Seventeen
After another night of tossing and turning, with the alarming memories of the church service too fresh in her mind to sleep—Viola found her boots crunching on the debris on the forest floor once more. Re-tracing the same path she’d taken the first time, knowing what she was hoping to find as she grew closer to the tranquil trickle of the stream, but not fully admitting it to herself.
It wasn’t until she’d cleared the thick expanse of sprawling trees and saw Jon sitting on the same massive rock she’d found him on the first time that it hit her. It wasn’t Milo’s breathtaking self-hatred at church that morning that’d been making it impossible to sleep. It was the memory of him—Jon—telling her that the moment they’d shared could never happen again. It was the memory of him—Jon—riding away from her as fast as the wheels of his bike would carry him, with her heart in his back pocket.
Her thirsty eyes ran his black long-sleeved shirt, mouth watering at the way the deep lines in his muscular arms were still visible through the fabric. His hair was free of product and hung loosely over his eyes—tousled in the same way it had been when he’d had his head between her legs, rolling around on that very floor. Her eyes flew to the space at the edge of the water, where they’d both gotten soaked and wet, and her heartbeat picked up to twice its speed.
He stared ahead with a guitar on his lap, fingers unmoving on top of the strings. He didn’t look at her, but she knew he could feel her presence just like she’d been able to feel his during the entire walk up there. Drawn towards his essence like a zombie. Completely out of her body. Owned by the promise of another moment alone with him. Even though he’d declared another moment was out of the question.
She crossed her arms as the slightly nippy night air attempted to prove her white cotton pajama dress utterly useless, wishing she’d had the forethought to at least throw on a sweatshirt.
“Why aren’t you playing?” she asked.
He continued to stare ahead at the water. “Can’t focus.”
“I guess I assumed it would be second nature for a legendary player like you. That your fingers could move over the strings in your sleep if they wanted.”
He breathed out a laugh that made his nostrils flare.
She began toward him at a careful pace. “Why can’t you focus?”
“What did I say earlier today, Viola? This can never happen again. It’s over.”
“I’m not trying to make anything happen. I was just out for a walk, that’s all.”
“And just happened to come back to the same exact place where we made the biggest fuckin’ mistake of our lives?”
“Looks like you just happened to come back to the same place too.”
“And what kind of person does that make me?” he whispered, eyes hardening, jaw clenched, still making every effort not to look at her. “What kind of person do you make me? This place was mine long before it was yours. I should get custody.”
“But it’s so tranquil. So beautiful. Are you really going to steal something so beautiful from me?”
“Maybe you need to learn what it feels like to have something so beautiful taken away.” He cut his eyes at her, meeting her gaze for the first time.
The feeling it sent blasting through her made her freeze in mid-step, trying to breathe past a pair of lungs that had suddenly sealed themselves shut.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he whispered. “Are you just fuckin’ with me, or what? Getting some kinda sick pleasure out of watching me thrash? Knowing you’re about to start a war between two brothers?”
“Seems like that war was waging long before I showed up.”
His eyes fell to her lips, taut shoulders relaxing. His gaze stayed on her mouth for a long while, long enough to confirm to Viola that the sight of them had taken him to a completely different place. A place that made his own lips fall open and his eyes glaze over. That caused his broad chest to stop rising and falling as his own breath left him, making him look like a gorgeous, unmoving statue.
“What happened between the two of you?” Viola asked. “You and Milo?”
Her question snapped him out of his reverie, and he looked off toward the water once more, taking the guitar off his lap and propping it against the rock next to him. He spread his legs wide and then leaned forward on his knees, covering his face with his hands with a soft groan. The action made his biceps swell to twice their size like they were trying to rip a hole through his shirt.
“Please leave, Viola.”
She began toward him once more.
The crunch of her boots against the ground caused his head to fly out of his hands.
“Please,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
She froze once more, now just a few feet away from him. “What if I don’t wanna leave?”
He sank his trembling fingers into his hair, over and over, looking down at the ground, breathing heavy and labored.
“I think Betty’s onto us anyway,” she said. “So things might not be a secret for much longer.”
He clasped his hands tightly and pressed them to his mouth, eyes falling closed as he shook his head. “She caught you too, huh?”
“Right as I made it to the porch. Gave me enough Godly blessings to ensure I feared for my life.”
“All those Godly threats were her way of telling us to stop before she stops it for us. And we should heed her warning.”
