by Rachel Lacey
“For what it’s worth, I really wanted you to have it,” she said.
“I appreciate that.” I rolled toward her, burying my face in the soft fabric of her shirt. At least now I knew, and I could start preparing myself for the inevitable.
“Cherry looks comfy over there,” Phoebe said as her fingers drifted slowly back and forth across my back. “I was afraid she’d be crying in pain or look really sick…I don’t really know what I expected, but right now, she looks like a healthy sleeping puppy in silly clothes.”
“Puppies are so resilient,” I said. “She’ll bounce back in no time.” And hopefully, so would I.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I nuzzled my face against her neck. “And I have everything I need right here.”
“Do you?” She gasped as I slid my tongue along the underside of her jaw. Her skin was so sensitive there, and I never tired of tasting her.
“I sure do.” I gripped her bare thigh as I placed hot, openmouthed kisses across her throat and over her chest. I’d never thought bone structure could be beautiful until I’d fallen for Phoebe, but there was something so…elegant about the curve of her collarbones. She was built like a dancer, small and petite, and yet, she had no rhythm.
She wasn’t particularly athletic either. I was often the one encouraging her to hike farther, to explore the next hill or curve in the path, when she would have been content to stick her feet in the stream and daydream in the sunshine. Without her, I never remembered to take those breaks. I’d shown her the top of the mountain, and she’d shown me the way it felt to close my eyes and feel the whisper of the breeze against my cheeks.
And right now, I wanted to show her stars. I teased the hem of her shorts with my fingers while I explored her collarbones with my tongue. Phoebe’s breath hitched as she exhaled. The warm, sweet scent of her lotion seemed infused with her skin, like she was literally a treat waiting to be eaten.
My fingers slid beneath the hem of her shorts, exploring the soft skin below. Maybe it was our teenage make-out sessions that had given me such a fixation with these parts of her body. She hadn’t been ready for me to take off her clothes back then, so I’d spent hours worshipping every exposed inch of her skin, and now I fell back into old habits, exploring the valley between her breasts and the strip of stomach visible above her shorts where her top had ridden up.
But Phoebe wasn’t as patient as she used to be. She grabbed my wandering hand and brought it to the button on her shorts, a not-so-subtle invitation. I popped the button as she reached for my jeans, making me suddenly aware of the need burning inside me. She dragged down my zipper, and her fingers continued on their journey, rubbing against me right where I ached for her.
“Phoebe,” I whispered.
“Yes?” she asked, her face all wide-eyed innocence while her fingers continued to tease me over my jeans.
I love you. The words almost spilled from my lips before I could stop them, but the realization hardly came as a surprise. Some part of me had been in love with her since we were kids, and a part of me probably always would be. “You’re killing me here,” I murmured as I arched into her touch.
“In a good way, I hope.” She pushed at the waistband of my jeans, and I wiggled out of them.
“Always.” I helped her out of her shorts, crawling down to trace the edge of her underwear with my tongue. Her panties were a deep green, the color of the forest canopy outside. I already knew what I’d find when I removed her tank top, but when I bared the matching bra, my pulse jumped at the discovery that there was a small pink rose embroidered between her breasts. “Sexy,” I whispered before giving it a gentle tug with my teeth.
Phoebe sat up, mahogany curls hanging over her shoulders and the prettiest blush darkening her cheeks as she yanked at my T-shirt. I lifted it over my head, and then we were both in our underwear. I sat there for a moment, just taking in the sight of her before me in her sexy green lingerie.
A puppy squealed, and we both turned automatically to check on Cherry, but she was fast asleep in her box. Blaze was trying to climb over Sunny in the whelping pen, and Sunny wasn’t happy about it. Violet watched idly, letting them work it out on their own.
“The guest room,” Phoebe said, sliding off the bed, and I followed her across the hall.
We stripped each other out of our underwear and sank onto the twin bed together. It might be smaller than the one we’d just left, but this bed had seen every stage of our relationship. Phoebe straddled my lap, pushing me flat against the bedspread. She leaned forward, bringing our lips together as she began to rock against me.
I could feel her wetness against my skin, and it fueled my own desire. We rolled onto our sides, threading our legs so we could both get the friction we needed. We moved against each other, hands roaming everywhere. I played with her nipples until they’d tightened into hard buds, then bent my head to take one in my mouth while my fingers circled her clit as she ground herself against my thigh.
“Yes,” she breathed, moving faster. Her fingernails bit into my back, drawing me closer against her, and her thigh shifted between mine, somehow sending me right over the edge.
I moaned, hips bucking as my orgasm washed through me. I kept stroking Phoebe, kept kissing her until she’d joined me, jerking in my arms as she found release. Afterward, we lay together in a tangle of arms and legs and several curly strands of her hair.
“I’m so glad you’re staying here for a few days,” she murmured. “Not only to have your help with Cherry, but just to have this time with you. It’s going to be so great.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice gone a little bit gruff. I was looking forward to it too, but I also knew it was going to make it harder to give her up…and the cabin too.
