Three Rings and a Rose (5 page)

Addy cut them off, just as Josie slammed the hatch shut. “Why don’t we continue this conversation elsewhere? I don’t think we want anyone to know where we’re going. It was risky enough coming here.

I would prefer we keep this under wraps as long as possible. Even our manager, Ted, doesn’t know we’re here. Let’s keep it that way.” Without speaking, Josie hopped back in the car, buckled up, and started the engine.

“Sounds good to me,” Caedon replied. “We can chat about—”

“No,” Brooklyn clipped out before turning her back on him and strolling around the car. She silently got into the passenger side then shut the door behind her.

“Well, this is going to be fun,” he grumbled—to himself. While he’d been distracted by Brooklyn, Addy had abandoned him, too.

She’d gotten into the back seat behind the driver.
Perfect
.

Shaking his head, he stalked around the car and got in the only available seat which just happened to be behind Brooklyn. As soon as he pulled the door shut behind him, Josie put the pedal to the metal, and the car took off. He hurried to buckle up then sat back with an annoyed grunt.

“So,” Addy murmured. “What’s the plan, Brooklyn?” Turning in her seat, Brooklyn talked directly to Addy. “First, we’re going to go back to our apartment and have a very long chat.”

“Don’t you mean sneak them into our place?” Josie asked, sounding slightly hostile. She took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot her friend a dirty look then let them wander back to the windshield. “We are going to get busted. I know it.” Brooklyn didn’t so much as glance at her friend. The only response she gave that she’d even heard Josie was when she muttered,

“We’re not. Trust me, I know.”

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Josie mumbled something that Caedon couldn’t hear. Obviously, Brooklyn had because she ended up rotating her head and frowning at her friend. “Stop worrying. It’s going to be fine.” When Josie just ignored her, Brooklyn returned her attention to Addy and explained, “Josie is a worrywart, but it’s unfounded.” She grimaced. “We have gone to great lengths to make sure that Ella and Micah are not home for the next few hours.”

“We? Who?” Caedon inquired curiously. It obviously wasn’t Josie. She seemed pissed to be even here at all. That meant someone else was in on this whole damn thing. On the plane, Addy had explained how she’d hired a private investigator to find Ella. But for some reason, it had taken months for the man to find her. In the end, the private investigator wasn’t even the one to locate her. There had been a mysterious note sent directly to Addy. Although, he somehow got the impression that the note wasn’t quite so mysterious after all.

With the evident rapport between Addy and Brooklyn, he had no doubt that the two were in cahoots.

Addy glanced over at him, giving him one of her
duh
looks. “Me and Brooklyn.”

Big shocker
.

“And a…friend of ours,” Brooklyn added.

“A friend?” he inquired blandly. However, he was anything but uninterested. He wanted to know everything from the beginning to end, but he had to bide his time. All would be revealed in time—

hopefully in the very near future. Otherwise, he might be forced to drag every damn detail out of them. “Anyone I know?” Brooklyn peered around the back of her seat. Narrowing her eyes, she regarded him carefully. A minute of uncomfortable silence passed. Then she replied, “His name is Deke Andrews. I highly doubt you know him personally.”

The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t seem to place it.

Apparently, Addy could because she gasped. “
The
Deke Andrews?”
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Mia Ashlinn

Josie nodded, piping into their conversation unexpectedly. “The one and only.”

Rather than being the only oblivious one, he pretended to know who they were talking about. “So what does Deke have to do with me, Gabriella, or Micah?”
He better not be their third. I’ll fucking castrate
him or kill him—whichever comes first.

“Interesting,” Josie said, her stubborn silence obviously having fallen by the wayside. “You asked about Micah, too.”

“He and I used to be…”
What? Friends?
Since he didn’t know what to say, he cleared his throat and muttered, “It just made sense for me to ask.”

Josie glanced over her shoulder, staring at him with an annoyed expression on her face. “Strike one,” she snapped. “Two more, and you’re out of here.”

