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I shrugged, feigning a nonchalance I didn’t feel. Too much was riding on this for me to take it lightly. “Seven years is a long time. Besides, so what if she hasn’t pined for us, or whatever the fuck it’s called? We never asked her to wait. We wanted her to go. We just didn’t think it would be for this long. Besides, you know how it works as well as anyone. We know she’s ours, now it’s up to us to make her see that.”
I’d spent half the night imagining just how we’d prove it to her. The last time we’d been with her, the sex had been great, but Lord knows we had no idea what we were doing. None of us had ever done it before. We’d been a bunch of fumbling virgins in the back of a pickup, but we’d made it good for her. Hell, it had been incredible to sink into her, to watch the arousal and need fill her eyes, to feel the way her body softened and took me in. The way she clenched and squeezed around my dick as she came. Again and again. The fact that she’d come for us, two fumbling teenagers, was a sign or something. It was that good.
Now, we were older, wiser, and well versed in the ways of pleasuring a woman. I knew where I wanted to start. That dress of hers had done little to conceal her tits, her nipples pressing against the thin material just begging to be sucked. I remembered their color, the way they’d tightened in my mouth. The whole time we’d been talking to her, a little part of my brain couldn’t stop obsessing over what she wore underneath the sundress. Clearly there was no bra. But had she been wearing panties? If so, were they lacy? Pink? A fucking thong so her perfect ass was bare?
“Earth to Rory.” Cooper was watching me and I forced my brain to come back from its dirty wandering and focus on my best friend, who still looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Look, if she’s happy with her life, I don’t know that we should be coming in and—”
“Fuck that.” I tempered my voice so the other tables didn’t hear my swearing. “I refuse to listen to any more of your stupid excuses.” I set my mug of coffee down on the table. “She’s ours, we’re not just going to let her walk away from us again. Not now when we have something to offer her.”
“What do I have to offer?” His voice was hoarse and filled with unspoken emotions that made my chest ache on his behalf. “Seriously, Rory, I’d like to know…what the hell do you think I can give Ivy?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but he wasn’t done.
“She hasn’t been waiting all these years so she can settle down with a broken man who can’t even sleep through the night like a normal person. She can’t be interested in a man that killed more than a handful of men.”
“Fuck that shit.” I tried to meet his gaze but he was looking everywhere but at me, like he was too ashamed to face me. I leaned forward and dropped my voice so the rest of the restaurant didn’t hear. “The chopper crash wasn’t your fault.” They were words I said often enough, but until he believed them, it wouldn’t make a bit of fucking difference. “I know you’re going through hell, man. But you’re getting better every day, physically and in every other way. Ivy liked you just fine before. She’s not a bitch. She’s not looking for perfect. She never was. She’s looking for us, the guys who claimed her that night.”
“We’re not the same.”
“No, we’re not. We’re better. Smarter. Wiser. Know the shit that’s out there and will keep her safe.”
He gave a small nod but I knew he wasn’t hearing me.
I fell back in my seat with a sigh. “I know it’s not easy. Shit, maybe it never will be. What happened to you won’t go away and it will never be right, but it will get a little easier with time. Isn’t that what the doctors are always telling you?”
The corner of his mouth turned up in a minor semblance of a smile, but he didn’t respond.
“I know for a fact that it was thoughts of Ivy that pull
ed you through in the hospital. I fucking heard you call out her name.” I watched his reaction and he gave me a grudging nod of agreement. He’d made me talk about her and relive that night with him countless times after the accident. When he got tired of reminiscing about her smile, her hair, her scent, the feel of her pussy…that’s when we’d switch to talking about how it could be. How it would be once we got her back. And we were getting her back. He just needed to get his head out of his ass long enough to do so.
Cooper’s smile grew and I knew he was remembering the plans we’d made for our future home with our gorgeous wife. “That was a good dream.”
“It was more than a dream, Cooper. It’s our fucking destiny, and you know it. We’ve found her. Seen her. Even made a damn date with her. Don’t you dare give up on that now when we’re so close.”
For the first time in a long time, Cooper gave me a real smile. Not rueful or self-deprecating, but an honest-to-God genuine grin. “Yeah, all right. Let’s go get our girl.”
Damn straight.
CHAPTER FOUR
IVY
My aunt stared at me like I was a crazy person and I couldn’t blame her. I was standing by the front door, shifting from one foot to the other as I called upstairs to Lily for the third time. “Come on, hon, you’re going to be late.”
Aunt Sarah tipped her head to the side as she peered at me through her bifocals. In her late seventies, she was my second mother. Since my real one didn’t count, Grandma was first. Then, when she passed, Aunt Sarah had definitely filled that role. And boy, had I needed someone. Eighteen and pregnant? I couldn’t have done it without her. While her hair was still long—she refused to cut it and have helmet-head like an old lady—she’d decided to let the gray show. Even though she’d grown up in Bridgewater, she didn’t dress like a cowgirl. In fact, I’d never seen her in jeans. Her style was simple, with bright colors and bold jewelry.
She looked at the watch on her slim wrist. “The movie doesn’t start for an hour, Ivy. We’ve got plenty of time.”
I tried to force a smile but I was pretty sure it came off as a grimace. I needed them gone. Out. Far, far away. And I needed it now. I’d been on a few dates, but this wasn’t a real date. This was Cooper and Rory. There was no comparison. Dates were namby-pamby men who brought flowers and took me to a restaurant with an all-you-can-eat salad bar and kissed my cheek at the end of the night. Cooper and Rory? They were…indescribable.
Aunt Sarah still watched me, sizing me up from my peep-toe heels to my sexy dress. The dress was little and black, and I referred to it as my “sexy dress” on the few occasions that I’d worn it. It was the only one in my closet that didn’t look like it was meant for parent/teacher night at school and that in and of itself made it sexy.
“Do you have a date tonight?” Aunt Sarah asked.
Date! No, I was having dinner with the two men who’d claimed me, body and soul, seven years ago and left me to live my dream. And gave me Lily.
I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that while being truthful. This morning, when I’d asked her to watch Lily for me, I’d told her I had plans tonight. I’d specifically said plans and not date for this very reason. The butterflies in my stomach went wild at the word “date.” That one-syllable made my knees weak and my breathing uneven. Holy cow, it had been way too long since I’d been out with a man. And tonight I was going out with two men. Two insanely hot, ridiculously sexy men. Two men who’d fucked me senseless and who looked at me like they’d like to do it again.
