Chapter 24
twenty-four
JOAN
Several weeks later
“Is everyone gathered round? Can you hear us?” Brady practically shouted through the tiny speaker of my cell phone.
“Yes, we’re here.” I was holding up the device while over a dozen of us gathered beneath the private pavilion overlooking Lake Archer.
It was Junior and Nola Clark’s annual Memorial Day celebration at their lake house, but Mac and Brady had been suspiciously absent.
I’d gotten a video call a few minutes ago from the devious pair, but they wouldn’t tell us where they were until we’d assembled all relevant parties. That included parents and siblings for both of them, as well as friends and cousins.
As I held my arm out as far from my body as humanly possible, I felt the press of curious bodies.
Ian was at my side. My sister leaned in behind me, her little pregnant belly pushing gently into my back.
Mercer was there, along with my parents.
Bonnie and Jack struggled to see the screen as Larry demanded to know what this was all about.
Will looked on grumpily with a cheerful Becca under his arm.
Chloe and Jordan were in my periphery with a tiny baby in theirs.
Brady’s best friend, Cole Abernathy, whispered something from Ian’s other side, but I couldn’t hear it over everyone else’s yapping.
Mac’s parents, grandparents, aunt, and uncles rounded out our numbers.
“Y’all, be quiet,” Mac called. “We have some news.”
The crowd quieted, and I couldn’t help but feel like this was par for the course with these two. They’d put us through all sorts of drama last Memorial Day, too.
When they had everyone’s rapt attention, Mac and Brady shouted in unison, “We got married!”
And sure enough, the camera panned to show the Vegas Strip, the sun shining brightly and people everywhere. Mac was riding piggyback, her arms draped over Brady’s shoulders, where she flashed a shiny diamond on her left hand.
“Bro,” Ian said solemnly. “Without us?”
“Bro, I know,” Brady replied, a little shamefaced. “But we’re going to have a huge wedding reception this summer. We’ll celebrate with all y’all.”
“Okay, good,” Ian decided. “I’ll plan the belated bachelor party.”
Conversation burst around me, everyone talking at once.
The troublemaking pair accepted congratulations and fielded grumbles.
And my arm grew tired from holding my phone out for so long.
Larry helped me out by grabbing the device so she could scold her cousin directly.
I figured my phone would eventually make its way back to me.
Ian and I drifted over to the cornhole boards, where George was playing with Darren, Sophia, and Sophia’s boyfriend, Alex.
“I can’t believe they did that,” Ian said, but he was smiling.
I huffed out a laugh. “I can.”
I imagined the wedding reception would make up for Mac and Brady getting married without us.
Either way, I was happy for my brother. Mac made him a joyful idiot, and they were good for each other.
It had taken some time for them to get things right, but sometimes it meant more when you had to work for it.
George laughed brightly when Darren’s beanbag overshot the board by a good ten feet.
We’d spent the last few weeks figuring out what life looked like, moving forward. The orchard was open four days a week for lavender season now. We’d shift into u-pick mode for berries in the coming months before apple season began in earnest in late August.
Ian and George had moved in with me, and my quiet cabin wasn’t so quiet anymore.
Sophia had decided to stay on as a nanny for George.
She’d found her own place in town, and I figured her relationship with Alex had a bit to do with her decision to stay.
We were happy to have her, and I knew George would adapt more easily if some aspects of his life remained consistent.
The kid was actually pretty excited to start third grade in the fall after Bonnie had taken us on a tour of the elementary school and a visit to her classroom, which included a pet rabbit named Oreo.
True to his word, Ian made me coffee every morning, and I really thought he was getting the hang of it. It tasted a little better every day.
We still ran together and joined my parents for breakfast. George helped take care of Ralph, and Ian and I had plans for our chicken coop.
We were in the process of putting in security around the cabin and expanding to make everything more private.
Ian had made Buck Adams a generous offer for his land, and now, our closest neighbor was several miles away.
Darren would be heading back to California to find a more permanent position, but he was with us in the interim until the cabin and the surrounding area met his security specifications.
Ian was excited to spend the summer in Kirby Falls. He wouldn’t need to leave for work until September, when filming was set to begin for an action film he’d been contracted for over a year ago. The schedule had him in Ireland for three months, but I wasn’t worried. We’d make it work.
He was keeping the beach house in Malibu for the future. For when he would be filming in LA, and for when I needed an escape to the ocean. To all that wide-open space.
We were in the middle of weaving our lives together, making plans and promises, and allowances for mistakes.
There were challenges and revelations as newness gave way to familiarity. The sound of George galloping up and down the staircase never failed to make me smile. I didn’t even mind stepping over his little shoes that never seemed to make it into the entryway closet.
Ian loaded the dishwasher like a possessed toddler. But fresh wildflowers ended up on my bedside table every few days. And I never had to wonder if he missed his old life, the one with countless luxuries and indulgences. Ian showed me every single day how grateful he was to be home.
