Page 42 of A Fighting Chance

“Have you ever seen this one?” I ask her.

“Yes. It’s so good, though. I definitely don’t mind watching it again,” she says.

“Okay, good.”

“Gentry?” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah?”

“Tell me what happened. With your ex,” she says.

I inhale slowly. It’s a fair question, considering she basically just told me her high school boyfriend used her for sex. I owe her one of my own ugly truths. “We were together for a couple of years. I thought we were good. I really did. But as it turns out, Cassie wasn’t. That’s her name. She was unhappy, and she cheated on me. Then, she left,” I say.

Lyla inhales and exhales a heavy sigh. “You didn’t deserve that,” she says.

“Thank you.”

“How long ago?” she asks.

“She left about six months ago,” I reply.

The wounds Cassie left have pretty much healed. Maybe that’s because, after two years, I only proposed because it felt like the next logical step in our relationship. I wasn’t driven by the want or need to do it. I wasn’t compelled. Maybe that had been the problem.

“I’m sorry,” Lyla says, pulling me from my thoughts.

In turn, I pull her closer to me. “It’s okay,” I tell her. She was already pressed to me, but it still didn’t feel close enough. “Everything happens the way it’s supposed to.”

Her head nods slightly, and then we watch part of the movie in silence. Rather, Lyla watches the movie. I seem to be watching her, only taking brief glances in the movie screen’s general direction between doing such. When I’m not actively looking at her, I’m memorizing the way her body feels against mine in a way I hadn’t before, when we were together.

This is different. This is intimacy without sex.

Lyla leans back away from me and raises her face to mine, moving her lips to my ear. “Gentry?” she whispers.

“Yeah?” I breathe out.

“Can we make-out?” she asks, a sultry playfulness in her voice.

My eyes grow wide. I wouldn’t have expected such a request but I’m more than happy to oblige. “Yes, ma’am,” I say. “Yes, we can.”

“Gentry?” she whispers again.

“Yes?”

“Don’t call me ma’am,” she reminds me, then pulls her lips from my ear and presses them against my mouth.

If this kiss is my punishment, I’ll be calling her ma’am pretty much all the time. I kiss her back, tightening my arm around her middle and caressing the skin between her shoulder blades. Her bare skin beneath my hand feels divine. She’s so soft, so warm.

Her hand travels from my chest to my abdomen to my hip. She pulls at me, digging her fingers into me. My mouth moves over hers. I part her lips with my tongue and lap it against hers. Feeling her breath quicken makes my hunger for her grow more eager. I pull my mouth from hers and kiss her jaw then lower, and onto her neck. I nuzzle my beard against her smooth skin, delighting in the breaths hitching in her throat.

She claws at my shirt and lets out the faintest moan. Her noises drive me wild. I know I have to stop soon or I won’t be able to stop at all and we’ll likely find ourselves doing something very illegal in front of an audience.

I pull away from her, peppering her cheeks and eyelids and nose with soft kisses. I kiss her lips again, softly and completely. I pull back, my eyes still closed, and lick my lips. She tastesso good. When I finally open my eyes, I look down at her in the faint glow of the screen.

Her eyes are still closed, her lips a little swollen—because despite my gentle intentions, her mouth causes incredibly scandalous thoughts in me, spurring firm and intense assaults instead. Her mouth curls into a small but very genuine looking smile, and I decide then that she doesn’t seem to mind.

We both clear our throats, as if sensing the need to move past the moment for fear of it spiraling out of control, and we turn our attention back to the movie. Although, if I’m being honest, I don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on in the film.

Get ahold of yourself.

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