Chapter 3
Troy
Ainsley’s car disappears at the end of the street, and I’m still standing at the window like a creep.
“Get it together, Abernathy,” I mutter, dragging a hand over my face.
She’s…a lot. Perfect. All curves and curls and nervous chatter, smelling like citrus and sugar, wearing those tight jeans and that tank top that did criminal things to my imagination. The picture in my head right now is the exact reason she put the no-flirting rule in bold.
I push away from the window and head down the hall to “my” room. The bed looks about half the size it should with me in it, but the navy sheets are soft when I sit and the mattress has enough give to tell me my back won’t be screaming in the morning. For a temporary setup, it’s damn nice.
My gaze lands on the woven basket she left.
Of course, she made a welcome basket.
I pull it into my lap. There’s a mug on top that says Roommates, Not Soulmates, and I huff out a low laugh. The woman really did everything she could to make this sexless. Probably should’ve gone with a “no penises allowed” sign on the lawn while she was at it.
Under the mug is a set of keys on a tiny cactus keychain. I twirl it around my finger. It’s cute, bright green with a stupid little smiley face. Doesn’t match me at all, but it screams Ainsley, and that makes my chest feel tight.
I set the keys and mug on the nightstand and pull out the rest. Travel-size shampoo and body wash, a razor, a bar of soap, a bag of locally roasted coffee, and a folded packet of paper—her infamous rules.
I unfold the packet. It’s thicker than the online version—at least five pages, printed front and back. At the top, in bold, underlined, and highlighted:
ABSOLUTELY NO FLIRTING.
She even added three exclamation marks.
I snort. “We’re already fucked there, sweetheart.”
Rule one: No pets. There’s a note under it, in parentheses, about her being allergic to cats and how fish still count as pets because “something alive in a tank is still something alive.” Then another note clarifying that succulents are permitted, but if I kill them, she’ll be offended.
She annotated her rules like a damn study guide.
I settle back against the headboard and keep reading.
Every rule has an explanation. No smoking, with a paragraph on why she doesn’t want the smell in her curtains and how she once had a neighbor who “vaped in the shower like it was a sauna.” No parties, with a bullet-point scenario about “three friends that turn into ten and suddenly someone’s singing karaoke on my coffee table. ”
The quiet hours section has a little schedule mock-up with smiley faces and frowny faces depending on what time things happen. It’s absurd. It’s over the top.
It’s also weirdly…endearing.
She’s trying so damn hard to protect herself from chaos. From people. From someone like that ex-friend, who gutted her finances and her trust.
I get it.
I skim to the bottom of the page where she’s added a whole subsection titled INTERPERSONAL BOUNDARIES in all caps.
No drama. No sharing deeply personal trauma stories at three a.m. unless both parties consent.
No jealousy over friendships. No mixing sex with the living arrangement because “romantic entanglements complicate rent.”
Then: NO FLIRTING. Repeated. Again. Underlined twice. With examples.
I read them.
“Complimenting my appearance in a way that implies sexual interest.”
Yeah, that ship sailed the second I saw her at the door and my dick tried to salute.
“Standing too close for no reason, lingering touches, staring at my chest, or calling me pet names like ‘baby,’ ‘sweetheart,’ or ‘gorgeous.’”
I bark out a laugh. “You’re killing me, woman.”
I’ve done all of that in my head already, and it’s been, what, two hours?
“Questions for later,” I murmur, flipping the page over.
There’s going to be a talk with her about this. She said clear expectations matter to her. They matter to me too. If she wants to feel safe, she deserves that. But some of these rules could use definitions.
Like what counts as flirting versus being a decent human noticing the woman he lives with is beautiful?
My brain offers the way her cheeks went pink when our fingers brushed, that wide, startled look in her eyes when she stared at my arms like she wanted to climb them. Pretty sure I’m not the only one feeling whatever this is.
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, our lives tangled up in grocery lists and laundry schedules and late-night talks—isn’t a disaster waiting to happen.
It’s the best thing that ever happened to either of us.
I fold the rules and slide them back into the basket, then set the mug upright on the nightstand. The words stare back at me: Roommates, Not Soulmates.
“We’ll see about that,” I say under my breath.
I’m not leaving this house unless she’s coming with me.
And as for her bed?
I glance at the wall again, thinking about how small my room feels and how much smaller hers must be with our beds pressed up against opposite sides of the same plaster.
Yeah.
Her bed’s not staying off-limits forever.
The only thing I haven’t figured out yet is how long it’s going to take before she realizes it.