32. Chapter Thirty-Two

Sylas

Cally is about to enter our Quonset, but I gently grip her hand and pull her toward me.

“This feels momentous and my head is spinning. Can we wait a moment?”

She heaves a sigh and her shoulders sag as she nods in agreement. “My emotions are changing as fast as the numbers on the Wheel of Fortune, and I don’t know where they’re going to land.”

“When I heard the soldiers’ boots approach, I thought I’d be jailed at best and dead at worst. Then they pointed guns at me and brought me to the colonel’s office, where I thought the best possible outcome would be landing behind bars. Then, whoosh, a reprieve and finally the bonus of being able to share this Quonset with you.” She heaves a sigh, shaking her head. “It’s almost too much.”

After tugging her into my arms, it seems the most natural thing in the world to lift her up and cradle her against me. Her legs circle my waist and we simply hold each other. I settle my nose in the spot where her neck joins her shoulder and breathe in a deep gust of her scent. It calms me instantly.

“The moment I heard the SUVs while I was mushroom hunting, I knew you were in trouble, Cally. Immediately, I took off running, following your scent to find you, save you.” My fingers sift through her burnt-orange hair. It’s now my favorite color. “It’s been a long time since I’ve stared down the barrel of a gun. I can’t say it gets any easier with age.” I give a mirthless laugh.

She pulls away enough to search my face. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

I’m still not ready to enter our new house, and since she weighs nothing, I tote her around the exterior of the Quonset as we inventory our new home.

“Windows,” I announce as though having them on a house was a unique and wondrous thing.

“Doors,” she proclaims as though the addition of doors to a dwelling is a shocking innovation.

Then, with much more excitement, she says, “Oh. Can you believe there’s a little fenced yard for the Tot?”

“The Totster.”

“Toteroni.”

“Tot-tastic.”

“Tot-ally Taterlicious.

The dog knows we’re messing with him because he’s jumping up and nipping a scant inch from Cally’s backside, wanting to get in on the joke.

“Are you my goodest boy, Tot-terrific?”

“Are you going to like it here, Totopotamus?”

He loves it and is whirling like a dervish and chuffing with delight. Somehow, this moment, as well as seeing this little slice of heaven that the Army has provided us, calms me to my very soul.

I open the gate to our backyard and set Cally on one side of a wooden picnic table—our picnic table—then pointedly take a seat on the other side where we won’t be tempted to touch.

Gripping her hand over the wooden slat tabletop, I glide my thumb across her knuckles. Just touching her like this, not having to hide her existence—or my feelings—anymore, is a gift. My chest feels full, expansive.

“Would it be hurtful if I mentioned that we got off to a bad start, Cally?”

“Naw. I think that would be an accurate description.” Her gaze roves over my face as though she’s memorizing every detail. It’s another way she lets me know how much she accepts me despite my differences.

“With my rut and the threat of discovery hanging over us like a noose, would I be crazy to say I think we got things a little backward?”

“Backward? Yes. Upside down and backward.” Her soft smile widens, as though our terrible beginnings were a good thing.

After lifting her hand to kiss each knuckle, I place a soft kiss into the middle of her palm. “I’d never met a female before. I fell for you and everything went so fast. It wasn’t at all like I’d imagined when I allowed myself to dream about falling in love.”

Her hazel eyes, luminous in the growing dusk, search my face, wanting more of an explanation.

“Can it be love, Cally? So quickly?”

She lifts out of her seat so she can lean across the table and reach close enough to cup my cheeks in her palms. “I don’t know what it’s like in your skin, Sylas. All I can tell you is that I’ve never felt anything like this before. Never felt this depth of affection. When I thought they might have hurt you, I almost lost my mind. So maybe it’s not love, but the falling part is accurate.”

“It feels that way in my skin, too. So I’m glad we’re on the same page. But I’m wondering if, even though what we shared in bed last night was… wonderful…” I pause, hoping the heat of my gaze communicates just how wonderful it was. “Could we slow things down? Get to know each other better? Settle into the house together and play with Totzilla and watch stupid TV shows and let me learn a thousand things about you before we have more sex?”

We’re so different from each other. I’ll never know what it was like to have a family or go to high school or prom or even some everyday thing she’s done a thousand times like order food in a restaurant.

I doubt a woman whos visited every state in the union and is drop-dead gorgeous would be cool with moving in together without coupling tonight.

“What about your rut?”

“No bugling today. My urges aren’t gone, but they’re manageable.” I chuckle and shrug. “Besides, I’ve always got the bathroom… and my hand.”

“I think I’d like that, Sylas. To take it slow. In fact…” She pauses and pooches out her lips, deep in thought. “I think I’d prefer it. Let’s continue our upside-down courtship. We’ll go from hot and heavy to moving in together, to a kind of… Amish romance—perhaps with a bundling bed, and then we’ll progress to…” Her eyes twinkle and she can barely contain the glowing expression on her face that screams of her immense happiness. “Perhaps we’ll go from that to something I never had the balls to even wish for.”

Something powerful and big and wide and deep unfurls deep in my belly. The words “home” and “mine” and “this is more than you hoped for” circle my mind even as some other crazy, happy, optimistic part of me whispers, “You deserve this, Sylas. No one deserves this more than you.”

I lean toward her, capturing her luscious scent in my nostrils, and cup my palm on her nape to ensure she’s not going anywhere. Her eyes close and the smile tugging at the corner of her lips is the only indication that I’ve made contact.

I inch closer in this uncomfortable posture as, across the tabletop, our mouths hover less than an inch apart. It’s as though we’re being pulled by some unseen force that can’t bear for us to be disconnected. After pressing my lips to hers, fire and ice and flames and passion overtake me, building inside me until I feel as though my whole body is alight with need and desire.

My heart pounds against my ribs when I hold her tight and explore her mouth with my tongue, drinking in her sweet taste. A pleasant shiver runs down my spine from the top of my head to the bottom of my hooves before settling low in my gut, leaving me groaning for more, almost dazed, moving on impulse.

Her kiss deepens with fierce intensity. Our tongues dance a slow, sensual waltz as we grow lost in pleasure. Every swipe of her tongue sends electricity zinging down my spine, making me shudder with delight. Heat pools in the pit of my stomach until it bursts into a searing blaze, spreading through every limb until it threatens to consume me, hotter than wildfire.

We take a break to breathe and gaze into each other’s eyes. How can the moment be so serious and feel lighter than air at the same time?

I stalk around the table, lift her into my arms, and almost tell her I’m not falling in love—I’m already there. But it’s too soon. Saying those words before I really know who this woman is, down to her very soul, would cheapen them.

Instead, I joke, “Did you just mention you had balls, Cally? I was trained to be observant, can see a bumblebee at a hundred yards. How did I not notice you had balls when my tongue was buried to the hilt last night in your delicious, molten channel?”

The look she gives me is so scorching, I wonder if we’ll be able to follow our plan to go slow even though that’s what we just agreed upon. Instead of acting on any of that, I ask, “What’s a bundling bed?”

“Some old-fashioned thing I read about where they would put a young man and woman into a bed when they were courting, but wrap them up so tightly they supposedly couldn’t do anything but talk. Sounds like craziness to me, right?”

“Yeah. Crazy.” And I just suggested we attempt the same insanity.