“Jesus Christ, keep your voice down.” Ash’s hand shoots across the table, but stops short of covering my mouth. “Half the bar doesn’t need to hear this.”
“You’re drunk,” Ghost says quietly.
“Not drunk enough.” I reach for another glass, but Titan slides them all out of reach.
“What exactly are you asking for here?” Titan’s voice drops low. “Be specific.”
Heat floods my face, but I don’t back down. “I want to know what it feels like to be with someone I actually want. Someone who isn’t going to—” I stop myself before I say something I can’t take back.
The three of them exchange looks. Some silent conversation I’m not part of.
My courage starts to waver. Maybe this was stupid. Maybe I’ve just ruined whatever friendship we had by admitting I’ve spent years fantasizing about three older guys.
Then Ash shifts in the booth, angling his body toward mine. “Come here.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
My heart hammers as I slide closer to him on our side of the booth, our thighs pressed together from hip to knee.
“Closer,” he murmurs.
I don’t think. Just swing my leg over his lap and settle onto his thighs, straddling him. It’s not the first time I’ve sat on his lap—I’ve done it dozens of times over the years, playing cards or watching TV in the clubhouse, always casual and innocent.
But this time, his hands come to my hips, and I feel his breath catch.
This time, when I look down at him, his pupils are blown wide, dark swallowing green until there’s almost no color left.His fingers flex against my hips, not quite pulling me closer but not pushing me away either.
“Bonnie.” My name comes out rough. “You need to be very sure about what you’re suggesting.”
His thumb traces a slow circle against my hip bone, and the touch triggers a flash of last summer at the clubhouse Fourth of July party. I’d been dancing with some prospect whose name I’ve already forgotten when Ash cut in, all smooth and casual like it didn’t mean anything. But when that prospect tried to argue, tried to pull me back, Ash’s hand tightened on my waist and his voice went cold as winter.
“She’s dancing with me now. Walk away.”
The prospect had looked at Ash’s face and wisely walked away.
We swayed to some country song, his hand warm and solid on my lower back, my head barely reaching his shoulder. I felt him breathe me in, felt the way his thumb traced small circles against my spine through my thin tank top.
“You okay?” he’d asked quietly.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Guy was getting handsy. Didn’t like it.”
My stomach flipped. “You were watching me?”
“Of course, Bonnie. Someone has to.”
When the song ended, he stepped back, and it was over. But for three minutes and forty-seven seconds, his hands on me had felt like something else entirely.
I went home that night and touched myself, thinking about those hands, about that voice, sayingsomeone has tolike it meant more than just protection.
Now, sitting on his lap in this shitty bar with his pupils blown and his breath uneven, I wonder if maybe it did mean more. If maybe I wasn’t imagining the tension between us.
“I’m sure,” I tell him.
His jaw clenches. “You say that now, but?—”