“So she threatened you too?”
“It’s what she does best.”
“Just because we have to stop doesn’t mean we can’t be friends… Right?”
“I can’t be your friend, Viola.”
“So we’ll just be nothing at all?”
“Yes.”
“So, I’m the reason you’ll leave after the holidays and be gone for another ten years? Just to avoid me? I’m the reason you’ll throw away everything you’re trying to rebuild with your family?” Her heart clenched at the thought. Her fake relationship with Milo was really about to further fracture Jon’s relationship with the people he loved most. A relationship that was already on shaky ground, leaving him wobbling and unsteady, as he tried his damnedest to rebuild.
“It was gonna be another ten years regardless.”
“I don’t believe that. The fact that you came back after that terrible dinner on the first night proves how badly you want to fix things with them. How badly you don’t want to be away from them for another ten Christmases. Not exactly the actions of a man who doesn’t plan on coming back. Sounds like the actions of a man desperate to make amends before it’s too late.”
He chuckled, lips rising into a smirk as he cut his blue eyes to her once more, voice lowering. “You really think I came back for them?”
She lost her breath at his words, at everything they said and, at the same time, didn’t say, her chest stilling in mid-rise.
When she didn’t respond, he rolled his eyes and looked away from her once more. The steady chirp of crickets from all around seemed to rise higher in volume with every moment of silence that passed, but still, his labored breathing was seconds from overpowering it.
“Even if you didn’t come back for them, you’ve stayed this long for them. At some point, it hit you how badly you need them.”
“I needed something badly, alright.”
And she’d given it to him. Was a quick roll in the dirt all Jon had needed to get her out of his system? At that moment, Milo would’ve told her that going down on Jon—letting him go down on her—was the biggest mistake she’d ever made. A mistake that would firmly place her in Jon’s casual sex box forever. That would ensure he never looked at her as anything more than a quick, cheap thrill. One false move from receiving an unsolicited picture of his dick that she could place right next to Gleb’s.
Gleb. She found herself amazed at how quickly that name had disappeared from her mind. A name that had once tortured her with every second that passed now only made it difficult not to burst out laughing. It was amazing how one person could render another so insignificant. How quickly another person had made her see Gleb with new eyes. With crystal clear vision. Gleb may as well be a speck of dirt on the bottom of her shoe when put up next to Jon. She couldn’t even fathom, in the deepest crevice of her aching heart, how she’d even found him attractive in the first place.
She went on, desperate to escape the thoughts that were turning her stomach. “You’ve even agreed to this awful fishing trip tomorrow.”
Jon hissed with a shake of his head. “Don’t remind me.”
“You even pretended to be excited when Robert brought it up at lunch. A rock star, getting back to nature? With the estranged family? Sailing? Hunting? Fishing? Pretending that the thoughts of doing all those things with dear old Dad doesn’t make him want to gouge his eyes out? If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. If that’s not a guy trying to make things right with his family…”
“Don’t get too smug. You’re gonna be rotting on that fishing boat right next to me.”
“And I’m appropriately horrified, don’t worry.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah, you don’t strike me as an outdoor girl at all.”
“Never knew how much of a New York City girl I was until I actually moved there.” She shivered. “The thought of gutting a fish who just who looked me in the eye? Peeing in the woods? Sleeping on the ground that dozens of other people have probably peed on too? And in the dead of winter, no less? Ugh. Vomit-inducing on every level.”
“So you’re gonna be a barrel of laughs tomorrow, then?”
“Not intentionally, but probably, yeah…” Her chest warmed like hot cocoa as they shared a gentle smile.
His smile grew, nodding toward her hand. “How’s your finger?”
She raised her hand to look down at her marred finger. “Still swollen, but getting there…”
When she looked back up at him, his eyes had left her hand, now focused squarely on her legs, which were bare under the sleeping shirt that stretched down to her knees. It was as if her calves were just as titillating as a pair of bare breasts or splayed thighs the way he seemed to grow lightheaded. As if every nerve ending under his skin was stirring and tingling as furiously as hers were with every moment his eyes remained on his body. She couldn’t stop her clit from throbbing when he licked his lips. She swore she could feel the moment the pulsating bud swelled out from under the hood between her legs and brushed against the cotton of her panties—as if it could sense that tongue from several feet away and was begging for another colloquy. Her thoughts were confirmed when the sensitive nub began an ardent pound, not only making its presence known to Viola but demanding her full attention, leaving no doubt in her mind as to where it wanted to be. Up against those lips of his, still gleaming from his tongue’s attentions.
