Chapter 12
Jonah had never been much of a joker during sex. The last straw with Shannon had been his supposed lack of a sense of humor. So, laughing and fucking at the same time had never happened to him before.
The jokes, laughing while he was close to coming were a revelation. He wrapped his fingers around the condom as he pulled out and disposed of it quickly in the bathroom closest to Carla’s bedroom. The soles of his feet stung, but the rest of his body felt too good for him to really care.
He hoped she would be okay with him bunking with her. He could stretch the truth and say he didn’t want to be in another room in case one of the windows facing the courtyard broke, but he didn’t want to be a room away when he needed her body again. And he would need her again before the night was out.
And after tonight, before they both left the island, he was going to find a way to convince her to see him again. Him in New York and her in Miami wasn’t ideal; his travel made the whole long-distance thing pretty impossible. But they could work something out. She’d just gotten out of a long-term relationship; surely she’d want to keep things casual for a while at least.
All of his relationships had been based on common experience and proximity. Carla lived a life that he wasn’t sure he could fit himself into, and she certainly wouldn’t want to pack her bags and go on the road with him. He shuddered when he thought about her in a conflict zone; he would never allow it.
But he was willing to face some inconvenience so she wouldn’t walk out of his life forever. He’d hold onto her for as long as he could before she inevitably cut him loose.
When he walked back into the room, Carla’s hair was splayed out across her pillow. She was on her side, facing him, and she didn’t hide her appreciation for his body one bit as he walked toward her. He’d always thought his size made him a freak show that women sometimes had a fetish for. It was clear that Carla had a fetish, but it wasn’t for his size. She maybe had a burgeoning fetish for him.
“Seen enough?”
“Never.” She buried her face in the pillow and sighed before nodding at the box of condoms. “There’s eleven more. Do you think we can use them all before the storm passes?”
He pretended to consider her challenge, but he’d already been thinking the same thing. “Would I have to give up my blow job?”
She mocked seriousness. “That’s between you and your dick. It’s none of my business.”
He crawled onto the bed, so he was crouched over her, no longer worried that his size intimidated her. “My dick is very much your business.” He laid kisses on her cheeks and nose, softly. He wanted to eat her peals of laughter as a midnight snack. He wanted to bottle up the sound and take it with him.
He would only bring it out when he was alone in dark places. When he needed her light the most.
* * * *
Five down. Seven to go. Carla felt every single one of those five times Jonah had been inside her the night before. After the first time that had shifted her reality, they’d had slow, soft sex.
Then they’d fought about music. He had given her a world of shit for liking One Direction and had called Harry Styles a pansy. She’d told him that she’d gone to Coachella and Austin City Limits, and he’d correctly pointed out that she’d used it like a fashion show. He’d listed off a bunch of artists he loved and she’d never heard of. When she’d rolled her eyes at him, he’d taken her from behind.
That time had led to her sucking him off until he’d cursed and pulled her hair. She’d loved making him feel that out of control, so she rode him while he steered her hips. That had been a fight for control; she’d loved every minute.
The fifth time, he’d woken her up kissing the back of her neck. He’d pulled her hair—who knew she’d like that so much—until she begged him to fuck her. He’d hiked up her leg and pulled it over his body, which allowed him to rub her center and left her helpless to do anything but moan and praise him.
So, they’d made a good run of using the entire box of condoms before they’d gone to sleep. But, judging from the beams of sunlight peeking around the plywood covering the windows, they hadn’t beaten the storm. They needed to be outside, helping with cleanup.
Jonah was curled behind her snoring, something she would have abhorred in a long-term partner but found charming in her temporary paramour. She lifted one hand to her neck, feeling where he’d made marks on her body. The last time he’d come, he bit into the tendon at the side. He probably hadn’t realized that he would leave a mark, but she’d swatted him on the ass as soon as he’d turned over to get her water.
Judging from the number of empty bottles, Lola was going to have to stock up again as soon as she got back.
Thinking about Lola made Carla sit up straight in the bed. Jonah stirred, but he rolled to his back. She poked him in the side.
“Lola.”
He stirred again and rubbed one massive hand over his eyes. “What? Is she here?”
“No. We have to find her.”
“She’s a smart lady; you know she found shelter.”
“No, I don’t know that. For someone who professes to care about my great aunt, you sure are lackadaisical about her safety.”
“Hey.” He was fully awake now—and pissed. “That’s not fair. She’s not a delicate flower.” The “like you” he left unsaid. “She’s a tough bird, and she’s fine. I know it.”
“You sound really sure.” Carla gathered up the sheet. She didn’t want to be naked in front of Jonah when they were arguing. Then, he might realize that arguing with him made her nipples hard. “You think you’re invincible and people like you are invincible.”
