Double Your Pleasure Bundle (74 page)

Epilogue - One Year Later

The Sitanisburg economy was booming. Our wedding had given the economy the boost it needed. Now as tourists overflowed into the city for the summer Olympic Games, it was thriving like never before.

The three of us waited in my dressing room while I got ready for my performance for the opening night celebrations.

“Did you see the number of people out there?” Jonathon said. “I think it’s your biggest show ever.”

“I got a call while you were on stage,” Caleb added. “You just sold out Madison Square Gardens for your show next month.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said as I squeezed myself into my tiny costume. The next thing on my list was to make the designers come up with something in a more breathable fabric that would slide over a body soaked in perspiration.

“Seriously, somebody needs to wash these things in between shows,” I yelled. “There’s no excuse for making me go out there stinking.” I started spraying the outfit down with body spray, desperate to get rid of the stale odor that permeated from it.

“I’ll have someone take care of it,” Jonathon said with a smile as he patted my stomach.

“That’s all great. But tonight I have to go out there smelling like gym socks,” I pouted.

“No worries,” Caleb said. “The audience is far enough from you that they’ll never notice.”

“Hopefully the stench of me won’t knock my dancers out,” I laughed.

I looked in the mirror and fluffed my hair up. “How do I look?” I asked, turning to both of them.

“Wonderful,” Jonathon said, smiling at me with adoration.

“You look radiant,” Caleb said as he smiled at me. “We better get you out there.” We all went and stood behind the curtain, waiting for my cue.

“It’s not very often you get to announce a performer with two titles,” the announcer said. “Would you all join me in welcoming her pop diva Sasha Storms, her royal majesty, the crowned princess of Sitanisburg to the stage.”

I hurried onto the stage and took my position. “Hello Sitanisburg,” I said into the mic as I waved to the audience. The crowd started screaming.

“Have you ever been in love with two people at the same time? I have. You feel torn and you wonder what love would be like if you could take the easy road and just have them both.”

The audience broke into tears and cheered as my band broke into Love Times Three and my dancers joined me on stage. We brought the house down that night and gave a great kick-off to the first ever Olympics in Sitanisburg.

That night was also the first show in a world tour that I was starting. When Jonathon, Caleb and I had decided to be together forever, we had decided that I wouldn’t do anymore tours. But my new album under my own label was selling so well, and the fans had escalated it all the way up to number one on all of the charts. I wanted to give them something back.

Besides, I owed them that much. What I didn’t tell them was that that tour would be the last tour I would ever do before I retired from the business. They’d given me so much over the years, and I wanted to go out with a bang and give them something to remember me by.

There was something else I was keeping from them too. Had they looked closer they would have noticed that I wasn’t dancing as vigorously as I normally did. I was also wearing flats on stage instead of spiked heels on this tour for the first time ever.

It wasn’t just Jonathon, Caleb, and I who were backstage talking that night. I was pregnant. The three of us didn’t know whose baby it was. All we knew was that it was our baby, and that was all that mattered.

THE END

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SHARED BY HER BEARS

Desirae Grove

About Shared By Her Bears
:

Angie Wilder’s past is shrouded with secrets. Since she was a child, she's woken with her sheets shredded and scratches on her headboard. As she matured, Angie became aware of her seductive power over men. Her curvaceous body lures them, even as she fights the need to succumb to her desires. Warned by her parents that she has a greater purpose in life than falling for one of the local boys, Angie struggles to stay innocent while her body betrays her. 

Angie's allure eventually puts her family in danger, and she's forced to flee. Her mother tells her to find a place called Evergreen Heights, and from the moment she steps foot into the idyllic town, she feels like she may have found her true home. Especially once she meets Hank and Woody, the handsome and rugged leaders of the small community. Soon enough it becomes clear that the burly bachelors have been waiting for her their entire lives. Now they just have to convince Angie she doesn’t just belong in Evergreen Heights, she belongs with them. 

Chapter 1

Cold water seeped through the holes in her sneakers: curious slits that appeared a few night into her crossing. Too driven by fear and the need to escape, Angie paid little attention to their unlikely precision: five neat but vicious punctures splayed around her toes. Her mother had thrust the sneakers at her in great haste, assuring Angie this pair would hold up okay, that she wouldn't wander into Evergreen Heights bare-foot like an animal. The town was only a few miles away now, though how she knew this, she couldn't be certain. Her parents gave no directions, told her to get off the bus at the very last stop and make for the tree-line. To walk in the icy streams as much as she possible. To rest only when she must, and to never stop moving toward her goal, or
they
would find her. Catch her. Put her to use. 

Angie winced as the cold gripped her feet, but she was getting used to it now. Eighteen days she'd been on foot through the mountains: no map, no compass but the stars and something inside her that compelled her to go on. Thirst and hunger kept her from thinking about her parents back home, or if home even existed any more. She drowned out her memory of their cries with birdsong and her thumping footsteps. 

