The Last Read online

  Every nerve inside me jangles from the delicious friction of his body. His mouth finds mine, and he kisses me with a tenderness that serves as a delicious counterpoint to the force of his thrusts, the power of his movements. I drag my nails down his shoulder blades as my ankles twine around his calves, trying to contain all this sensation. I clutch at his hair again, craving that contrast of softness against my palms and all the hardness inside me.

  “You feel so good,” he breathes against my ear. “So fucking good, Sarah.”

  Something about the way he says my name shoots a thousand tiny rockets of pleasure through me, or maybe that’s the way he’s moving. Faster now, more intense. His forearms are solid anchors on either side of my head, and he drives into me with a primal fierceness that makes me scream.

  There’s a swarm of honeybees moving in my chest, and they buzz into a great big ball and head straight for the spot where my body is joined with Ian’s. Missionary isn’t a position that’s ever made me come this fast, but I’ve never been fucked by Ian Nolan before.

  “Oh, Christ,” I gasp as the fist of pleasure grabs hold of me and yanks me over the edge. “Don’t stop.”

  He responds by shoving one forearm under my hips to tilt me at that perfect angle. He slams into me, nailing my G-spot at the precise moment I feel him start to give.

  “Jesus.” His voice is ragged, but he never breaks rhythm. Just thrusts into me again and again until we’re both wrung dry like twisted sponges.

  We go very still afterward. Both of us are breathing like we’ve run a marathon, but neither of us speaks. I don’t know if we’re more mind-whacked from the pleasure or from the shock of how this unfolded ten minutes after seeing each other for the first time in a decade.

  Suffice it to say, this isn’t how I usually catch up with old college pals.

  I breathe deeply as I circle my palms on his bare back like I’m reminding myself who he is. What we’ve just done. I smile against his cheek, giddier than I’ve ever been on a birthday. Not even the year my mom saved all summer to buy me the Furby I begged for.

  Ian must feel me stirring under him, because he rolls to his side and pulls me against him so we’re facing each other. I can’t believe there’s room for both of us on this couch, but he somehow makes us fit. His cheeks are ruddy and lined with red-gold stubble, and I lift a hand to rub his jaw and feel the scrape against my palm.

  “Well that was different for us.” I’m trying for cool, but my voice comes out wobbly.

  He grins and turns his head to plant a kiss on my palm. Then he reaches over me to grab the fuzzy blue blanket off the back of the couch. “Happy birthday,” he says as he pulls it around us, tucking one edge under my hip.

  “Happy birthday to you, too.” I smile back. “Two days late.”

  “Well worth the wait.”

  I love that there’s none of that “was it good for you” bullshit. It was fucking amazing, and he knows it. There’s no need to stroke egos or play shy or talk about what this means for the future.

  It was incredible sex, plain and simple. I’m grinning like a girl who just unwrapped Barbie and the Barbie Dreamhouse as Ian finishes folding the blanket around us and nestling me into the crook of his arm.

  His green eyes are softer now. Less primal. This is the Ian I remember from college, my study buddy, my camping pal, my closest confidant.

  “So,” he says, brushing the hair off my forehead as casually as if he’s done it a thousand times before. “Want to get married?”

  Chapter Four

  Ian

  Sarah stares at me for so long that I consider repeating my question. All right, it wasn’t just a question. A proposal, really, and a weightier one than “want pizza for dinner?” or “should we watch Outlander?”

  “M—married?” Her expression is perfectly befuddled. Like she’s not sure whether to laugh or fall off the couch. It’s the same look she gave me the time I tried to convince her our economics professor was secretly a porn star.

  I smile at the memory, which makes Sarah roll her big blue eyes and slug me in the arm. “You dork. For a second it sounded like you were serious.”

  “I am serious.” I wipe the smile off my face and do my best to appear like a legitimate contender for Sarah’s hand in marriage. “It makes total sense if you think about it.”

