“I wish that, too,” he says, and it sounds like he’s cracking apart. “I miss you every fucking day, Madeline, every fucking”—he breaks off for a moment—“minute. God, I love the way you fuck me, please,please?—”
Javi falls apart under me, the muscles in his shoulders standing out as he goes still and incoherent, hands tight on my hips. All I can think isHoly shit, I did thatas his head goes back and a deep pink flush travels down his neck. He’s beautiful and perfect and he’s coming so hard it looks like he’s getting rebooted, andIdid that.
The thought makes me wildly, insanely possessive. His eyes flutter open and then his hand is in my hair, pulling my mouth down to his, and I quit thinking for a while.
CHAPTER FORTY
JAVIER
When I comeout of the bathroom after we’ve both cleaned up and I’ve dealt with the condom, I spend a good ten seconds contemplating the pile of my clothes on Madeline’s floor. Then I contemplate her, sprawled naked on top of her comforter.
“You have to go?” she asks, and it’s the easiest decision of my life.
“In a minute,” I say and get back into her bed. She’s easy and loose-limbed, hair slightly damp with sweat, and she curls into me when I tug her over.
“Your ankle all right?” she asks a minute later.
“It’s great. Perfect. Unbothered.”
“Unbothered?”
I rotate the limb in question. “Slightly bothered,” I amend. “But it’ll be fine tomorrow.”
I told her the whole story of my ankle a week or two ago, when I called her with some wedding-related excuse, like asking whether the tablecloths were white or cream. It’s a comedy of errors, more than anything: I tripped going down concrete stairs with a fifty-pound pack on my back and broke two different bones in my ankle. I got one surgery to fix it, but it healed wrong anyway, so they had to re-break it and operate again. The onlypart I liked was the pain meds, and they ended up being the worst part of all.
“Good,” she says. “Are you still getting lunch with your cool friend Castillo from the Marines? Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to meet her someday.”
I snort, and Madeline starts laughing, her body shaking under my arm.
“How,” she says. “How did you never mention her first name?”
“I barely remembered it was Amy,” I admit.
There’s a long pause. I’m idly wrapping her hair around one finger, sliding my big toe up and down the front of her ankle.
“Was it always platonic?” she asks.
I grin down at her. “You mean, did we fuck?”
“Or date!”
“No, it was always platonic,” I say, trying not to laugh at the face Madeline’s making. “We were in basic training together. She wrote poetry and joined because her parents were too mean and broke to send her to college. I joined because I have daddy issues. We bonded, I guess. And then afterward she…wouldn’t let me fall out of touch, basically.”
“So I shouldn’t be jealous?”
“Not of her, no.”
Madeline pulls back a little and narrows her eyes at me. “Is there someone Ishouldbe jealous of?” she asks dryly.
“Dunno. Are you the jealous type?” I tease. Now I’ve got my hand on her hip.
“Of course not. I’m a reasonable adult who’s in control of her emotions and never does anything irrational.”
I raise one eyebrow at her.
“Never,” she repeats.
“Too bad. Could be hot.”
