It was a bad move, but I was tempted to sit. Heading home only made me nervous. I wasn’t in the mood to wallow in the few memories I had of Dad. Plus it was too hard to shed twenty-one accumulated years of guilt for holding a grudge against my father until the day he died. I never forgave him for leaving us, but he still managed to enroll me in the best schools, buy the supplies I needed, and deliver my first car.
For a paternal ATM, he was awesome. For someone who should have been at home teaching me to drive that fancy car he ordered? Not so much.
It was hard to hate a man who was never around, especially when he’d never be around again.
Or maybe it was easy.
I sat down and took the shot of whiskey. It wouldn’t do a damn thing to help me think, but at least drinking gave me a reason to not answer the cocky muscle-bound slice of Heaven who sat beside me.
I stared into the tumbler. I was supposed to be giving a toast, not a eulogy.
And, if we were being honest, I was supposed to be forgiving my father, not shrouding myself in anger for years of unspoken grievances and lost opportunities.
“Wanna talk about it?” Zach had the decency to stare at the basketball game on the television. He sipped his beer.
“With you?”
“I’m listening.”
“I don’t know you.” I shrugged. “Aside from a nickname overcompensating for a world of issues.”
“Oh, there’s issues all right. You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”
His nose was crooked, but I liked it. It meant he wasn’t totally perfect. He couldn’t have been much older than me, but he acted like it. Whoever called him Hard should have called him Brass Balls. He packed a lot of heat in those pants if he was trying to get up on me.
Maybe he thought he was hot shit and could hit on some lonely girl in a bar. Well, I’d teach him a thing or two. My skin might have looked soft and mocha, but I was anything but smooth and tempting. And my cocky charmer? He should have opened his mouth just to insert his foot.
“My father just died.”
The sudden realization smacked the smirk off his face. I shot my drink and stared at the multi-colored array of bottles neatly arranged on the mirrored bar. The girl looking back at me—the little wannabe teacher with librarian glasses and a wave of ebony curls cascading over her back—didn’t hide the pain very well.
“Sorry to hear that.” Zach nodded. “I know the feeling.”
“I doubt it.” The empty glass was making me talk, but refilling it would spill way more than liquor. I tapped my nails over the rim. The rat-a-tat-tat revealed more than I liked. “He wasn’t a good father.”
Zach didn’t flinch. “We should start a club. Did yours beat you?”
“No, you have to hang around to beat your kids.”
“Not if you had mine. He had a long enough reach.”
Ouch. Zach shrugged it off.
“It shouldn’t matter,” I said. “He’s dead, and the world didn’t stop turning. My life’s about to change. And I won’t miss him at all.”
“Oh yeah?” Zach slipped a napkin across the bar-top. “Then why are you crying?”
Damn it. I didn’t mean for the tears to slip out. I turned away to dab my cheeks. I hadn’t bothered with much makeup. Today was supposed to be the final fitting for my gown, and afterwards I planned to head to the salon for my hair and makeup before the rehearsal dinner. Whoops. I forgot to cancel the appointment.
Christ, this was a mess.
I was a mess.
“Sorry,” I said. “Not my night.”
“How can I make it better?”
“Wow, you’re relentless.”
“I can’t resist a good damsel in distress.”
I waved a finger at him. “Let’s get one thing straight here, Mr. Hard.”
He grinned. “Yes? Miss…?”
“Shay.”
“Yes, Miss Shay?”
“I am no damsel in distress. And you, sir, are no prince charming.”
“Never said I was.” Two dangerously wholesome dimples framed Zach’s smile. “But I might be the guy who’d tie you to the train tracks, if you’re into that sort of thing.”
He was a piece of work. He was a piece of something else too, but I decided to be a lady and keep that particular insult clenched in my teeth.
“Unless you’re packing a magic wand in those jeans—” I held a hand up before he dared to comment. “And you can reverse time to give me back these last two days, I’m not interested. So you can move along now, Hard.”
“And leave you to drink alone in a time of mourning?” He ordered another round. “Not gonna happen, Shay.”
He said my name like he plucked the ice from my glass, sucked it over his tongue, then lapped a path up my neck. He cast shivers in all the right places, and that was absolutely nothing I should have imagined in the sweltering Atlanta evening.
