by Loren, Celia
“Ryder, I want this. Do you not want this?” Chloe pulled the comforter around herself, which made her look more like the uptight little ballerina he’d first met and been irritated by. Though he just couldn’t resist that little furrow between her eyebrows, when she got worried.
“I want this more than anything. That’s why I’m asking. Remember when we went ice skating, Chloe? We were sitting there, the two of us, just surrounded by your whole big, sloppy family. Don’t you miss that?”
“They let me drown when you left.” The tears were back. “They would have rather have me marry that cretin than be happy in their idea of ‘sin.’ I don’t know if I can forgive that.”
“But what about Martin? Celeste? Marie? What about Gwen?”
“I talk to Gwen! We text on your phone.”
“Your parents? God, Chloe, that whole church. I know I didn’t try to understand it like I should have, I know that. But it was your whole life. I think you’d resent me forever if you felt like you had to choose between me and them. I don’t want us to be that way.”
Ry relaxed. He felt perversely proud of himself. Before therapy and hanging out with so many girls, he didn’t think he’d ever have been able to explain his feelings so... logically.
Chloe remained silent. Her gaze emptied, and drifted toward the carpet. Perhaps he’d gone too far. They were still in a blissful lover’s fantasia, two fugitives in the Big Apple. Maybe he’d ruined things before they needed to be ruined.
“I want to marry you,” he heard himself say. “And I want us to get married the way you really want to. I know your family’s there, in the fantasy.” The words surprised him, and they didn’t. They hadn’t known each other for long, yet it felt like years had passed between them—in glances and conversations, as much as in touch. And of all the things that he’d been carrying around since Aleppo, since PT, since Provo, since birth...the woman before him was the lightest burden. She was so easy to carry.
Her face switched on again. That delicious lightbulb. She bent forward and kissed him; he tasted salt. He felt good. He felt right. He let his fingers get tangled in her already-matted hair. A tingle tiptoed down his spine. He was still sore from earlier events that day, but he wanted her anyway.
But Chloe broke away. When she peered up at him again, the frown was back.
“Ryder Strong, if that was your proposal—I’ll effin’ kill you.” He kissed her again, for lack of anything better to say.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Yeah,” she cried, as Ryder pressed himself into her. She could feel the bulge in his jeans, fixing to burst. The whole of Hampden House was quiet around them. She remembered that night in the church basement. Her want was as full now as it had been then.
Her man kissed the nape of her neck, while continuing to gently hump her backside. They were upright, flush against an old dresser. Chloe pressed her hot palms into its wooden surface and resisted his movements, so that the friction between them grew. Ryder brought his lips to hers and kissed her, hard.
The tickets to Salt Lake City sat on the end-table, a cold reminder. She turned her face so she wouldn’t have to see them. If she couldn’t see them, Chloe thought to herself, illogically, they didn’t exist. It was that simple.
Ryder was nudging her thighs apart now, as his feverish hands groped her front. He slipped a paw past the barrier of her slip, cupping her breast, pinching her nipple. She tilted her head back, into his broad sternum. His shoulders made a cave for her. He squeezed her tit, and she moaned.
“You like that,” Ryder whispered. His voice was hoarse. Every part of their bodies felt ragged; they were slaves to sex. It was amazing to Chloe how right this union felt—or at least how right it had started to feel, after a few times. He was patient and kind, but rough when he needed to be. She loved that her body could open like a flower and admit him, like the sun.
“I do like that,” she replied. Then she scrunched her shoulders together and shimmied out of the slip, exposing her bare breasts to the air. Ryder couldn’t stand this. He flipped her around with one hand, so they were facing, and began to kiss and caress her chest. She held his shaggy head in her arms as he stooped to engulf her, his hands sliding over the curves of her side, her waist.
“Take this off,” he commanded, gesturing toward the thin satin that separated her nether regions from his. Chloe moved to slide out of the slip, but she wasn’t fast enough for Ry. He took two hanks of the fabric in his big hands and tugged, until her clothes lay in a puddle on the floor.
