Page 29 of Fight
Scottie
You’re the worst.
Never claimed to be otherwise.
Our eyes meet from across the room, and she pins me with a chastising expression. I offer a wink and a smile in return.
With all the mud, everyone has been walking around in socks, which lends itself to quiet footsteps when one is involved in clandestine activities. My knuckles rap on her door softly, and the turning knob has my mouth tipping up in a smile. Though, I’m unprepared for the sight of her in nothing but an oversized shirt when she opens the door. The stretched neck gives me a view of her bare shoulder, and the fabric nearly reaches her knees. My chest tightens. I don’t like her wearing another man’s shirt.
She steps aside, giving me room to enter. I run my hands down my hopefully not-too-wrinkled Henley. Hard to keep shirtspressed when you’re living out of a backpack. Something tells me Scottie doesn’t mind.
The room is similar to mine, except she only has two bunk beds, and the third is a single twin with a small blanket. Her things are laid out on one of the lower bunks. Everything is neat and orderly. Her zipped backpack sits upright beside clothes organized in piles. On the other end of the bed, the snacks she won at poker are arranged into groups. The groups don’t make much sense, as they aren’t sorted by brand or even category. It’s as if she took one of each type of food and put it together, almost like she’s rationing them. Whatever, to each their own.
The space smells like her, with subtle notes of jasmine and vanilla. Inhaling, a content peacefulness eases over me. It’s unfamiliar, yet settling. As soon as I hear the door close behind me and the lock engage, I’m on her.
My palms find her waist, gathering the loose cotton at her sides. She raises her chin, and those lust-filled eyes turn a stormy blue. She blushes and sucks in a breath. A grin plays on my lips as I dip my head to kiss her. I like taking her breath away. She parts her lips, and I lick into her mouth while walking her backward toward the bed. Fuck, I’ve been waiting all day for this.
Before we get too carried away, I pull back. I’ve got nothing against a good fuck-and-run, but seeing as we’ll be sharing a dorm for the foreseeable week, I should at least try to have a conversation first. Sure, we’ve been texting, but I enjoy chatting with Scottie. I haven’t even said hello yet.
“Hi,” I whisper, keeping my voice down.
“Hi.” Her soft laugh is adorable.
She works the nape of her neck, and flinches slightly.
“Sore?”
She waves me off and nods to the bunk with all her food. “Are you hungry? I have a deck of cards if you want to try and win some of your snacks back?” I smirk and shake my head, then set her pillow aside and plop down at the head of her bed,resting my back against the wall, with my legs straight out in front of me.
Her hand finds the back of her neck again.
“Come here.” I hold out my palm, and she accepts it, allowing me to thread my fingers with hers and guide her on the bed with me. “Lay on your stomach, I’ll take over.”
We get settled with her head in my lap, lying between my legs and resting her cheek on my left thigh, her hair fans out over my right one. She has one arm wrapped around my quad, and the other is bent near my back. The tips of her fingers brush my hip.
“Good?”
“Good,” she confirms with a small smile.
Her eyes flutter closed when I cup the back of her neck, and prod until I feel the knotted muscle. “Ooh, you got a good one.”
She grunts when I dig into it with my thumbs. “Too hard?”
“Nuh-uh,” she purrs. “How was your day today?”
I’m not used to being asked that question. Usually, my day is the same as all the guys around me, rendering it unnecessary to ask. “Um, it was fine, I guess?” She gives me room to continue, so I do. “It’s never fun working in mud, especially where the timber is dense and the sun can't permeate the ground through the thick trees.”
I talk her through the events of the day with ease. It’s weirdly domestic, like something a couple would do. She doesn’t make it feel like small talk. She asks questions, and despite her becoming more and more relaxed as I dissolve the knot in her neck, she shows interest. I know she’s paying attention when she has to ask for me to explain some of the verbiage.
“What about your day?”
She shrugs. “Kinda boring.”
I huff an amused breath. I never envied EMS when they were spiked out. It’s a lot of sitting around. My hand slides down the back of her shirt, drawing lines and circles as she talks. I rub her shoulders, arms, back—everywhere I can reach. With each graze,her body seems to turn to jelly. I wonder if this woman is as touch starved as I am.
Scottie moves the hand behind my back to the front of my shirt, and she slips it under my Henley. I have to fight to suck in a breath. Her feather-soft touch strokes over my stomach, causing me to shudder. She continues speaking, unaware of the effect she’s having on me. Her fingers mimic mine, brushing over my abdominals in a similar pattern.Goddamn.It makes me hard and relaxed at the same time. I needed this more than I thought. I bury my free hand into her hair, and she groans in the middle of her story about the training exercises Matt had her working on.
I chuckle. “You like that?”