“I’ve seen my friends blown up.”
“So, why are you so sure that Lola is ‘just fine’?”
“Because she has to be, all right?” He rubbed his eyes again with the heels of his hands. “I couldn’t take it if I was selfish—here with you—if she was out there suffering. She has to be all right for what happened last night to be okay.”
“What are you talking about?” He was so maudlin that she wanted to ask him if he was on his period. But she didn’t because she hated giving men a reason to think that women were somehow less than because of their female bodies. But, seeing him now, 90 percent of the female population would agree that “manstruation” was a thing.
He got up and stomped out of the room, naked. The worst part was that his butt still looked so good she wanted to bite it. She used the facilities, delighted that the toilet still flushed, and got dressed. Although she put on full-length jeans and a T-shirt in an effort to be sensible, she refused to admit that she did so hoping that Jonah wouldn’t make fun of her clothes again. If he was moody and hormonal, that was his problem.
She was kind of glad that Jonah had decided to be an asshole about last night. That way, she could remember the sex fondly and then stamp out any emotions she felt toward him once she put her battery-operated boyfriend away. Jonah would be like a fantasy dick in a glass case. She’d try not to think about him unless things were really desperate.
She made her way to the top of the stairs, and was about to go down, when Jonah snagged her by the waist. “Go put on a pair of boots.”
“I don’t have boots.”
“Sneakers then.”
He was right. She shouldn’t be wearing sandals. At this point, she did not want him touching her long enough to pull glass out of her feet. So sandals were out.
Jonah was downstairs by the time she had her sneakers on. He had opened the front door, which they hadn’t put plywood over—it was crazy heavy—and he was on a satellite phone looking out into the street.
She wanted to see the damage for herself—the storm had certainly sounded horrendous from what she’d caught when Jonah wasn’t balls deep—but she didn’t want to touch him right now.
He was speaking in rapid Spanish to someone, looking for Lola from the sound of the conversation. That made her feel a bit better. He had taken her concerns seriously, and he was dealing with them sensibly.
She didn’t know what to do, so she found a broom and dustpan and swept up the glass in the kitchen. After that, she’d bring the mop upstairs and make sure all the blood was wiped up. Hopefully, Lola would be home soon, and she wasn’t sure how she’d explain bloodstains, unless she actually killed Jonah and made even more. Lola might not forgive her for that.
He came into the kitchen and grabbed the broom out of her hands. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t want you to get cut.”
“I can take care of myself.” She looked down at his boot-clad feet. “I know first aid.”
Trying to say the conversation was closed with a stubborn tip of her chin didn’t work. “I know you can take care of yourself. Thank you for taking care of me last night.” He set the broom and dustpan aside and grabbed her shoulders. She tried to shrug him off. For the first time since she’d known him, he touched her without her permission. “You have to know I’m sorry. I’m a grumpy asshole, and I’m sorry.”
He immediately released her, and she missed his hands, wanted them back.
“Okay.” He looked at her expectantly, like she had something to apologize for. “What do you want?”
“I just thought you’d want to talk about what happened last night.” Cocky Jonah was back as he gathered up his hair and tied it in a knot. Fucking cocky Jonah. She wanted to choke cocky Jonah out while riding him. “You’re thinking about when I touched you in your no-no place right now, aren’t you?” She tried to keep a scowl on her face.
“Fuck you.” She crossed her arms over her chest, afraid her nipples would bust the fabric on her bra just to get to him. “You were on the phone, looking for Lola. Where is she?”
He leaned one hip onto the countertop, the one she was going to have to remove with the sledgehammer before Lola got home, and she assumed that her great aunt was coming home because Jonah was cocky Jonah with the sex jokes right now.
“All it took was one phone call. She’s fine. She and her boy toy holed up at a friend’s place on high ground. Apparently they played jazz, danced, and drank rum all night. She’ll be home in a few days.”
“Thank you.”
“For what? One phone call. You know I was just as worried about her as you were?”
“You were?” She scrunched up her face and peered up at him. “From where I was sitting, you were in denial, getting all fucking emo when I was actually worried sick.”
“You can’t wake me up with disaster scenarios and expect me to take that shit well.” She was chastened because she was probably being unfair. “That’s just not how I operate. If we’re going to—”
Though he cut himself off, the start of that sentence gave her a kind of hope she wasn’t even sure she wanted to feel. Did he want to see her after he left the island? Was he going to try to make them a thing?
Despite the fact that she was trying to talk herself out of having feelings for him, part of her really wanted him to try to make them a thing.
“What were you going to say?” Hope did a dance in her chest.
He examined her face, leaning down as though he was going to kiss her. “Never mind.”
And then he walked out of the room.