They’d slept late, the sun fully up before either of them roused. Then they had lain in bed for a while, kissing and talking, Liddie taking the opportunity to explore all the ink on Tobias’s body. Which ended up with her between his legs, his cock in her mouth and him pulling her hair as she sucked him off. He’d roared as his orgasm raged through him, and then he’d pulled her up and kissed her silly.

Now, Liddie, who had noticed that he winced while he was clenching and unclenching his fist, was busy massaging his forearms as he leaned back against her in the bathtub.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, that feels so good.” Tobias’s eyes rolled closed and his mouth grew slack as Liddie kneaded his thick forearm. “I don’t know . . .” His voice trailed off as she worked a particularly tight muscle. “Holy crap, I could get used to this.”

Liddie grinned and continued with her massage. “How long have you been having these cramps?”

“I dunno—a few years.”

She stopped her ministrations. “A few years?”

Tobias shrugged. “Got a carpal tunnel diagnosis a few years ago. I wear wrist guards and do the exercises when I remember to, but when I’m playing a lot like I have been lately, I just pop some ibuprofen and deal with it.”

Liddie kissed Tobias’s tattooed knuckles, and he fanned his fingers out to cup her cheek.

“Thank you for coming down last night,” he said, his voice quiet.

“Thank you for inviting me.”

Liddie began to work her magic on his broad shoulders and chest. She ran her hands along the planes of his pecs, and he exhaled, sinking back against her. Liddie couldn’t help but notice his cock jutting out of the bath, more than half-hard. She squirmed against Tobias’s back, his heavy weight pressing against that sensitive bundle of nerves and making her curl her hips up against him.

“Am I too heavy?”

“Oh, you’re just perfect,” she said with a little grunt. Tobias turned to face her. He wrapped one arm around her, pulling her tight against him while he slipped two fingers between her folds. Liddie gasped as he thumbed her nub while he rocked his thick digits in and out of her slick core, and when he wrapped his lips around one tight peaked nipple, she thought she was going to lose her mind. She pulled his hair this time as she writhed against his hand and mouth, gasping with pleasure.

Suddenly Tobias pulled back, bringing her with him. He kissed her hard and then turned her around, her hands bracing against the edge of the tub and her ass in the air. Liddie moaned when he ran his fingers over her rump and again when he thrust his thumb into her core. But when he used his fingers to spread her and added his tongue to the already mind-blowing combination? She thought she might cry. She gasped and groaned as he fucked her with his fingers and mouth, and when she didn’t think she could take any more, she felt him lean over her back.

“I wanna take you like this.” His voice was hoarse in her ear, and she could feel the very tip of his cock poised at her entrance.

“Yes.”

He plunged deep into her in one long stroke, one hand curled over her mound, where he could get to her clit, and one around her breast, where he had a nipple in an almost-painful pinch. He pulled out and then thrust into her again. Liddie cried out with pleasure, her voice reverberating against the tiled walls. Tobias found himself pounding into her harder, faster, just so he could hear her make more of those sounds. He could feel her legs beginning to quake as his fingers circled her clit and he thrust even deeper. Finally, she stiffened and jolted hard, her legs collapsing from under her so that Tobias was solely responsible for holding her up, supporting her. He thrust once, twice more, slowly, as his climax roared through him. His cock finally stopped twitching, and he slid out of her and kissed the back of her neck before curling her into his embrace. Liddie leaned her head back and kissed his chin. She was still breathless, but she was smiling and looking at him with such adoration that he found himself with a lump in his throat.

“Thank you,” she mouthed as she ran her hand over his cheek. “Thank you.”

´*•.¸(*•.¸ *¸.•*´)¸.•*´

Liddie was sprawled out in the front seat of Tobias’s car, full of a fantastic lunch that Nolan had prepared. She was having a hard time keeping her hands to herself even though she was deliciously sore, a soreness she hadn’t felt in years.

 “What is that little smile, pretty lady?”

Liddie shook her head, unsure if she could speak without being overcome with emotion, and Tobias nodded in understanding. They didn’t talk much on the way back, but the silence wasn’t tense. It just . . . was.

“I think I need to move out of my uncles’ house.”

“Oh, really?” Liddie saw Tobias glance at her before turning back to the road. “I thought the whole reason you came out here was to help take care of Ace.”

