38
Ian
“I have an Airbnb just down the road,” Alana says quietly. “I rented it out in case—in case I needed some privacy. We can walk there if you’re okay with that?”
Walking just means more time with her, and that’s all I fucking want. “Sure,” I manage as we fall in step with each other, heading down the sidewalk, and I wait for her to say something else. I want us to be alone before I say all the things I have to say, before I let it all pour out. I’m not going to do it on a downtown Chicago sidewalk.
“I’m happy you went further with your photography,” she says tentatively, but I don’t respond. I feel like it’s all building up behind my teeth, like if I say a word about anything at all,especiallyabout my fucking photography, it’s all going to burst loose, and I’m going to lose it. We’ll have it out on this sidewalk, and that’s the last thing I want to do.
We just barely make it inside the Airbnb, Alana punching in a code and walking in as I follow her through the foyer and into the dark living room before I turn towards her, unable to stop myself from getting right down to it. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on before you left?” I ask, grinding the words out as Alana flips a switch, and suddenly the room and her are bathed in warm light.
My fingers itch for a camera to take a picture of her. There isn’t a painting of the Madonna and child in any museum that could rival how she looks right now, round and luscious, her body begging for my hands without her saying a word, encased in that smooth black fabric that matches the black fall of her hair down her back.
“You wouldn’t have understood,” Alana says softly, shaking her head. “You would have thought I was a lunatic.”
Anger lances through me.She doesn’t think I would have believed her? Who the fuck does she think I am? I fuckingloveher.“You didn’t even give me a chance,” I growl, staring her down. “Not a single fucking chance before you up and fucking left.Youdecidedforme how things were going to go, what I would believe. How is that fucking fair?”
Alana looks at me, still shaking her head slowly, and it’s infuriating. “You would never have stayed if I told you,” she insists, and the tone of her voice tells me she actually fucking believes that, which makes it so much worse. “No one wants to have only a piece of a person,” she continues insistently. “If you had known the truth about me—even if youhadbelieved me—you would have left me eventually. Or you would have tried to hold on to just this part of me, just Alana, like Kameron tried so hard to do with Megan. He wanted to rip us out like weeding a fucking garden because that’s all we were to him. Weeds strangling his precious little flower.”
“Don’t ever fucking compare me to Kameron!” I shout, raising my voice in a way that I haven’t in a long fucking time, but I don’t want to hear that shit, not a word of it. “I don’t even want to fucking hear his name, not fromyourlips if anyone, Alana.”
Her cheeks are turning pink, high up on her sharp cheekbones, and I can tell she’s getting angry too. “Well, what did you expect me to do, anyway,Ian?” she lashes out, her stormy grey eyes narrowing. “You started talking about having kids and shit! Creating a family with me! And it scared the fucking shit out of me because at that point in Megan’s life—inmyfucking life—everyone either classified me as crazy or just fucking gave up on me because they couldn’t figure out what the hell was wrong! I was just some nutso kid, some schizo, someone begging for attention! For the longest time,Ididn’t even know what the hell was wrong with me, don’t yougetthat?” She’s breathing hard now, her chest heaving, the words spilling out in a painful rush. “How was I supposed to tell you about something that I didn’t even have any clue how to explain, Ian?”
I hear the pain in her voice, the agony of loss and hurt. Betrayal lancing it, all the confusion and bitterness and rejection she’s faced all her life. I force myself to lower my tone and speak to her more calmly.I love her,I remind myself.If I’m going to have any chance at this, she has to trust me. We have to work through this together.
“We were married, Alana,” I tell her, my voice still tight. “Wearemarried. I would never have given up on you or treated you like you were insane. I know you’re thinking that’s easy for me to say now when we have diagnosis and proof. It’s not as strange as it would have sounded back then, but I’m telling you right now that I loved you then, just like I love you now, and I would have believed whatever you told me. I would have done anything necessary to make it work, to understand you and what you were going through, and I would never have acted like you were crazy—” I pause, laughing softly. “Well, youarecrazy. But not the way that you’re afraid I think you are.”
I move towards her slowly, carefully, like she’s a wild deer or some other animal I don’t want to spook. “I think you’re crazy, like the kind that yelled at me on the beach that night,” I remind her softly, my voice thickening with emotion as the memories come flooding back. “You’re the kind of crazy that blamed me for the accident whenyouran intome,who went on a high-speed chase in a busted fucking car and outran the cops.” I laugh ruefully, shaking my head. “You’re the good kind of crazy that makes my dick hard even though I know it shouldn’t, the kind that makes life worth living, that makes me want to spend the rest of that life with you, even if sometimes I’m worried it’s gonna be really fucking short, with some of the shit you pull.”