“I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”
“Then why don’t you keep me company instead?”
His hands curled over his beer, large and strong. Whatever he did for a living wasn’t what I planned to do with chalk, finger-paints, and a roomful of sticky first graders.
The thick, bulging muscles in his arms gave me goosebumps, and the tight t-shirt strapped over his broad chest flaunted his perfect assets. He was every bit the Southern treat that would tempt me in all the wrong ways. Guys like him would keep me from transferring from Georgia State to NYU, like I planned to do for the past two years.
Muscles or not, those plans were on hold. Dad’s car accident complicated everything.
Zach said nothing else. I let him tease me into the question.
“Why would you need company?” I asked.
“I just got a letter about seeing some attorney. Legal stuff.”
I eyed the coiling, barbed line of tattoos decorating his arm. The dark bands of ink merged into a rippling American flag, peeking from under his sleeve.
“You don’t seem the legal type,” I said.
“Nah, not really.”
“So what is your type?”
Zach’s grin confirmed it for me. Apparently, he liked them young, quiet, and mocha. Not what I was asking. “What I mean is…you don’t seem like an attorney.”
“You don’t think so?”
“No way. You’re not a…” My voice trailed off. Uh-oh, was I staring at his muscles? “You’re not a behind the desk sort of guy.”
“No, ma’am. I’m military.”
No wonder he was built. I swallowed and thought my tongue went with it.
“SEAL, actually,” he said.
“Seal?” My eyes widened. “Oh! A Navy SEAL?”
“Yeah. On leave for a bit.” He took another swig. “Gotta take care of this legal stuff. Deal with family. You know how it is.”
Oh, Charmer was more than some cocksure college kid. Much, much more.
Damn it, I wanted to just sit in the quiet for a while and feel sorry for myself. Somehow I found the one guy who not only wanted to talk, he actually seemed to understand. I sighed. The rest of my week was already trashed. No reason to not ruin tonight as well. I flagged the bartender.
“Another round,” I said. “No sense for us to hate our fathers alone.”
“I’ll drink to that,” he said.
The glasses clinked, celebrating our impending regrets.
Somehow, I knew I’d learn one hell of a lesson from this mistake.
A very hard lesson.
Chapter Two - Zach
Jesus fuck.
Her blouse unbuttoned.
Jesus fuck.
She kicked off a shoe.
Jesus fuck.
Her stockings were thigh-highs. The thin lace caressed her caramel legs, dark and luxurious and stretching to her goddamned chin.
The door crashed behind me. Behind us. Hell if I knew or cared.
Fuck this was a mistake.
My apartment had more alcohol unpacked than clothes. Or furniture. Or anything. I wasn’t planning on staying long.
And I wasn’t planning on fucking the most beautiful woman I had ever seen on an unmade bed. She deserved better than a ratty comforter and wet bath towel thrown over the footboard.
She didn’t care.
Christ, this woman.
I tangled my fingers in thick, jet-black waves of absolute elegance. Her lips—full and puffy and abso-fucking-lutely perfect to suck my cock—devoured me. She kissed like she hadn’t been kissed in years.
Who in their right mind wouldn’t kiss this woman?
And what asshole would proposition her to his apartment knowing who she was, what she was dealing with?
This asshole.
I pretended that I was a guy who saw what he wanted. Tasted what tempted him in the nibbling pulse of her lips. I needed more than just a couple kisses goodnight and a tug in the shower to relieve the beast such a beauty awakened. In reality, this mistake would fuck me over quicker than I could say on your knees.
I had two choices.
Be a gentleman…which I wasn’t. Tell her to pull that silky strip of cloth back over the most beautiful and softest pussy I had ever seen. Button my pants. Shake her hand and walk to her car.
Or.
I could do what came naturally.
Fucking her was the easier decision. It was also the wrong decision, but it wasn’t like I followed anyone’s orders anymore. I was my own man.
And this man wanted a woman.
I pushed her on my bed, spread her lovely midnight legs apart, and I feasted on a pussy so wet and hot I considered grabbing my dive gear and sinking in as deep as I possibly could.