“It is. It was.” She sighed. “Actually, Bunny was the one who mentioned me getting my own place. He said he thought it would be good for me to be able to get away—like, completely away—especially when Ace starts getting really bad.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted with a laugh. “I mean, I spent four years taking care of Rich, being his caregiver, and after he died, I just kind of . . . was. I didn’t go back to work. I didn’t do much of anything at all except rid the house of every trace of Richmond Douglas.”

“Did it make things better?”

“Not really.” Liddie picked at a pull in the denim of her jeans. “The girlfriend he had before he got sick came to the funeral.”

“Holy shit. That takes some balls.”

“Oh, she is something else, I’ll tell you.”

Tobias goggled. “What did you do?”

“Oh, I had myself a little Steel Magnolias come-undone, complete with finding the flower arrangement she sent and running it over with my car.”

Tobias howled with laughter. “You did not.”

“I did. Backed over it three times and then put it back in the reception area. That was not my finest moment. She just made me so damn mad.”

“What did she do?”

“Nothing. She just had the unmitigated gall to be twenty years younger, fifty pounds lighter, and about five inches taller.” Liddie shook her head. “That bitch.” She laughed. “I’m over it. I tracked her down and apologized about three years ago. She looked at me as if I had three heads, but it made me feel better.”

“You just reminded me not to ever get on your bad side, Liddie Hopewell.”

“It would take a lot for you to get on my bad side, I think.” She patted his hand. “Honestly, the only thing you could do to hurt me would be to go back to Candy.”

Tobias aspirated some saliva and began wheezing and choking, so much so that he almost had to pull over. When he recovered, red-faced and teary-eyed, he said in an adamant voice, “Honey, that is absolutely the last thing you have to worry about.”

“Good.” She took a deep breath and ventured into some scary waters. “You know, I’m pretty sure Candy was responsible for siccing the sheriff on us that night.”

She felt Tobias stiffen in the seat next to her. “How do you figure?”

“She was the only person I told that I was meeting you.” She looked out the window at the quickly passing landscape. “We’d been doing the whole ‘I’m staying at Candy’s house/Candy’s staying at my house’ thing, and then we’d go sneak off to one of your shows. So when we heard the church was having a lock-in, we figured we could play it where we’d be there at the church, but in another area, whereas really, we were going to be doing something entirely different. I always knew I was going to be with you, and Candy was supposed to go to one of Mary Frances’s parties. But Mary Frances ended up not showing up at all to the lock-in, so Candy was kind of stuck.”

“And rather than let us be, she squealed on us because if she wasn’t going to get to party, no one was.” Tobias shook his head. “Sounds just like her. And yeah, it makes complete sense. I spent all night trying to figure out who ratted us out. Hell, I figured Cal and his big mouth probably let something slip, not meaning to, of course.”

Liddie giggled. “Poor Cal.”

“Poor Cal, my ass. I got more whippings for stuff he blabbed about than for anything else.” He chuckled and shook his head. “But that was a long time ago, and we’re together now. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, it’s doesn’t matter.” Liddie leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “It doesn’t matter a bit.”

They approached the outskirts Hemlock Creek, and Liddie felt her mood deflating. She wasn’t ready to leave his company. Tobias must have been feeling the same way because he asked Liddie if she needed to do any errands before he dropped her off. They stopped by the grocery store, where Liddie picked up a premade dinner, and then headed to the house she shared with her uncles and her daughter and granddaughter.

“Stop. Stop, stop, stop!” Liddie pounded on Tobias’s arm.

Alarmed, Tobias came to a halt in the middle of the street. “What’s going on?”

Liddie pointed. “Look at that.”

Before them sat a tiny yellow-and-pink house. The front of the house was almost completely obscured by untrimmed rosebushes and hydrangeas, and Liddie could see a honeysuckle-draped pergola in the back. But better than the flowers or the backyard was the For Rent sign in the front yard.

Tobias huffed a laugh. “Well, hell. I couldn’t imagine a place that looks more like you.”

“It’s a sign,” Liddie murmured as she pulled out her phone and began punching in the numbers written on the yard placard. “Yes, hello. I’m calling about the lemonade house on East Main? Is it still available?” She listened a moment to the response. “Well, we’re sitting in front of the house right now. Yes, ma’am. Ten minutes?” She lifted her eyebrows in question, and Tobias nodded. “That would be wonderful. Thank you. We’ll see you in a bit. Bye-bye.” Liddie turned to Tobias. “The owner lives up the road. She’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Tobias grinned and pulled over to wait for the owner.