“Ready?”Raina asked, holding the timer.
I nodded.
She flipped the hourglass, and I grabbed both of Naomi’s hands, lacing my fingers through hers from behind.I held them out in front of her and made the motion of milking a cow.
“Uh …” Jagger said.“Is this appropriate?”
Naomi giggled.“I was about to ask the same thing.”
“Yes, it is,” I said, my body temperature rising.My hands were getting sweatier too.
All I could think of next was the fact that when people milked cows, they were usually sitting on a stool.So I went into a yoga Chair Pose and pulled Naomi’s butt onto my lap while continuing to move her arms in a jerking off—but also udder milking—motion.
Oh, fuck my life.
“Driving a car?”Honor asked.
I shook my head.
“Shooting a machine gun?”Austin said.
I shook my head again.
“Puppet master?”my kid asked.
“No.”I wasn’t sure what else I could do besides what I was doing.How else did you convey “milking a cow”?I couldn’t make any noise.I couldn’t use Naomi as the cow and pretend to milk her.
Oh god, that would surely get me booted off the island, but not before all these men kicked my ass.
With my fingers still laced through hers, I held her thumbs and forefingers with mine and made them pinch invisible udders.I’d never milked a cow in my freaking life.Maybe I was doing this entirely wrong.Was I supposed to take the cow to dinner and a movie first?
“Are you … milking a cow?”Mabel finally asked, wrinkling her cute little nose.
Before I could unlink my hands from Naomi’s, I rose both sets of our arms into the air in victory.“Yes!That’s it.”
“Time,” Raina said.
“Yeah, okay, I can see that now,” Naomi said, untangling our fingers.Her grin was lighthearted and beautiful as she spun around and offered me a high five.“I wasn’t entirely sure why I was sitting on your lap at first.Not gonna lie.”
“It was the milking stool,” I said with insistence.“I swear.”
Her green eyes twinkled as she went to sit back down.“I get that now.”
My cheeks were probably redder than the merlot in everyone’s glasses; they were certainly warm enough.“Sorry if—”
She held up her hands to stop me.“It’s a game, Lennox.Relax.”Then she winked at me before topping up her wine from the bottle.“More?”
I shook my head.“I’m driving.”
“Dad made me drive the truck today,” Mabel said.“We didn’t get pulled over by the police.He was lucky.”
All the adults in the room snickered.
“Mom has let Damon do that before, but only on the property,” Laurel said.“Why’d you get to drive?”
“He had a migraine and couldn’t see straight.Probably from getting bad news about—”
“Which reminds me, I should really have some water.Mabel, water?”I said, standing up and giving her a look she knew well.A look that kindly, firmly requested her to change the subject and keep our business private.
