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His eyes softened, warming her heart. “Good. I’m glad that you do.”
Only when her breathing returned to normal, minutes later, di
d he remove the bindings. Once she was free, he gathered her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. He lowered her into the middle of the bed and then joined her, tucking her against his side and wrapping an arm around her. “You’re all I need, Chloe.”
She rested her head on his damp chest, trailing her fingers along his bare skin. Point proven, she supposed. “I get what you’re saying,” she told him, lifting herself up on one elbow to see the sexy flush across his cheeks, “but won’t you miss your club?”
“When I have this lush body beneath me?” He chuckled, swatting her bottom. “I’d be a damn fool if I thought of anything else but how lucky I am that I found you.” He turned to her, and his eyes grew serious. “I want to spend my time getting to know you. Not playing in a club where I don’t know any woman there and they don’t know me. This”—he slapped her bottom again, sending heat spiraling through her—“is all I want. And I don’t want you to become something that you weren’t before me. I want you to stay exactly the same.” He leaned forward and kissed her nose. “I hope you know now that I’m not changing at all. I’m the same, but I want something different for myself. And that, Chloe, is good.”
She stared at him. In many ways, Sawyer was everything Chloe had ever wanted in a lover. In other ways, he was everything she had never suspected that she wanted. Somehow that made it all the more perfect. Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “I’m falling in love with you.”
He hesitated, emotion filling his eyes, before he rolled over, pushed her onto her back. “Well, that’s too bad.”
She frowned up at him. “Why is that bad?”
His commanding eyes zeroed in on her. “Because I’m already in love with you.”
Then he kissed her.
And she hoped he’d never stop.
Epilogue
“Dating only five months and now married, hmm?”
Chloe glanced up into her father’s warm eyes. “You’re proud, right?”
“Of course I am,” said her father with a twinkle in his eye, sweeping Chloe around the dance floor. Laughter and voices echoed through the warm night as they danced to the band playing on the back deck of the log home. “But I care more about how happy you looked coming down that aisle than about how quickly it all happened.”
Her heart danced, too, as she glanced over her father’s shoulder at the reason for her happiness. Sawyer was chatting with his family as they sat at one of the tables set up in Cora and Aidan’s backyard. Ashlyn and her new boyfriend, Simon, sat next to them. Chloe smiled. Over the past months, Ashlyn had moved on with her life instead of drowning in despair. Chloe respected her strength and was so glad to have her as a sister-in-law. Sawyer hadn’t been wrong—they got along great.
As her father glided with her across the dance floor, Chloe admired the lodge house. Nestled in a thick forest, it was stunning. She’d seen it for the first time at Porter and Kenzie’s engagement party months earlier, and when Sawyer proposed and suggested a double wedding with Porter and Kenzie at this house, Chloe loved the idea. Maybe even more so, because she liked that his close friends were still in their lives, just not in a kinky way.
She scanned the crowd, who were all dressed for the occasion. The wedding earlier in the day had been everything she’d hoped it would be. Chloe’s father walked her down the aisle, and Dmitri gave away Kenzie to Porter. In that moment everything was so perfect that her emotions took over, and she didn’t stop crying until Sawyer took her hand and made her his wife.
As Chloe’s father twirled her to the beat, she mused, “It has been a bit of a whirlwind romance, hasn’t it?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “But that’s the best kind.”
“Mind if I cut in?”
Chloe glanced over her shoulder to find Josh smiling at her. She looked at her dad and he nodded, releasing her hand. “Your mother looks like she needs another drink. I’ll go fetch her one.” He waved to Josh. “By all means, dance with the bride.”
Josh gave him a look of gratitude.
Her father stepped away, and Josh took Chloe’s hand and began dancing, not nearly as confident as her father had been. Wondering how Sawyer was taking this, she glanced over to where he was sitting, and saw that he was watching her and Josh with a keen eye. Seconds later, though, a soft smile crossed his face. Chloe’s tension faded. She had wondered if he’d be jealous over her relationship with Josh. She and Josh had talked on the telephone now and then over the past few months, but she hadn’t seen him. She suspected Sawyer wouldn’t feel threatened, and she was glad to see she was right.
“So,” Josh said, drawing her gaze back to him. “You work fast.”
Chloe laughed, staring up into his baby face. “Apparently. But you seem pretty happy, too.”
“I am.” As they danced to the slow song, Chloe caught sight of his new girlfriend, Molly, talking to Presley, Cora, and Ella. “It seems we both got what we wanted, huh?”
“Seems so.” Tears prickled in her eyes, a bit unexpectedly. Life had changed so much since she’d ended things with Josh. But it had changed for the better. “Thank you for coming tonight. It means a lot to me.”
Josh grinned in his cute way. “Thanks for the invite.”
The invitation hadn’t happened without a little stress. Chloe had thought about that decision for a good week before she finally called him, told him the news, and asked him to come tonight. Even now as she stared at Josh, she couldn’t imagine not having him there to celebrate such a big moment in her life. “It’s funny, isn’t it?”
