“Yes. My sisters and I always had our dad’s number.” She broke the cupcake in half, then sucked frosting off her thumb, which made my dick start to get hard.
“Maybe I’m not as nice as your dad.” I tried to sound menacing, but I was so fucking turned on it was difficult. “Maybe I’m better at saying no.”
She laughed like she knew better than I did. “Maybe. But even a Navy SEAL has some weaknesses.”
Blowjobs, I thought, watching her lick her fingers and imagining her tongue brushing across the tip of my cock.
“Here.” She pushed the plate with the cupcake on it toward me. “We can share.”
I wasn’t hungry, but I needed the distraction, so I picked up one of the halves and bit into it.
She picked up the other, and we ate in silence for a minute. I did my best to keep my eyes off her mouth, since I was struggling to keep my thoughts clean and felt like an asshole about it. When I was done, I wiped my hands on my pants.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, popping her last bite between her lips. “I should have brought us napkins. I’ll get some.”
“It’s okay. I should go.” We stood at the same time, putting us practically chest to chest.
She looked up at me and swallowed. Parted her lips.
Don’t do it, dickhead, I told myself.
But she was right—I did have weaknesses, and right now her mouth was at the top of the list.
Without another thought, I took her by the shoulders and crushed my lips to hers. She made a soft sound of surprise, and I felt her body lean into mine. She rose up on her toes, opening her mouth so I could taste her—a tantalizing combination of salty and sweet. She twined her arms around my neck, and I moved my hands down her back. Her tongue grazed mine.
Stop this right the fuck now, said a voice in my head.
But not only did I ignore it, I hitched her up by the back of her thighs, and she gasped against my lips as she wrapped her legs around me. Grabbing her ass, I pulled her tight to my lower body and moved her up and down my cock.
On the table, the candle crackled and spit, making both of us jump. I set her down hard and backed into my chair, putting distance between us. “Fuck.” I held up my hands, as if she’d asked me to put them where she could see them. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry.” She shook her head. “It just—it just happened.”
I stood there for one second longer, watching her chest rapidly rise and fall, feeling like I couldn’t catch my breath either—and I knew if I didn’t get out of there, I’d end up with my tongue in her mouth again.
Or maybe other places.
“Goodnight,” I said, and quickly retreated into my house.
Once I’d shut the sliding door behind me, I went into the kitchen and braced myself against the counter with two fists. Closing my eyes, I hung my head.
What the fuck? What had possessed me to do that? Was I really so weak? The girl was only twenty-two! She was twenty-fucking-two, and I was thirty-four with two young daughters, and I had no business putting my hands on her. For fuck’s sake, she was nearly closer to Hallie’s age than mine.
Furious with myself, I went to the fridge and took another beer out, popping the cap off with an angry twist. It reminded me that I’d left the two empty bottles on her table—now she probably thought I was one of those assholes who never cleaned up after himself and expected a woman to do it, just like my dad.
Leaning back against the counter, I took a long drink and vowed not to touch her again. If that meant I had to keep some distance between us, so be it. I’d just keep my head down if I saw her. Wave and keep on walking.
It wouldn’t be easy, but I was good at doing hard things. Wasn’t that why I’d become a SEAL in the first place? I could still hear my father laugh when I told him that’s what I wanted to do. A hard-drinking gambler and drifter, he’d served some time in the Navy long before I was born, and never held down one job for long. Tired of his cheating, my mother threw him out when I was ten, and he’d been in and out of our lives after that with no consistent pattern. He often disappeared for months at a time. Our mother, who was loving and kind, always worked two jobs to support us.
But she had a soft spot for him that refused to harden, and she always let him back into our house when he felt like coming around—and even into her bed sometimes. It used to make me sick to think about it, so I tried not to. I hated the days when I’d come home from school or practice and saw his truck in the driveway. I felt sorry for my mother because she said she couldn’t help loving him, but I was also angry with her for being so weak, so easily manipulated. By the time Bree and I were teenagers, we could see she was only going to end up hurt again when he left—because he always left. No matter what that lying asshole said, he always left again.