At least once more.
Now I wanted more time with her, not just to eat her pussy and fuck her senseless, but just to be with her. I wanted to hear her laugh and teach her how to make Evelyn’s lemon-lavender cookies and talk more with her about her life in the city.
Most of all, I wanted to know why she was so anxious to sell the house and bakery and get back there.
I imagined her with a vibrant social life, men lined up for days to take her out. It made me more than a little crazy, but I was too far gone to even lament the fact that I already wanted her to stay in Blackwell Hollow.
I tried not to think about it, but my pulse raced like a fucking teenager at the thought of seeing her again, which ended up being pointless because when I got to the kitchen she wasn’t there.
Damn.
Sun streamed through the open glass doors, birds chirping from the trees and bushes outside. I started a cup of coffee, then cocked my head when I caught a sound from the terrace.
Talking. Someone was talking.
I followed the voices to the terrace while my coffee brewed, but when I stepped outside, it wasn’t voices plural, but one voice.
Noah’s, to be exact. And he was bent over, his head in some kind of flowering shrub, his voice coaxing.
“I’m listening. Just tell me who it was.”
“Who what was?”
He rose too fast at the sound of my voice and pulled away from the shrub with twigs and a smattering of tiny pink flowers in his short blond hair. “Fuck! You scared the shit out of me.”
“Serves you right after last night.”
He grinned. “I’d say I’m sorry but I’m not. I mean, I’m sorry it wasn’t me, but it was worth it just to see it go down.”
“You made that pretty clear.”Willing to let me third-wheel next time?“Stalker.”
“I was just minding my own business, looking for cookies. Not my fault you decided to get down and dirty on the island.”
My blood heated when he said the word “cookies,” and I had a flash of Avery, sitting on the island, her legs spread around my hips, her tongue darting out to lick a crumb off her full lower lip.
“It was a spontaneous decision.”
“I don’t blame you for making it,” Noah said.
“What was a spontaneous decision?” Dane asked, stepping onto the patio from the kitchen.
“Nothing,” Noah and I said at the same time.
I was actually relieved Noah and I were on the same page. Dane wasn’t our boss exactly — that title had been Evelyn’s before and was technically Avery’s now — but I had a feeling he wouldn’t love the fact that I’d been on the verge of fucking Avery last night or the fact that Noah had been eager to join.
“Who were you talking to?” I asked Noah.
Honestly I was more than happy to change the subject, which may or may not have been thanks to the echo of Noah’s words the night before. I wasn’t eager to share Avery with anyone, but I’d meant what I’d said the night before: it was her call.
Plus there was Dane, looking at us both through narrowed eyes like he knew we were keeping something from him.
“Penny,” Noah said, like it was obvious.
I sighed. “Which one is Penny?”
He scowled like I was being dim. “The pink peony next to the Boxwood?”
“Right.”