“I could fuck you right now,” I murmur, my voice a low growl. My hips rock forward, nudging my hard length up between her legs, and I feel her gasp. I grind down a little, just enough to let her feel my hardness against her clit, how good it could feel if we were naked skin to naked skin. “I could yank those yoga pants down and thrust right into you. How would you like that, Athena? Would you try to stop me? I guarantee that’s one fight you wouldn’t win.”
It’s all bluster, and I have a feeling she knows it—I wouldn’t ever force her the way the others do, and I think Athena is aware of that. She looks up at me, her delicate chin tilting up. “What, you’d rather have me now that I’m not a virgin?” she asks sarcastically. “If you weren’t going to fuck me the other night when I asked, Jaxon, I don’t think you’re going to do it now.”
“Maybe I’ve run out of self-control.” It’s dangerously close to the truth. She looks so fucking good, her full breasts pressing against the tight tank, her lips parted, her eyes wide, her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath. “Maybe I’m so desperate that I don’t care anymore.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Athena whispers. “Why now? Why not when I asked? Why not when Dean and Cayde had me spread-eagled across a desk? You didn’t even jerk off watching them use me. What’s going on, Jaxon? Is there someone else?”
I laugh at that, a sharp bark that startles her as I think of Pixie, of her mouth wrapped around my cock, her tongue toying with my piercing, the way she’d kissed me by the ring. I’d literally pulled my cock out of another girl’s mouth because I can’t stand the idea of pleasuring myself with anyone who isn’t Athena, but I can’t tell her that. I can’t let her know that I can’t stop thinking about her, that I both regret every second that she’s spent in someone else’s arms besides mine and know that I did the right thing all at once. It’s too much power to give her over me, but I’m starting to wonder if she just knows, anyway.
“So you’d let me fuck you?” I whisper, my hips rocking against her again. “You’d let me have what Dean’s had? Ask me for it? Beg me for it?”
“I don’t think I’d have to beg,” Athena whispers, and something about those words, the breathy way she says them, the way her body arches up the slightest bit, undoes me.
I won’t fuck her. I can’t. But I can have a taste. Something to get me by. I can’t leave here with nothing.
It’ll tear me apart.
She kisses me back when I take her mouth. My lips crash down onto hers, hot and hungry, and she tastes like salt, like sweat. I slide my tongue into her mouth, licking against hers, my body surging against her as I kiss her as if I might never kiss her again—and maybe I won’t. I can’t know, with the way things are now. I might never get to kiss her again, and I want to remember every single one I get.
She tastes so fucking good, feels so fucking good, sounds so fucking good when she lets out that small, breathy moan that tells me that she wants this. It’s a hundred times better when she wants it, a thousand, when I know I’m not making her do anything. Her eyes flicker open for just a second, that gorgeous blue-grey that reminds me of the water on the rocky shores. To my utter astonishment, I feel her wrap her legs around my hips, her arms around my neck, and she kisses me back in earnest.
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with her. She should hate me, she should hate all of us, and yet here she is winding herself around me like a vine, her tongue tangling with mine, the sweet taste, and the scent of her enveloping me, the heat of her burning against my cock, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from fucking her, from doing what I swore I wouldn’t.
But it’s almost enough just to kiss her. She feels so soft, so good, and I groan as I grind into her, dry-humping her on the mat like we’re a couple of fucking high-schoolers and not adults who can do whatever the fuck we want.
Except you’ve never been able to do whatever the fuck you want. That’s the problem, the whole goddamned problem. If I could do whatever the fuck I wanted, Athena and I would be halfway to California by now on my motorcycle.
“I want you,” she whispers. “I still do, Jaxon. You’re the one I really want. Does it matter now, after Dean? We could just have sex. It doesn’t have to mean anything—”
That’s enough to both break the spell and almost drive me mad with need, all at the same time.
“It does,” I tell her, pulling back and sitting back on my heels. “It doesn’t matter if Dean has already had you. There’s an argument in the house as to whether it’s legit, and you know that. You tried to choose me. If we have sex, that’s going to be more legit than anything you did with Dean. And as for wanting it—” I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter what we want, Athena. I’d have thought you would have figured that out by now.”
She reaches for me, sitting up halfway as she palms my cock, her hand sliding over the front of my shorts. “We could do something other than sex.” Her cheeks are flushed, her chest heaving. “Does that count?”
I grit my teeth, biting back a groan as her palm rubs over my cockhead. Christ, I fucking want her. “I don’t trust myself to stop, Athena,” I tell her flatly, and it’s the truth. “I shouldn’t have even done this with you. I shouldn’t have stayed to train you. I—”
“That bad, huh?” Athena’s gaze holds mine. “You know, you’re the only one I’ve asked for it. The only one that I just want, without any reservations or mixed feelings.”
“Because you’re projecting shit onto me that isn’t me.” I stand up, with some difficulty, holding out my hand to help her up, but she ignores it and just shoves herself to her feet on her own. “I’m not your safe space, Athena. I’m not your hero or your savior or your protector. Just because I ride a motorcycle and look like your type doesn’t mean you should pin any hopes on me.”
She glares at me. “Maybe it’s just that I fucking think you’re hot. Did you ever consider that? Or does it always have to be some big thing with you? Some projection?”
I eye her skeptically. “You don’t seem like the type to pick a guy to give your virginity to based on something as shallow as ‘hot.’”
Athena shrugs. “You don’t know me that well.”
“Sure I do.” I take a step forward, unable to resist the urge to breathe her in again, to feel her closer to me, even if I’m not touching her. “I know you like oat milk in your coffee, not creamer, even though you wish you could drink it black. I know you hate open-toed shoes. I know that you feel naked without heavy eyeliner, and as of today, I know that you can bring a grown man down with a well-placed kick. There’s probably more, too, if I think about it.”
She’s staring up at me, wide-eyed, and I slide a finger beneath her chin. I love the way she shivers when I touch her, love it, and hate it all at the same time because I want her so fucking much it hurts.
I almost tell her that I came close to leaving town last night, that the only reason I didn’t was that I couldn’t leave her behind, that I felt as if I had to keep an eye out for her. But I can’t say it any more than I can tell her that I stopped a girl from sucking my cock last night. Besides, something tells me that she wouldn’t be thrilled about being watched out for, even if she might need it.
“Jaxon—” Athena starts to say something and then shakes her head. “Never mind.”
“What is it?” I’m still touching her, my fingers on her jaw, but she just bites her lower lip, shaking her head again.
“Nothing.”