10. Chloe
10
CHLOE
Like an idiot, I walk into Ian’s room without knocking the morning after our midnight swim.
I’m not even sure why I do it except that I think maybe I can work up the courage to apologize. Maybe even ask for the ring back, if he still wants to marry me.
I know I don’t deserve a second chance. Not after the way I treated him.
But I have to try.
I don’t know what I expect to find, but him lying flat on his back with his dick in his hand while he covers his eyes with his arm isn’t it.
He doesn’t even hear me when I walk in.
The right thing to do is to slowly back out.
And yet, I can’t walk away even if I know I should. It doesn’t matter that I’ve seen him naked more times than I can count. He’s still gorgeous, and he is stroking his body in a way that makes my core clench. Every muscle in his arm is engaged, holding his eyes shut and his neck back, keeping him from moving too much. My eyes, however, don’t stay on his face for long. Instead, I watch the way his neck convulses as he breathes in and out, ragged and needy.
Before I know it, I’m stepping farther into his room, thinking about the possibility of touching him. Of taking him the way my body craves and misses.
I watch his hand stroke and then let go of his dick in a pattern.
Pull. Pull. Pause. Pull. Pull. Pause.
He is so deep in concentration that he doesn’t hear me. Isn’t aware I am one gasp away from exposure. I’m so wet I can almost feel it leaking out of me. Needing him and what I know he can give me. What he’ll give me if I would just ask.
And I’m such a glutton for punishment I can feel my legs rubbing together to ease some of the pressure building in my core.
“Chloe.” His ragged voice breaks me, and my eyes snap away from the hand on his dick to his face, my body flushing with embarrassment at the thought of being caught watching him, but his arm still covers his face.
It’s me.
He’s thinking about me.
Even after I hurt him.
He’s touching himself while he thinks about me.
My heart races, and I know I need to leave, but my feet refuse to move. Refuse to take a step when the man I want more than life itself is right here, waiting for me.
I look away from his eyes, focusing on his neck and lower.
Tighter and faster, his hand moves up and down his shaft. I watch Ian’s body clench impossibly tighter as he gets close to finishing what he’s started with himself.
I hold my breath, waiting for it to happen, counting on that release to expose me, because I am too much of a coward to do it myself.
Only for him to stop. To pull back at the last minute, and I’m sure that he caught me. Again, I check, but his eyes are still hidden behind his arm.
Instead of taking any more chances at getting caught and finally exposing the truth, I turn and run out of the room like the hounds of hell are nipping at my feet, leaving his bedroom door open when I go.
And then I take a hot shower and do the exact same thing I saw him doing. Except I make damn sure to lock the door behind me. Using the same rhythm, the same pattern he did, I tease myself until release is right there.
When I finally drag myself out of the water and get dressed, I’ve practically screamed Ian’s name twice in the shower.
I barely have clothes on when I hear the splash and the loud scream coming from outside my open window.
We are all in the halls, running to the back deck in time to see Ben splashing to shore, dragging the floating ring with him.
“What the shit, Linc?”
He points a dripping finger at Linc’s laughing face, but really, we are all standing together so it could have been any of us he is pointing at.
“I didn’t do anything!” Linc cups his hands around his mouth to shout down onto the beach. “I’m pretty sure I went to bed before you did. What sort of crazy drunken adventures did you get into?”
“I’m gonna murder you, and then you’re gonna have to explain to Kennedy why her machete is missing! I’ll have to get rid of it to hide the evidence.”
Ben throws the float on the beach and storms upstairs, past all of us.
“I’ll have my revenge against every single one of you. Mark my words.”
“Okay, then, Captain Hook.” Remy salutes him. “That’s what you get for interrupting sexy fun time with my pregnant wife.”
“Revenge.”
Ben stomps inside, his shoes splashing water everywhere as he walks.
“Did you put his shoes back on him?” I turn to Ian. “Or did he fall asleep in his clothes?”
