Ian did not let me eat him, so I was pouting again as he served the sandwiches that I and Chloe had made earlier, into a plate for me.

When he returned, I was at the window seat, curled into nothing but a blanket. My eyes trailed down over the towel wrapped around his hips, hanging below the V of his abdomen. My pout deepened.

First, he didn’t let me have a taste of him. Now, he was teasing me. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe I was just too horny now that my six years of celibacy finally broke.

He had rushed here without thinking twice, because of Chloe’s prank. And I had no clothes that he could wear. The first and last option he had was a towel.

Not that I was complaining.

“Lose the pout,” Ian chuckled, shifting me forward to sit behind me, then pulled me against his warm chest. “Chloe makes amazing sandwiches.” He held the plate below my nose, and my stomach churned in response. He was right. The smell alone had sparked my appetite

“Just so you know,” I took the plate from him with a scrunched-up face. “I’d still very much eat you.”

“I know.” He pressed a kiss against my hair, as I took a bite of the sandwich and almost melted into his chest.

Damn, Chloe.

Okay. Maybe they weren’t that great, but for a person laying spent after multiple orgasms like me, it was a piece of heaven.

Ian’s arms wrapped around me, and he swayed us side to side into a soft rhythm. The sun was still high in the sky, shining bright through the window over us. On any other day, I would have gone into the attic and sat by the window.

But no attic window, or sunset view could tempt me out of Ian’s embrace.

“Ian?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Why did you break up with your ex?”

He stopped swaying us for a moment, but recovered quickly and continued, with a soft sigh. “Why do you ask?”

Because my brain to mouth connection had momentarily malfunctioned, and before I could stop it, the question was already out of my mouth.

I shrugged. “I like being nosy.”

Ian chuckled, then buried his nose in my hair. Just when I thought he had brushed the question off, he spoke. “She fell in love with someone else,”

Now I stopped swaying with him.

What the–

I placed the plate aside and turned in his arms to look up at him. There was no particular reason why I had imagined his face would have been twisted in a painful look. But it wasn’t. He looked down at me with a small smile. Almost like he was over it.

“She fell in love with someone else?”

He nodded.

“She told you that?”

He blinked. “Uh, more of like, showed me.”

“What does that mean?”

He sighed heavily, then chuckled, as if the topic was making him awkward. “Why are you asking me about my ex?”

“Because I want to know everything about you,” the answer came instantly. As honest as truth could be.

Ian watched me intently, then smoothed a strand of hair away from my face, before pressing his lips against my temple. “Chloe saw her with…him.”

His words took a moment to sink in, but as soon as it did, my eyes slightly widened. My heart did 360-degree spin, then tightened in my chest. I decided I did not want to ask him anything else about her, but I wasn’t lying when I told him I was nosy.

“Was this before your breakup?”

He nodded.

My eyes rolled back on their own, almost frustrated. “Wow, she sounds like a bitch.” I took another, angry bite from my sandwich. “This is the reason I hate blondes. Or at least most of them.”

Ian gave me a secretly amused smile, then cocked his head to one side. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why did you break up with you ex?”

As the question fell onto my ears, I accidentally bit onto my tongue and flinched. Ian surely noticed it, but didn’t point it out. Simply brushed my hair down, and stared at me. I put down the sandwich and cleared my throat.

“Why are you asking me that?”

Ian searched for my face, looking more focused than usual. “Because I want to know everything about you.”

That made a small smile tug at my lips, as my eyes shifted away from his, gluing somewhere beside his head at the wall behind him. For some reasons unknown to me, I couldn’t look into his eyes now. Maybe because I dreaded what his reaction would be.

But I was also reminded of the promise I made to him.

No more secrets.

“Our marriage was contractual.” Somehow, I found the courage to shift my eyes back to him. Ian’s face was as blank as I had expected. “It was a three-year long contract. And both parties agreed to part legally after the given time period. But it wasn’t as easy as we had expected,” a sigh eased out of me, feeling the weight of my own words on my chest. It was not something I fancied talking about. Nothing about my relationship with Michael was worth talking about.

“What kind of contract was it?” Ian’s voice was soft, careful.

My eyes roamed around over everything, consciously ignoring his eyes. I wasn’t going to lie to him, but the truth wasn’t exactly comfortable talking about either.

“As much as I was informed, it had something to do with his family inheritance. I think he needed to get married for it to get passed down to him.”

Ian slid a hand behind me and rested it against my middle. There was a brief pause before he spoke. “Why did you stay then?”

Because I expected too much from a man who had too little to give.

My eyes trained somewhere far beyond the wall, pondering hard over that question, more than I should have. And the answer I found was completely unexpected.

“I think I fell in love with Michael.”

Ian’s hand on my waist tightened slightly, and I saw a spark of something new on his blank face. Something hard and tense. Like...

Jealously.

“Why did you decide to divorce him then?” His eyes hardened, expecting nothing but the truth.

“Because he didn’t love me,” I chuckled, as if the topic wasn’t scraping old wounds. “The whole concept of marriage never sat right with me, you know. My parent's marriage ended way too badly. But I thought, maybe, it would be something different with me than I had imagined.” I looked away, unable to hold his eyes anymore, and trained my eyes somewhere on the floor. “It was nothing different.”

Ian shifted, pulling me into his lap, making the blanket slide down from my shoulders and pool around my hips.

“How did you know he didn’t love you?”

I didn’t look at him as I shrugged. “Simple. I asked him.”

I regretted it till this very day, and I probably would for the rest of my life.

