Chapter 27
“Get your sticky claws off the cake!”
Dove jumps and whirls as I enter Hunter’s kitchen, caught with her fingers tucked under the plastic lid of the gender-reveal cake.
“I was just checking to make sure the lid was secure!” she cries, hopping onto a stool and kicking her feet like she thinks that makes her look innocent.
“Uh-huh.” I take the seat beside her and watch the guys puzzle over loading Hunter’s car through the bay window.
“Do you really think Hunter is the one behind the letters?” Dove blurts, a pinprick of anxiety needling my chest.
I’ve tried not to think about it, but the idea still prowls the back of my mind like a big cat at night, waiting to make a kill.
I take too long to answer, because she hums—a soft, neutral sound. “I don’t know, Buns. I don’t think it’s him.”
I don’t get the chance to reply. The guys trod back inside, looking exasperated.
“Is there a reason you both need to bring two bags for a weekend away?” Wrenley asks, peering between us like we’re lunatics.
“Duh, Songbird. We’re reading a cowboy romance right now. We’re going to a farm. We needed farm outfits for aesthetic photos,” Dove explains, vexed, like she’s said this a hundred times.
“What are farm outfits, and why does this sound kinky?” Hunter waggles his brows at me. “Does it include boots and Daisy Dukes? Please tell me it does, Little Rabbit.”
“Maybe if you’re a good boy,” I purr with a wink. Though, I have zero intention of having sexy time in his parents’ house. He swears they won’t hear us, but the thought alone is a lust-killer—no matter how hot Hunter on a farm will be.
“You both know we have to bring all the dogs and the chicken. Can’t you consolidate the bags? Even getting rid of one helps,” Wrenley says, staring at Dove like they’re having a silent conversation.
Whatever passes between them has her hopping off the stool. “Fine. Fine. Bring our bags upstairs and we’ll work on them.”
“We will?”
Dove grabs my hand. “If I’m a good girl, I get a spanking later, and I do love those.”
“Oh god.”
“If Wrenley is getting lucky tonight, I better be too, Bunny!” Hunter’s chuckles follow us up the stairs.
As soon as the guys drop our bags on Hunter’s bed, Dove shoos them out and shuts the door. “Okay, now that we’re alone-alone, we can talk.”
At my quirked brow, she sighs. “We should tell Vixey about belt guy.”
“I told you I want to keep something else over her besides the fact that she killed that guy.” I make little air quotes. “I’m almost certain he wasn’t dead when she left. You didn’t see him. I think belt guy finished the job—he had blood on his hands when he came outside.”
“Okay, but she’s part of the club now. That’s not something we keep from each other,” Dove says, already excavating our bags and tossing out what we don’t need.
“She’s not a serial killer,” I whisper, even though the door’s shut and the guys are downstairs. “She made a mistake and told us because she found out our secret. I don’t fully trust her yet.”
“So you’re saying there’s a chance?” Dove stills, looking at me like a puppy when someone says walk.
“I’m saying I want to keep something on her stashed away in case things go sideways.” I haven’t talked to the new third of our little club in a few days, and for some reason, I’m just now wondering if we should have invited her with us for the weekend.
“What’s Vixey doing for Thanksgiving?” I assume Dove knows—they talk daily. It used to bug me. Now I’ve accepted it.
“She’s in Connecticut with her parents,” Dove says, flinging a third pair of pink cowboy boots on the bed.
Of course she has a nice family who wants her around for the holidays.
Sighing, I rub my belly as baby bean shifts. I’m still not used to another life moving inside me. As Dove pulls out a stack of pink-and-white shorts, I shake my head. “Okay, I think Wrenley is right, Love Dove. You don’t need this much. And it’s cold. Why the shorts?”
“Listen, missy. It’s not every day we go to a farm—”
“Hunter’s parents will let you visit whenever you want.”
“And I want to take lots of photos—”
“We’re literally going back for Christmas in a month.”
“And I want enough photos that we don’t have to do this again at Christmas when it’s colder. I want options! Why can’t a girl have options?” She stomps and glares.
Holding my hands up in surrender, I start sorting through her outfits and props. Picking up a stuffed chicken, I toss it aside. “There will be real chickens, Dove.”
A low growl rumbles from my best friend, and I hold in a laugh while she shoves everything back in her bag and mutters, “Fuck it.” Yanking the door open, she yells, “Make it work, Songbird. I’m not unpacking anything.”
“No spankings for you then,” Wrenley calls up, completely unbothered like this is just their daily conversation.
She snorts and looks over her shoulder. “That’s what he thinks. I’ll just tie him up and give him the spankings.”
