She is…not wearing a shirt under that jacket. Just a bra.
I wag a finger at her even as I’m grinning and my pulse is beating hard and fast. “That isnotregulation. The armorer will never let you on the strip.”
“It’shotin there,” she says, pulling out one arm. “I didn’t want to pass out. I don’t know how you do it, honestly.”
I spin my epee until it’s levied right at her shoulder.
“Hey!” she cries. “I thought you weren’t allowed to point a weapon at anyone out of kit.”
“I’mextremelyprecise.” I tuck the tip of the blade right under her bra strap. Flick my wrist and?—
Snap.
“Oops.” I shrug and lower my blade.
Gwenna clutches at the cut strap as it springs off, surprise and—thankGod—delight on her face.
She’s so pretty. She’s so fucking pretty.
“What are you going to do now?” I ask, fully rhetorically, as I lower my blade and take a stride or two towards her. “Whateverare you going to do?”
I lean over her, not too close. And she grabs for me.
I fling my weapon to the ground and kiss her. Kiss her stupid and senseless—which with Gwenna is hard to do.
Finally, she pushes at my chest, extracting herself.
“Just…hang on.” She’s panting, her cheeks a little flushed. She looks around at where we are—the middle of the salle, in the middle of the day. “If the others…I mean I guess they know, but…”
“No.” I nod. “You’re right. You want to…” I glance back at the stairs. “My room?”
She nods.
I rip down my zipper and fling off my jacket in a single move. Then I bend down and scoop her up under her legs and shoulders.
Gwenna laughs, squirming a little in my arms. “You don’t have tocarry me.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
She laughs. Closes her eyes. “Right. I never thanked you for that, did I?”
Instead of answering, I just kiss her. “All good.”
When we reach my room, I kick the door open and immediately question my judgment, because my room is an absolute war zone that has no business hosting a lady friend. Clothes everywhere, bed that’s never made, crummy posters I got for free from the Art History faculty lounge just so the place would look less like a drug den. And fencing shit everywhere.
Welp, too late now. I set Gwenna gently on the edge of my bed and watch her as she takes it all in.
“Are you…packing?” she says.
“Huh? Oh, no.” For St. Ignaty. I guess we are leaving in…Christ. Less than 24 hours. But…
“No,” I say again. “This is…just how I live.”
“I see,” she says, eyeing the tennis ball dangling from the extended gooseneck lamp on my desk. “Modern art?”
“Bladework,” I say. “Little target to hit.” I stoop down, pick up a random old foil, and demonstrate with a little bop. “Anyway.”
Time to move past the surroundings. My sexual career may have been abridged, but I got started early. Meaning I’ve had a nonzero amount of fuckbuddies, and meaning I know that the longer you let a girl linger on your shithole of a room, the worse it’s going to go. Better just to let her get what she came for and not have to think too much about how it’s you and your digusting belongings that she’s debasing herself with. She’s a nice girl, after all.