  “Marriage,” she repeats, like she’s positive we’re not talking about the same idea. “Pledging to love, honor, and cherish for the rest of our lives when we haven’t seen each other for ten years? That makes total sense to you?”

  “Well, when you put it that way—”

  She struggles to sit up, and I go with her, not wanting to be disrespectful. I probably should have thought of that before proposing while naked. The blanket slips down the slope of her breast, and my brain does a quick short-circuit at the sight of that lush, magnificent roundness tipped with a perfect pink rosebud.

  Focus, Ian.

  I tug the blanket up, determined to be a gentleman about this.

  “You have to admit, traditional marriage isn’t very sensible,” I say. “People making a lifetime decision based on emotion or lust or whatever the hell convinces people they’re supposed to make all these impossible promises to another person. Like that’s something anyone can guarantee.”

  She’s looking at me oddly, like she’s waiting for a punchline. I keep going, pretty sure I can convince her.

  “More than 50 percent of traditional marriages fail because there’s no way anyone can predict something as unpredictable as human emotion,” I tell her. “But if marriage were handled more like a business proposition than some sacred, holy union—”

  “Are you always this charming?” She shakes her head and plucks at the hem of the blanket. “I don’t remember you being this—this—”

  “Pragmatic?”

  “—nuts,” she finishes, adjusting the blanket around her breasts. “I don’t remember you being this nuts in college.”

  I open my mouth to point out that I’ve changed, but I close it in a hurry. Bringing that up will only serve to point out why I’ve changed, and I’m not ready to have that conversation. I’m trying to have a different one.

  Blame it on Ryan and his adorable new baby, or maybe the look I got from my prospective boss when she said they prefer their executives to be “settled.” Either way, time’s running short.

  I rake my fingers through my hair and try again. “How many successful marriages have you witnessed?” I ask. “I’m not talking about people our age who are caught up in the lust-fueled fairytale portion of the program. I’m talking about couples who’ve held on for the long run. Who’ve endured through hard times and heartbreaks and temptations and failures and can still stand to be around each other after all that.”

  She stares into my eyes for a long time. She doesn’t answer the question, but she doesn’t have to. Her parents divorced when she was two. Neither set of grandparents were still together. We’re the same, Sarah and me. Both products of a long string of broken vows.

  I see it the instant her eyes shift from bewilderment to pity. It’s like someone turned the dimmer switch from romantic mood lighting to all-night study session.

  “Your parents,” she says. “You’re talking about your parents.”

  Ouch.

  Ouch, but she’s right.

  I take a few deep breaths and wonder if I should have tried a different approach to proposing marriage. If I should have done this over dinner, or at least with pants on. Emotionally charged conversations aren’t my forte, but this isn’t emotional.

  This is business.

  “Look, you saw how my mom and dad were together,” I tell her. “One week they’re groping each other in the commons during parents’ weekend, and the next week she’s throwing his shit out the bedroom window because she thinks he’s nailing his secretary.”

  “He was nailing his secretary.”

  “Or she’s writing him pushy love poems and calling him the love of
her life while he’s flying off to Barbados with some bimbo from the gym,” I continue, hardly hearing Sarah anymore. I’m right back there in the turmoil of my sophomore year, reeling from the way my life was unraveling.

  But it’s better now. I’ve made sure of that.

  “They loved each other,” she says, then glances down at her hand clutching the blanket between her breasts. She knows the rest of the story.

  “Sure, they’d kiss and make up, and the next thing you know they’re having makeup sex in the backyard the day I bring my friends home for spring break.”

  Sarah shudders. “I’m still traumatized.”

  “See?”

  She’s back to staring at me like I’m wacko, so maybe she doesn’t remember. Maybe she’s forgotten what it felt like to be in close proximity to such a volatile marriage. To have that held up as a symbol of how marriages are “passionate” and “all-consuming,” and that it’s all about “forgiveness” and “fighting for each other” or some bullshit like that.

