“Clearly, that didn’t last long. Those extra muscles came from somewhere,” I interject.
“I love it when you tell me I’m hot.” Dax smirks, adding a little lightness to this heavy subject.
“I didn’t. Stop fishing for compliments and continue, please.” I smile and bat my eyelashes at him.
“When I stopped showing up at the gym, Baker came to my place and punched me in the gut as soon as I opened the door.”
“What the hell?”
Dax laughs at my outrage. “It’s fine. It’s what I needed at the time. Someone to kick my ass and pull me out of the personal hell I put myself in. Do you have any idea how hard it is for someone as pretty as me to have scars? It was devastating,” he jokes, pressing his hand over his heart and trying to look at me seriously.
I know he’s not really joking when he says this, and there were definitely some issues he had with the scarring that he felt the need to try to cover everything up. At least he doesn’t seem to be as serious talking about this as he was talking about everything else, so I let him have his jokes for now.
“Anyway, Baker forced me to go back to The Barracks on a regular basis and figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I worked out some of my anger and depression on a punching bag, talking with other wounded vets, in training, and taking the gym title in the boxing ring. Kept feeding my tattoo addiction I never knew I had until the first time the needle pierced my skin, and I got my bachelor’s in zoology while I worked at an aquarium in Chicago. Other than that, I kept to myself so I wouldn’t fuck anything else up or almost ruin anyone else’s life.”
“Then your dad bought you an animal sanctuary,” I finish.
“Then my dad bought me a fucking animal sanctuary.” He laughs softly. “And as you saw yesterday, I’m still not doing very well with the whole letting go and moving on thing when it comes to him. But I’m working on it. You might have to help me out a little. Just try not to always be so high when we’re around him. It’s very distracting.”
“Oh, God. That emotional support limb isn’t going to be enough,” I mutter worriedly, completely ignoring his sarcastic comment. “I should have splurged and got the entire baby and all her body parts.”
Dax slides his arms across the table to bring himself closer to me, wrapping his hands around the backs of my arms while they still lay crossed in front of me on the table.
“Get that panicked look off your face,” he orders quietly, tugging on my arms to bring me closer to him in the middle of the small table for two. “I’m fine. I’m no longer mentally unstable. I let go of all the guilt I felt about Phina and DJ. I have a therapist I can call if I need him, and I still talk to Baker several times a week, because it turns out I give great dating advice, even though this is the first date I’ve been on. Baker is very needy.”
Closing the few inches of distance between us, I press my lips to his for a few seconds before pulling back.
“You’ll be happy to know I’m giving this first date five stars,” I reassure him. “You are exceptionally good at dating.”
We’re staring at each other with goofy smiles on our faces like a couple of teenagers on their first date instead of grown-ass adults. This is the best date I’ve ever been on, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
All of a sudden, a very small bald man wearing a tuxedo with a very impressive mustache walks up to our table. He pulls a violin up and rests it on his shoulder, dragging the bow across the strings. The small bald man starts singing to me loudly in Italian, accompanied by the even louder playing of his violin.
I turn away from him to glare at Dax, who is happily smiling up at the violinist serenading me while the entire restaurant stops eating to stare at us. Dax finally turns away from him to look at me and smiles even brighter when he sees my annoyance.
“It’s so cute you thought I was kidding about the awkward violin playing!” he speaks up over the very loud singing and music, giving me a wink.
Grabbing my wine glass from the table, I hold it up to him in cheers.
“It’s so cute you think I’m ever going to touch your penis now!” I tell him loudly over the serenade, and with my own big smile, I tip the glass back and finish off my wine.
CHAPTER 16
I’m Still Game if You Are
Harley
Oh, I am absolutely touching his penis tonight.
When Dax walked me up to my front door a few minutes ago to say goodnight, and I unlocked the deadbolt and turned back to face him, he recited another rule about how a goodnight kiss could only happen if he asked permission first. I shut him up by grabbing onto the front of his white dress shirt and pulling his mouth to mine.
I should have known an innocent goodnight kiss wouldn’t stay innocent for very long.
Dax’s tongue swirls around mine, and as soon as I whimper into his mouth, I’m roughly backed up against my front door. I hitch one of my legs around Dax’s hip, and he changes the angle of the kiss, making it deeper, and rougher, and making me moan again when he sucks my tongue into his mouth.
At least I forgot to turn my porch light on before I left, and none of my neighbors are getting a front row seat of this.
My arms tighten around Dax’s shoulders when he suddenly bends his knees and pushes the lower half of his body roughly up between my thighs, bringing my remaining foot on the ground up off of it. His strong body braces mine against the door, and that penis I vowed not to touch at dinner is thick and hard inside the pants he’s wearing. It rubs right against a spot on my body that hasn’t been rubbed up against in far too long.
I’m grinding against him and seeing stars behind my closed eyes when his mouth leaves mine to trail kisses down my cheek and the side of my neck. My head thunks back against the door, and I moan loudly when Dax gently bites against my skin at the same time he rubs his cock against me again.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, clutching onto fistfuls of his hair and holding his face tighter against the side of my throat.
I didn’t even know I had an erogenous zone there, but Dax has found it, and holy hell, every time his teeth nip and suck that part where my neck meets my shoulder, it feels like someone is pressing a vibrator right to my clit.
Am I really doing this? Am I really going to have sex with Dax Trevino?
One of his arms lets go of its tight hold around my waist to come up between us and slide around the back of my neck. I feel his fingertips gently digging into my skin back there when I shift my hips and rub myself against his hardness again, and he bites down once more. It feels possessive. And hot.
And holy shit, I think I’m going to have sex with Dax tonight!
Ovaries: Finally! Why should every other female in the world sample the goods but us?
“Wait!” I shout, my eyes flying open as I grip Dax’s hair tighter and pull his head back so I can see his face.
Ovaries: We take it back! We didn’t mean it! Pretend we never said anything! He’s a virgin saint who has slept with no one before you!
I let out a small groan at the loss of his warm, wet mouth against my skin, until Dax’s eyes are on mine, and his face is a few inches from me. His hand is still tightly gripping the back of my neck, his other arm is still wrapped securely around me, and he’s still pushed up firmly between my thighs. It’s making it hard for me to concentrate and remember why I pulled his mouth away from me.