Chapter 30
Remy and I take turns flying the helicopter to drop my brothers, Gar, Maddyn, and Laken off for backcountry boarding. While one of us is piloting, the other is boarding, and honestly, it feels damn good to get back out here.
Not gonna lie, even the boner from watching Gar board feels damn good.
Now we’re all sitting around a massive fire in the valley between peaks. The wind is blocked by the mountains, the sky is clear and starry, and the night is fun and relaxed. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed nights like this after all the crazy nights I’ve been having lately. Time spent with family and our closest friends is never wasted. Except Four. He’s being a mopey bastard because Gen doesn’t board, so she’s not here. He’s having a good time, but it’s obvious he misses her, and to be fair, I’m kind of proud he found someone worth missing.
I think I’d miss Remy if he wasn’t here.
“Night run, love?” Jed asks Laken.
“Yeah,” Laken says, standing to give Jed a quick kiss. “With Gar.” She yanks Gar to his feet, and we all watch them walk away with their boards for one more run down the mountain.
“Not too far, Bossy!” Kade shouts. Laken gives him the finger.
“Alright.” Jed gets our attention. “Taking Bo’s fucked-up lead, we’ve got news.”
No way! Are these assholes going to propose to Laken? That’s what Bo brought us up here for the last time, so I can only assume.
“Fuck off! Seriously?” Bass laughs. “She’s gonna say no.”
“Fuck you, Bass.” Kade throws snow at him.
“Did you clear it with Gar? He gets final say.” Four grins.
“Hey, Bass has a point,” Kolt butts in. “She hasn’t had her shot with us yet, so there’s still a chance we’ll swoop in and snatch that ass.”
“You already buckled under that pressure once, dipshit. But good try.” Bo shoves Kolt, knocking him off the log he’s sitting on.
“Won’t make the same mistake twice,” he declares as he gets back up.
“You’re gonna give her Grandma’s ring?” Rydan gets us back on track.
Jed doesn’t even look nervous. He’s never been more sure of anything in life, but when Laken walked away from him, he gained the clarity that I’m maybe starting to get whenever I look at Remy. Kade, on the other hand, looks downright cocky. Like he already knows Laken is his forever.
“Yeah,” Jed says. “We made some changes to it.” He sweeps his eyes around the circle to see if any of us are going to taunt him.
We’re all uncharacteristically quiet, which usually means we’re going to mock the fuck out of him, but not this time. We knew this day was coming, and after all the bullshit Jed and Kade put each other through, not to mention Laken, I’m just proud of them for finding the balance and making it work for them.
“It’s about fucking time,” Four exclaims. “Took you two long enough!”
Jed and Kade offer up bashful smirks until we shower them with loving quips and lots of swears.
“Laken is fucking family,” I say. “She became family the first day we all met her.”
“Became mine the night before,” Jed brags.
“Nah, I heard she turned you down that night,” Hardin says. “But whatever you need to tell yourself, Jed.”
“Can’t believe Wyatt gave his blessing.” I laugh, getting up to hug them both.
Kade scoffs. “He told me that if I ever hurt her, he’ll cut off my balls and hang them above the fireplace to eternally roast.” He laughs.
Best threat ever. I love Wyatt.
“Well, just warning ya, she thinks I’m beautiful, so…”
Remy gets me in a headlock and pulls me away. “Compliments go to his head.” He folds me in against his side and, yeah, I’m just comfy-cozy here, even if he’s beating on me. “When are you gonna propose?” Rem asks.
“Up here. Tomorrow morning,” Kade says.
We all look in the distance to see Laken and Gar descending a moonlit slope. But above that, the Northern Lights are coming out, lighting up the sky in blues, greens, and purples.
“Fuck,” Kade marvels, looking at Jed.
Quickly, they show us the ring and the modifications they made. A gemstone for each of their eye colors, and a Celtic Knot that represents an unbreakable bond. Thoughtful pricks nailed it!
“Go!” We all shout at them. No better time and place to propose to a mountain chick than under the Aurora Borealis on a mountaintop. “Go!”
“Send Gar back!” Dom shouts after them. “I’ll keep him company.”
I lean against Remy, watching my tough-guy brother and my badass brother trudge through the snow to propose to the tiny warrior woman of their dreams.
“Fucking Dare family is growing by the day,” I say, subconsciously tightening my hold around Remy’s waist.
He looks at me, but there’s something like hopeful vulnerability in my eyes, so I turn away. Remy doesn’t mind, though. He knows my tells. Instead, he leans in until his lips brush the side of my hat, whispering, “Think you can fly this heli back and get off at the same time?”
Okay, that does it. Not afraid to look a dare-horse in the mouth. “Are you betting me, Remy Rivers? Doubting my flying and orgasm skills combined?”
“Mhm,” he hums, grinning. “Fifty bucks says you go off course.”
I mean, maybe. “Mouth or hands?”
“By any means necessary.” He holds out his free hand, rolled into a fist.
I bump my knuckles to his. “Can’t wait to watch you try to throw me off my flight game.” I grip his jaw and force his face in front of mine. “But not dangerous shit. I used to be a daredevil, but your three-day vacation to the middle of nowhere changed that. Got it?”
He glances behind me. No one is looking, so he presses a smirking kiss to my lips and hums again.
Helicopters are way more complicated to fly than planes. Like… way. There are two foot pedals, a collective stick to change the pitch of the main rotor blades, and the cyclic to tilt the rotor blades backward and forward, and if I let go of that one, we’ll crash. On top of all that, I’ve gotta control the throttle, and yeah, I think I might owe Remy fifty dollars after this.
“Not as coordinated as you thought you were?” Remy teases me, his hand sliding up my thigh to distract me already.