  “They might have been a little dysfunctional,” Sarah says slowly, pulling the blanket tighter around her breasts. “But they loved each other. And you.”

  “My point exactly,” I say. “Love-based marriages are dangerous. Messy. Destructive.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “That’s sort of my point,” I say. “Neither of us grew up with a shining example of traditional marriage being all that hot. Isn’t that a reason to consider something different? Something more tailored to us.”

  I pull her back down with me, stroking a hand over the soft contours of her arm. She stiffens for a second, then relaxes into me. Her hair is soft against my chest, and she rests a hand on my bare hip like it belongs there. Like it’s the most normal thing in the world for us to be lying naked together on her couch.

  “Why now?” she asks, and it’s the first indication that she’s hearing me. That she doesn’t think this is some elaborate prank. “Why all of a sudden?”

  “Turning thirty this week, I guess,” I admit. “We’re both getting to that age. And visiting Ryan—have you seen his new baby?”

  She smiles at that. “He posted a few shots on Instagram. A girl, right?”

  I nod. “Rose. She’s adorable. You always wanted a family, right?”

  She bites her lip and nods. “Yes.” A self-conscious laugh slips out. “God. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

  She sounds more amused than dismayed. I plant a kiss along her temple, reminding myself this is a business proposition. The fact that it feels fucking amazing is beside the point. This is about companionship. It’s about friendship with permanent perks. It’s about—

  “Shane,” she says softly. “This is about Shane.”

  I close my eyes for a second, not wanting this conversation derailed by grief. By memories of my dead brother or how it all happened. That’s not the conversation I want to have.

  When I open my eyes again, Sarah’s still studying me. “I just think marriage makes more sense when it’s based on logic and basic compatibility,” I tell her. “We like each other, right?”

  She quirks one eyebrow. “Your dick is resting on my thigh. I’d say we more than like each other.”

  “And that’s my next point—we have great sex.”

  A bright flush spreads from her chest all the way to her cheeks, staining them the color of a pink pearl eraser. I stroke the side of her cheek, needing to touch all that heat.

  “I can’t argue with that,” she says. “But it could have been beginner’s luck.”

  “This was not beginner’s luck.”

  She opens her mouth like she’s going to argue, then closes it. We both know this wasn’t beginner’s luck. I don’t know what the hell it was, but it wasn’t luck.

  “We’ve always had good chemistry,” she admits. “I guess I never imagined it like this, but—”

  She trails off there, gliding a hand over my rib cage. I consider telling her I did imagine it. Not recently, but back when I had feelings. Back when I was young and dumb and still willing to entertain the idea of happily ever after.

  I know better now.

  That doesn’t mean I don’t still feel the same simmer of lust I’ve always had for Sarah. If it was a slow simmer at eighteen, it’s a hot boil now. Just because I can’t feel love doesn’t mean I don’t feel other things.

  I clear my throat to keep my focus, not wanting my logic train to get derailed by the desire to have her again.

  “You have to admit there are a lot of practical reasons to have a dedicated life companion,” I say. “There are tax advantages, for one, not to mention issues like health insurance and estate planning and—”

  “Be still my heart!” Sarah clasps her hands over her chest dramatically. “Your technique needs work, Nolan. You’re not exactly sweeping me off my feet here.”

  I take her hand in mine and stroke a thumb over her knuckle. There’s a scar between her thumb and forefinger, and I remember how she got it. It was an incident with a paring knife and an unripe avocado, and I lift a hand to plant a kiss on the site of her guacamole battle scar.

  “I’m not trying to be romantic,” I tell her. “I’m trying to be practical. You know I’d take care of you.”

  “I take care of myself.” Sarah’s blue eyes flash as she looks at me. “I have a great job and good friends. I bought this house all by myself and even refinanced last year to a fifteen-year mortgage. I’m totally self-sufficient, Ian.”

