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She stares at me. “Do you want to be owned?”
I lift her foot and kiss the side of it. “Desperately,” I admit.
She sits quietly, saying nothing.
“I want to belong to somebody.”
“Would just anybody do?” Her voice is suddenly serious.
“I’ve had almost forty years, Evie, to pick just anybody. So apparently not.” I lean in so that I can kiss the inside of her knee.
Her hands sink into my hair. “Have you ever been close to feeling like that? Like you feel you should just bite the bullet already and pick just anybody?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No. Never. I never wanted anything that serious with anybody else.” I kiss the inside of her naked thigh. “But I kind of want it with you. And that’s why I’m being cautious, because I can’t tell if you want me the same way.”
“You remember those card houses we used to make when were young?”
“With playing cards?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah. The ones that we could get up to eight stories or so.”
“I remember. What about them?”
“I always wanted to go bigger and bigger, and you wanted to be cautious.”
I grin. “I remember. You were determined to go so far and so fast that they’d fall in a big pile.”
“But then that one time we bet Junior and Barbara-Claire that we could get ours built higher than theirs. You wanted to stop, and I kept going. And we actually won. Our house didn’t collapse.” She stares at me. “Is that what you’re afraid I’ll do to us? That I’ll make our house of cards fall?”
She’s got me there. “Maybe. I don’t know,” I admit.
“Then we should keep doing what we’re doing until you’re sure. You’re afraid this isn’t going to be permanent, even though I’ve moved all the way back here.”
“You didn’t move here for me,” I remind her.
“True.” She nibbles at her bottom lip. “I begged you to kiss me that first night.” She stares at me. “I’m not going to beg you to fuck me, Grady.”
I sit back with a sigh. “I feel like we’re not getting anywhere.”
“Can I show you something?” she asks. Her eyes narrow at me. “Without you thinking I’m trying to go too far too fast?”
“What is it?”
She rucks the skirt of her dress up, showing more and more thigh. But it’s not a sultry strip tease. Instead, she’s on a mission. She rolls the dress up, shifting her butt so she can roll it higher and higher. “I branded myself with your name, you big dummy,” she says with a grin. She shows me the tattoo. It’s a heart just like mine, and it says I belong to Grady Parker and it has a Cupid’s arrow shot through the middle.
“You were drunk when you got that,” I feel obliged to remind her.
“I was drunk then, but I’m not drunk now. And if someone gave me a chance to have it removed today, I wouldn’t. I love it because it’s what I feel. When you talk about me owning you, Grady, you’ve got it backwards. Because it’s you who has me.” She points to the tattoo. “You’re with me permanently, and I couldn’t be happier. So while I’m sure that your caution is meant to protect your heart, you already have mine, you doofus. I love you. I’ve been in love with you most of my life. Even when we were at one another’s throats, I still loved you. I love you now. If you told me today that you hate my guts and I thought you meant it, I’d be devastated. If you couldn’t love me back, you would absolutely wreck me.”
She brushes her hand through my hair, and I close my eyes and enjoy it, my face resting against the inside of her knee. Her dress is still hiked up high, so high that I can see her white lace panties. The tattoo is right above the ridge of her panties.
I inch a little higher so I can press my lips to the tattoo. She squirms under my lips. “Grady,” she moans.
“Yes?” I say, as I blow a breath against her tattoo. The hairs on her upper thigh stand up as goose bumps erupt.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I nuzzle my face against her panties. Then I lean up so I can kiss her.
