“I’ve got a plan. Just sit and watch a while, I’ll show you how it’s done.” I toss the ball in place a few times, riling Arrow up until he starts going through his entire repertoire—paw, speak, roll over—in a frenzied attempt to make me give it to him. When I finally rear back my arm, he freezes and readies himself.
I launch it, pitching it as far down the field as I can. Arrow vanishes.
“I’m telling you,” Camille warns, “he’s not going to give it up.”
Arrow sniffs out the ball by the pond and bounds back with it in his mouth, tongue lolling out the side. I try to grab it from him, but—as she predicted—he twists and trots out of reach, refusing to give it back.
“Told you.”
“And I told you,” I shout to her, “I’ve got a plan.” I pull a fresh tennis ball from the tube. Instantly, Arrow drops the one in his mouth and starts running his tricks again, leaping against my legs, and bracing himself when I get ready to pitch.
I throw it. He’s gone.
“What were you saying?” I grin and throw the first ball to Camille. It’s covered in drool and dead grass; she kicks it away and laughs.
“Okay, you were right. I didn’t think about the fact that you could bribe my dog.”
Arrow and I go through the entire tube, then start over. By the time he returns with my fortieth or so pitch, I’ve got a sore elbow, very little breath left, and four rough-looking tennis balls too warped to go back in the tube. Arrow downs another cup of water and circles me until I give him a ball to keep.
The sky grows deep blue at its edge. A chill sets in, and Camille and I rush to gather up the blanket and food while Arrow tears his tennis ball to shreds. Only the promise of a car ride makes him give it up; he bolts into the backseat as soon as I open the door.
“So.” I crank the heat and look at Camille, who’s flexing her fingers over the vents. “Did you want to see the farmhouse, or were you thinking of...calling it a night?”
Her smile is shy, but there. “I’d love to see it. I mean...it’s not like I have anywhere to be tomorrow.”
We follow the dirt driveway to its end, right beside the farmhouse. Arrow sniffs around for a place to mark before following us onto the broad porch.
“I’ve never seen so many rocking chairs in one place,” she remarks, nodding at the eight rockers along the porch, and two gliding benches at either end.
“Grandma McIntyre loves entertaining,” I explain, “and Filigree gets some really great nights for stargazing, in summertime. She cooks dinner for all her friends, plus me, my mom and whoever I bring, and we sit out here eating peach cobbler and ice cream, just staring at the stars.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“Just about. Probably the only thing I miss about this town. Even Hillford has a little bit of light pollution. And nobody cooks as good as her, of course.”
“I bet.” Camille shivers, so I fish my key from my pocket and hurry her inside. Arrow takes some coaxing, but soon follows.
“It’s a little cold, but the heat kicks up fast,” I promise her. When the thermostat’s all set, I get some wood from the back porch and stack it in the fireplace in the living room. Camille twists some newspaper and old circulars from the recycling bin the way I show her, passing them to me one at a time. When it’s all ready, I grab a match from the Mason jar on the mantle and light it. Soon the fire’s roaring, the room flooded with heat and light just as the sky melts to black.
“Ready for the tour?” I brush my hands off my pants and lead her upstairs. The guest rooms are pristine, just the way Grandma left them. “This one was mine, whenever I spent the night.” I flip the light switch and show her where I cracked a tooth as a kid, wrestling with a neighbor’s son during a Christmas party. “I jumped off the top bunk to elbow drive this guy on the ground. Missed, landed face-first on this dresser, and never did it again.”
Camille doubles over laughing. “Why were you trying to elbow drive him?”
“I have no idea. We saw it on TV and thought, ‘That’d be cool.’ It was not.”
Room by room, I show her the house, the photos. I tell her the stories. She laughs and we have fun, and the closer we get to the living room again, the less nervous she seems to be.
“Where’s Arrow?” she asks, when we realize we haven’t seen him since we came inside. She calls his name at the bottom of the steps: nothing.