Chloe laughed. Ryder dove. He kissed her neck, inching his hips toward her naked pubis. She tugged on his belt-loops, welcoming him inside. They kissed again with chapped lips, already red from kissing. But they weren’t tired of one another; they couldn’t get enough.
“I want you inside me,” Chloe cooed, and Ryder immediately set to work unbuttoning his pants. She ran her fingers up and down the plates of his abs. He was so strong. So, perfectly strong. She pressed against him harder, thrilled when he met her with more strength. The heavy belt buckle clanked on the wood floor.
She turned her eyes to his manhood, in all its swollen glory. It wasn’t like she knew a dick from Adam, but Ryder, she’d come to learn, was #blessed in this department. She loved rolling his smooth cock between her fingers. She loved even more the moment when he hovered at her lower lips, just before thrusting inside for the first time. He was so, so...thick.
Ryder had placed his fingers at the damp cave of her entrance, and was beginning to rub her in circles, creating heat. She gyrated in kind, twisting her lower body the way she’d used to do while hula-hooping in the front yard. He slid a finger inside, and began to press up in that amazing way. Chloe felt her muscles clench in that first wave of true anticipation. She moaned again, and brought her own fingers to Ryder’s wrist, guiding his motions.
He pressed a second finger inside as his gaze drifted to her front again. He kissed a light pattern across her chest, before fixating on one breast. Looking up at Chloe with coy eyes, he lightly took a nipple between his teeth. She watched him and was surprised to feel herself getting wetter at the small prospect of danger. She thrust her hips.
Ryder sank to his knees slowly, reading this as an invitation. He turned his mouth toward her waiting hollow, running his tongue over her damp pubic hair, settling on the bean of her clit. She cried out.
His lips drifted South, and she felt his tongue moving inside her entrance, lapping her up. She let herself relax against the table. At first, Ryder’s attention to her most secret space had made her a little self-conscious—as it had that first night in her family’s living room. But after much urging, she’d come to allow herself to feel everything his kisses wanted her to feel. She spread her legs wider, so he could move deeper. Sighing, she reached for the bulges of his shoulders. Her fingers grazed the coiled tail of the snake.
A throbbing rhythm began to build. Ryder’s tongue moved faster inside her, and his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips. She raised herself up, toward the dresser, to allow him easier access. Her blonde hair fell damply down her back. “Fuck,” she cried, nails now digging into his skin. “You’re gonna make me come.”
Immediately, Ryder dragged himself away from her, grinning even as he left her feeling hungry.
“Turn around,” he commanded. Panting now, Chloe obeyed. Over her shoulder, she watched her lover massage the two scoops of her bare ass, bend down, and press his erection toward her wetness. She cried out again as he began the slow, delicious inch inside.
Ryder laid a palm against her back, tilting her over the dresser. She spread herself on the furniture, gripping its sides to prepare herself for his thrusts. The first one shot through her body like a jolt of electricity, landing squarely on her G-spot before leaving. Chloe whimpered. Her breasts felt cool and heavy against the wood.
“Fuck,” Ryder grunted, pressing inside again. Her body expanded to fill him; she widened her thighs. He rocked in and out, accelerating. Fucking
her. Good and hard.
She could feel his balls slapping lightly against her wetness, and to feel even closer, she reached back to press her fingers into his muscular thighs. He re-positioned, bending lower so his cock went even deeper inside. She could feel her muscles tensing again, the heat whirling in her belly like a tornado. “I’m gonna come!” she cried. Little felt better than coming on Ryder’s cock.
“Wait,” Ryder said, breathing ragged. He pulled out, leaving her wanting again, and then spun her around. He flipped her over his shoulder and carried her, fireman-style, to the bed. “Get on top,” he said, laying her out flat against the pillows.
Outside, morning sounds were beginning. Chloe was beginning to recognize what constituted a New York morning. She missed birds, but found delight in yelling workmen, anxious sirens, honking horns. Of course, none of that mattered now. This bed was the only world she cared about.
She climbed on top of him timidly, still lusty, but self-conscious. Ryder assuaged her fears by plowing forward to kiss her chest again, even as he eased himself inside her. She straddled him, then slowly began to bob back and forth on his cock. He seemed to like the view.
