Page 8 of Knot Baked Out For This
Matched. Redeemed.
My nails rake down Rowan’s back, then Levi’s shoulder, then Luca’s chest as I clutch at whoever’s closest. I need to stay grounded. I need to remember this is real.
My cunt pulses with the last aftershocks, slick leaking, making a mess of thighs and table and every inch of skin within reach. I want to care, but god, I don’t.
Rowan’s lips are at my ear, voice hoarse. “You’re everything, Hazel. Let go.”
I do.
I cry out, raw and honest, as the final wave slams through me. The world goes soft-focus, edges melting like butter on a hot roll. I collapse, breath gone, all my muscles fried. They catch me. Hold me. The kitchen spins around us, sunlight and flour haze and the tangled tangle of arms and bodies and love.
A tear slides down my cheek. Not sad, not even close.
Just… release.
I feel their hands on me. Rowan’s in my hair, stroking. Levi’s across my chest, thumb brushing lazy circles on my breast. Luca’s arm banded tight around my waist, breathing hard.
My heart trips. Stutters. Tries to make sense of being whole.
How did I ever live without this?
The question hangs there—soft, sweet, and a little mournful—as the world starts to slide out from under me.
Memories shimmer at the edges of my mind,
each one a morsel from a life I once starved through.
The first time Rowan looked at me like I was something worth tasting.
The first night Oakridge Hollow felt like home instead of exile.
The first flicker of hunger that wasn’t just about need—but want.
I used to think I was the one feeding everyone else.
Now I know?—
I was always meant to be the feast.
CHAPTER 1
Open For Business
~HAZEL~
The minute my rental van turns onto Maple Street, I know with absolute certainty that I'm not in suburbia anymore…
I'm going to need to make some serious adjustments to my understanding of what constitutes "normal decorating choices."
Curbside is lined with carved pumpkins—not a reasonable amount of pumpkins, not "oh how festive, someone got into the spirit," but the kind of pumpkin density that suggests either a mass gourd migration or someone having a breakdown that manifests exclusively through produce.
Every single porch is dripping with fairy lights and candle stubs, even though it's barely September and the sun won't set for another two hours. It's like the entire street got together and decided that waiting for October was for quitters and people without commitment issues.
The bakery sits on the corner like it's posing for the cover of "Small Town Autumn Porn Monthly"—pumpkin-colored shutters that are so aggressively orange they're probably visible from space, white trim so clean it almost glows with an otherworldly light that suggests either excellent maintenance or possibly witchcraft.
There's a hanging sign shaped like a slice of pie, because subtlety is apparently dead and we're all just leaning into our most literal visual metaphors now.
Someone's already gone full Halloween mode, and by "full" I mean "absolutely unhinged."