“And in all seriousness, are you hungry?” she asked with a naughty smile. “Because I’m starving. I need to go shopping, but I could throw together some pasta or something. My last few days got totally sidetracked by Cherry.”
“Pasta sounds good to me. One of us can go shopping tomorrow.”
“That’s the handy thing about having someone else here with me,” she said as she sat up, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I don’t know what I would have done here by myself. I’m so scared to leave her. I’m already worried that we left her in the other room.”
Warmth spread through my chest as it always did when Phoebe went soft for her foster pups. “Then let’s go check on her.”
27
Phoebe
Taylor and I sat with our feet in the stream, letting the icy water wash over our toes for as long as either of us could stand it. Although it was mid-June now, the water flowing down from the Green Mountains was still cold. We’d brought the Adirondack chairs from my grandma’s patio down to the stream because there was just no better sound in the world, as far as I was concerned. It splashed and babbled past us, crystal clear and moving fast.
Cherry was snuggled in a blanket-lined laundry basket beside me, wearing a baby-blue shirt. She’d been home almost a week and was recovering well. Every day, she was visibly stronger, and this morning she’d successfully nursed with her siblings for the first time. Violet lay next to the laundry basket, watching over her baby. She’d been surprisingly mellow about all of this, seemingly unfazed by Cherry’s illness and the changes her recovery had brought.
“I could get used to this,” I said as I wiggled my toes under the water, watching the way my pink nail polish rippled beneath the surface.
“Don’t get too used to it,” Taylor said, darting a glance in my direction. She did that every time I hinted that I wanted to stay, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Did she want me to leave, or was she holding me at arms’ length to keep herself from getting hurt?
I didn’t want to hurt her. I hadn’t then, and I definitely didn’t now. I didn’t necessarily want to leave either. As much as I missed my friends and my condo in Boston, I knew I would miss Taylor even more when and if I went home to stay.
“Getting cold feet already,” I joked as I pulled my feet out of the stream. I dried them off and tucked them beneath me in my chair to warm up. “Seriously, though. I’m doing a lot of financial consults. I should be able to stay until these guys are weaned.”
“That’s good,” Taylor said, swiping her foot back and forth through the running water. She had more tolerance for the cold than I did. “Soon they’ll be running all over your house, though, so be forewarned.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
They were starting to romp and play inside their pen, and Taylor had started bringing them outside after they ate to see if they’d use the bathroom on their own. We’d had to line their pen with absorbent pads now that they were starting to pee independently.
“I’m not thrilled about them peeing on my brand-new floors, but we just won’t include that part in the rental listing,” I said.
“As long as you can get the smell out.”
“I’m going to cover the entire kitchen in pee pads and keep them in there,” I told her, only half joking.
Violet got to her feet and walked to the edge of the stream, dipping her head for a drink. She slurped noisily before shoving her dripping face into the laundry basket to sniff Cherry. The puppy yipped, reaching toward her.
“You want some one-on-one bonding time?” I picked up the puppy and handed her to Taylor while I spread the blanket from inside the basket over the grass.
Taylor leaned over to set the puppy on the blanket. She toddled across it in her little blue shirt, and Violet settled in beside her, tail wagging. Cherry stumbled over her mom’s outstretched paws and nipped at her tail before settling in for a snack. Her ears twitched back and forth while she nursed.
“Steven’s wedding is this weekend, right?” I asked, because Taylor hadn’t mentioned it in a while, and I was wondering if she had changed her mind about bringing me.
She nodded, watching Cherry and Violet. “Still want to come?”
“I do, as long as you’re okay with introducing me to your family as your date.”
She looked at me then, and I felt the same hesitance from her that I’d been sensing more often lately. “I don’t have to introduce you as my date. We could attend as friends.”
“Well, I want to be your date,” I told her. “I’m ready for people to know that you’re not just my friend, Taylor.”
“It feels like a moot point when you’re about to leave town.” She stuck her feet back in the water.
“I’m not in a hurry to leave,” I told her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“It means I’m trying to stay as long as I can. I’d like to see where this thing between us is going. Stop acting like I’ve got one foot out the door.”
“But you do,” she insisted. “Phoebe, if I show you around town as my girlfriend, I’m the one who has to stick around and field the questions about what happened after you’re gone.”
“Fine, then don’t,” I said, harshly enough to make Violet look up at me in surprise. “We’ll just keep hiding out here at the cabin so I can slink back to Boston without your family ever knowing we were together.”
“That’s not what I want,” she said with a frustrated sigh.
“If you want to take me to the wedding as your friend, I’ll go,” I told her. “Because I am your friend, or at least I hope I am. I hope I’m more than that too.”
“You’re both,” she said quietly. “Let’s just play it by ear, okay?”
“Fine,” I agreed, but our words buzzed like gnats in the air between us. I wanted more. I suspected she did too, but she was afraid to say so. Could we have more? Or was she smart to keep our relationship under wraps to protect herself after I’d left town?
