But I force that away.
This is how it has to be.
It’ll be better this way.
For me.
For her.
“I know what I said a week ago,” she says. “And I meant it. I don’t want a relationship. And the last thing I should be doing is falling for some guy who’s going away for … how long are you going away?”
“Six months this time,” I say. “If I don’t volunteer to stay longer.”
“Let me write to you,” she says, head tilted. Her fingers trace my mouth and she kisses me hard. “I don’t want to fall in love with you over letters. I don’t want some cheesy pen pal arrangement. I’m just not ready to watch you walk out that door when there’s still so much about you I want to know.”
Exhaling, I drag my hand along my jaw. “Listen, I’m a shitty boyfriend. I’m the last person you should be pining away for.”
“Who said anything about pining?” she asks. “I guess … I guess I just want to keep you in my life. One way or another. In whatever capacity you desire. We’re friends, you and me. Right? You’d call me a friend?”
Pulling in a lungful of sex and perfume-scented air, I hold her stare, finding it nearly impossible to say no to her sweet request.
“I’m not trying to fall in love with you, Corporal,” she says. “I’m not trying to be your girlfriend. I just want to be … something … to you. I don’t even know what.”
Pressing my lips together, I mull over my options. “I don’t understand what you want, Maritza.”
“You fascinate me. You’re complicated and quiet and strong and determined and intelligent and—”
“How can you know all those things when you’ve known me a week?”
Her eyes roll and her head tilts back. “I don’t know. I just … I feel them. I can’t explain it. I just know that if you walk out of here tonight and I never hear from you or see you again … I’m not going to like that. And if you don’t feel the same? Fine. I’ll accept that. But I had to put it out there while I had the chance.”
We’re still very much naked and I’m still very much ready to devour her again, but this changes things.
Lifting my hand to her pointed chin, I run my thumb along her lower lip. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
And I don’t want to hurt her.
I respect her too much to do that.
“I’m not going to fall in love with you,” she says, though I don’t entirely believe her. “I told you that. I just want to hear from you, that’s all. And when you come home, if you want to see me, we can make that happen.”
I exhale. It’s so fucking hard to say no to her when she’s looking at me like this—like she thinks I’m some kind of wonderful.
“How about this,” she says, “so that you know I’m not trying to fall in love with you, I’ll write ‘P.S. I hate you’ at the end of each and every letter.”
I make a face. “A little extreme, don’t you think?”
“Come on. Just go with it. It can be our thing,” she says, with a chuckle before booping my nose.
“Who says I want to have a thing with you?” I tease. Kind of.
She gives my chest a playful jab. “This could be fun.”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“I wish I could, Corporal.” Her full mouth pulls wide, framing her perfect smile as she tilts her head. “But I don’t think I can.”
Chapter Thirteen
Maritza
He left before the sun came up but those still small hours lying in my bed, our bodies melded, I’ll never forget as long as I live. He kissed the inside of my palm, his touch gentle and his gaze soft. I wasn’t sure if it was a silent apology or a surrender of his ironclad heart.
Whatever our time together meant, I just know I’m never going to forget my week of Saturdays with Corporal Isaiah Torres—and I’d like to think the same for him.
Curled up in an arm chair in the living room sipping a coffee, I clutch the piece of paper with his address in my hands, torn from the same sheet of paper I used to write mine earlier this morning, before I watched him fold it into halves and tuck it in his wallet.
He kissed me goodbye after I walked him to the door—laughing through his nose as he told me not to read into it, that he was kissing me for purely selfish reasons that I’d never understand. I promised him it was not romantic, though in retrospect, it kind of was …
I swear when I closed the front door and watched through the window as he made his way back to his car, there was a cannon-sized hole in the middle of my chest.