Page 99 of Sterling Stone

I can’t form a coherent thought. Nothing has ever been like this.

I slip my arms around her middle and lower my head to the back of hers, coiling around her while still buried inside her.

“Taxi.” I breathe out her name filled with a hundred questions and only one answer.

Stay.

Something I cannot ask.

Instead, I inhale the scent of citrus and honeysuckle and sex, and I squeeze her middle a little tighter, wishing I could keep us right here, locked in a bathroom.

A light rap comes to the door along with a throat clearing.

“Don’t mean to interrupt, but your meat might be burning.”

Both our heads lift and turn in the direction of the closure where Cortland speaks from the other side.

“Probably shouldn’t let Sebastian take over, like he wants to.”

I glance toward the mirror and catch on Taxi’s eyes, which are wide and gleaming back at me. She covers her mouth to hold in laughter, and I press a kiss to her shoulder to suppress my own.

Easing myself out of her, I reach for a hand towel, using it to catch any spill. Then I snap the towel gently against her left cheek.

“Ow,” she says, loudly, spinning to face me. Her skirt falls back into place. “What was that for?”

“So you remember me when you walk out that door.” I nod toward the bathroom door.

“I don’t think I could ever forget you. No matter where I go.” Her eyes dip sheepishly, and I pull her to me, placing a softer kiss on her, letting the touch linger, distracting myself from what’s been unsaid.

She’s still leaving.

Not today, but someday.

35

[Taxi]

During the week, I finally take Genie up on her invitation to go out with the girls. After my second Sylver Sunday, the girls begged me to join them, and I didn’t want to disappoint.

I also wanted to go out, not only for the break it afforded me from caretaking, but because I truly wanted to be with them. Their welcoming energy made me want to . . . belong.

Judd offers to stay with Simon at Trudy’s, keeping Nolan with them, and giving Genie a little mommy reprieve as well.

“Jailbreak,” Genie cries once we enter her SUV.

I don’t mention how her comment hits hard, letting the joke go as Genie is just too bubbly with relief for a night out.

“Nolan is a breast man like his daddy,” she overshares.

I wrinkle my nose. Despite my friendship with Judd waning for a while, I still consider him a friend. More like a brother, as he was around so often when we were younger. So, I do not want to hear this kind of talk, just like Vale doesn’t like to hear the girls discussing the sexcapades they have with her brothers.

I’ll also be attending my first Sterlet meeting, the weekly book club disguising a secret sex store. I’ve already learned that the Sterlets, a take on starlets for the women living in Sterling Falls, have an open-door policy, allowing attendees to come and go to accommodate their personal schedules. Vale is ever faithful in attendance.

“I consider myself an original member,” she says, as we sit at a round table with a wooden keg barrel base. A ritual among the Sylver women who attend the book club is meeting up at Milton Roadhouse to pre-game.

Enya and, of course, Genie are also present. “Not a Sterling Falls resident anymore, though,” Enya teases about Vale’s move to Rogue River, the next town over. “How’s it going over there?”

Vale dives into the trials of living with a man other than her brother after all this time.