Her full hips had become no less generous in this time, and Angie wondered how her constant trekking and raw food diet had done so little to affect the soft curves that had caused so much trouble back in the city. The burly, whistling men, imploring her to bend over in the street and give them a better look. The amorous boys in school, struggling to hide their attraction behind notebooks in class, their adolescent manhoods responding instinctively to the shy girl with the plump curves and flowing strawberry blonde hair. As a college freshman, she thought now would be the time for her to start dating, to take advantage of this mysterious aphrodisiac effect she had that so worried her parents, and caused them so many fretful nights at the table with her Uncles. Here in the mountains, she missed the attention while she cursed it. If it hadn't been for her, so many people might be alive right now...

She sniffed the cold night air and caught traces of wood burning, gasoline and black coffee, and blueberry pie. She struck out for the distant glow between the trees, and as the moon rose above her, she finally saw the sign she'd been looking for. 

EVERGREEN HEIGHTS DINER: STEAK AND EGGS SPECIAL, FRESH PIES DAILY

Her stomach rumbled at the thought of hot food, and she didn't care about the tattered and inexplicably torn dress she wore or what the other diners would think of the over-abundance of milky white breasts peeking through the shreds of floral fabric, whether her nipples, taut from the cold night air, might wind up dipped in someone stranger's root beer float. She could smell the warmth inside. It was all she could think about and she didn't care about anything else anymore. If they were going to catch her, she wanted a good meal first. 

Angie was used to turning heads, but when she pushed on the heavy glass door of the diner, the bell chiming above her head announcing her entrance, every face glued itself to her. She tried to hide her face and thought about running back into the night. Her hand leapt to her hair and pulled loose a few errant twigs and leaves. She realized that her arms and legs were caked with mud. She probably smelled bad. 

The dining room was surprisingly full, given the lateness of the hour.
Maybe Evergreen Heights has a lot of night work?
Angie shuffled herself into an empty booth. Certainly, the men staring at her certainly
looked
hungry: lumberjack beards and broad barrel chests dominated the space. Arms and torsos radiated such strength and vitality, Angie could imagine a sudden movement busting a table to splinters like plywood, tearing fixtures from their moorings. She averted her eyes and fidgeted with her menu, trying not to catch anyone's eye. She felt like everyone in the diner was staring at her.

"Are you okay, honey?" A waitress approached with a pot of coffee in one hand and a concerned look. "Can I call someone for you?"

Angie shook her head, intimately aware the whole diner was listening to their conversation. "Is.. is this Evergreen Heights?" she asked, almost whispering. She read the waitress's name tag.
Mindy
. She looked like a Mindy, with her teased blonde hair and heavy, rounded breasts. She was probably about thirty-five, and acted somewhere between a wise matron and a giggling school girl. She was, in essence, the quintessential waitress, and Angie was as surely warmed by her presence as that of the central heat and over-worked grill in the diner. 

"It sure is, honey. Welcome! Aren't you a pretty thing? You must be cold though, I reckon, and you need something to eat, am I right? Here have some coffee. Now something else hot, don't you think?" Mindy, like an unstopped bottle, poured out question after rhetorical question, pausing only after her final inquiry as she pushed over a cup toward the new girl in town. 

"I think I'd like a slice of pie, please."

"I'll cut it extra big for you," Mindy winked, leaving a cup of steaming hot coffee behind.

Angie heard a dozen sets of laps shift against the crackling vinyl of the padded booth seats: cherry-red and new looking but strangely punctured, like they'd been installed by someone with claws instead of fingers. She glanced at one flannel-shirted man at the counter, his startled look making her blush and quickly look back at the tarnished veneer of the tabletop.

Mindy brought over her order, somehow balancing at least a quarter of a full blueberry pie and a pint of vanilla ice cream. As she placed them gingerly in front of Angie, she winked again.

"Say, it's about time for my break. Mind if I take a load off right here?" Angie shook her head, her cheeks already loaded with rich and sweet pie. “You look hungry enough to eat roadkill!" Mindy laughed, and Angie nodded again, this time sheepishly. Ha. Maybe she was...

"So, if you don't mind me asking, I don't mean to intrude or anything, but what brings you to Evergreen Heights?"

"Mmmphht. Mmu-mmm— “ Angie began, before catching herself and swallowing her mouthful. She tried again: "My mother… she told me I ought to come here."

"Ought to?"

Angie had no response that sounded reasonable, so she shrugged and heaped another spoonful of pie between her full lips. She gulped down the coffee, savoring the heat as it ran down her gullet. She could still feel the men watching her in the room. Strange town. Polite. These men, whatever their fascination with her, were remarkably restrained, and Angie found she didn't feel threatened like she used to, back in the city. When the waitress suggested seconds, she nodded eagerly and enjoyed the warmth emanating from the cosy little restaurant with the neon sign.

