I shift on the bed, my jeans way too tight. The second I walked into this room, I told myself I’d behave. No jerking off in the shared bathroom, no leaving evidence like a goddamn teenager. I have fourteen years in the service under my belt. I can manage basic self-control.
But then I remember the way she smelled when she leaned past me to open the back door. The way her voice went a little husky when she talked about her garden. The flutter of her pulse in her throat when I said I’m good at following orders.
Yeah, self-control just got a lot more complicated.
“Okay,” I mutter, glancing toward the wall that separates our rooms, even though she’s not home. “You go make drinks, and I’ll…handle this.”
I stand, lock my bedroom door out of pure habit, and sit back down on the mattress. For a second I just stare at the wall, clenching my jaw, trying to will the heat away. It doesn’t work. My mind keeps replaying the curve of her hips in those jeans, the way her ass looked when she bent to fish her keys off the hook.
If I’m going to make it longer than a week here without embarrassing myself, I need to get this out of my system. Or at least pretend I can.
“Quick,” I tell myself. “One and done. Then you can act like a normal human again.”
I undo my pants and grab hold of my hard cock. A soft groan escapes me as plump lips, round flushed cheeks, soft, grabbable curves, and bright blue eyes fill my mind. Ainsley is gorgeous,and something tells me she doesn’t think so, which makes her even sexier.
Gripping my cock tighter, I stroke faster and imagine my landlord kneeling before me, with her top gone, her luscious breasts with tight, pointed nipples, wrapping around my dick, and I thrust in between them as my woman licks her lips and I say dirty things to her. Watching her eyes dilate and shine with lust for me. My balls tighten and the tingling in my back gets stronger, and within no time I’m coming all over my hand wishing it sprayed over those beautiful tits I can only picture as being perfect.
Fuck. That was fast. I don’t remember coming that quickly before. My breathing is steady, and the knot in my gut has eased. I lie back and stare at the ceiling. The room smells of her detergent and something floral from the plant on the windowsill. It doesn’t feel temporary, not the way my last few barracks and base apartments did. It feels…settled. Rooted.
Maybe this is where things stop moving for a while.
I came here planning on three, maybe six months tops in this room. Just until I saved enough to get my own place or found a spot to build a house. I told myself a roommate situation would be a way to land soft. Ease into civilian life without staring at four empty walls and my own thoughts.
But the second Ainsley opened that door—with those big blue eyes and that stubborn chin and the way she tried to hide how rattled she was—I knew three months wouldn’t cut it.
I want more time.
Time to watch her putter in that garden from the back steps, even if she never lets me touch a single leaf. Time to see her come home from work with her hair a mess and eyeliner smudged, complaining about drunk idiots while she kicks off those boots. Time to figure out everything that makes her bite her lip, every topic that makes her eyes light.
Most of all, it’ll take time to get her used to me.
That’s the key. She’s skittish now, burned and broke and determined not to make the same mistake twice. She thinks having me here is a risk and made sure we both know this is a business arrangement, all professional, no lines crossed.
But in my gut, the decision’s already made.
She’s it.
The house, the rules, the ridiculous labels on the bathroom cabinet, the laminated schedule—hell, even the cactus keychain. It all fits together into a life that feels more right than anything has in years.
There’s no way in hell I’m walking away from that after a couple of months in a half-furnished apartment somewhere across town.
I grab the rules packet again and flip to the last page. There’s a space where she’s signed her name at the bottom, small and neat: Ainsley Boothe. Underneath is a line for “ROOMMATE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT,” blank and waiting.
I find a pen in my duffel and sign my name in block letters—a habit from the service that never left.
Troy Abernathy.
The sight of our names on the same page does something low and primitive in my chest. Like I just put my name on something that was already mine.
“This was supposed to be temporary,” I remind myself.
The words sound hollow even as I say them.
Because now that I’ve seen her? Heard her ramble about quiet hours and toothbrush intimacy? Watched her cheeks flush and her eyes spark every time she catches herself saying too much?
Temporary can go to hell.
The only real question now is how long it’s going to take to convince her that this—me in her house, her in my space, ourlives tangled up in grocery lists and laundry schedules and late-night talks—isn’t a disaster waiting to happen.
