19. Ian
19
IAN
Lightning cracks in the sky, and thunder roars overhead, casting shadows and flashes through the windows of the lake house.
“Did you see that one?” Chloe grabs my hand. “It looked like it hit the lake that time.”
A summer storm came hard and fast, forcing us inside for our last night in Sebago, and I can’t find a reason to complain about it, not that I’d ever want to. Spread out throughout the open living room and into the kitchen are all of my friends. There are games of cribbage, a puzzle that has been brought out, and even an abandoned game of Monopoly that sits on the living room floor.
“This is the perfect night,” Kennedy announces when she manages to kick not only Linc’s ass, but Remy’s, Dom’s, and Ben’s as well in the game of poker they were engaged in. “I think I just made like ten grand.”
“Yeah, in pretend money.” Remy rolls his eyes. “Don’t think for a second if the stakes were real that you’d have gotten away with it, Kennedy.”
“Oh, okay. What are you? A Scooby villain? Just admit it; I’ve got a better poker face than you do.” Kennedy throws the crust of a piece of pizza across the table at her brother, who catches it without looking. “Get out of here, you heathen.”
I slide up next to Chloe and put my arm around her shoulders, thriving in the way she leans into my embrace like she used to.
“This is kind of perfect,” she whispers. “A week ago, I never would have imagined being here, and now I don’t want to go home.”
She healed before my eyes. She processed her grief, and she’s started to heal from the devastating blow that life sent her way. And the only person in the world that I can thank for that is Kevin. Kevin, who somehow knew that he was the linchpin in our world. The silent friend. The one who still serves so we don’t bring him up as much as we should. The man who never stood out in a crowd. My best friend and the man I thought would stand by my side as we watched our children grow up.
“I miss him too.”
I blink heavily and look down to see Chloe staring up at me with thoughtful eyes.
“Oh, Chloe.” Logan whistles from his spot on the couch where he is watching the TV without the volume on. “They’re getting ready to draw the lottery numbers.”
Chloe drops me like a hot potato, tearing out of the kitchen and into her room to grab her purse, only to emerge ten seconds later huffing and puffing.
“Scoot over,” she hisses at Logan.
He listens to her, giving her the seat in the middle of the living room, and we all watch the two of them dig out the lottery tickets that he’d taken her to buy a few days before.
“What are the chances that she actually wins something?” I ask as Ben sidles up next to me, crossing his arms and watching with rapt attention.
“I dunno,” he answers. “But it’s funny to watch them all get into it.”
He motions to where Remy and Linc march into the room and sit down right there next to Chloe and Logan, each holding a hand out to take one of the tickets so they can check as the numbers are drawn too.
“I think it’s just one more thing that Kevin said intentionally to distract her from the guilt and heartbreak she had to be feeling.”
They are all sitting in the living room and watching whatever is happening on the muted TV without saying a word. I can’t help myself. I pull out my phone and take a picture of the moment. Chloe, surrounded by former Marines, and all of them holding little white pieces of paper.
“Holy shit,” Chloe whispers loudly. “Holy freaking shit.”
“What?” Logan looks over while Linc and Remy both freeze and turn their heads with almost exorcist precision.
“I think… I think I won some money.”
“Some money?” Logan looks back and forth between the ticket and the screen. “Holy shit, Chloe. You matched four numbers and the red ball. You won a lot of money.”
Suddenly, the room bursts into shouts and laughter and high fives and a cacophony of congratulations.
Logan picks up Chloe and swings her around, and then both Remy and Linc offer her hugs and congratulations. Even the wives move from the kitchen, where they’ve been eating and playing a round of cribbage, and go into the living room to take part in the celebration.
“This is so cool.” Chloe jumps up and down and then runs straight at me.
When she throws herself into my arms, I do the sensible thing and catch her, putting my hands under her ass when she wraps her legs around me.
“I won some money!” she shouts into my ear. “Maybe even like a thousand dollars.”
“No,” I tell her with a smile. “If you matched that many, you won like fifty grand or more.”
Chloe’s face freezes in disbelief. “What?”
I kiss her nose, smiling. “Yep.”
“That means I can finally remodel the kitchen in the house.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “And I can give everyone a huge Christmas present.”
“We take cash, too!” Kennedy laughs out loud.
“I looked it up,” Parker announces. “If you match four and the Powerball, the minimum is fifty grand. But if you got Power Play?—”
“ I did ,” Chloe exclaims. “What was it?”
“Tonight’s was ten times.” Parker gasps. “Chloe, you just won five hundred thousand dollars.”
The cheer in the room dies down to complete silence.
“What?” Chloe drops out of my arms slowly. “That can’t be right.”
“I’m serious.” Parker shakes her head, her eyes wide. “It says that’s the amount.”
