“Agreed.” I shudder right along with her. We try out three more and groan our way through the offerings.
“Last one.” She hikes her glass my way before leaning in to sniff it. “My God, that smells like heaven. What is it?”
“Cinnamon infused whiskey. It’s one of The Pelican’s and the Black Bear’s best sellers.”
“No kidding?” Her eyes widen, and we take a sip on three. Serena’s mouth falls open. “Winner, winner, hot honey dinner!” she chants, whooping it up as she jumps into my arms. “This is it! This is the drink I’ll officially gift to the Black Bear. They’re going to make a fortune off it. This is really delicious.”
“I agree. It tastes damn good with hot honey. You know what else tastes damn good with hot honey?”
A dirty giggle brews deep within her. “Me?”
“Damn right.” I swoop Serena off her feet and start to make my way out of the room with her, but she protests and reaches for the honey pot until it’s safe in her hands.
“I think tonight we make all of our hot honey dreams come true, one delicious kiss at a time.”
“Words I would never dare argue against,” I say, speeding us off to the bedroom.
She smears a line of the warm honey over my lips before kissing it off. Kissing Serena routinely arouses me to heights unknowable before, but tonight, with the sweet backbeat of Hollow Brook honey, she sends me into the stratosphere before I ever get her horizontal.
Serena gives a sultry laugh as I lay her onto the mattress. “This brings new meaning to the wordslicked you,you’re mine.”
“I’ve always been yours, Serena.” I lick a line up her neck and feel her trembling with laughter beneath me. “And I always will be.”
Serena and I spend the night partaking in exactly what we plan on doing for the rest of our lives. There are acrobatics involved, hot, sticky, sweet honey, a few stray rose petals that I can never seem to quite get rid of no matter how often I change the sheets, and whole lot of love and kisses that stretch into the early morning light. Serena and I have everything we’ve ever wanted, and we found it in the very last place we looked—right in front of us. In each other.
It couldn’t have happened without Emilia, though. It was always her dream for me to teach one day, so when the opportunity presented itself, I took it on behalf of my sister. In an effort to make my sister’s dreams come true, I accidentally made my own dreams come true as well.
That’s exactly what life has become with Serena in it, a beautiful, beautiful dream come true.
Weeks go by, and Sunday and Seth have a beautiful baby girl named Priscilla Rose Baker. Her moniker was given in honor of Sunday’s own mother who had passed. They call her Rissy for short, and Serena and I are smitten with her already.
So much has changed this summer. Life has propelled forward in both frightening and beautiful ways. And even though I spent the summer teaching, it was me who learned the biggest lesson of them all. Love is something you don’t need to chase down and force your way into. When the time is right, it will chaseyoudown.
It will happen just the way it was meant to happen.
It may not be easy, but it will always be worth it.
Having Serena in my life is worth stumbling over a thousand hurdles and obstacles, and maybe a body or two.
Yes, if I had to, I would do it all over again.
Serena is worth it.
She is worth everything to me.
Life doesn’t get better than that.