“I think I know where he went.” I lead her to the hallway by the kitchen. Sure enough, Arrow is lying on top of the heating grate in the floor. Camille shakes her head, smiling, and bends down to pet him.
“There’s the lazy old man I recognize,” she teases. She looks at me. “How’d you know he’d be here?”
“This is the best spot in the house. Every dog my Grandma’s had slept right on top of this thing.” I take her hand when she rises. “If you two plan on staying a while, he’s welcome to it.”
Camille tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles, looking nervous again—but not much. “Thank you.”
In the living room, I pull every cushion off the couch and set up a pallet on the floor. Camille gets a pile of blankets out of the ottoman and helps me spread them out. We kick off our shoes and climb in, spooning as we face the fireplace. For a long time, we’re just silent, listening to the crackle and watching flames jump from one log to the next.
“Silas?” She twists in my arms to face me. “Thank you. For bringing us out here, I mean. I haven’t seen Arrow play like that in years. And he’s so old, I know he doesn’t have...that much time left.” She scoots closer, pressing her face to my chest. “It was fun, getting to see him with all that energy again.”
I kiss her forehead. “No need to thank me. It was fun for me, too, getting to play with a dog in those fields again. Makes me miss the ones my grandma had.”
It gets quiet again. I shut my eyes and listen to the fire, her breathing.
“Six weeks.”
I look down at her. “Hmm?”
“That’s how long we’ve known each other. Six weeks. A couple days less than that, actually.” Her eyes meet mine through her hair. “But it feels like so much longer. It feels like I’ve known you for years. And the only weird part is, I felt like that the very first day. When we were on the bridge.”
“Me too. And listen...I know we’ve talked a little about things going further, but—but I don’t want you to feel pressured into anything. I didn’t plan this date so you’d sleep with me.”
She laughs. “Sure. A romantic picnic, empty farmhouse....”
“Okay,” I admit, “the thought crossed my mind.” I tickle her until she pushes me away a few inches, grabbing my hands to stop it. “But it wasn’t because of that. I wanted Arrow to have fun, and for you to see him have fun. I know how much he means to you.”
“He does.” She lets go of my hands and puts one of hers on my neck, pulling herself up to kiss me. “And so do you.”
We make out for a while, the fire dying down beside us. Our hands roam to the same places as usual; we make the same noises, follow the same cues.
But something is different. It’s a noticeable shift, like the night in the cemetery when everything fell away, and it felt like just the two of us left in the world.
Camille pushes up on my chest and stares down at me, half her face glowing amber in the firelight, the other in shadow. Her hair slips past her shoulders and into my mouth. When I spit it free, she laughs.
Then she gets quiet. Her smile flinches, that touch of fear rising and sinking back, buried under everything else.
“I want you to be my first,” she whispers.
I push her hair behind her ear, thumb resting on the earring. She’s wearing the ones I bought her, those tiny green ice cream cones, and suddenly all I can imagine is what an incredible sight it must be, first thing in the morning, to see her wearing nothing but them.
“I can do that,” I tell her, “but only if you’ll be my girlfriend. We never did make it official, you know.
”
Camille’s smile returns. She bends down to kiss me, saying, “Of course,” against my mouth.
19
Silas undresses me with painstaking attention. Every inch of skin he uncovers, he presses his lips to it and breathes. The heat spreads like fog and leaves chills in its place.
It’s strange to realize he’s never seen me completely naked. He’s touched me through and under clothes, seen flashes in the dark when we perform oral sex, and pulled fabric aside to kiss the bare skin, just like he’s doing now. But never before have I been completely exposed before him, like this.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, when he sits back to look at me. Like he’s finished a painting, and needs to step back to take it all in.
He looks at me like that a lot, now that I think about it.
He peels his shirt off over his head and, as he kisses me again, gives a soft moan when I undo his pants and stroke his erection through his boxers. It isn’t enough.