Beside us, Violet slept on the blanket next to Cherry, who had flopped on her side and passed out in a milk coma, little paws twitching with puppy dreams. I envied the simplicity of her life, despite her dramatic start. Yesterday, she’d gone for a checkup, and the vet was cautiously optimistic that her liver troubles were behind her.
Every morning, Taylor picked up Minnie and went to work at the shelter before bringing Minnie back to her sister’s house so she could come home to me in the evenings, and it was all amazingly good, despite the undercurrent of awkwardness over our future.
“Want to watch a movie tonight?” I hadn’t found much time to sit around and watch movies when I was in Boston. There were a lot of things I hadn’t made time for, like cuddling puppies or singing in a bar or helping a small-town bakery owner figure out where she could cut corners to improve her profit margins and hire the part-time help she desperately needed.
I was calmer and happier now than I’d been in…maybe ever. And Taylor was a big part of my newfound happiness. So was Violet. The puppies weren’t exactly calming, but they did make me smile a lot. And for now, I was doing my best to enjoy every moment and trust that this was all going to work out the way it was meant to.
On Saturday, I put on a knee-length green dress that I’d brought with me to Vermont and that Taylor assured me was fancy enough for Steven’s wedding. I put my hair up in a twist with a few loose curls to frame my face and did my makeup for maybe the fifth time since I’d been here. I’d gotten used to a more casual lifestyle, and I was discovering that I liked it.
Taylor had spent the morning at her apartment, catching up with Minnie, and had gotten ready there. She’d pick me up in about fifteen minutes, and Holly was coming over to stay with the puppies so they didn’t get into trouble while I was out. Unofficially, she was also picking out which one she wanted to adopt.
I spritzed a little bit of perfume on my wrists and fastened my favorite necklace around my neck. It went perfectly with the low-cut neckline of this dress. Then I slipped into a pair of strappy flats since the ceremony took place in a park and I’d never mastered the art of walking in the grass while wearing heels.
“All right, you guys,” I said as I scooped puppies out of the playpen into the laundry basket that had become their method of transport. A few days ago, Taylor had brought over a larger playpen that we’d set up in the backyard so that they could run around in an enclosed area. Otherwise, they darted off in every direction, and it was impossible to keep my eyes on all of them at once.
I put Sunny, Blaze, and Elizabeth in the basket and brought them out the back door with Violet at my heels. I didn’t need a leash with her while the puppies were outside, because she never strayed far. She’d sit beside the playpen like a watchful mama. Cherry wasn’t allowed to roughhouse with her siblings yet, but her staples came out in a few days, and she’d be allowed to rejoin the fun then.
In the playpen, Elizabeth toppled Blaze while Sunny squatted to pee. They really were growing up fast, just as Taylor had warned. While they frolicked in the grass, I went back in for Cherry. I scooped her out of her box and carried her outside. Mindful of her incision, I’d started carrying her belly up like a human baby, and she seemed to have taken to it.
She lay in the crook of my arm wearing a pink shirt, all four paws sticking skyward, eyes bright and watchful, her body loose and relaxed as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
“Oh, just look at her!”
I turned to find Holly standing there, one hand pressed against her chest, and I had a feeling which puppy she was going to choose. Actually, I hoped she did adopt Cherry, because I’d grown fond of both Holly and Cherry over the past month, and I’d love to see them wind up together. I set Cherry in the warm grass at my feet, and she bounced toward Holly. “She’s a handful today, I’ve got to warn you,” I told her.
As if to prove my point, Cherry pounced on…well, I wasn’t sure what she was aiming for, but she face planted in the grass with her butt sticking up in the air. She had a thicker coat than her mom. They all did. Taylor had told me that while it was impossible to say what breed their dad was without a DNA test, it was starting to look like they might be part Lab.
“I can handle her,
” Holly said with a smile as she knelt in the grass beside Cherry. The puppy licked her leg, tiny tail wagging.
“Want me to help you bring them back inside before I leave?” I asked.
“Nah,” Holly said. “I’m happy to stay outside with them for a bit.”
“Okay. I’ll just bring Violet in and feed her.”
As if she knew what I’d said, the dog turned and followed me into the house, those brown eyes tracking my every move as I mixed her usual bowl of wet and dry puppy chow and set it on the floor.
“You’re in for an unhappy surprise pretty soon,” I told her as she began to scarf down her food. “Once the puppies are weaned, you’ll have to start eating regular portions again.”
I washed my hands so I didn’t go to the wedding smelling like dog food. I’d just dried them when I saw Taylor coming up the front steps. She had on burgundy slacks and a white button-down top, and my heart gave a little kick in my chest at the sight.
“Hi,” I said as she came in through the front door. “You look really nice.” Her hair was more polished than usual, and she’d accented her eyes with mascara and a coppery eyeshadow that complimented her complexion.
“So do you.” She pulled me in for a quick kiss, tugging at the hem of my dress. “Ready for this?”
“Totally ready. I love your family.” I still wasn’t sure whether I was attending as Taylor’s date or her friend, but either way, I was looking forward to the chance to see her family. I hoped I was her date, though, because I was tired of hiding. I wanted to shout our relationship from the rooftops. I wanted everyone to know.