“It’s not my coordination I’m worried about,” I tell him, my breath puffing in the air.
“Then what?” He slides his hand a bit higher, cupping my dick through my snow pants. The helicopter jostles, and I firm up my grip on the stick. Remy laughs. “Ah. Distraction,” he guesses. “Can’t focus on it all at once.”
“Not when you’re rubbing my cock like that. Jesus, Remy.” I don’t want him to stop, though. “A handie might be worth a wreck.”
“It’s not,” he says, still smiling. “Get us to the airfield, Zahn.” He leans back in his seat, and I groan when he removes his hand.
“You know, it’s fucking pathetic that I’m not as wild as I think I am. The old me would have dared you to keep going, crash be damned. But the new me…”
“Lost me for three days.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Scariest time of my life. Worse than when Kade got stabbed because at least then we knew he was in the hands of doctors. You were just out there, alone, either alive or dead, and I had no fucking idea. I shit you not, Remy, I lost my cool.”
“Did you cry?” he teases, trying to lighten my darkening mood.
“Yeah. Cried because I don’t have what it takes to run this company on my own, and losing you would have been a major inconvenience to me.”
Remy laughs. “Sure. Your freakout the day I went back to work meant nothing then.”
“Less than nothing.” I smirk. “Wasn’t worried at all.”
When his laugh dies into comfortable silence filled only by the blades and the engine, Remy sighs. “Thanks for worrying, Zahn. I was a bit scared, even if I said I wasn’t.”
“That’s what my mom said.”
“And thanks for… kissing me. I… it pissed me off at the time because I was so confused about it, but I’m glad you did it.”
“We’re changing,” I say, feeling the weight of that confession. It doesn’t feel hauntingly heavy. More like hopeful heavy, and I’m okay with that. “I’m changing most of all.”
“How so?”
“Well, for starters, it didn’t sit right with me at the cabin with Cami.” I glance at him but don’t commit to it. “Mom calls me Mr. Variety, and now… maybe I just want you. Hurry up and say something because in my world, that was a huge ass confession and you can’t just leave it hanging up here in the Alaskan air. Talk. Now. Do something. Remy.”
He barks out a laugh that vibrates my ears through the headset.
“Remy!” I let go of the stick and smack him. “Fill the awkward silence and put me out of my misery!”
He points at the air tower coming into view. “Hurry up and land, Zahn.”
“No. I will fly this piece of shit until you confess the same feelings I have. If you don’t, we will crash and burn together in a blaze of misconstrued glory.” He better feel the same. If he doesn’t, gah! I don’t know what I’ll do. We’ve always been on the same page, but we’ve never been on this page, so I don’t know if I’m moving too fast or if I’m even moving in a direction he wants to go in.
“Trust me, Zahn. You’re gonna wanna land.”
It’s the way he says it that has me signaling air traffic control, getting clearance for my landing, and touching the chopper down smoothly. As soon as I shut off the engine and the blades stop spinning, Remy reaches over and unbuckles my belt.
“You know how fucking powerful it feels to catch your attention?” he asks, getting held up by his own seatbelt. He swears at it, yanking it off and pulling off his headset before his hands fly to my pants. There’s no room in here for anything super fun, but whatever bee is in his bonnet is enough to get me going. “To be what you want?”
He reaches inside my pants—all three pairs of them, including snow pants, sweatpants, and long johns—and wraps his cold fingers around my hardening dick.
“Shit, Rem.” My head hits the back of the seat while lights and vehicles move outside. “Yeah, but do you want my attention like this?”
“Never, in all my fucking life, did I think I would. But now that I have it…” He growls, letting that trail off, which makes my cock stiffen fully in his grip. He tries to get up on his knees to lean over and suck me off, but there are levers and joysticks and buttons in the way, and… “Fuck!”
I grab his hair and yank him up, face to face with me. “Who’re you paying attention to, Remy? Don’t lie to me. If you wanna bring in other people, we can, but I’m just warning you right now, my newfound jealousy will—”
“Would you shut the fuck up?” he snaps at me, hand coming up to his mouth to spit on his palm. Shit, that’s sexy. When he smooths it down my cock and squeezes the base, I groan. “You talk too much.”
He kisses me. Actually, he bites me. His teeth drag over my bottom lip with the same force of his hand around my shaft. I buck my ass up, trying to fuck his fist because I’m suddenly a greedy bastard when it comes to Remy and how bossy he gets.
He jerks me off fast and hard, and it feels so goddamn good that I’m leaking, moaning like a mess, and trying to fuck his fist harder than his fist is fucking me. But when he wraps his free hand around the back of my neck, holding my face against his, that’s what sets me off.
“You,” he damn near snarls against my mouth. “I’m paying attention to you, Zahn. And fuck me, I can’t get enough.”
I cry out, but again, Remy shuts me up with his mouth. My orgasm whizzes through me like a freight train, zinging and pinging around from nerve to nerve, my cock pulsing with hard bursts of cum. I gag on my own air, but fuck that. I don’t even need it. I lean into Remy’s face and kiss him harder, taking pleasure from him wherever I can get it.
When I start to settle, dragging in ragged breaths that come out even choppier, the windows fog and my eyes blink me back to reality at the airfield.
“Because I sucked your dick once, Zahn.” He lifts his hand, my cum coating his fingers. My eyes laser focus on it as he slides them against his lips. “And I fucking crave the taste of your cum now.” He licks his lips.
And just like that, my dick’s ready to go again. And right here and now, I decide that I want to cross the final physical line with Remy. I want to fuck.
I pull his cum-coated lips to mine and try not to admit that out loud yet.