The Last One(59)

“Yeah?” I rubbed her nipple between my finger and thumb. “What would you do?”

Her lips curved on one side. “I would sink down to my knees, and I’d unzip your pants. Drag your jeans down your legs ... slowly. Rub my boobs across your boxers, and then I’d take your dick out ...” She increased the pressure of her fingers a little, and I think I went cross-eyed. “ ... and I’d hold you by the base. Cup your balls. Curl my fingers around the shaft and move up ... and down. And then I’d take you in my mouth, swirl my tongue around the head, go down, down, down.” Her voice, already low, dropped to a whisper. “And then I’d suck you on the way back up.”

“You’re going to kill me.” I gripped her ribs and moved so that her damp core sat over my erection. Meghan began moving in slow, agonizing circles, her eyes drifting shut.

Inside the house, a door slammed, and we both startled. Meghan nearly fell off the swing in her hurry to climb off my lap, but I caught her by the waist. “It’s okay. Probably just Ali getting up for the bathroom. She usually has a window opened, and the breeze could have closed the door.”

Meghan dropped her forehead onto my shoulder. “I don’t want to complain, Sam, but I had more privacy when I was in high school.”

I brushed her hair back, letting it cascade behind her shoulder. “Really? Where did you go to make out in those days? The beach?”

She snorted. “Never. Not unless you wanted to end up with sand in some very uncomfortable places. No, we had a few spots. There’s a little apartment above the Tide—it was actually where my parents lived when I was born. When I got old enough that Mom let me close by myself, sometimes I’d take my boyfriend upstairs afterwards. Of course, we had to leave the lights out, because if anyone in town noticed activity, they’d have called my parents.” She smiled, almost dreamily. “But we never got caught.”

“You were lucky.” I wound a curl around my finger.

“What about you?” Meghan drew her knees up to her chest and curled into my chest, laying her head over my heart. Seeing her like that, safe and ensconced in my arms, gave me an odd feeling I wasn’t ready to name yet.

“Ah, you know. The typical. Parking out in the woods, or sneaking off to a barn.”

She frowned up at me. “I thought you said you didn’t have hay in the barn.”

“We don’t. But other farms do.”

“Oh.”

We were quiet for a few moments, enjoying the breeze as it played across the jasmine next to the porch. I ran my fingers up and down Meghan’s spine and smiled at her shiver.

“I have an idea.” It had come to me when she asked about our make out spots. “Want to go out on a date with me?”

She looked up again, eyebrows raised. “A date? Like ... what kind of date?”

“Come on, Meghan, I know you’ve been on dates before.”

“Well, yeah, but at home. Or in Savannah. What do y’all do out here in Podunk?”

I shook my head at her teasing. “You’ll have to trust me. But I promise you, it’ll be like no date you’ve ever been on.”

“Hmmm.” She swiveled so that her chin rested on my breastbone. “Okay. You’ve got yourself a deal. What should I wear?”

“Dress comfortable.” I wriggled down so that I could reach her lips and kissed her. “Meet me at my truck tomorrow night at eight. And don’t be late.”



I KNEW MEGHAN WOULD be in town at school until at least four the next day, and Ali was working the stand as usual. So after I finished my work in the morning, I drove back to the house and began getting ready for our date.

I opened up the old cedar chest in the upstairs hall and pulled out four old quilts. Dropping them at the top of the steps, I went into the bathroom and dug around the cupboard until I found the bottles I needed. Just before I went back downstairs, I remembered to grab two pillows off my bed and add them to my pile.

It took some doing to get the truck ready, but once it was, I unwrapped a brand-new tarp and spread it over the back. I needed one more trip into the house for matches, candles and the bottle of wine Ali had bought last month. I’d replace it on my next trip to the liquor store. The last item I needed was in Meghan’s room, and I walked in cautiously, as though at any minute she might jump out and ask me what the hell I was doing in there. I hadn’t been inside Grandma’s room since Meghan had arrived, and it was weird to see her things over the familiar furniture.

Blank canvasses were propped up against the hope chest at the end of the bed, and a bunch of brushes dried on a towel by the windowsill. Piles of books dominated the dresser. For the most part, Meghan was neat; there were no dirty clothes on the floor, and her bed was made. But she must have had trouble deciding what to wear that morning, I thought, because I saw a couple of discarded shirts tossed over the coverlet. A pink lace bra sat there, too, and I picked it up, running my fingers over delicate fabric. I’d seen some of her underwear by now, on nights when we got particularly daring on the porch, but not this one. Just imagining her within the cups made me hard.