He may have been a famous movie star with the best smile in Hollywood, but here, in Kirby Falls, he was just Ian. He did laundry and made dinner. He worked out with my brother and played poker with my dad. He cooked with my mother, and he was helping Mercer paint the nursery.
Ian had a life where people accepted him and relied on him for more than his money and his fame. That, more than anything, had shaped his wonder over this small mountain town.
“Georgie has been invited to a sleepover with your parents tonight,” Ian whispered into the shell of my ear.
I felt his hand settle around my waist, fingers finding their way beneath the hem of my shirt. His skin, warm from a day spent in the spring sunshine.
I raised an interested brow. “Is that so?”
He nodded slowly, a smile twisting his lips.
We didn’t even bother saying goodbye to everyone. I touched base with my parents and made sure they had everything George needed for an overnight stay. Then we hugged the kid and told him we’d see him in the morning.
The drive home was a lesson in torturous anticipation. True alone time was precious and rare these days, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Ian, to see his body in the waning daylight, to be as loud as I wanted when he touched me.
We left a trail of clothing from the back door, through the kitchen, down the hallway, and into the bedroom. My back hit the quilt at the same time Ian dove for my center.
“Oh God,” I moaned as he licked my pussy with abandon.
His hair was longer these days, and I was grateful. Because it meant I could slide my fingers through the dark strands and hold on while he fucked me with his tongue, like he was doing now.
I’d been so worked up on the drive over, imagining his hands on me, that I was about to come, embarrassingly fast.
I must have said that last part out loud because Ian lifted his head long enough to say, “Good. I’ll make you come again.”
With renewed enthusiasm, he went back to work, two thick fingers filling me as he sucked mercilessly at my clit.
“Fuck,” I breathed, the curse muffled from beneath the arm I’d thrown over my face.
My hips rolled, eager and a little impatient as Ian’s fingers pumped in time with my thrusts.
Gasping breaths accompanied my urgent movements, and a moment later, I was rewarded. My orgasm moved through me, a slow and steady spread of heat and pleasure from my center outward.
Ian pushed inside me while I was still coming, my muscles contracting deliciously around the invasion.
“Yesss,” I hissed.
He was so hard and felt so good, the thick length of him filling me just the way I liked.
Before I got too comfortable in this position, Ian pulled out and urged me to roll over.
I lifted my hips and pressed my chest into the bed as Ian drove into me from behind, groaning out his approval.
He set a steady pace, but it was deeper this way, more intense.
I felt his powerful thighs nestled against the backs of mine and the reverent slide of his palm smoothing up the length of my spine.
As he started to speed up, one hand found its way to my hip to hold me steady while two fingers on the opposite hand settled slippery and firm over my clit.
Surrounded by Ian’s warm body, his straining muscles, his drugging scent, I couldn’t ignore the way my body reacted to his touch.
Suddenly, he folded over and brought his lips to my back, my shoulder blades, my nape. Hot, wet kisses pressed me into the mattress, and still, his fingers circled.
The drag of Ian’s erection inside my sensitive flesh was the best sort of torment.
I was at war with myself. I craved sweet relief. I wanted this to never end.
The touch at the apex of my thighs quickened, as did Ian’s thrusts.
Ian panted brokenly, desperate words and quiet urgings tattooed across my skin. Yes, and Please, and It’s so fucking good into the fading light.
The pleasure unspooled between us, a tether snapping taut as I came hard around him. Ian’s hips jerked once, twice, a final time as he stilled and emptied himself inside me.
We lay together in a heap on the mattress, his shoulder warm against my side and a muscled arm wrapped around my thigh.
“What else do you want to do with our sudden freedom?” Ian managed once his breath evened out.
It wasn’t even 8:00 p.m.
“Shower,” I replied, pressing a smiling kiss into his hair. “And then I have a few ideas.”
My regular alarm went off at five the next morning, and I stretched to silence it, muscles protesting after a late night of “ideas.”
Ian groaned and burrowed his face into my naked back.
It was on the tip of my tongue to urge him out of bed, to go for a run like we usually did, to ignore the protest in my limbs, the sleep still clinging to me. There was a time when I would have demanded routine and stuck to a schedule just for the sake of it.
But I’d realized, it was okay to bend once in a while. It didn’t mean I had to break.
I wanted a lazy morning with Ian. I wanted to lie beside him as the morning sun turned the room golden. Maybe I’d wake up in another couple of hours. Maybe I’d find my way down his beautiful body and take him in my mouth.
“Let’s sleep in,” I said, voice rough.
“Really?” came Ian’s muffled reply.
“Yeah.” As if to prove my commitment, I snuggled a little closer to him, and the arm slung over my waist tightened.
Then I felt his smile bloom against my back, and I knew both dimples were pressing deep into his cheeks.
There were worse things than being spontaneous.