Good luck with that. I’m not going anywhere for a while.

Brooklyn chuckled. “I can tell you don’t believe that we will chuck your ass out of town if you mistreat Ella or Micah.” Josie returned her attention to the road. “He’s never been to Serenity before, so he has no idea about the rules there, but he’ll learn soon enough.”

Caedon had no clue what the confounding woman meant by her ominous statement. However, he had no doubt that he would find out.

And he also had the distinct impression that it might not be good for his health when he did.

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Waving, Ella Dawson called out, “Thanks for coming,” as her departing friends disappeared out the front door to her adult toy shop, The G Spot, and into the Serenity summer night. When the bell jingled, indicating the door had completely closed behind them, she spun around and stopped in her tracks.

The giant sign hanging over the entrance to the back room where they were holding the party taunted her, holding her attention captive, and she found her feet glued to the tile floor.
Double your pleasure,
double your fun…

Standing stock-still, Ella stared at the sign as though it would come to life and bite her at any moment. She plastered a smile on her face, pretending to find amusement in the tongue-in-cheek saying, but it wasn’t from the heart. No, nothing was from the heart anymore because she was fucking miserable.

Despite the group of girls celebrating Katie-Anne Jacobs, Jaycee Blakemore, and their impending baby arrivals just inside the doorway, Ella couldn’t dredge up an ounce of excitement. All she could think about was the date.
June 3rd.

She’d hoped that throwing the double baby shower with her three sisters, Hadley, Molly-Grace, and Reagan, would help her forget what day it was. She’d thought it might fix whatever it was going on inside her
.
But she was pretty fucking wrong
.

Today was no better than any other day. Hell, because of the date, it was oh-so-much worse, which was saying something. In retrospect, the past few months had been torture.
How melodramatic of me to put
it that way.

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Mia Ashlinn

They hadn’t been torture in the usual sense. She didn’t have someone hurting her physically. And no, there was no one abusing her emotionally. This was all on her. Well, if she wanted to get technical, it was on her best friend, Micah, and her ex-lover, Caedon, too.

It was on Micah because the bastard was gay. A girl in love with a gay man was doomed from the very first flip-flop of her heart.
Why
couldn’t he be bisexual? Shit, that would be fucking hot.

And it was on Caedon because…well, he was Caedon. The jackass had left her when she needed him most.
Okay, that isn’t
exactly fair. I practically pushed him out of my life, but it was his fault
for driving me to it.

Now here Ella was two years later, standing in the unorthodox hometown she loved, with a roomful of her favorite women mere feet from her. And what was she doing? She was moping around like a heartsick puppy.
No, I refuse to do this. I am going to go into that
room with my friends and my sisters, and I am going to have a good
time. Goddamn it.

Marching across her shop with purposeful strides, Ella barely made out the loud click-clack of her hooker heels on the tile floor.

She was too focused. She had things to do and fun to have—whether or not she damn well liked it.

Shoving open the door, Ella barreled into the room packed with six fabulous women. As soon as she spotted them all sitting around the table and inspecting various sexy toys, some of her melancholy emotions faded away.
Yeah, this is just what I need to do.

“Oh,” Shannon Dalton breathed, the chipper redhead practically bouncing up and down in her seat as she played with a prototype dildo that Wyatt Thorpe, the resident techno-geek at The Edge, had designed and crafted. It still amazed Ella to see the transformation of her friend. Gone were the unflattering clothes, makeup-less face, and frizzy hair. In its place was a gorgeous woman with cat-like eyes that had a perpetual twinkle and a smile that never dimmed. “I want this one. That is an orgasm waiting to happen.”
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Jaycee snorted. “For you, everything is an orgasm waiting to happen.” The heavily pregnant blonde woman scooted back in her chair with a groan, leaning against the pillows they’d propped up behind her. Jaycee stared at Shannon, the blue depths of her eyes reflecting her obvious fatigue, as she stroked her rounded belly.