It was a new angle for them, and, Chloe liked it immediately. He felt so deep. She felt so in control. Rocking back and forth against those sinewy hips, the tornado inside her whipped faster. She locked eyes with her lover, and felt so much freedom and trust and love in that grey-eyed gaze. She touched the soft stubble on his face, tilted her head back, and pressed down. She rode him, back and forth. He gripped her hips. He pinched her nipples. Chloe tilted her head back and felt all her muscles clench around his cock, mere moments before he gripped her and pulled himself out. They lay panting their orgasms, tracing idle fingers across the other’s naked body.
Moments later, when they’d rolled away from one another and lay in their own damp patches of the bed, Ryder flipped over on his side. “That was fast,” he said, smiling and wiggling his eyebrows. “A new record?” She play-thwacked him with a pillow, then sank into his arms. The sun was now sneaking through the blinds.
“We should go,” Ryder said, after a few long, luscious beats. “Don’t wanna miss the plane.” Chloe didn’t say anything. She wished they could linger in this place, where time didn’t matter. Where no one could judge.
Instead, she sighed. Leaned forward. Reached for her clothes.
This time, when she landed at LaGuardia airport, Chloe was struck by how much had changed in only two short weeks. For one thing, she now rode in a taxi holding Ryder’s hand. (His minimal military checks had just started coming in, which gave them a small cushion for such luxuries.) Instead of her Pollyanna paisley and skirt combo, she wore a blue v-neck tee and skinny jeans, both purchased under Lexi and Angela’s guidance. (The beloved cardigans, though, she hadn’t yet let go.) Chloe thought of her new friends at Hampden House with a pang. They’d exchanged e-mails and phone numbers, but it still seemed unlikely that they’d ever be all together again. Angela and Therese were the kind of women who could scatter to the winds with ease. She envied them this, in fact.
Ryder, surprisingly, didn’t seem anxious as they scrolled through his city. Which was fair, because according to the loosest of plans, they were going to come back. Chloe was going to enroll at CCNY and brush up on Italian while she decided where to pursue her graduate degree, and Ryder was going to enroll in that city-sponsored teacher recruiting program. She thought he’d make a great teacher. The kind of buff, weathered guy all the girls would have crushes on and all the guys would respect. Maybe they’d have a small but clean apartment in one of her favorite Manhattan neighborhoods, and they could explore the parks and museums and theatres on weekends. Lexi and Mirabel and Wally and Angela and Therese could come over for dinner, or the semi-fictional “book club.” All of this was waiting for them—yet, they were headed back to Provo.
Provo, where who knew what was waiting. Though Chloe had relied on the stolen emergency credit card for a few purchases, no one in her family had tried to contact her.
She hadn’t gotten any e-mails. She tried not to imagine the worst—her father petitioning to excommunicate his oldest daughter, the family burning her image in effigy. It was almost worse to picture them forgetting about her, tolerating her absence. Writing her off as a scratch pilgrim, a woman who’d never been good enough for God.
Thankfully, Gwen was back in Utah, too. She’d had an eye-opening visit with her father, according to several ecstatic emails. Chloe tried to imagine a day when Gwen, Lexi and Mirabel would all be together at some table, crowing over a meal she prepared. She swore they would like each other. It would be a perfect urban family.
“What do you have in here, bricks?” Ryder grumbled, as he tried to shove Chloe’s carry-on bag into a resistant overhead compartment. Then: “Oh. Right.” He didn’t really need to ask anymore. She had one heavy vice, except for him, and had spent the remainder of her New York allowance stocking up on her drug of choice at The Strand. Books, books, and more books.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for riding Southwest Airlines,” a sunny, middle-aged blonde woman was starting the in-flight speech. Chloe’s heart sank. The last chance to turn around had come and gone.
She looked out at the tarmac, and tried to recall the feelings Ryder had (rightly) predicted. She did miss her family, that much was true. She missed their breakfast chatter and the Sunday morning scramble to church. None of them were perfect, but she missed each one of their stupid faces: Celeste, Martin, Marie, Mom. Even Dad. Even Johnny.
