Sixty-Seven
“Your hair doesn’t smell like apples anymore...”
Shiloh’s voice was muffled. Her face was pressed into the top of his head.
She’d knocked his cap onto the floor somewhere—Cary left it there. He finally had Shiloh back in his lap, and he wasn’t letting
her go this time. He needed both arms to hold her.
“It only smelled like apples,” he said, “because the cheapest shampoo at Hinky Dinky was White Rain green apple.”
Shiloh sighed. “It was so nice.”
Cary ran one hand up her thigh, under her dress. She was wearing jeans. “It isn’t nice now?”
She kissed the top of his head. “It’s still pretty nice, Cary.”
The way she was sitting put his face in her sternum. He could feel his dog tag under his cheek, under the lacy cotton dress
she was wearing. Cary wished he had a free hand to unbutton it. He nosed between the buttons. He held her with an arm under
her thigh and a firm hand under her bottom.
He felt ravenous. She made him ravenous. Hungry on top of hungry. It was a struggle to be rational when they were this close, a struggle to make sense.
“You probably want me to get off your lap,” Shiloh said.
Cary almost laughed.
He shook his head, swallowed, and tilted his face back to look at her. Shiloh was a whole head taller than him like this.
She was out of reach. “Kiss me,” he said.
Shiloh waited a second. Her eyes wandered over his face. What could she be measuring—how much he wanted it? Whether he deserved
it?
She kissed him.
Cary stretched his chin up to meet her. He moved a hand from her waist to the back of her head and held her there.
Cary thought of himself as someone with a lot of self-control, even before the Navy—but he was fresh out. He was done. He
wanted Shiloh. He didn’t want to wait anymore. He pressed her mouth into his. He tried not to press his cock into her thigh.
Shiloh’s hands were in his hair, like she was trying to find enough to hold on to.
He thought of all the days and nights they’d sat hip to hip in the front seat of his car with her elbow in his ribs and her
hand moving like an anxious butterfly over his leg.
All the times she’d sat next to him in the darkroom, playing with his hair.
Shiloh in her dorm room, finally open to him.
Shiloh on the night of Mikey’s wedding, with her hands on his neck. Leading him upstairs. Her unmade bed.
Cary felt like he’d spent his whole life trying to close his arms around her and never quite succeeding. Even now... he
had her on his lap, she was wearing his ring, and he still didn’t feel sure of the situation.
Was he there ?
Were they both finally there? At the start of something?
Could he stop trying to have Shiloh—and just have her? Be with her. Plan around her. Know she was his, even from ten thousand miles away.
Cary wanted to feel settled. He wanted to feel locked down.
Shiloh was a light in the distance. She was an ache he’d been feeling since he was thirteen. An itch. She was a finger hooked
into every torn seam, tugging—and Cary was made of torn seams. Just a poorly stitched human being. He’d only known how to
want Shiloh, never how to have her.
Could he just—
Could he finally—
Relax?
Could he push Shiloh down and hold her wrists? Could he put rings on all her fingers? Could he write his name and social security number on her body everywhere they fit?
Could he have a life here? Be a husband and some kind of father? Could he make a home between Shiloh’s legs and at her table,
and on his knees if that’s where she wanted him... Could he rest? Could he finally rest ?
Shiloh held on to his face so she could pull her mouth away. “Do you want to go upstairs?” she whispered.
Cary almost laughed. He almost cried.
“Yes.”