“That was all him.” Ian shakes his head. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“What happened to the mattress?” Kennedy says while picking up a s’more left over from the night before. She eats it, crunching loudly while she waits for an answer.
“It was too heavy, and we didn’t want to ruin any of this fancy shit and then have Chloe be responsible for the security deposit.” Linc takes the half-eaten s’more from her and shoves the rest of it in his mouth. “What do you want for breakfast, guys?”
“I vote for something from in town,” I say immediately. “I’m hungry. I don’t want to cook, and we all know that the best cure for a hangover is to have a greasy breakfast. And maybe mimosas.”
“Ooh.” Parker nods. “I really want pancakes and waffles and maybe an omelet. Let’s go to town. Oh, and bacon. Can’t forget the bacon.”
Since there is no arguing with a pregnant woman, everyone else gets dressed and we load into three different vehicles for the drive. Somehow, I end up with Poppy and Logan in Logan’s car. I don’t know how it happened, except they were getting ready to leave and Logan told me to jump in. Then we’re gone and the first out of the driveway, followed closely by the others.
“Why are we running away?” I ask once we’ve left.
“Well,” Logan starts slowly. “I was thinking about your brother’s letter, and I really do think we should go buy a lottery ticket. Ghost Kevin is a genius. Almost as genius as he was when he was alive.”
I want to laugh and call him an idiot, but he’s right. Kevin always had a way of convincing us to do stupid shit when he was alive, and it seems like the last chance I may get to follow his crazy advice.
“Alright,” I say with a nod. “Let’s do it.”
Poppy laughs and smiles. “I told you she’d want to go and do it if you asked. You didn’t need to kidnap her.”
“We have to beat the others. You know Remy’s trying to convince the rest of them to get tickets too, and we need to get there first.”
He’s right, which Parker confirms by texting me just then.
P: Can I sell my husband? He’s still trying to get lottery tickets out of this.
“Looks like Parker put a stop to it,” I tell them both. “Or at least she’s trying to.”
“Good.” Poppy snickers. “He’s such a sucker.”
Ten minutes later, I have a handful of lottery tickets, all of them with different combinations of our birthdays. And there’s one more, one that I won’t offer to anyone else. It’s the one with mine, Ian’s, Kevin’s, and my parents’ birthdays on it. That one, I didn’t even know I was going to buy until I was filling in the circles.
“Are you sure you don’t want any of these?” I offer one to Logan.
He shakes his head. “Nah. I don’t wanna jinx it. Ask Poppy, I’m bad luck.”
“He is.” While Logan looks like he is joking, Poppy looks far from it.
Thankfully, I’m saved from the awkwardness the conversation has turned into when we pull up to the only breakfast restaurant in town.
“Took you long enough. What’d you do, stop to pee on your way?” Remy grumbles as Parker practically shoves him through the door.
“Less talky, more food.”
“You’re barely pregnant,” Kennedy offers unhelpfully. “Why are you eating so much?”
“Oh.” Parker turns a smile on her. “I don’t have to be pregnant to enjoy food. You know that.” She flips her hair over her shoulder and walks up to the hostess stand like she’s known the woman forever. “Hi, can we get a table for… Nine!” She counts on her fingers quickly. “Yep, there are nine of us.”
The hostess, who can’t be more than nineteen, looks at the guys and gulps loudly. “Sure.” Her voice comes out as a squeak. “Right this way.”
“So. Much. Food.” I groan and lean back, rubbing my stomach through my leggings. “I’m so glad I don’t wear jeans that much anymore. I can walk around with a food baby and no one is gonna notice.”
Ian, who sits right next to me, eyes my stomach, but doesn’t say anything as he shoves his last piece of bacon in his mouth.
“What?” I ask, batting my eyelashes playfully, baiting him and hoping he’ll play along.
I can’t help teasing him. We have years of history, and I can’t help but pick on him just a little bit.