The audiobook’s narrator purrs through the car’s speakers: “I release a whimper as the rope cuts into my wrists, the pain as deep and mind-numbing as the length of Orson’s cock rubbing against my walls.
His piercing adds a sense of heightened pleasure, the tickler on the ball of the ring making me see stars… ”
“Oooh. Tickler? That’s new. I don’t think we’ve read anything like that,” Dove chirps, delighted.
I sneak a glance at Hunter, quietly laughing when I see he’s white-knuckling the wheel, eyes locked on the road.
“Shut that pretty mouth before I stick something in it and shut it for you. Unless you want the town to hear your screams. Is that it, city girl?”
He presses harder on my lower back, forcing me down further. My wrists hang above my head, chapped and raw, and I wonder how I’m going to be able to hide the marks when we return to the party happening just on the other side of the barn.
Hunter adjusts himself discreetly. I hear Wrenley whisper, “What the actual hell are you two reading?”
“Don’t you dare judge, Songbird. We like our word porn. Besides, you know how much I like listening to the dirty stuff,” Dove says primly.
“Is this the kind of shit you want me to do to you, Little Rabbit?” Hunter murmurs for my ears only.
The thought of someone catching us only lights my body up with excitement, and that—paired with the fact Orson is currently trying to penetrate my stomach—sends an unfurling wave of electricity zipping down my legs to make my toes curl.
“Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it? You city girls always like to be roughed up and fucked good and hard.
You like taking the cowboys out for a ride for the weekend and returning to your concrete jungle where the suits are selfish and can’t figure out how to pleasure a woman even if they treat it like a business deal. ”
“Hey!” Hunter and Wrenley bark in unison, faces morphing into offended indignation.
“We are not selfish!” Wrenley argues.
“I am the most unselfish man ever,” Hunter huffs, shooting me a worried look. “Right? You don’t think I’m selfish, do you?”
“Oh my god, just because it’s in a book doesn’t make it true!” Dove cries, leaning over the center console to turn down the volume and pause it.
“Exactly—and it’s not like we want everything that happens in these books. Rope burns? No thanks,” I add. “Besides, he means the big-corporate millionaire types.”
“Which—yes, he’s talking shit about her cheating fiancé, but honestly, something tells me men like Jackson Tailor are absolutely not clueless about the female form,” Dove segues.
Holding my fist back for her to bump it, I nod. “I hear that.”
“Can we not talk about Mr. Tailor? Like… ever… again?” Wrenley groans, flopping back to stare out the window.
“Wow, he really did a number on you, didn’t he, Wren?” I glance at him in the side mirror. “What happened at that work lunch with his wife?”
“Aww, buddy, Brooks says he’s not that bad,” Hunter teases. Plastic crinkles. I look over to see him fishing out a bag of—oh god—jerky.
All my humor evaporates. The scent hits. “Hunter, where did you get that?”
Please say you packed it from home. Please say you packed it from home.
“Grabbed it from the back when Wrenley wasn’t looking. Bastard’s holding out on road snacks.” He grins and lifts a strip to his mouth.
“NO!” Dove, Wrenley, and I shout together.
Everything slows. I lean across to smack the jerky from his lips at the same time Wrenley lunges for the bag. Dove squeals as Hunter slams the brakes and swerves. Adrenaline zips through me as my fingers clamp the oh-shit handle.
It takes a few seconds to get the vehicle under control, and he pulls over hard, shoves it in park, and twists around to pin Wrenley with a look. All traces of humor are gone, sucked out of the car. Heat radiates off Hunter.
“Do not ever—and I mean ever—pull that shit again while they’re in the car.” He jabs a finger at me. “If you want to put your princess in danger, be my guest, but I will fucking kill you if you harm my queen or my child. Do you understand, Wrenley?”
This side of Hunter doesn’t come out often: dark, broody protector who only appears when he thinks I’m in danger.
His voice drops, amber eyes molten. If our friends weren’t here, I’d climb into his lap because this version of him turns me on immensely.
Goosebumps pebble my skin, my breaths go shallow, and my thighs flex, trying to relieve some of the pressure between them.
A soft cluck from Pepper, who’s in a pen at my feet, cuts the silence, followed by the dogs’ whimpers from their kennel in the back.
Wrenley releases a long breath before apologizing. “I’m sorry. You’re right. But that’s the dogs’ jerky. Sorry—I didn’t want you eating whatever shit they put in this.”
My eyes find Dove, who’s biting back laughter, eyes sparkling with mirth.
Hunter mutters under his breath and turns to me. “You okay?” His hand spreads over my stomach, and a tiny flutter blooms beneath his palm.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Warmth floods me—gratitude and lust swirling like eddies.