Page 16 of Leave It to Us
Chapter 8
LANA
“Baby.” Isaac’s gruff voice sounded in her ear, followed by a deep moan as he slid an arm over her waist, his hand instantly moving down between her legs.
It was late—or rather, early, as she could see through one cracked eye the bright-red numbers that shone from the clock on her nightstand. Four a.m. It was Monday already.
“Mmm,” she moaned right after him, parting her legs to welcome him.
His hard length was pressed against the crease of her ass, his warm lips on her neck, hot tongue sliding over her skin. She pressed back against him, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.
“I want you, baby,” he whispered. “Ineedyou.”
Those words, his tone, his touch: this was their love language. Sex—always hot, always delicious, and almost as frequent as it had been in the early stages of their seven-year marriage. This and Isaac’s dedication to taking care of her were things she could count on. Things she cherished in her marriage. They were also things she prayed would never cease, especially amid the other dark spot that had eased its way into her otherwise happy home.
“Yesssss,” was her response, because there was no other answer. There was no other way to express how she felt for this man.
He’d claimed her heart in their wildly romantic three-month courtship from the day she’d been snapping shots of the regal finback whale during a sightseeing cruise. It had been a last-minute decision to board one of the cruises that tourists loved to take when they visited Boston. She’d finished a tumultuous workweek and completed the assignments in her side hustle’s queue—composing résumés on Fiverr—and had needed to get out of her tiny apartment to get some air. While the whole focus of the cruise was to see whales, the moment the finback shot up out of the water and arched through the air, a collective round of gasps from the cruisers had sounded, and she’d lifted her camera, capturing successive shots of the majestic creature. She’d been so busy focusing on the light and her perspective that she’d ignored the mammal crashing back into the sea and the subsequent splash of water it sent over the deck of the boat. An arm around her waist had pulled her back, but not before she and the person who’d grabbed her were soaked. Turning, she’d grinned at yet another breath-snatching sight: a handsome man with an enigmatic smile that immediately gripped her heart.
Isaac pushed her panties down her legs, and while she knew he was also removing his own underwear, she reached for the hem of her nightshirt to pull up and over her head. Tossing it somewhere at the bottom of their bed, she rolled over onto her back and welcomed him when he moved between her legs. She didn’t need the light to see his face; she’d dedicated his features to memory. That slit in his left eyebrow, where he’d received stitches at twelve years old because he’d been hit by a hockey stick during practice. The way his brown eyes clouded with passion each time he was about to take her. The slight parting of his lips as his forehead wrinkled when he concentrated on stroking her to a pleasurable end.
She lifted her hands to cup his face and pull him down closer.
“I’m gonna miss you, baby,” he told her.
“Hopefully, I won’t be gone that long,” she replied before nipping at his bottom lip. “A few weeks, tops, and then I’ll be back, and we can sell the house and get the mo—”
“Shh.” He touched his lips to hers and pressed his tongue into her mouth.
And she shushed because this was more important. Feeling Isaac’s hands all over her body, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist was exactly where her mind should be. When he pressed his length inside her, she moaned and arched her back as he deepened their kiss.
He felt so good inside her, so familiar and so safe. Just a few of the things that kept her dedicated to him and this marriage. They were both ambitious and tenacious—equally yoked, she would say. Something her parents had never been, hence the reason their marriage had ended in divorce. Lana wasn’t going to suffer the same fate. She couldn’t. With those thoughts creeping into her senses, she circled her hips faster, urging Isaac’s languid strokes to go deeper, to give her every thrust she needed. Her breath hitched, eyes closed, fingernails dug into his back.
He was all she needed. Him, this life they’d built, and hopefully, eventually, a baby. That was her dream, and nothing—not even money—was going to come between them. It couldn’t. She wouldn’t survive if it did.
“I love you,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear. “I love you, Lana. I love you.”
Her body trembled with her release as his words washed over her at exactly the right moment, and tears pricked her eyes.
“I love you,” she finally managed to whisper against his ear, just as his body jerked above her and he growled with his climax.
Five hours later, Lana made her way through the sliding glass doors of the airport. She pulled a suitcase in each hand and wore a duffel bag onone shoulder, another one with its straps slung over the suitcase handle, and her purse crisscrossed over her body. She clutched her boarding pass between her fingers as she narrowed her eyes to scan the crowd, looking for her sisters, who’d said they’d meet her at the front door.
Of course, it was a little after nine—the designated time Yvonne had given for them to meet in order to be at their gate by 11:15, even though their plane to Hilton Head didn’t begin boarding until 12:05.
The airport wasn’t too crowded, but Lana still had to navigate her way around people to keep from dropping everything or slamming one bag or another into someone else. She sent a silentthank-youto Isaac for the great morning sex, which had not only left her body limber and sated but had also relaxed her mind to a point where the madness of being in an airport around so many people, carrying so many germs, wasn’t sending her into a compulsive frenzy.
“Need some help, ma’am?” A tall, slim guy with wiry gray hair and a quick smile came out of nowhere, pulling one of those big baggage carts behind him.
“No thanks,” she replied with a small smile. “I’m good.” As if to make her look all the way silly, the strap of the duffel bag slid off her shoulder, yanking her body to the side as it wrapped around her wrist.
“You sure? I can help you get to the ticket counter. Get your bags checked, and then you’ll be on your way to security,” he continued, stepping away from the cart to grab the handle of her suitcase.
But Lana pulled it away before he could touch it and simultaneously willed her feet not to trip her as the momentum of the bags and her quick movement threatened to send her careening over the dirty airport floor.
“Girl!”
Lana heard Tami yell before she saw her sister heading toward her.