  “I know you are.” And I love the pride in her voice, in her eyes. I’m proud of her, too. “I wasn’t talking about money or friendship, though. I’m not even just talking about sex.”

  “What are you talking about, then?”

  “Security,” I say. “Stable companionship. A business arrangement that benefits both of us with perks like life insurance and healthcare coverage. Family, if we both agree to that.”

  The intensity in her eyes makes something twist deep in my belly.

  “And sex,” I add. “Safe, mutually satisfying, reliable sex.”

  Toe-curling, mind-blowing, body-shaking sex.

  I keep that thought to myself, not wanting to pat myself on the back. But if it was even a fraction as good for her as it was for me, she knows this is true.

  Her cheeks go even pinker, and I know I’m not the only one having these thoughts. I can read it on her face like lines from the economics texts we used to pore over together while cozied up in my brown beanbag chair.

  She stares at me for a long, long time. She doesn’t look moved, but that’s not what I’m after here anyway. “I still can’t figure out if you’re serious.”

  “Dead serious.”

  “You’re bonkers.”

  “I’m practical.”

  She snorts. “You’re ridiculous.”

  “Pragmatic.”

  Sarah shakes her head, her expression halfway between fondness and amusement. “This is not how I pictured my engagement.”

  “Sorry.” I pull her closer, loving the feel of her body against me. “If it makes a difference, I can get you a killer engagement ring.”

  “You know I never gave a shit about jewelry.”

  I shrug, stroking her thumb with mine. “I wasn’t sure if that might be one of the things that changed.”

  “It’s not.” Her face creases with the same intense concentration she wears when she’s puzzling over something important. “Some things don’t change, ever.”

  “True enough.”

  There’s that serious look again, the one that tells me an argument is coming. “You live in New York. Not exactly conducive to all that safe, mutually satisfying, reliable marital sex we’ll be having.”

  “This consulting job with Wyeth Airways,” I say, “the one I’m in town for? Odds are pretty good it’ll turn into a full-time job.”

  “And?” She always did know when there was more to a story.

  “It’s uh—the kind of job where they like to see a certain
stability in the personal lives of the management team.”

  “Ah,” she says, a syllable infused more with understanding than judgment. “So they want you to be married?”

  “No one’s said that outright,” I say. “And that’s just one fraction of the reasons this makes sense.”

  She nods, still taking it in. Or maybe just humoring me. “So you’d be moving here?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  She tilts her head to the side like she’s taking in the information. “Is your mom still in Central Oregon?”

  “Yes. I haven’t seen her since—for a long time,” I finish, embarrassed to admit how long it’s been. “It would be nice to be closer. She’s always wanted grandkids.”

  That gets a laugh out of her. “She’d be a great grandma.” Her expression turns wistful. “I do want kids. And I guess the clock is ticking.”

  As enthusiasm goes, this isn’t the best. But I don’t want us to be reckless and lovestruck about this. I want us to be smart. Careful. Responsible.

  She shifts a little under the blanket, and a totally irresponsible part of me flares to life again. I do my best to ignore it, but it’s tough with Sarah squirming against me.

  Her eyes are locked with mine like she’s trying to crack my head like a walnut. “I can’t believe you’re serious.”

  “But you’ll consider it?”

  “Ian—”

  “Just take a few days,” I suggest. “Let me send you a formal proposal.”

  “A formal proposal.” She rolls her eyes. “Will this involve spreadsheets and a PowerPoint presentation?”

  “If you want it to.”

  “You’re crazy.” She says it with a fondness that’s achingly familiar.

  “Possibly,” I agree. “I’ve been called worse.”

  “By other women?” She doesn’t give me a chance to respond to that, which is just as well. “Why aren’t you hitting them up?” she asks. “Beth or Julie or Katie or any of those other girls you’ve dated over the years?”

  Her familiarity with my ex-girlfriends startles me. “How do you remember that?”