My voice deepens, taking on a more serious note as I hold her grey eyes with mine. She looks like she’s hanging on to every word even if she doesn’t quite believe me, like there’s a key hidden somewhere in the things I’m saying, and hope blooms in my chest. “I wouldneverhave left you if you’d been honest with me,” I tell her roughly, emotion rising hotly in my voice. “That wedding wasn’t a game to me, Alana. I took those vows seriously. It was fuckingreal. You’re my wife, and I’m your husband, and I would never have left you. In sickness and in health, right? Well, I don’t care what kind of fucking sickness you said you had, how out of this world it sounded. I’ve been pissed the fuck off since the day I met Megan and started learning about your condition because you didn’t have enough faith in me—inus—to stick around and try telling me the fucking truth. We could have figured it out together, Alana, if you’d just given me a chance. But you never fucking did.”
My voice trails off, the last words hanging heavily between us, and my chest aches like I’ve been hit by a fucking truck. Alana lets them sink in, her grey eyes shimmering, and when she speaks again, I hear her voice crack with emotion for the first time. That, too, gives me a flicker of hope.
“I was scared,” she whispers, her voice soft and almost pleading for me to understand. “I didn’t want to ruin your life because I loved you! You were the first good thing that ever happened to me, and I didn’t want to mess your life up with the load of shit I was carrying around. It was real to me too, Ian. I meant those vows—Iwantedto mean them. But I thought I was doing the right thing by you at the time, when you started talking about wanting a family. I thought it would be easier for you if I just left, and you could move on. Find a—a normal woman.” Her voice cracks at that last statement, shuddering a little, and I can feel my heart crack a bit too.
I step forward, closing that last bit of distance between us, and I take her chin firmly in my fingers so she can’t look away. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that she knows I mean what I’m saying, so she can feel what I’m holding back. How much I fucking want her.
“You’re the only woman for me, Alana,” I tell her, each word emphasized. “No matter how fucked up you might think you are, you could never be too fucked up for me.” My thumb grazes along her chin, and I look deeply into her eyes—the eyes of the woman I love more than my own fucking life. “You’re my special little psycho, Alana. And I don’t ever want to let you go.”
This time, it’s Alana who grabs ahold of me. Her hands come up, cupping my face as she drags my mouth down to hers, her tongue running hungrily over the seam of my lips. Her kiss is hot, fierce, and urgent, and there’s not a single part of me that wants to resist or question it. It’s been too fucking long, and my body craves her like she’s food, water, and air, like she’s the only thing that can keep me alive.
The last time I was with her, I thought it was a dream, butthisis the real dream, having her in my arms while I’m awake and aware, feeling every heated curve of her against my body. She feels even better than I remember, not just because it’s been so long but because her new curves suit her perfectly, her body ripe and luscious under my hands like the most delicious fruit, and I want to taste and lick and bite every inch of her until she’s screaming out with pleasure.
My hands go to the zipper at the back of her dress in the same instant that Alana’s fingers go to the buttons of my shirt, as if I ever needed any more fucking proof that we’re on the same wavelength, that we were meant to be together all along. My fingertips slide down her spine as I drag it down, touching her naked flesh as she gasps against my lips, unhooking her bra as I go so that when I peel the fabric away from her, I’ll be able to see everything.
She’s deftly undone every single button by the time I reach the base of her spine, my shirt hanging open as I slide the tight fabric down her arms and away from her breasts, pushing it down so that when it falls to her feet, she’s left standing there in nothing but her silky black panties, her creamy skin absolute perfection.
“You look fucking delicious,” I manage as I look at her, shrugging out of my shirt as my eyes eat up her newly full and rounded breasts, nipples larger and stiffening under my gaze, the smooth curve of her baby bump, the thicker curves of her ass and thighs. “I want to fucking eat you up.”
I sink to my knees as I say it, unable to stop at the thought of my mouth on her, and I hook my fingers in her panties, dragging them down her hips as I breathe in the scent of her.
“Ian—” Alana moans my name, her voice thick and husky like smoke, and I feel my cock throb at the sound of it, so hard that I’m nearly in pain. I want to be inside of her more than I want to breathe, but the only thing I want more than that is the taste of her on my lips.
“At least let me sit down, so I don’t fall down,” Alana teases. I look up at her, moving ever so slightly so she can sink into the soft couch next to us, turning to kneel between her thighs as I spread them apart. I hook my hands underneath them, pulling her ass to the edge of it so there’s nothing in my way, nothing stopping me from spreading her so wide that I can see every bit of her sweet pussy, look at her in a way that I haven’t been able to in so long. I want to fucking worship her with my mouth, and when I flick out my tongue to run it along her swelling folds, I groan at the taste of her on my tongue.
She gasps aloud, but I’m only just beginning. I tease her with lips and tongue, sucking and nibbling at the folds of her pussy, teasing her entrance with the tip of my tongue, pushing it inside so I can lap her up as she squirms and moans with frustration, looking down at me with a near murderous expression as the seconds turn to minutes, ticking by.
“Ian—” she growls, and then my name turns to a cry on her lips as I turn all my attention to her clit, flicking my tongue over it and then circling the stiff nub before fastening my lips there, sucking and licking as her thighs splay wide and her fingers tangle in my hair. Her head falls back, her moans turning to panting cries of pleasure, and I groan against her, my cock throbbing with need at the sweet scent and taste and feel of her.