She licked her own lips and swore she could still taste his sweet flavor from when she’d gotten a delicious sample on the floor below her feet the first time. Her knees began to wobble when his eyes remained on her legs.
He must’ve seen it because his gaze slowly climbed her body once more, and once it reached her eyes, amusement shone in his blue orbs.
“What was that—” His voice broke. “Between you and Milo? At church this morning?”
What was he really asking her? Was he asking whether there was trouble in paradise? Whether a split was on the horizon? A split that would leave enough room for him to wiggle his way in or, at the very least, make the guilt charging through him a little less potent if he decided to close the space between them and give the pounding pearl between her legs some much-needed attention?
“It was just a stupid argument,” she said, once it hit her how selfish her thoughts were. “We argue all the time, so…”
“Sounds healthy.”
For friends, it was healthy. For lovers, not so much. But we’re not lovers at all, so…
“He’s annoying.” She shrugged, suddenly blasted with the memory of Milo praising the sermon that basically told him he was going to burn in hell for all eternity.
“No arguments here.” He laughed.
“He loves you, though.” She knew her words would only serve to make him feel more terribly about the tension between them. The tension that had grown so thick they were both now gasping in each breath. She knew they would only serve to remind him why they couldn’t do anything to quell their breathless desire. At least not without feeling even more terrible than he already did. At that moment, however, she cared more about making him feel better than about her own selfish need to feel him. To feel the weight of his body on top of her. The warmth of his lips on hers. The soft, wet brush of his tongue on her slit. “He really does love you, Jon. A lot. I know him better than anyone, so you can trust me. Honestly? I think some part of him might be a little jealous. I know because I’ve seen how he acts when he’s gotten jealous with past girlfriends…” And by girlfriends, I mean boyfriends. “And the way he acts with you is… very similar.”
“Not sure if that’s enlightening or really fucking weird.”
“I mean, he embraces the math nerd persona because he has no choice but to—because that’s who he is at his core—a huge nerd. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a nerd but, I think, secretly, he always wanted to be one of the cool kids. He always wanted to be like you.”
His eyes fell to her lips. “I don’t think I would’ve survived this long without you here.”
Her eyes widened. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting him to say, but that definitely hadn’t been it. “And here I was thinking I was making the entire experience a nightmare for you.”
“Oh, you are.”
“Oh.” A surprised laughed bubbled up from her lips.
“Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment.”
“Maybe next year you should bring a cute girl home so she can help make the experience a little more bearable for Milo too.” She clapped her mouth shut when she realized she was being a little too blasé about the fact that she was carrying on an affair with her boyfriend’s brother. She snuck a pained look at Jon. He must’ve thought she was a complete monster. Or, at best, totally psychotic.
Instead of eyeing her like the savage cheating monster she supposedly was, however, the amusement in his eyes grew deeper.
Was he so amused by her because she’d fallen too far in his mind to take seriously? Was the smile on his face one of genuine adoration, or proof that she’d become nothing but a joke to him? An ongoing quip that he couldn’t help but smirk at? The kind of knee-slappingly heartless hoe that couldn’t possibly stand the test of time with his brother, which made it easier to laugh at? To laugh off?
She found herself furious with Milo for the millionth time since touching down in Utah. Knowing that every single thing Jon thought about her was built on a mountain of fallacies. Knowing that what they’d had on the plane really had been real—the fact that he still couldn’t resist his attraction to her proved that it had been. If things had been different, she and Jon could’ve really worked out. Hell, they might’ve even stood the test of time. Regardless of how terrible their affair was making him feel, he couldn’t stay mad at her. No matter how desperate he was to push her away, he couldn’t help pulling her back in a moment later. He couldn’t stay mad because their connection was undeniable. The conversation easy. It just felt… right.
And it would never be hers. Not completely anyway. Not without revealing the secret that, as that horrendous church service had proved, would devastate Milo more than she could’ve ever imagined.
Her anger at Milo forced her to draw in a sharp breath because she suddenly felt on the verge of death. It was a breath taken in vain because, if she couldn’t have Jon, it seemed death was the only thing she had left.