Ryder squeezed her hand. She squeezed back. At least, thank somebody, she didn’t have to face them alone this time. She had love with her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
There’d been this one night, en route to Aleppo, when Ryder’d met up with a former RPA drone pilot. Young guy. Air Force. Previously based out of Bumblefuck, New Mexico. The kid had been headed to Pakistan for some kind of obscure, on-the-job training—though Ryder didn’t press him. He knew everyone in the military had their stories, after a point. The only business one needed to mind was the business they were given by a commanding officer.
“It was so weird to feel like I was fighting, when I was just sitting in a chair,” this kid had said, with a frantic expression in his eyes. “I put in for a transfer because I couldn’t take it anymore. Killing people without their even seeing you. Without even being able to look them in the eye.” Ryder hadn’t pointed out that when he’d killed people in the line of duty, he’d almost never had to look them in the eye. He’d nodded, instead. Said something like, “a sneak attack is the coward’s way.” Then, he’d gotten the kid drunk.
He was reminded of this moment as he approached Elder Johannes’ doorstep, if, of course, on a much smaller scale. No one was going to die by explosion today, not in Provo. But there was music to face. There were eyes to be looked into.
He rang the bell.
Ryder had worried, at points on their trip, that he’d pushed Chloe into facing her family before she was ready to see them again. His own excitement at re-connecting with Aunt Tilde and his new friends had perhaps blinded him to what she really needed and wanted. But then they’d been driven through the city, and seen all the familiar, friendly-looking buildings that constituted Brigham Young’s campus. They’d passed her childhood temple. Her childhood church. He swore he saw something in her big blue eyes that looked like envy, and had known in that moment they were right to come. Just like he’d needed to go to New York and face down his demons, his unfinished business, Chloe needed to be here. And he needed to be where Chloe needed to be.
For a few breathless seconds, it seemed like no one was home. He remembered the Christiansen house as a giddy place. People had been home at all hours of the day, felt like. His eyes scanned the front door, and then the lawn. The latter was shaggy and un-mowed. Just like his hair. Oh, fuck, he definitely should have gotten a haircut before showing up on the stoop like this. He looked like a fucking yoga instructor.
&nb
sp; I am a yoga instructor, Ryder reminded himself. He smiled, thinking about this. Johnny would ride him something fierce for becoming a “fancy city man.” His old friend had a pretty limited tolerance for people with less-than-crucial jobs. Which seemed ironic given the fact that Johnny didn’t even hold a job anymore.
Just then, a familiar van turned onto the street. It was like he could hear the shouting going on inside, even before they’d parked and switched off the engine. Celeste would be screeching about something, Marie would be lecturing her. Martin would be cracking jokes. Mrs. Christiansen would be humming.
He saw a shadow pass over Chloe’s face as the car pulled to a slow stop. No one got out. They all stood there, in a stand-off. Ryder was just about to go knock on the window like a goddamned idiot when the passenger door eked open, very slowly. Mrs. Christiansen stepped onto the driveway, her pale hair freshly frosted. He thought he saw new lines on her face, but maybe this was just his memory failing.
“Mama,” Chloe said, opening her arms. Tears were already striping her cheeks. Ryder mentally urged the women to hug, as if that gesture alone could solve everything, but Mrs. Christiansen stayed planted. He thought he could see in her eyes that she wanted to go to her daughter, though.
“Mama,” Chloe repeated, louder this time. “We’ve come back to talk to you.”
“Chloe...”
“Ryder and I are together now. And we’re in love.”
“Chloe.” She stayed fixed like a fire hydrant, immobile on the ground. Then the driver’s door opened, revealing his worst nightmare (well, almost): Elder Johannes. He looked about as angry as could be expected, but still—that bunched little face made Ryder nervous. It was harder to look a man in the eye when you both knew you’d deflowered his daughter.
“What are you two doing here,” Mr. Christiansen asked, his eyes darting rapidly between Chloe and Ry.
