“Whoa.” I try to get up, but my arms flail and my backside doesn’t lift an inch off the mattress.
“Noah”—Serena steps aside—“why don’t you lie next to her and demonstrate the side by side position.”
“But—” I begin to protest as Noah glides next to me.
“Don’t worry, Lot. We’ll wing it.” He wedges himself close to me and both Serena and Lainey work to put us together in a plausible spooning position.
Come to think of it, I think we were doing just this last night. With our clothes on, of course. I hope.
“This is so not what I envisioned,” I whisper to him.
“That’s funny”—Noah mutters—“this is exactly what I envisioned.”
Serena and Lainey work to land us in a few other comprising positions—with me in his lap facing one way then the other. The next thing I know, I’m on all fours while Noah bumps his business against my rear, much to the delight of the crowd. But before I can blush properly, my legs are hoisted over Noah’s shoulders while he plays crouching tiger, hidden fifth appendage with my nether regions.
I can’t even see Noah at this point, but judging from the laughter bubbling around me, he’s doing something funny down south. And, oh my word, I think he just bit my inner thigh.
“Noah.” I laugh as I scoot up on my elbows.
“All right”—Serena taps him on the shoulder and Noah stands once again—“last position of the night.” She and Lainey have Noah stand close to the edge of the bed while they hoist my legs straight up his body with my feet popping up around his ears while I lie flat on my back.
I’m actually quite familiar with this position because it happens to be one Everett and I have utilized more than once. I’m not sure why, but there’s just something comfortable about lying back while Everett does a majority of the work. It’s only fair. Once the baby is born, my guess is, I’ll do a majority of the work—in the traditional sense, of course.
“Okay”—Serena pushes Noah’s body into mine—“this is a good one because your partner can really get in there like the good old days.” She gyrates Noah’s hips into my backside until soon enough he takes on a rhythm of his own.
“Look at the eye contact you can have,” Lainey chimes in. “If you like the lights on, this one is for you!”
Noah keeps up with his rutting movements, and to be honest, it sort of feels like a massage all on its own. My eyes close as I let out an involuntary moan. Noah has always been pretty good at thrusting.
A set of footsteps stomp their way in this direction, and no sooner do I hear Lainey gasp than my lids fly open and I see Essex Everett Baxter blink to life in a wool coat over jeans. His hair looks dewy from the shower, his beard is neatly trimmed back to mere scruff, and his bright blue eyes siren out like a couple of warning lights.
“What the hell is going on?” He takes a moment to glower at Noah. “Never mind.” His lips flicker my way. “I think I can take it from here.” Everett gives Noah a shove and my legs end up latching over his body instead, and I swear on all that is holy, about six different women just expelled an audible sigh.
I quickly work my way back to my feet and wrap my arms around him tightly.
“Everett!” Tears spring to my eyes. “Is it really you?”
“It’s really me, Lemon.” He lands his lips to mine and we share a rather heated kiss for all to see. But the people around us, the room, and all of Honey Hollow disappear for a moment.
Serena shouts for the class to enjoy the coffee and cookies before dismissing everyone and Everett pulls back with a sigh.
“Looks as if I’ve missed it after all.”
I gaze up at his brilliant blue eyes, I can’t drink him down fast enough. I cannot get enough of this man in my presence.
“Hey”—Noah steps over as we look his way—“how the heck did you pull this miracle off? I take it you didn’t escape.”
“I did escape, but I did it legally.” Everett’s features harden. “I couldn’t stand the thought of missing out on tonight. I called Fiona and told her to push this boulder out of the way. Call in favors, do whatever the heck dirty work needed to be done. Just like that, bail was set, and I called my sister and she helped me settle it.” He looks my way. “I didn’t want to burden you with it. I wanted to surprise you. Little did I know I’d be the one surprised once I entered this room.” He glowers over at Noah. “What the heck were you thinking?”
“It was a demonstration,” Noah shoots back.
“And in his defense”—I cower a little—“I volunteered. But I had no idea for what. I just saw that luscious bed and knew I had to crawl onto it. I’m exhausted.”
“Let’s get you home.” Everett lands a sweet kiss to my forehead.
And we do just that.
Everett and I eat dinner with Noah and Evie before we hit the sack, and boy do Everett and I ever hit the sack. It turns out, Everett is pretty good at thrusting himself.
It is magic.
It is beyond bliss.
It’s so heated, the paint just about melts off the wall.
Everett plies me with hungry, primal kisses that lead to far hungrier, far more primal places on that decidedly heavenly mattress of ours. My twin needs, Everett and the desire to lay my enormous body down, are finally met. Our passion explodes in a flurry of sparks, dangerous enough to burn all of Honey Hollow to the ground.
We go round after round, long into the night, until about two a.m. when there’s an abrupt knock on the door.
Everett and I pull ourselves together just enough to find Evie on the other side holding a phone out.
“It’s not mine,” she says. “I just found this in my purse. It belongs to Verity Prescott.”
Everett
Verity Prescott’s phone.
“Are we positive she’s a homicide victim?” I ask Noah as we stand outside of the rental Lemon and I are living in.
It’s the middle of the afternoon and Bear Fisher arrived a half hour ago with his crew to start clearing the land over what used to be Lemon’s old rental and my old place. I bought both places and moved heaven and earth to get the proper permits to conjoin the land and build a single family dwelling over both properties. A home for Lemon and me, Evie and our new child. And let’s be honest, Carlotta, too.
“Yes.” Noah looks incensed that I even had to ask. “Toxicology just got back to Ivy an hour ago. Verity had high levels of botulism in her system. As soon as Ivy got the news, she had the bakery swept to make sure it didn’t come from Lottie. And we know it didn’t. I told Ivy I had the phone, and she wants me to bring it down to the station. She doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that it ended up in Evie’s purse.” He gives the back of his neck a quick scratch. “She pointed out that Evie was the star of Verity’s final Insta Pictures upload. And well, she pointed out that Evie suddenly has two million followers.”
“Two million?” I glance back to the house in horror.
“And counting. Yesterday afternoon, she was at one point five. It’s growing exponentially. Verity mentioned in her post she would be passing the baton to Evie one day.”