Soak (A Navy SEAL Mormon Taboo Romance) (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

It was the last thing he wanted
to think, let alone say. There she was, a blonde angel in a swamp of Hampden
House sheets, her intent gaze fixed on a magazine. (
Vanity Fair.
) A
small mess of take-out containers and a three dollar bottle of wine (drained)
lay on the night-stand. She’d set up the iPod dock, so small, sweet, indie-girl
music played. He felt like he was in a French movie.

He preferred to dwell on the
warm valley of her cleavage, or her perky pink nipples. The concave basin of
her stomach, or those smooth muscular thighs. Her pink lips. What words they
might form next. And yet.

It had been five beautiful days
of living in sin. Some of the best days of his life, hands-down. Every morning,
he’d gotten to wake up to Chloe’s pearly white grin. Every night, he’d fallen
asleep holding her, playing big spoon to her little. The days passed in
flashes: they’d make love, they’d talk, they’d read. In the afternoons he would
stand to leave for yoga or a meeting with Wally or a therapy session, and she’d
always say the same thing:
Don’t go.
Looking so plaintive. Afraid that
if he could leave her once, he could do it again.

But he always came back, and it
was bliss. Though “gentlemen callers” were strictly against the rules at
Hampden House, Lexi thankfully turned a blind eye to his frequent visits, and
neither of Chloe’s neighbors seemed to mind the midnight sounds. He always
snuck out before breakfast, and then they’d meet up at some prearranged place:
a West side diner, a museum. Once, they went ice skating in Central Park. They
could last a few hours in New York City’s culture before the urge would
overtake them again, and he’d need to drag her clothes off with his teeth. They
would run for the nearest bed, his place or hers. She’d trip, laughing, up the
stairs. He would watch her ass swish back and forth and temporarily forget how
to breathe.

Still, there was something
missing. It first occurred the morning after their first reunion, when he came
down to breakfast to find Aunt Tilde calmly reading a newspaper. “Company?”
she’d asked, with a mischievous grin. He’d been so thankful that she hadn’t up
and kicked him out on his ass that morning, for yet another trifling misstep.
Chloe had been pretty embarrassed, sneaking past the living room with barely a
hello, but he’d remained suspended somewhere between gratitude and cloud nine
for much of the day. Love had surrounded him, that was why. He was with the
person he loved best, and his only living family member didn’t mind.

Chloe, he knew, didn’t have this
luxury. Not anymore. Sometimes during their long hours together, he thought he
could see a patch of sadness cross her face. Some song on the radio, some
stranger’s mannerism, would remind her of her brothers or sisters. Once they
took the subway downtown and rode in a car with two Mormons, bearing little
nametags: Elder Ralph something and Elder Kimball Grey. He’d been shocked to
glance over and spy tears, welling up in the corners of her eyes. She’d wiped
them away and refused to discuss it, but he’d become aware that their paradise
had a cost for her. Family.

She turned a page, and
impatiently brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. Neither of them had real
jobs. Mirabel had offered him a slot in the new yoga teacher training sessions,
but he still wasn’t fully sold on the whole hippie Brooklyn lifestyle. He
thought he’d like to do something a little closer to service. Teaching might be
nice. The most spiritually rewarding parts of his days remained his bi-weekly
visits with Wally, who had finally started opening up in sessions. They weren’t
talking about the war yet, but there were no more awkward silences. That was
something.

“You’re staring at me,” Chloe
drawled, biting her lip a little coyly. Ry instinctively flexed. He always
wanted her to see him at his most manly.

“So what if I am,” he ribbed,
rolling toward her on the bed. Downstairs, he could already hear the sounds of
dinner being prepared. Lexi was directing the kitchen staff, in her low, brassy
voice. The hours, they sure flew by.

“You’ve got your thinking face
on.” Chloe shut her magazine, but kept a thumb pressed on the page she’d been
reading. God, he loved her. What a little dork.

“Maybe I do.” He rolled toward
her on the bed, closing the gap between them. Their bodies still felt sticky
and humid from a recent coitus. The sheets were warm and bunched. He was going
to have to say it.

“Do you ever think,” he started,
looked at her wide, imploring blue eyes, then soldiered on. “Do you ever think—that
maybe we should go back?”

“To Provo?” The thumb slid out
of the magazine. She sat up, and the world suddenly seemed harsher.

“Just to make things right with
your family. I dunno.”

“What do you care, about my
family? After what they did to you?”

“I’m not asking for
me!
”
Nevertheless, visions of Elder Johannes and Johnny Christiansen started to
dance in his head. Though they both seemed a million miles away, it was true
that Ryder also had some unfinished business. He’d left a best friend behind in
Utah.

“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.