The storm rages outside, with rain hitting the windows and emphasizing the silence inside the house.
“That means we all get like fifty grand after taxes,” she finally says slowly, then looks around and finally settles her eyes on me.
“No, that’s not ours,” Logan tells her. “That was all you.”
“Shut the front door, Logan,” Chloe snaps irately. “My brother would want us all to split it and that’s what’s gonna happen.” Her tone allows no room for argument. And her eyes are as wide as can be while she stares at me with her mouth hanging open.
“We can pay for the entire wedding and remodel the house. And it would be completely in budget.” She covers her mouth to muffle the screech. “Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money, Ian.”
I kiss her, unable to help myself in the moment. She is so excited that it fills the air around us, leaching into my pores and burrowing into my brain.
When she starts to kiss me back, my body begins to ache for her.
“That’s it,” Ben interrupts. “Get a freakin’ room, man.”
I smile wolfishly. “What a great idea.” Picking Chloe up and throwing her over my shoulder would be cliche, so I just grab her by the hand and pull her, not into her room, but into mine. Then I lock the door for good measure.
“Get on the bed.” My order, although quiet, fills the air between us with the same excitement that always courses through my veins when it comes to Chloe.
Her eyes, so beautiful and wide, stare up at me with anticipation when she moves to do as I told her. On her way across the room, she pulls the shirt—my shirt—over her head and drops it to the floor, revealing what I’ve already seen. Chloe isn’t wearing a bra. Once she gets to the bed, she turns and faces me with a shy smile, biting her lip while she slides out of her leggings and underwear completely. The sight of her there, in my space, everything I’ve ever wanted and more, leaves me nothing more than starving and practically mindless.
Empty, ravenous for her touch and taste, and willing to do anything to keep her in my arms, I stalk across the room to claim my woman.
She’s given me the best strip show of my life, so turnabout feels like it is exactly what she needs. Stopping before I move into her reach, I mimic her movements.
First goes my shirt, which I pull off with one arm. Then I bite my lip and slowly unbutton my shorts and somehow manage not to take my dick off with them.
Chloe’s eyes flare and she licks her lips when I stand completely naked in front of her, but I don’t take a step. Not yet. First, I need her to see what she does to me. What she’s always done to me. What she always will do to me. Because I’m not under any illusion. There will never be another woman for me. No one but Chloe will fill the empty spaces in my soul.
“Ian.” Her whispered word fills the room, her need almost palpable.
Still, I don’t move. I don’t even breathe while I take in every single curve of her body, every freckle that dances along her skin.
“Ian,” Chloe repeats herself.
I tear my eyes away from the freckle on her hip to meet her eyes. To see the plea there. The blatant and open desire that matches my own.
“Are you ready?” I don’t know who I’m asking more, her or myself.
The sex between us has always been amazing, has always meant something. Every single time. But I can’t deny this means more… that something more powerful than I’ve ever felt in my life is happening between us.
When she nods slowly, her eyes alert and watching every move I make, I finally climb up onto the bed with her, pressing my lips against hers in a punishing kiss. Punishing in the way that after we come up for air, neither of us will ever be the same.
Her arms wrap around my neck, and Chloe shifts under me, getting into the most comfortable position for her body. Once she is ready, I grab my throbbing shaft and line it up with her entrance. Pushing inside her always feels like coming home. Every time feels like the first time, and Chloe is ready for me. She always is. The kiss swallows her gasp of pain mixed with pleasure as I invade every inch of her body. Slowly, I move, pulling halfway out of her tight sheath before sliding back in as far as I can.
Again and again, I claim her body in a sensual assault that leaves both of us hungrier than before we started. The kiss is forgotten. The comfort of our joining only lasts so long before she is urging me with her hips to move faster. I almost lose control when Chloe scratches her nails down my chest. That one act ends the gentle loving between us, though, and our movements become faster, rougher, deeper than they have before.
“Harder,” Chloe gasps between thrusts.
Unable to admit to her that I’m going as hard as I can, I push myself further. The answering moans of Chloe’s pleasure send a jolt of electricity through my veins until I can feel her body vibrating around me.
Knowing that she is close, I reach down and press against her core with my thumb. Flicking back and forth, keeping pressure on her body while she takes literally everything I can give to her brings me right to the edge with her.
When Chloe gasps once more, her entire body going rigid, I thrust as far into her welcoming heat as I can and my release jets out, mixing with hers while we both gasp for air, unable to move.
Stuck there, in purgatory, while the synapses in my brain try and fail to start firing again, I stare down at the best part of my life and swear I’ll do anything it takes to keep her.
Chloe smiles up at me with a saucy mix of pleasure and sass. “That was fun,” she says breathlessly. “Wanna do it again?”
“Every day for the rest of my life.”