I harrumphed. “Too late for that. They already made one, although it’s more of a swear box.”
She laughed. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, they used the cupcake box. And they wrote on it. It says ‘Daddy’s swear box—money for future cat.’”
She burst out laughing, her head falling back, and I thought about putting my mouth on her throat. Did she wear perfume? What would her skin smell like? Quickly, I looked away and tipped up my beer again.
“So they want to get a cat?”
“Yeah, they’re always on me about getting a pet, and Hallie likes the idea of a cat because they’re supposedly clean animals. But my shifts at the fire station are twenty-four hours, so having a pet doesn’t really work.”
“I could help out,” she offered. “If you just let me know which days you work, I can come by and feed her or him. And I can tell you where to go to adopt one.”
“You’re not helping,” I told her in my best grumpy dad voice. “I don’t want a fucking cat.”
“Listen,” she said, dropping her feet to the ground and reaching for the cupcake. “I know what happens when little girls have their dad wrapped around their fingers. They get what they want.”
“Oh, really.” I watched her peel the wrapper from the cupcake, my eyes on her fingers. They were long and slender, and her nails were painted to match her toes in a bright, fiery red. The thought of that hand wrapped around my cock jumped into my head uninvited.
“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.
But he happened to be around the day during my senior year that a Navy recruiter had come to school. I’d come home excited to tell my mom what I’d decided to do with my life, since I’d never been sure before, and she was always on me to make a plan.
When I’d walked into the house, there he was, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a beer and watching my mom cooking dinner. “Son,” he’d said as I came up short at the sight of him. He used the word like a weapon.
I refused to call him Dad. I refused to acknowledge him at all.
Instead, I turned to my mom and started telling her about my talk with the recruiter and how he thought I might be a good fit for the SEALs. Over at the table, my father had busted a gut. “You’ll never be a SEAL,” he said derisively. “You know how hard that is? I knew guys way tougher than you who couldn’t hack it.”
I glared at him, my hands curling into fists. “Watch me.”
I didn’t see him again for almost a decade—he had the nerve to show up at my mother’s funeral and claim he was sorry, and I nearly lost my mind and threw the punch I’d been dying to throw for twenty years. My sister and Naomi had to calm me down.