“Nope.” He shakes his head immediately, winking at me while a smirk forms on his lips. “Not goin’ there. You’re not fat. You’ll never be fat. I’m not gonna let you trick me into sayin’ you are. Never again.”
Linc snorts. “Oh my God, that’s right.” He laughs and wipes his eyes dramatically. “Do you remember that, Remy?”
Remy shakes his head, but Logan snaps his fingers together. “That was last year at Christmas, right?”
I nod petulantly. “Yes, Logan. Yes, it was. That’s the day Ian asked me if it was time to buy new pants because he said, and I quote, ‘You’re going to bust a seam, Chloe.’ And then he offered to let me borrow his sweatpants so that I could eat whatever I wanted without having a problem.” I smile maliciously at him. “In the middle of a Christmas party. Where I was wearing a pair of skintight leggings that were designed to fit like that.” I don’t tell them what Ian did to make up for it after the party.
Not only is it none of their business, but I’m not about to tell everyone that we had sex outside in the snow. On Christmas Eve. Where anyone could see us.
Ian flushes as his eyes meet mine in the shared memory, and then he puts his face in his palm for a second. “In my defense… Nope. There’s no defense for it. I’m not doing this. Never again. I learned my lesson.” His eyes meet mine once more and all the humor and embarrassment leave them. “You’re not fat. You’ll never be fat. You’re gorgeous. End of story.”
My heart races and my palms start to sweat the way they did when I was a teenager and he gave me a compliment. The way his eyes bore into mine, leaving absolutely no room for argument or any other opinion than his, has me blushing. He’s always had that effect on me.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
Thankfully, Logan changes the subject. “Did you tell them what you got, Chloe?”
“Oh.” I smile, reaching into the bag I set on the ground next to me. “I didn’t. I completely forgot when we got here and I had fried potatoes and toast set in front of me.” Holding the tiny slips of paper up, I smile broadly and fan them out for everyone to see. “We bought lottery tickets to see if Kevin was right about it in his letter.”
Remy, more excited than I think to give him credit for, fist-pumps the air like he’s in an eighties movie. “I knew it.” When Parker shoots him a side-eye, he clucks his tongue against the top of his mouth. “Okay, I didn’t know. I hoped. You never know what Logan is gonna get up to. Add in Chloe, and anything’s possible. And hey,” he says while tapping the table. “You guys have to admit, his letter was creepy in a kind of awesome way. He knew that Ian would take the letter because Chloe wouldn’t be able to read it. He knew that someone would be pregnant. Hell, he knew that Dom would make a comment about the zombie apocalypse, but I mean, that’s not too much of a premonition since we all know the big guy is horrified of zombies. The rest of it, though, you have to admit it’s awesome.” Remy’s eyes are shining with something more than humor. Whatever it is, it’s contagious.
The entire group at the table is smiling and the energy is palpable.
“That’s why I got the tickets,” I say, feeling ridiculously excited for the situation. “Logan said that he was bad luck.”
“He is,” reverberates from every single male around the table.
“So I bought them,” I go on, ignoring them all. “I even got a few with other dates too, just in case.”
Putting the tickets back in my bag, I pick up my last piece of toast and munch on it happily. There’s something in the air, something I don’t quite have the words to describe. Something amazing and wonderful and… healing.
“This is gonna be a great day,” I announce with a smile when no one else says anything. “I can feel it.”
When we cash out, I hop in the back of Logan’s car again, shifting slightly when I buckle in and settle against the window. I’m not paying attention when Ian opens the other door.
“Care if I join you?” He pokes his head down with a small smile, waiting for my permission before he climbs into the car.
I nod, smiling back and feeling like a teenager all over again.
God, Ian somehow knows how to make everything better, just by smiling in my direction. That, and as soon as he’s next to me, images of what I saw him doing this morning flash through my mind.
It is going to be a very good day.
I can feel it.