“Have you ever brought a girl home?” she asked. “I mean, before you got kicked out at fifteen, obviously?”
“Can’t bring home a girl you’ve never had.”
“How quickly you forget that you’re talking to your biggest fan. I know just as much useless information about all your exes as I do about you, if not more. Wildly jealous social media stalking can prove quite informative.”
“None of those girls were really my girlfriends. Just a bunch of narcissistic personalities whose celebrity ensured they never learned the meaning of the word no. Women with publicity teams at their disposal who had no problem trying to blackmail me into monogamy by dropping unauthorized press releases saying we were in a relationship.”
“Is that even legal?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t care. They knew what it really was, and if they didn’t, they learned fast.”
“But you were photographed by the paparazzi with all of them.”
“Hard not to be photographed with someone you’re fucking, however casually.”
“True…” She frowned softly. “So… you’ve never had a real girlfriend? Ever? Not one?”
“For what? I already told you, Viola. Sex. Drugs. Rock music. What man in his right mind would have any interest in a relationship?”
Viola’s heart sank as his words rocketed her back to one of the few conversations she’d had with Gleb that hadn’t revolved around his dick. How Gleb had said those exact words—“I’m not looking for a relationship” just a few days before blessing her with a picture of his crooked dick. She knew what those words really meant. She’d learned their heart-churning meaning long before Gleb. “I have no interest in a relationship” really meant “I have no interest in a relationship with you, Viola Rice.”
Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them away before they could sprout wings, refusing to let him know how deeply those words affected her. Had she really allowed herself to become so deluded? To believe that a connection between her and a rock star who thought she belonged to his brother could be anything more than a figment of her wild imagination? Had she really allowed herself foolishly to believe that there really was a real connection between her and Jon? Hell, if what he’d just told her was true, he couldn’t even find it in himself to connect with some of the sexiest starlets in Hollywood! If he couldn’t even claim them, on what planet would he ever claim her?
She pressed her lips together.
“He doesn’t live in the same world we do. He doesn’t feel like we feel. He doesn’t think like we think. He’s selfish. He’d eat you for lunch, peanut.”
Considering Jon had already eaten her alive—literally and figuratively—at that very stream, the latter part of Milo’s prior warning didn’t scare her anymore. It was the former that still sank her stomach. Made her palms sweaty and her skin crawl. Was she just another notch of many on Jon’s belt? A girl he was able to fool around with and walk away from without a single thought or emotion? Did he feel anything for her at all?
Most guys found it easy to have sex without emotion, and she imagined that was ten times as true for a guy like Jon. While touring with the band, he probably had sex without emotion every night. Before he’d even learned the girl’s names—if he ever bothered to learn them at all. Imagining the feelings she had for him not being reciprocated made her feel so sick she had to swallow back the bile in her throat.
Some part of her wanted him to be feeling as emotionally attached to her as she already did to him. Some part of her felt that he already did. He’d been waiting there for her, after all, knowing she could find him there if she wanted. Surely if he really didn’t want anything to do with her—if he really didn’t feel what she felt—he wouldn’t have put himself in a position to be found by her, alone, in the middle of the night.
The biggest question for her was: how did he want to be found? Did he want to be found by the Viola he was dying to get to know better? Or just the Viola he was dying to fuck? And if she was simply the Viola he was dying to fuck, was it too late to flip the switch?
“What’s your number?”
She blinked rapidly as his voice tore her from her thoughts. “My… My number?”
“Yeah. How many guys have you been with? I’m curious.”
“You’d be wise not to ask questions that you yourself aren’t ready to answer.”
“Couldn’t answer it even if I wanted to.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you lost track somewhere around album one, huh?”
He nodded up at her. “How many? Tell me.”
“No.” She clenched her fists.
“What am I supposed to do when he brings up sex? Tell him I don’t want to talk about it?”
“Yes!” Milo slammed his fists on the table. “Tell him you don’t want to talk about it. Say those exact words. ‘I don’t want to talk about sex.’ See how easy that was?”
“I don’t want to talk about sex!”
There, she’d said it—or rather, shouted it—as the memory of her conversation with Milo sent her into overdrive. She’d said the seven words she’d been terrified to say to any man for most of her adult life. The words she’d been convinced would surely push them away forever once they realized she wasn’t worthy of knowing.