I’m almost frantic, the way I pull down his underwear and reposition myself to take him into my mouth, all within mere seconds. I can’t pace myself. I want him inside me, no matter how it happens.
He tilts his head to the ceiling and sighs my name, hand resting at the base of my neck. I feel him gather my hair and hold it as he guides.
“Okay,” he sputters after a few minutes, swallowing hard, “your turn. Seriously, you have to stop or I’m—I’m gonna....”
I don’t stop. The sound of my name tumbling across the ceiling has me addicted. All I can think is how badly I want to hear it again.
“Camille….” One hand cups my ear. But he doesn’t slow me down or try and stop me.
His release floods my throat. I take him deeper and revel in the tiny pinpricks of his nails on my scalp.
When I sit up, he covers me.
His entire body presses to mine, breathing hard between kisses as he pushes me back onto the cushions and pins me.
“Sorry,” I smile. “As soon as I knew you were close, I just...couldn’t stop.”
“That’s fine.” Without warning, he reaches between us and plunges two fingers inside me, swallowing my cry with another kiss. “I’ll just make you come until I’m hard again.”
The combination of his fingers stretching me, their relentless movement stroking in exactly the right spot, and the nearly crushing weight of his body on mine make me dizzy in the best possible way. I shudder when he traces every ridge of my outer ear with his tongue.
When he’s worked me into a mess of raw nerves and need, he pauses, kisses his way down my body, and drags his tongue across my clitoris before I can even tell him I’m ready. I want my virginity gone, already a memory.
No, I realize; I don’t want it gone. That implies it’s something I’m sick of, a burden I would happily unload on anyone who asked.
I just want Silas to have it. I want to wake up tomorrow and know he has that piece of me. All my trust. This vulnerability that has me shivering in the firelight.
All my love.
But I can’t tell him any of this, because he works his tongue in time to his fingers until my brain forgets the words.
My sex throbs and tightens, the contractions of my orgasm already beginning.
I feel him moan before I hear it; the seal of his mouth breaks just enough for me to feel the rush of his breath across my sex. Then the sound—a rumble, low and rich like thunder—that makes me open my eyes to see.
One hand still works furiously inside me. His tongue rolls across and around my clitoris like that was the only purpose it was ever meant to serve.
And his free hand, I notice, is stroking his erection, just as full and hard as it was before we started.
I come instantly at the sight of him masturbating. It’s the sight I’ve imagined for weeks: what he looks like when he thinks of me.
The last tremor leaves me with a sharp sigh. Silas pulls his fingers out slowly and stands, pulling his pants and boxers off the rest of the way.
He pulls a condom from his back pocket and holds it up, the foil wrapper glowing in the light. I know it’s a question. The question.
I nod.
Silas rolls the condom onto himself and positions himself at my entrance, still slick and swollen from his fingers.
“Tell me if I go too hard,” he says, “or too fast. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” I say this so surely. And I completely believe it. Silas could never hurt me.
The fire shifts. Sparks loft up into the chimney and vanish. I know I’ll remember this exact moment in perfect detail, the same way I remember that night in the cemetery.
The scent of smoke and burnt oak. The settled creaks of a house I don’t know, but feel like I could.
The cushion sinking by my shoulder when Silas places one hand beside my arm, the other holding my chin when he kisses me. Our mouths, laced with the tastes of each other.
My heartbeat, pounding steadily against my ribs when he enters me.
An overwhelming sense of how right it feels when he sinks inside, and the teetering pleasure as he stretches me.
Just like that, I’m not a virgin anymore.
But, funnily enough, that’s the last thing on my mind right now. I’m not thinking about how Silas is my first.
I’m thinking about how he’ll be the best, forever and always. Somehow, I already know I’ll never have another like him. I’ll never want another.
“Camille,” he breathes, “you feel incredible.”
My words tangle. I want to tell him how incredible he feels. How, until right now, I had no idea how perfectly two whole people could fit together. Maybe they were never whole to begin with.