“What was his answer?” his voice was against the side of my face, one hand at the back, the other kneading my thigh, making me slump against his body.

I remembered every word Michael had said that day, because I had never felt more worthless in my entire life. Not even when I was kicked out from my father’s house. I closed my eyes.

“He said, “I care about you, Maeve. A lot. I always want you around me. You know me better than anyone else. I will give you everything you want, for the rest of our lives, but I can’t give you what you’re asking me. Because I don’t have it in me.”.”

The picture was still so vivid in my head, like it just happened yesterday. I always teased Michael of being a heartless jerk. But that day, he proved me right.

Ian’s fingers slipped into my hair, tightening at the base of my neck and tilted my head away. Then his lips were at the hollow of my throat.

“I tell you what. He is an asshole for letting you go. But,” his fingers tugged at my nape, making me lean away more, “I can’t help but thank him for giving me you.”

My eyes fell shut at his words, and back arched when his mouth hovered over my breasts, nose brushing against my nipples. Just brushing, not exactly touching. I could feel his breath and the warmth of his mouth. My hands braced against his knees, and Ian continued his slow torture of teasing my nipples with his nose.

“Ian…”

“I will give you.” He blurted out, and suddenly pulled me upright, body flushed against his, staring me dead in the eyes. “I will give you everything you want. I will give you everything he didn’t,” one of his hands slipped between us and grazed against my clit. I sucked in a breath. “The world, all the stars in the sky, every fucking thing I own, I’ll give it all to you.” Two fingers slipped inside me, and I quietly moaned, afraid anything louder would break this moment we were in. He leaned forward, mouth hovering over mine, panting against my face. “What do you want, Maeve? What can I give you more than that?”

My fingers slipped around his neck then threaded up into his hair. Only in that moment, when he asked me that, did I realize that I still wanted what I expected years ago from Michael.

“You,” my voice was hushed, afraid I was asking more than he could give. I placed my palm flat against his chest. “You, your heart. All of you.” The fingers inside me drew out then pushed back in, making my nails twitch against his chest, and hips to move against his hand. My eyes rolled back.

Ian dropped his head, heaving like he couldn’t breathe, then groaned against my neck. “I can’t give you that, Maeve.”

My hips abruptly halted, and my eyes peeled open to the wall behind his head. My heart which had crawled up my throat had just dropped to my stomach. Ian raised his eyes to me, and there was a pain drawing his eyebrows together; something I had expected to see when he was talking about his ex. Not now.

Had I hurt him in any way?

I cupped my hands around his face, anxiety rising in my chest. “Ian–”

“I can’t give you something you’ve already taken.” He whispered.

I stilled once more, with an exception, that my heart stilled with me this time. My eyes searched for his clear blue ones, brimming with unmasked honesty and suppressed emotions. In that moment, I felt his words reach inside my chest and rip something out, and take it with him.

As soon as the weight of that thing left my chest, I leaned forward and kissed him.

Ian circled a hand around my waist and the fingers which were inside me all this while, started moving again; twisting, thrusting, circling.

There was something raw about this new heat spreading between us. It spread far beyond the skin or flesh, it spiraled way deeper.

I raised myself up with my knees on either side of his thighs, and reached down to tug open the towel around his hips. His cock stood up in attention between us, and Ian’s fingers moved faster inside me, making my thighs tremble. I was so close. But I didn’t want to come yet.

My fingers wrapped around his cock and I pumped his length. Warm, thick skin growing against my fingers. Ian groaned into my neck, teeth sinking into my collarbone, making me whimper.

“I want you,” I heaved, hips buckling against his hand impatiently. “I want you inside me, Ian.”

With a soft gasp leaving my lips, I was laid back against the window seat, feeling his fingers slip out of me.

Before I could complain about the empty feeling, Ian lowered himself over me and his lips instantly found mine. His tongue slid inside my mouth, just as his cock slid inside me.

I bowed off the seat with a moan, my legs wrapping around his waist to pull him close. Closer. I wanted him everywhere around me, over me, inside me.

Ian slowly thrusted into me, hips settling a pace so painfully slow, it made my hips grind for more. But I didn’t ask him to go faster. I liked what he was doing. I liked how the ache was spreading throughout my body like a burning wake for the pleasure to follow. I loved this feeling.

I loved…this. Whatever this was.

Ian’s lips moved down to wrap around my nipple, somehow still thrusting inside me with the same rhythm. Slow, deliberate strokes caressing my insides, and just as I thought it couldn’t get better, his fingers found my clit.

“Ian…” My voice was shaky, trembling, like my whole body.

“Oh, baby. Come-on, give it to me now,” the pad of his fingers worked my clit with a pressure. Then fastened with a speed that exceeded the thrusting of his hips. “Come for me, sweetheart.” His words brought me to the ultimate edge. And I came. I came and came and came. Mind spiraling into tiny bits of dust, leaving behind nothing but an echoing of his name.

Ian moved down to capture my lips and muffle my cries as his hips picked up the pace, stabbing into me, following his own high. Chasing at it.

After a few strong thrusts of his hips, he stilled, emptying himself inside me, hips grinding in a slow circle afterwards.

When he pulled out, he collapsed on top of me, burying his face in my neck, then inhaling deeply. “Fuck, I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you”

His words made me smile. My fingers slipped into his hair, grazing his scalp in a way that always made him relax against me, feeling his heartbeat against my chest, beating in sync with mine. We stayed like that for God know how long. But when I heard his soft snores against the side of my neck, I smiled and pressed a kiss against his forehead, before following after him into dreamland.