16. Chloe
16
CHLOE
Ian doesn’t come to bed until the sun has already started to rise. How do I know? Because he wakes me up by pressing his naked body up against mine.
“You’re up.” He kisses the back of my neck.
With a yawn, I arch my back into his touch. “I am now. How did it go?”
I know better than to probe or ask for specifics. Not because Ian doesn’t want to tell me, but because him saying anything will ruin his career.
“You know.” He sighs. “You know.” The sigh that leaves his lips drags forth memories of the worst of his clients while we were together. The ones who kept him up at night, staring at his phone and expecting calls that would have him running out the door in the middle of the night.
I turn in his arms, wrapping mine around his neck. “I know.” I kiss him. “I’m glad you didn’t give up on me, Ian.”
His eyes burn with the same fire that scorches a path through my veins. “I’d never give up on you, Chloe. There is nothing in this world that could possibly take me away from you.”
My throat convulses as I try to swallow down the emotion that I can’t quite control. “I know. Now, are you going to do anything with that? Or just go to bed?”
I feel, rather than see, the smile on his face as his lips are pressed against my forehead.
“I have to tell you something.” I keep my voice down, glad that my confession won’t be said directly to his face. When Ian’s body stiffens around mine, I quickly add, “Nothing bad. Just… embarrassing. For me.”
He hesitates, and I feel his neck move as he swallows. “What is it?”
“I saw you the other day. I walked into your room, and you were stroking your dick. And you said my name.” As soon as I say it, Ian loosens his hold and leans back so that I can see his eyes.
“What were you doing in my room?” His question isn’t an accusation. It isn’t anything but curiosity, and maybe a glimmer of hope.
Time to ‘nut up or shut up,’ to quote one of my favorite movies. “I was coming to apologize. To tell you the truth about the funeral. To beg for another chance with you, if that’s what it took. I don’t know,” I admit softly.
Ian’s eyes flash with desire. “Did you like it?”
A nod is all I manage in response.
“Did you think about climbing into bed and helping me finish?”
My mouth waters. “Yes.”
Ian has a dirty side that turns me on. There is no other way to say it or explain it at all. He asks a question, and my circuits fry. Everything logical goes out the window, and I turn into a ravenous beast, needing his touch, craving it and everything else that he can possibly give me.
When he slides his lips over mine, applying just enough pressure to show me that he is in control, my body becomes his.
“I want you.” I pant with need as his fingers begin to dance against my skin, leaving goosebumps wherever he goes.
The second that Ian pulls his hand back and lifts my arms above my head, I feel him sliding into my body. One smooth motion, and every synapse in my body goes off at the same time. I can’t reach for him. Can’t move out of his grip. Can’t do anything but take every single thrust and biting piece of him that he gives.
“More.” His hoarse order fills my ears and my body shifts, giving him what he wants, what I need.
One hand has my hands pinned above our heads and the other wraps around my front, pressing against my clit until I’m tumbling over the cliff of my orgasm with a blinding light.
“ Ian .” I come back to reality, and his lips seal against mine, anchoring our bodies together as I feel his orgasm tear through his body.
“You’re amazing.” Ian kisses me again before pulling out and moving for the bathroom. “Come on,” he says while standing at the door, completely naked, staring at me. “Let’s take a shower.”
He watches me get up, staring at my body while I move, and runs a hand through the scruff on his chin. “You’re fuckin’ beautiful, Chloe.”
“I want you to do it again.” I walk by him into the bathroom, not bothering to cover my body or shy away from the way he stares appreciatively at every single curve.
“I plan on it.” Ian comes up behind me and pushes my hair out of the way so that he can kiss my neck. “Every day for the rest of our lives.”
“Not that.” I close my eyes and savor every kiss. “I want you to stroke yourself again, like you did before. I want?—”
“You want to watch?” He freezes, his lips just above my ear. “You want to watch me palm my dick, thinking of you?”
“Yes.”
Before I can say a word, he has me in his arms, carrying me back to the bed. The pillows bounce as he none too gently drops me to the fabric.
“Turn around, Chloe.”
I turn around, using the pillows to get comfortable, and Ian already has his hand wrapped around his shaft. While I watch, he slowly strokes up and down, tensing with every pull, making my mouth water with the knowledge of what he can do not only with his body, but with mine, too.
“Chloe.” He says my name but I can’t tear my eyes away from his hands. “Chloe, look at me.”
I blink, taking my time, but I finally meet his eyes.
“Is this what you want?” His arm moves, and my eyes flicker down before coming back up to meet his.
Body on fire with desire, I can’t bring myself to answer him. The answer will give him power over me that I’ll never be able to take back.
“Why didn’t you finish before?” The question takes both of us by surprise. Me, because I can’t believe I asked him, and Ian, because he can’t believe I have the balls to ask.
“I lost you.” His arm keeps pumping. “I lost you, and I didn’t deserve any sort of release. I wanted to punish myself. To feel the ache and longing for the woman I wanted for the rest of my life but couldn’t have.”
Screw it.
I want Ian to have the power over me. I want to give him as much as he’s given me, just by my asking. I need to give him everything that he’ll ever need or want.
“I want to watch.” Finally answering his earlier question, I think I may have burning ears or a flush in my cheeks. Instead, I watch as Ian shifts back, and his strokes grow stronger.
“Then watch me, Chloe.” The hoarse staccato of his voice runs a trill of anticipation down my spine as I watch. His eyes narrow and his breathing becomes uneven, then his body goes rigid—all telltale signs that Ian is about to lose control.
I lean forward and replace his hands with my own, wrapping my lips around his hard length, and laugh as he lets go.
