Page 32 of Reverse Pass

“Lemme have ‘em.” She reaches forward to take them and gets just close enough the vanilla pumpkin scent she’s been wearing lately hits me and sends a flood of desire through me.

She sets her drink down and then curls up in the chair in the corner of the room. She’s overdressed for what she normally wears around the apartment with a long-oversized top and cardigan, which she pulls tighter around her. I wonder if she might let me strip her out of them.

“You ready?” She glances up at me and gives me a little smile that makes my heart beat harder.

“As I’ll ever be.” I answer her smile with one of my own.

Her eyes flash up to mine, a playfulness there that I fucking love, and then she starts reading off flash cards, quizzing me on the post-Revolutionary era and the War of 1812. I get most of them and the ones I stumble on she makes me repeat several times to try to help me remember, but I’m struggling, mostly because I keep wondering if she’s changed her mind or chickened out.

But then she stands up and eases out of her cardigan as she continues to read off the cards, and my eyes flicker over her form as I keep answering her questions. She’s perfect in every possible way I could want, and I remind myself I need to savor every second I get with her because I have no idea how long this will last.

“Ben?”

“Hmm?” My eyes snap up to her face.

Her hand is on the hem of her shirt, getting ready to lift it, but she’s holding the card and looking at me expectantly instead of moving.

“Why did tensions rise in 1807?”

Because the British Navy was desperately hoping the Americans had a galaxy bikini top on under their shirt.

“Royal Navy was moving to restrict trade,” I mumble.

“Between?”

“America and France.”

“Good,” she murmurs, the sound going straight to my dick.

She sets the cards down for a second to remove her shirt. When she turns to pick them up, I can see the galaxy print that’s been burned into my brain. Just the motion of her leaning down makes it so that her breasts threaten to spill over the top. If it was any other woman I was hooking up with, I’d be up and off this bed lightning fast. Kissing her neck and chest, sliding the straps down her arms so I could slide my fingers under the cup and pull her out. But with her I can’t. With her everything is a delicate dance of give and take, and me desperately hoping I don’t do or say the wrong thing that makes this whole house of cards fall down.

She turns around and leans back against the dresser, giving me a perfect view of her while she continues to quiz me.

“President during the war?”

“Madison.”

“What year does the war end?”

“1814.”

With each correct answer she takes a step closer to me, and question after question I get them right, like my life depends on it.

“What treaty ends the war?”

“Treaty of Ghent.”

She sits down on the edge of the bed, flipping through the cards, and then presses them to her lips as she peeks over them at me.

“Okay. Final question. What’s the era after the War of 1812 known as?”

“Era of Good Feelings.”

“Perfect.” She leans back against the headboard alongside me and places the flash cards back in my lap. “You get an A.”

“What does that earn me?” The words are out before I can censor them, and I bite my tongue because I see the flicker of surprise cross her face.

She turns slightly, angling her back toward me. I set the flashcards aside.