“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 gettooused 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.”