If I was eight months pregnant, I would be doing a hell of a lot
more than groaning. I would be snoozing on the damn couch by now.

They’d been celebrating the upcoming births of Jaycee’s twins, Ava and Mason, and Katie-Anne’s little boy, Kane, all day.

They’d begun the party early this morning with a massive breakfast at her sister’s bakery next door, The Sweet Spot. While there, they’d ate everything under the sun, from juicy fruits on decorated trays to decadent pastries that were practically orgasmic to an over-the-top buffet of meats, eggs, and breakfast potatoes. When they had finally stuffed themselves, they’d opened presents for the babies, all the while chattering incessantly like magpies.

Before they knew it, several hours had passed them by, and they were hungry all over again. With a call to Shannon’s mentor and boss, Stellina Belluci, they’d had a feastlike lunch in no time. The elderly Italian woman who owned the ritziest restaurant in town, Dolce Serenità, had whipped up enough food to feed a small army and rushed it over with the help of her granddaughter, Magdalena, and her great-niece, Cassandra.

It was probably a good thing that Ella’s sisters had closed The Sweet Spot for the day because after lunch, they’d all stayed put. It wasn’t until late afternoon that they finally moved next door to Ella’s store where they’d lavished the two mommies with after-baby goodies, including everything they could ever want—lingerie, toys, and all the accessories.

And, of course, they’d popped in some porn and watched it together. Ella had even served popcorn and chips to everyone. Not surprisingly, Jaycee had loved the porn part, and Shannon had adored the potato chips. The first woman watched more porn than most men.

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Hell, Ella had gotten the idea from the weekly porn party Jaycee threw on Hump Day. And the second woman was obsessed with chips because she swore that fucking was as addicting as the fried potato slices.

We are a bunch of freaks and pervs. God, no wonder I love them. I
fit right in.

“So true,” Katie-Anne retorted, sounding as though she were answering Ella’s transient thought. Only she wasn’t. She was speaking to Jaycee. Twirling a few strands of her shoulder-length black and orange hair around her index finger, the exotic-looking woman boldly winked at Jaycee. “I’m amazed our girl isn’t having triplets of her own. She fucks her men like some damn bunny. I don’t know how they survive it.”

Shannon grinned. “Do you want to know? I can totally hook you up with some dirty details.”

Jaycee groaned. “I have a feeling we’re heading into the too-much-information zone.”

“That is saying something,” Katie-Anne replied. “Your inner pervert sure loves to know everything else.”

“Aw, come on,” Shannon mock whined. “I am no good at keeping dirty secrets.”

Ella rolled her eyes and finally alerted the girls to her presence.

“No shit, Shannon,” she murmured. “Your mouth is bigger than all your husband’s dicks combined.”

“Hey,” Shannon said, grinning up teasingly at Ella without an ounce of jealousy or possessiveness. “How do you know how big they are?”

Strolling over to the only open chair in the room, Ella plopped down. After her long day of playing hostess, she was pooped. Her feet ached, her muscles were like jelly, and her eyes drooped. But that wasn’t enough to stop her from prodding Shannon. “Sugar, you have told me the measurements. And damn, those boys are huge. I’m jealous, you lucky bitch.”

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“Ew,” Jaycee screeched. “I don’t want to know how big they are.

A lot of things I can handle, but I will draw the line right there.”

“I’m not telling you a thing,” Ella sassed. “I was just making a comment to our nympho girlfriend.”

Katie-Anne chuckled. “You sound like me, Jaycee Elizabeth.”

“Oh, God no,” Shannon groaned. “Not two of them!” All six women in the room laughed then silence descended on them. Scanning all of the women, Ella noticed that she and Jaycee weren’t the only exhausted ones. Her three elder sisters were crammed onto one of the two sofas in the room, each of them yawning broadly. Across from them on the other couch, Shannon and Katie-Anne reclined lazily with Jaycee between them. None of them were yawning, but they didn’t need to be. The exhaustion was set in the lines on their beautiful faces.