“Fuck, Chloe.” He grunts, pushing his hands into my hair and pulling tight, trying to take control of what is happening between us.
When I let go, licking my lips and smiling up at him, Ian releases my hair to cup my face with his hand. “I love you.”
“I know.” I wink up at him, turning so that my lips brush his palm.
“It should be your turn now,” Ian says quietly as I curl into his body. He moves his hands so that I can get comfortable.
“I had my turn. I got what I wanted, which was exactly what you gave me.” I rub my face against his chest, content to just lie there in his arms for as long as possible.
“I have to tell you something.” Ian clears his throat and tenses slightly around me, refusing to let go when I gently push back. “It’s not bad, I promise.” His words give me a reason to relax, and I feel the tension in my shoulders ease immediately. “I wanted to tell you that when I was stroking my dick before, and every single time I’ve done it, I picture you there with me. Wrapping your hands around my body, your mouth. Just like you did. Taking control. Giving me all the parts of you that you keep secret and try to hold back the rest of the time.”
How he always manages to see right through me, to the core of my very being, I’ll never understand. I can’t even blame it on him being a therapist, because he’s been able to do it since the day I met him.
“I feel like we’re locked in a bubble.” The words leave my lips before I know I’m even saying anything, and for a second I find myself worried by what Ian will say in reaction.
“Isn’t it always like this with us, though?” He catches me by surprise. “Even before… I didn’t see anyone else when I had you in my arms. I don’t care about anything else when I’ve got you. Kevin used to give me so much shit about it when you weren’t around.”
I sniffle, fighting back the surge of emotions. “I miss him, Ian.”
Ian’s hands, wrapped around my body, start to rub my back in a soothing caress. “I do too. There’s nothing wrong with missing him, Chloe. With crying or raging against the world. Your brother should be here with us.”
“You’re right.” We lapse into silence while Ian continues to trace a series of random lines on the skin of my back. “I think he’d be pissed that I gave you the ring back.”
“Nah,” Ian says with a chuckle. “He’d probably show up at my door with a baseball bat or a machete he stole from Kennedy and demand that I tell him what I did to screw it up so badly.”
Snorting, I start to laugh through the quiet tears. “Not even close. He’d probably have a case of beer and tell you that I’m crazy and that’s what you signed up for.” My eyes drift shut, picturing Kevin doing exactly that.
He’d march into the kitchen at home, all piss and vinegar and accuse me of breaking his best friend’s heart just because I got upset over something Ian couldn’t control. “And he’d be right,” I whisper. “I almost threw away the most important person in my life because I decided to act like a six-year-old and have a tantrum.”
Ian chuckles under his breath, his chin resting on my head. “I wouldn’t say that,” he counters. “I wasn’t going anywhere, Chloe. You may have thought you were throwing me away, but I didn’t plan on leaving.”
“Thank you.” My throat feels swollen, and the words come out as more of a croak than anything else.
“Nothing to thank me for. I couldn’t tell my heart to stop loving you any more than I could tell my lungs to stop breathing, Chloe. You’ve been a part of me since I was too young to know what the fuck I was supposed to do with it.”
I will never forget the first time I knew I was in love with Ian Keller, and it was a lot earlier in my life than when Kevin threatened to gut him if he touched me.
“I knew I loved you when I was seven.” It is the first time I’ve ever said the words out loud to any living soul. “We came home from Bria’s birthday party, and I told my mom that I met the prince out of my fairy tales.” Smiling at the memory and my mother’s face when I told her all about how Ian Keller could slay dragons, I go on with my story. “I told her that you helped us by pretending to be a dragon. That you looked right at me and I knew it was meant to be. That one day, you’d be mine. My very own prince who’d never let me get hurt.”
“I’m no prince, Chloe.” Ian’s guttural voice courses over my skin. “I’m not a fairy tale. I’m not meant to slay dragons.”
“You’re wrong.” I lift my head off Ian’s chest and bring my eyes to his. “And that’s okay. I’m not seven anymore. I don’t need a prince. I don’t need someone to be my hero. I just need you to stand by my side while I slay my own dragons.”
As his body stirs under me, Ian presses his lips against mine. When my hand slides down his chest and down to his stomach, the kiss turns into something more. Something needy and delicious.
“We have to get up at some point, you know.”
My growl of disapproval is met with another laugh, and Ian flips us over in a tangle of arms and legs so that he is the one on top.
“Okay,” he says with a devious smile. “We’ll make it quick.”
Before I can protest, he slides into my core with one fluid move. My back arches and any words I have die on my lips. There is nothing left but pleasure and just a fragment of the pain that comes with his thrusts.
Ian grabs my thighs and lifts, bringing my legs around his waist, and then moves so that his hands are wrapped around my thighs. I can’t reach him, so I let one arm fall above my head, with my hair falling down around my shoulders. The other I slide down my stomach to press against my clit, giving my body the pressure I need.
“Mine,” Ian growls and then slaps my hand away, replacing my fingers with his.
My eyes close of their own volition, and I take everything Ian gives me. The orgasm I know is coming strikes like lightning. Building and building until my body does the only thing it can. I shatter into a million pieces. Ian, either oblivious to my ecstasy or thriving in it, loses control right after me, gasping for air after his own bolt of lightning strikes, forcing his release in a way that leaves us both broken and struggling to breathe.
Not that it is a competition or anything, but I catch my breath first, and when Ian finally slips from my body, I get up and smile down at the sight of him staring at me with all the love in the world in his eyes.
“I’m just sayin’… you definitely slayed that dragon.”
His laugh is the only thing to fill my ears as I walk away to get dressed.