Page 89 of Flirting with Forever

He set the travel litter box aside, strode to the kitchen, washed his hands and whirled on Mary, picking her up by the hips and setting her on the kitchen counter. He stepped between her legs, getting tangled up in the skirt of her sundress and loving it.

“I’m serious, Mare.” He nuzzled at her neck, her hair, one cheek against hers. “I’m not exaggerating. You are literally the sweetest person I’ve ever met. I’m never getting over you.”

He hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud.

She stiffened in his arms for just a moment, and he cursed himself for saying too much too fast. Wasn’tI’m never getting over youthe same thing as sayingI’m going to love you forever? They weren’t there yet. They weren’t even close to—

“Good,” Mary told him fiercely, her fingers tangled in the hair at the crown of his head, pulling him back an inch so she could glare at him. “That works just fine for me.”

And then her fingers were scrabbling at his shirt. He had the feeling that she was trying very hard not to tear any buttons.

Everything in John pulled tight, almost painfully. He was frozen in a block of time, the world spinning on without him.

Good.

She wanted him to love her.

Good.

And it was just so freakinggood.

John animated all at once, breath in his chest, his heart racing to catch up with everything it had just missed. He pulled his arms from around her waist, grabbed his white shirt at the center and gave it a good yank. Buttons flew everywhere as he destroyed it, ripped it off his shoulders.

“Your shirt!” she yelped. “You wrecked it!”

“I have others.”

Her hands were palms down in his chest hair, her fingers gripping too hard at his shoulders and collarbones. He loved the way she touched him. Like he could take it. Like there was no breaking him.Good.

“John, you wrecked one of your shirts for me.” When she landed her forehead against his shoulder in what appeared to be overwhelmed reverence, John guessed that at some point she had snooped in his closet and seen how few clothes he actually owned. She must have seen how scrupulously he cared for his wardrobe.

“My birthday is in a month,” he informed her. “You can buy me a new one. Any color you want.”

That—if her tongue in his mouth was any indication—had been exactly the right thing to say. John groaned against the wet-hot slide of her mouth pressed to his. She tasted like watermelon. He was lost in the feel of her. The warm silk of her hair. The insistent stroke of her hands against him. He heard his belt and zipper before he quite registered what she was doing. He grabbed his pants before they fell and pulled the condom out of his pocket that he’d optimistically placed there before he’d left his apartment. There were about a thousand more crammed into his backpack.

Mary took the condom from him and sheathed him with it as his hands slipped under her dress and found her underwear. Those were gone, her dress hitched up and then they were smashed against one another, him slipping and sliding against her wetness as they kissed and kissed and kissed.

When he held her still and pushed inside, they both braced and groaned and panted against the utterly exquisite rightness of it. What a strange thing it was that bodies wanted to do when in love, John mused for a moment. That more than sleeping or eating or any other basic need, at that moment John wanted to be inside of Mary. And it made sense to him. Because her body was the most sacred, most special place on earth. He wanted to be where Mary was. Exactly where she was. So close he was part of her. She bit hard at his bottom lip and clawed at his back, loving him fiercely, and he knew she wanted exactly the same thing as he did.

WHENTHEHEATWAVEsubsided back into the low nineties, John and Ruth moved back to his apartment, but Mary pretty much moved with them. They were spending almost every single night together.

It was overwhelming to her, not the speed or intensity with which they were starting their relationship, but how obvious it now was that she’d been utterly starving for this kind of love. Both she and John were gorging on one another, relishing the company, the affection, the sex.

They’d incubated together for a week and a half when Estrella invited Mary over to her house for a Sunday dinner.

John hadn’t mentioned to his mother that he and Mary were actually together now. They figured they could tell her together at the dinner.

Mary found herself unexpectedly nervous as she knocked on Estrella’s door that night. It wasn’t that she suddenly expected Estrella to disapprove of her. It was that everything in Mary’s life was changing so quickly. She’d had a hell of a summer—the blind dates, the break-in, Johnjohnjohn. And now this, her relationship with Estrella was about to change as well.

Estrella, one of her closest friends, was about to become the mother of the man she was seeing. That was new. And scary.

Mary took a deep breath that stalled when Estrella’s door swung open. But it was just John standing there, grinning at her, munching on something crunchy. His eyes looked lazy and relaxed and utterly thrilled to see her. They’d woken up together that morning, but Mary had spent the day at the shop and he’d had a ton of work to catch up on. It felt like they’d been separated for days. John pulled her in off the doorstep and hugged her tightly against him.

“Damn, you look lovely.”

She’d better look lovely. She’d spent an extra hour on her appearance for Estrella. She’d straightened her hair, done her makeup, practically hauled her entire closet off its hangers before she’d decided on this one perfect, peachy dress that showed off her shoulders and her calves.

John crunched in her ear.

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