Chapter Two #2
Watching him fight and win is amazing. If Marco can do it then I know I can as well. He might be older but I’ve been fighting longer. I can’t wait to turn eighteen and join the UFC, and I will join the UFC because I am determined.
“You ready to do this?” Marco parks his car in the parking lot and turns to me, his smile making my heart beat just a little out of rhythm.
With eyes the color of onyx, raven-colored hair shaved short, and caramel colored skin courtesy of his Hispanic roots, Marco Michaels is a damn good-looking guy.
Then you add his carefree attitude and his fit body, and it’s no wonder girls swoon over him on a regular basis.
I ignore the way his smile makes me feel and answer him. “Yep!”
We get out of the car and walk to the trail.
After warming up and stretching, we start on our run.
While Marco could easily outrun me, he always runs next to me, keeping at the same pace.
We run side by side in comfortable silence.
The only noise is my app letting us know when we hit each mile. After the third mile, Marco slows down.
“Holy shit! I feel like I haven’t run in years.” Marco comes to a standstill, sitting on a rock on the side of the dirt trail.
“What have you been doing the last few weeks since you won your fight?” I laugh, continuing to jog in place to keep up the momentum.
“Basking in the glory of my win,” he jokes.
“Well, you need to bask in the glory of this run. Let’s go!
” I take off running to get a head start knowing Marco will follow and catch up to me in no time, but when I turn the corner, I don’t see the huge ass rock in my way.
My foot hits it, and because there’s nothing but air around to catch my fall, I fall onto the ground right onto my knees.
“Ow!” I roll over onto my butt, holding onto my legs. My knees hit the hard ground. That shit hurt. Bad.
“You okay?” Marco kneels to check on my knees.
“I’m fine. It just hurts.”
“Let me see.” He sits next to me and grabs my legs, putting them on top of his. Both my knees are bright red and lightly bleeding.
“We need to clean these up in case there are pieces of rock in your cuts.” Marco rubs his hands down my leg causing my stomach to do flip-flops.
“I’m fine,” I insist, trying to move my legs out of his reach.
“Stop. Let me clean your knees.” He grabs my legs and holds onto them tight. Then he grabs his shirt from the back and lifts it over his head, leaving his sweaty front on display. I divert my attention back to my cuts.
Taking his bottle of water, Marco wets the shirt and gently rubs each of my knees. I flinch when the material hits my cuts.
“Sorry,” he says softly. He leans over and gently blows on the cuts, making my stomach clench and my heart go erratic.
After both my knees are clean, he stands then reaches down to help me up as well.
As I come up onto my feet, my body hits his, not realizing how hard he was tugging me up.
Our faces are close, only inches apart. He glances down at me and sighs, his cool breath hitting me.
It smells like the peppermints he’s always sucking on. Our eyes lock and we kiss.
And holy. Shit. Do we kiss.
His lips start off soft just barely touching mine like he’s testing the waters, unsure of himself.
Our eyes are still open, neither of us daring to be the first to blink.
My heart is pounding, and his breathing is heavy.
When my lips move in sync with his, his eyes close, his kiss becoming more aggressive.
My head tilts to the side and his tongue finds its way inside.
Marco’s hands leave mine and land on my butt, pulling me closer to him until our sweaty bodies are lined up with no space between us.
Our kiss goes from sweet and gentle to frantic and desperate within seconds. Our tongues entwining with each other. I finally close my eyes and sink into his hold. Just as I think I’m getting the hang of this, it stops. Marco’s lips leave mine and he backs up.
“Shit.” His hands come up to his face, his head shaking in disbelief.
I don’t even know what to say. I would be lying if I said I’ve never imagined what it would be like to be kissed by Marco.
I’m a teenage girl, of course I have. But I never imagined it would be so…
Wow! This is my first time being kissed, and if this is what my first kiss feels like…
well, I can’t even imagine it getting any better than that.
“Shit,” Marco hisses again. His head is tilted to the sky now like he’s praying to the heavens above. He’s breathing like he just ran ten miles and his fists are clenched at his sides.
“Umm…” I start to say having no idea what to continue with. What I want to say is “Let’s do that again,” but something tells me Marco’s “Shit” isn’t a good shit, more like a What the hell was I thinking shit.
“We need to get back,” he says, and without waiting for me, he turns around and starts running back to his car. I run after him, but unlike every time we’ve run together, this time Marco doesn’t wait for me.
“Should we… maybe…talk about this?” I finally ask when I catch up to him outside of his car.
“Later,” is all he says.
He hits the key fob unlocking the doors and gets in, and without waiting for me to turn on the music like he always does, he turns it on himself.
He turns it up loud, making it clear he doesn’t want to talk.
Okay, fine, I think to myself. We will talk later, like he said.
It’ll give me time to process what happened.
Tomorrow.
We will talk about this tomorrow.
Once we have both processed what just happened, we’ll discuss this.