She doesn’t stop. She sucks every drop from me, her lips sealed tight, her tongue cradling the head, and when I finally collapse back against the pillows, she swallows, licks her lips, and laughs—this disbelieving, delighted little sound, as if surprised by her own animal ferocity.
We collapse in a tangled, backwards heap. Her feet are near my pillow. My head is somewhere near the foot of the bed. Lance Bass observes us from the wall with an expression of patient tolerance.
“Verdict?” I ask the ceiling.
She’s quiet for a moment. Catching her breath. “I understand the hype.”
“Not overhyped?”
“Not even slightly. But I do have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“How does anyone concentrate? I kept forgetting what I was doing because of what you were doing. It’s like trying to read while someone plays the piano. Hard to strategize.”
“You strategize while you’re giving me head?”
“Always.”
“Woman, if it’s the last thing I do, I will find a way to get you to relax.”
She crawls back up the bed and settles against my chest. “I’m relaxed.”
We lie there for a few minutes, tangled together in a twin bed that was built for a teenager and is barely containing two adults, while the pink walls turn gold in the sunrise and the *NSYNC poster bears silent witness to things no boy band should ever have to see.
Then the sound hits.
A truck. Not just any truck. The rattling, diesel-throated growl of a vehicle that sounds like it’s been arguing with its own engine for the past hundred thousand miles. It rumbles up the driveway, loud enough to vibrate the guesthouse windows, and comes to a stop somewhere near the main house with a shudder and a hiss that suggest the brakes are having a philosophical disagreement with the wheels.
Celeste sits up. “Is that your truck?”
“My truck doesn’t sound like that.”
“Your truck sounds exactly like that. Saylor, is someone stealing your rental? How much are you paying for that thing, anyway?”
“Enough that I should own it by now.” I pull on my jeans and a T-shirt. “But that’s not my truck.”
“Then whose?—”
“Stay here. Get dressed. Meet me out front in ten minutes.” I kiss the side of her temple, quick and warm. “I have a surprise.”
“The last time you surprised me, I ended up blindfolded in my own office.”
“This one’s better.Eh,” I correct myself. “Comparable. This surprise is comparable.”
I cross the yard barefoot. The grass is cold with dew and the morning air smells like cut wood and the end of summer. Themain house is quiet. Mum will be awake soon, but for now the kitchen windows are dark and the only sound is birdsong and the ticking of the truck engine cooling in the driveway.
The truck is a Ford. Old, green, mud-caked on the wheel wells, with a livestock rack in the bed and a bumper sticker that reads HEELER MOM in peeling letters. The driver’s door opens and a man steps out. Mid-fifties, sun-weathered, wearing a canvas jacket and boots that have seen actual farms. He’s got a crate in one hand.
“Saylor Evans?”
“That’s me.”
“Dave Kendrick. Meadow Ridge Farm, up in Dutchess County. Got your heeler.” He sets the crate on the tailgate and unlatches the door. “Eight weeks old. Female. Dam’s a working dog, sire’s a champion agility runner. This one’s the runt, but don’t let that fool you. She’s got more engine than her siblings.”
He reaches into the crate and pulls out a puppy.
She’s small and compact and the color of a thunderstorm. Blue-gray speckled coat with rust patches above her eyes and on her chest, ears too big for her head, paws too big for her body. She blinks at the morning light and immediately starts wriggling, not with fear but with the full-body enthusiasm of an animal that has decided the entire world is happening right now and she needs to participate in every part of it simultaneously.
