ATHENA
Nathan is about to fuck me, and I can’t think straight.
That fact sits feverishly in my body, making every breath feel too shallow and every thought feel half-melted at the edges.
I’m standing there in my scrubs, already flushed from kissing him, already trembling from the way he’s been touching me, and he looks at me like a man who has finally decided to stop denying himself something he’s wanted for far too long.
It should be illegal for anyone to look this good while undressing a woman. His hair is a little mussed now from my hands, dark silver at the temples and unfairly distinguished everywhere else.
His jaw is shadowed with stubble that has already left my skin sensitive in the best way, and those storm-gray eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them, pinned to me with such focused hunger that my thighs nearly press together on instinct.
His tie hangs slightly loose, the collar of his shirt open at the throat, and the controlled chief-of-surgery look I know so well has been cracked open just enough to reveal the man underneath.
A silver-fox fantasy dragged into real life and standing two feet away from me with his hands already on my body.
He hooks one finger under the V-neck of my scrub top and looks down at it, then back at me. “These have been in my way for a while.”
The line is so dry, so him, that a breathless laugh escapes me before I can stop it.
“Then do something about it,” I whisper.
His mouth shifts, not quite a smile, more like approval finding a home. “That’s better.”
He steps in close again and his hands move to the hem of my scrub top, lifting it slowly, baring my stomach inch by inch. Cool air skims over newly exposed skin and I suck in a breath. He peels the fabric upward like he intends to memorize what’s underneath, his gaze dropping with it, taking in every revealed inch with a concentration so intense it makes me feel naked long before I actually am.
When the top clears my ribs, his palms flatten briefly against my sides.
“Arms up.”
I obey so fast it’s embarrassing.
His eyes flick to mine. “Eager.”
“Observant,” I shoot back weakly.
He slides the top over my head and drops it somewhere behind him without looking, then goes still for half a second.
I’m wearing a bra under my scrubs, practical and plain and not remotely designed for this kind of moment, and somehow the way he looks at me in it makes me feel more exposed than if I were fully bare.
His gaze lowers over the cups straining around my breasts, the slight flush already rising across my chest, the way my breathing is too fast to hide.
“Jesus,” he says softly.
That alone nearly does me in.
He reaches up, skims the backs of his fingers over the swell of one breast, and I arch into it like I have no pride left at all. His thumb traces the upper edge of my bra, slow enough to feel cruel. When I shiver, he chuckles darkly. “Sensitive already?”
I nod.
“Use your words.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
The name slips out before I can second-guess it, hot and humiliating and exactly right.