I can’t speak, though, because right when I draw a breath, Silas rocks his hips back and sinks into me again. All I hear is my heartbeat. All I see are embers.
“Silas, it feels....”
I slow down and give Camille a chance to catch her breath. “You’re crying,” I realize, panic rising when I press my thumb to the tear rolling down her temple.
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t hurt. It feels.... I’m just so—so....”
I relax, laughing, and lower my head so I can run my tongue around her ear again. The shiver she gives sends the last of my blood south. “Tell me.”
“Full.” She shakes her head again. “I don’t know how to describe it. That is how I feel, like you’re...you’re filling me perfectly. But the words don’t sound like enough.”
“They’re more than enough for me.” I sink into her as deeply as I can, giving her time to adjust. She digs her fingernails into my shoulders and moans.
“Yes...yes, oh, my God.”
“Tell me again.” I bite the top of her ear and lick my way down to her earring as I withdraw, no more than half an inch, before driving back in. “Tell me how full you feel with me inside you.”
“You—you’re filling me,” she stammers. Embarrassed, at first, then thrown into a tailspin when I withdraw all the way and fill her again. “Oh, God, you’re filling me.”
Her orgasm is only seconds away. I can tell from the pink wash over her chest, all the heat rushing to her face; her muscles clamp tighter around my erection. Her throat produces moans and sighs I’m not even sure she can hear herself making.
I reach down, angling my hips so I have access to her clitoris. As soon as I touch her, setting a lightning-fast pace and the lightest bit of force, she arches her back.
“Silas, I’m coming,” she says, the words rushing out of her as soon as the first spasm hits.
I orgasm with her. Camille keeps her eyes shut the entire time. I keep mine open and watch.
Without context, just from her expression alone, it would look like she’s in pain. But I catch the silent movement of her mouth as it forms my name, no air left in her lungs to say it out loud. I feel the quiver of her sex as it pumps every drop of my release from my body.
“Silas,” she calls, and her arms pull her up against me
.
She stays like that until it’s over. Clinging to me, pressed closer than close. Hanging onto me through it all.
* * *
“Silas—hey, wake up.”
I groan when Camille taps my shoulder. “Hmm?”
“You fell asleep on me.”
“Oh, sorry.” We laugh as I push myself up, taking my weight off her. “What time is it?”
“I’m not sure,” she yawns. “I fell asleep too.”
“It’s all the fresh air out here. Wears you out.” We kiss, minding our morning breath. I go to the bathroom and come back shivering, hurrying into my clothes.
“Fire died. No wonder it’s so cold in here—the heater only goes up to sixty-five. I swear my grandmother’s got it rigged.”
“That,” she says, sitting up and bundling herself in the blankets while I stomp on my shoes, “or my lazy, old dog blocked the vent all night.”
“Very likely. Except the lazy part—we covered this yesterday, remember?” To prove my point, I put my thumb and forefinger into my mouth and whistle. Arrow comes running, diving into the nest of pillows we made before trotting in circles around me. “See? He loves it out here.”
Camille stretches and hums some sound that’s neither agreement nor disagreement. I click Arrow’s leash onto his collar and tell her I’ll be back soon. “There’s a coffee pot in the kitchen, if you don’t feel like waiting. But if you do wait, I can serve you breakfast by the fire. Or we can cook together.”
“No contest—I’m going back to bed,” she smiles sleepily, and curls up under the covers as I leave.
Arrow sniffs his way around the entire house before marking a fence post. I gather some sticks for kindling as we walk.
“You like this place, huh, bud?” I scratch his back; he stays in step beside me when we near the rear edge of the property. The fence between Grandma McIntyre’s land and her neighbor’s farm runs right through the center of the creek, all the way down the length of it, until it feeds into the pond. Somehow, my great-grandpa negotiated that little puddle in his sale, but not the other half of the creek.
Baby, Be My Last: The Fairfields | Book Three Page 14
