knew me, you’d know I don’t deserve you.”