“Melrose?”
“My cousin slash roommate.”
“I see.” Rising, I head back to the glorious eighties kitchen and grab her water and ibuprofen, helping myself to an ice-cold bottle of Rolling Rock on the way back.
“Why are you sitting so far away? That’s a terrible angle for watching TV,” she asks when I take my seat. She pats the cushion beside her, brows lifted. “I twisted my ankle. It’s not like I’m contagious.”
With my arm resting across the back of the couch, I shrug. “It’s fine.”
Maritza rolls her eyes. “You picked this dumb show and now you’re going to sit all the way over there where you can barely see the screen?”
Groaning, I slide closer—but only because she has a point. “There. That better?”
“Shh.” She swats at me just as the show begins to start. “Show’s on. No more talking.”
Her eyes are glued and I take pride in knowing that I picked out a fucking amazing show for us to watch.
Settling into the seat back, I cross my legs wide and watch her from my periphery. She’s totally into this and I love it.
By the time the first episode ends, she doesn’t so much as touch the remote, letting the next one automatically play.
“I guess this stupid show is okay,” she says, leaning forward and adjusting the ice pack on her ankle. She lifts it for a second to check the swelling, but it’s still pretty ugly.
“Pretty sure you just broke rule number two.”
“Pretty sure you broke rule number one,” she says, her dark hair curtaining her beautiful face as she turns to look at me.
“What are you talking about?”
“It was sweet what you did for me today. Romantic almost—textbook standards anyway. Carrying me down the trail, driving me home, taking care of me.”
I scoff. “That’s not romance. That’s called being a decent human being.”
Licking her lips, she tucks her hair behind her ear. “Fine. Maybe I was reading into it too much.”
“Definitely. You were definitely reading into it too much,” I say.
When I saw her injured, it was instinctive—I had to save her. I may do this shit on the regular with my fellow comrades, but trust me when I say I’ve never done anything like this for some random girl I hardly know.
Reaching for the remote, she pauses the show, drawing in a deep breath.
“Can I just say something here?” she asks. “I feel like I need to address the elephant in the room.”
I lift a brow, having zero idea where she’s going with this. “All right. Address away.”
“You check me out all the time,” she says. “You think I don’t see it, but I do. And you’re always looking at me like you’re two seconds from devouring me. I don’t even think you realize it. Or maybe you do. Maybe you do it on purpose because you think you’re not going to get caught. I don’t know.”
Pressing my lips together, I stare at the paused show on the screen.
Fuck.
“I just … I feel like if the situation were different … if you weren’t about to be deployed … I think …” she stops, taking another deep breath. “I think we have chemistry. Basically. Is what I’m trying to say. And the more we ignore it and deny it, the stronger it’s going to get. So if we could just address it and kiss or fuck or whatever the hell we’re inevitably going to do by the end of the week, I think we could—”
“Fuck chemistry. Fuck all that bullshit.”
“So you’re just going to deny that we—”
Pulling her into my lap, I silence her words with a greedy kiss, and I don’t even feel bad about it. This isn’t romantic and I’m not some Casanova trying to win her heart. I’m simply a man with needs, a man who’s been wanting to taste those lips all over again since the night at The Mintz.
Her mouth is strawberries.
Her tongue is peppermint.
Her lips are hot, pillow soft.
Everything is better than I remember, and when her hands find my hair and her nails rake against the nape of my neck, I almost fucking lose it.
“Hi.” Maritza straddles me, pressing her hips against my growing cock as she balances on her knees. Her mouth curls, her eyes light, and I crush her cherry lips all over again.
“Is your ankle okay?” I ask between kisses, my mouth grazing hers.
“I don’t feel a thing, Corporal,” she says, breathless and smirking just before our tongues collide.
My hands grip her hips before working the hem of her shirt, fingertips trailing her soft skin until I reach the smooth fabric of her pink bra.
“This means nothing,” she says, grinding harder. “Right? Tell me it means nothing. We’re just … we’re just getting it out of our system.”
“It means nothing,” I assure her, unhooking her clasp. My hands slip beneath her bra, cupping her perfect tits. I’m so fucking hard it hurts and while I want to enjoy the hell out of all of this, I’m counting down the minutes until I’m deep inside of her, all the way in, fucking her in a way she’ll never forget so long as she lives.