She felt a warm fuzzy feeling in the back of her head and vaguely remembered it as satisfaction. It was funny how quickly she'd forgotten simple human pleasures, and how extravagantly she'd fallen back into them (another colossal wedge of pie arrived at her table). If anyone in the diner knew what it was like to wander on foot for weeks through sheer rock faces and snagging trees and bushes, to tear these same blueberries loose from the twig and have juice run down her chin instead of syrup, to feel a salmon crushed between their teeth and the soft give of flesh under hungry jaws; if any of the assembled knew how she'd lived these past few weeks, they would have been shocked, or so she imagined.

Mindy seemed content not to push the topic any further, but instead took a sip from her own coffee cup and asked if Angie had some place to stay.

Angie shook her head, swallowing another mouthful before she haltingly asked in a small voice, “Motel?" 

Mindy laughed and wiped a little blueberry smear from Angie's chin.

"Evergreen Heights only has about two hundred residents, and nobody much comes to visit. The motel was boarded up after they built that new interstate. If you need a place to wash-up, get a good night's sleep, then you can stay right here. My place is just out back."

Angie remembered all the times her parents warned her to stay away from strangers, to watch out for leering men or suspiciously kind women. But they'd also told her to come to Evergreen Heights. And the way Mindy wiped her chin, and the comfort Angie felt at that tiny maternal gesture, caused her to nod in thanks.

"If it's too much trouble I can figure something out, of course."

"Oh don't be ridiculous! What, are you going to sleep in a tree? My couch folds right out, it's no trouble at all."

Angie giggled and shrugged (what's another night in a tree?) but accepted the generous offer gratefully.

"We're open another hour or two, but if you're happy to stick around, I can get you something else to eat? On the house, of course,” Mindy said, eyeing the empty pie dish. 

"How about some of those steak and eggs?" Angie asked.

* * *

Mindy introduced her boyfriend Jed, one of the impossibly butch flannel-shirted men at the counter, before bidding farewell to the fry-cook, another heavy-set man with huge powerful hands. 

"Ma'am," Jed nodded to Angie. He looked curious, like all the other people at the diner, but with an even keener interest. He studied Angie as they walked. His expression mirrored the way Mindy looked at her: intensely curious but respectful and gentle. Angie thought it was admirable of him to remain so even though she could see he, like all the men in the diner, was sporting an obvious hard-on.

Angie blushed furiously as she followed them to the cottage behind the diner and cursed herself again. She didn't understand the effect she had on so many males but she knew it was something to fear. Her parents made sure she understood some men weren't to be trusted and would do terrible things to her. As she stamped her feet on the worn welcome mat, she sincerely hoped Jed was a trustworthy man. After these last few weeks, Angie didn't know if she could trust anyone anymore, but the thought of a real bed and a warm bath was too tempting. 

"I think after a night like that, it's whiskey time!" Mindy shouted merrily as they burst through the front door of her small but pretty home. “Just one. Or maybe a couple more,” she winked.

Jed smiled at his lady, and shrugged at Angie before stumbling off to the kitchen for three glasses and a bottle. 

"Sooooo..... Um, sorry about Jed," Mindy whispered while he was out of the room, "but I hope you're not embarrassed."

“I… I'm sorry?" Angie whispered back, blushing deep dark red.

Mindy raised one eyebrow but smiled knowingly, with infinite patience. "The hard-on. He don't mean anything by it, I promise."

"Oh, that! Not at all, he's the perfect gentleman! It's not his fault, I ah... I just… so... you noticed?" Angie whispered, one watchful eye on the kitchen door.

"Noticed that you gave every guy within a quarter-mile an erection? Oh honey, you are sweet! Yeah, I noticed. But don't worry," she winked, "Everyone in town is real respectful. I guess the folks around here are just a little more susceptible to pheromones than most, so don't be surprised if they can get a little worked up."

"It started happening when I turned eighteen. It's kinda... scary."

"I bet it is, pretty thing. I bet it is!"

At that moment Jed returned with a full-sized bottle three quarters full of amber liquid, which in his vast hands looked tiny.

"Hey Jed, baby, Angie here has that 'effect' on the folks in the city, too!"

Jed's brows knit a little, and he looked ever-so-slightly perturbed by his girlfriend's open chatter. "Mindy, don't embarrass the girl!"

"Oh she's not embarrassed, honey! But just think what that could mean to the boys..." Mindy raised a suggestive eyebrow, and Angie, feeling the whiskey burning down her throat and the heady comfort of this neat little home, wondered who 'the boys' were, and why they'd want to know about her. It couldn't be good.

"I'm sure it'd mean plenty,” he rumbled. "And look, Angie, I really am sorry about the whole.. this. Thing. I guess us men are just part animal or something."

"Don't worry baby, I'll take care of it for you,” Mindy said saucily before draining off her glass and running a lascivious tongue over her lips. Jed looked almost as embarrassed as Angie did, but he accepted a kiss. Angie wondered if these two might be her favorite couple in the whole world. "Can I draw you a bath before you get to bed, honey?" Mindy asked, smiling broadly.