The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters), Sheehan-Miles, Charles [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

above the knees and gave enough of a view of her knockers to make me want to get a much closer look. Black ankle-high leather boots with three inch heels accentuated perfect calves and brought her almost eye to eye with me in height, which is pretty unusual and awesome.

I’d only been home from Afghanistan a few days, and seeing women who weren’t in Army uniforms was still overwhelming. But Carrie was so much more than that. She would have caught my eye in any crowd, with the natural grace of her movements, her long willowy body, the arch of her eyebrows and those pale eyes—I was instantly in lust with her.

Her eyes widened a little as we approached, and she said something to her sister I couldn’t quite hear.

“Jesus, Dylan. You didn’t tell me Alex’s sister was a freaking model.”

He smirked. “I think she’s a scientist or something, Weed. Smarter than either one of us.” I’m about a head taller than Dylan ... and pretty much everyone else ... so the guys in the platoon always called me Weed.

We reached the girls a moment later, and Alex introduced us all. Carrie looked at me with kind of a half-smile on her face, hands at her sides. “So, um ... you were in the Army with Dylan?”

I wanted her out of that dress right then. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. I smiled at her, looked her in the eyes. “Yeah, I had to drop out of college in 09. Ended up enlisting.”

“Oh? Where did you go?”

She turned to walk beside me. About six inches away. “Stony Brook. It’s actually not so far from here, up on Long Island.”

“How’d you end up in the Army?”

“Ehhh ... my parents both worked for the same startup, got laid off at the end of 2008. They finally had to sell the house, and there wasn’t any money for school, but the financial aid people didn’t see it that way. So ... off to the Army I went.”

“Where are you from?”

I was starting to feel off balance from the sudden barrage of questions. But I wanted to ask her questions too. Lots of them. This wasn’t love at first sight. This was pure, unadulterated lust. Everything about her, from the way her hair framed her face and the slight gloss on her lips to those legs just made me want to howl.

“Burbs,” I replied. “Glen Cove. You?”

“All over, really, but my family lives in San Francisco.”

Ahh. I remembered Dylan saying she was from a diplomatic family. “Your dad was foreign service, right? Dylan said you and your sisters come from a ... kind of an establishment sort of family.”

She nodded. “Yeah ... I went to three different high schools.”

“That must have sucked.”

She shrugged. “You roll with the punches best you can. It wasn’t so bad. When did you get out of the Army?”

“Week ago. I was already extended past my original discharge date because we were in Afghanistan. Got back from there two weeks ago and started processing out of the Army as soon as I could.”

“So what are your plans?”

We’d reached the curb by then. I looked at her and grinned. “Get drunk.”

She laughed. “I didn’t mean right this minute.”

“I did. We are going to a party, right?”

Carrie shook her head, but I could see she thought I was funny. I needed to keep working that, because I was so getting into those panties. That’s when I noticed we’d left Dylan and Alex behind. I nodded my head in their direction. They were standing about fifty yards behind us, wrapped in each other’s arms. Oblivious of the fact that we’d left them behind.

“We should leave them,” I said.

Carrie bit her lip. “They’ll have each other’s clothes off in five more minutes if we don’t interrupt.”

I shrugged, trying to sound casual. “Nothing wrong with that.”

She snickered. “I don’t think campus security would agree.”

I couldn’t stop myself. I looked at her and gave a slight leer. “Let’s find out.”

She laughed then slapped me on the shoulder. “Not so fast, soldier. We just met.”

“There’s always hope,” I replied. Then, in my best Harrison Ford imitation, I said, “I don’t know, what do you think? You think a princess and a guy like me….”

“Oh, no. You did not just do that.”

I tried to look innocent. “Do what?”

“Quote Han Solo at me! I’m not that big of a geek.”

“I am. Let’s go get the lovebirds. And I did not quote Star Wars at you. If I was, I’d be much smoother about it than that.” I winked at her, started to walk back toward Dylan and Alex, and said, “Come on, Princess.”

She muttered, perfectly mimicking Princess Leia, “It’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

That made me laugh out loud.

With a little bit of effort, we managed to pry Dylan and Alex apart long enough to get them to the curb so we could wave down a cab, and headed toward the party. The cab had one of those glass dividers you’d expect to find in a cop car, so the four of us had to cram into the back seat. Carrie and I were jammed pretty close to each other, a fact I was intensely aware of.

Here’s the thing. I enlisted summer 2009, which is when Dylan and I met in basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. God only knows why I picked Infantry, other than the fact there was a hell of a signing bonus, which combined with the GI Bill would easily pay for my last year of college when I got out. In any event, we spent our summer in the boonies in Georgia, then a year at Fort Drum, New York, which isn’t all that far from home for me, then it was off to Afghanistan, during which time my enlistment was involuntarily extended. That was all fine. Except for one thing. Here it was, the fall of 2012, and I hadn’t touched a girl since sometime in 2010. And here was this