She doubled down before the fear in her heart made her drop dead right where she stood. “We can’t hook up, and I understand that, but if you want to be friends, then I don’t wanna talk about sex, or be your fuck buddy, or be your casual sex plaything or whatever it is you’ve got planned for me in that head of yours. Strictly…G-rated. Forever.”
“I already told you, Viola. I can’t be your friend.”
“Then I guess we’ll be nothing at all.” Her eyes widened at herself. Where had this courageous Wonder Woman come from?
His eyebrows shot up—rising a little higher with each second she remained silent—his eyes shining with amusement. A smirk kissed his lips. The girl who’d had his cock in her mouth the night before didn’t want to talk about sex? He had every right to be amused, frankly. If she were in his shoes, she probably would be too.
Regardless, she steeled her spine, preparing for the fight he was about to put up. Preparing to explain herself. To inform him that she was a human being with real thoughts, real feelings, and real hopes and dreams. Not just a wet hole for him to partake in, in secret, that wasn’t even worthy of his friendship afterward. Something to use, then discard. She waited for him to remind her that sex was all she could ever be to him because she belonged to his brother.
He licked his smiling lips, eyes still squinted with a hint of confusion, and then he shrugged. “Okay.”
“Okay?” she asked. “That’s it?”
“Okay. I mean…” He shrugged again, looking off toward the stream while tilting his head and scratching his eyebrow, appearing deep in thought before holding a hand out and reclaiming her eyes. “Uh… what do you like to do for fun?”
Her heart soared. He could’ve so easily ended it right there. So easily told her that if they weren’t talking sex, then there was nothing left to talk about. That they were as good as dead. But instead, he’d asked her a totally G-rated question. A question that confirmed he still wanted her around even when the topic of conversation wasn’t one sentence away from gracing the pages of Playboy.
He really wanted to know her. To keep her talking. To keep her around. In any way he could.
“Uh…” She twiddled her fingers. “Uh… I—I like video games?”
Was she asking him or telling him? Some part of her was still so taken off guard by his unexpected interest that she worried any word she uttered from that moment forward would always be bookended with a question mark. Every sentence teeming with a hint of doubt at its core. A doubt that would never fail to betray her deepest insecurity—an insecurity based on the fact that, at any moment, he’d realize he didn’t actually give a shit what she liked to do for fun, whether she preferred dogs or cats, or what her favorite video game was.
“What’s your favorite video game?”
Her eyes nearly exploded from her head. Was he reading her mind? “Uh… Call of Duty?”
“You sure? ‘Cause you don’t sound sure.”
“No, I’m sure. I’m just… It’s just now hitting me that the conversation we’re having would’ve been much more appropriate to have before we put our mouths on each other’s genitals the other night.”
“Thought you didn’t want to talk about sex.”
“I don’t! Just making a general observation about how screwed up we are.”
“Yeah, I guess we are pretty ass-backward, huh?”
Fighting a gleeful smile, she cleared her throat and made a concentrated effort to ditch the question marks. “Call of Duty. Call of Duty is definitely my favorite game. Um… what…. What do you like to do for fun? I mean, besides the obvious.” She motioned to the guitar, leaning on the rock beside him.
“I love to travel. Luckily I have a job that lets me do it for free.”
“What’s your favorite place in the world?”
“Rome.”
She gasped. “That’s a good one. Definitely on my bucket list.”
“Maybe I’ll take you there one day.”
Both of their eyes widened the moment those words left his lips as if realizing at the same time the insanity behind what he’d said. That if he were taking her to Rome, it would only be with Milo on their heels. There was a silent understanding, however, that the trip to Rome he was imagining definitely didn’t have Milo in the picture.
Viola’s eyes fell to the ground, and she kicked at the dirt with the toe of her boots.
Cheeks red, he stood from the rock while running his hands over his jeans. “You wanna walk around?”
Her eyes flew back up to his. Ass backward as they were, he still wasn’t trying to make his escape. Hell yeah she wanted to walk around, and she made herself clear by coming up next to him, never breaking her eyes from his. He waited until she was less than a foot away from him before he turned and began a slow trek deeper into the forest.
“I love tattoos,” Viola chimed in sometime during their walk. “I’ve been dying to get one for the longest time, but I just can’t decide what to get.”
“Where would you get it?”
She jutted her hip toward him and tapped at her hipbone. “Right here. Somewhere where no one would even know it was there unless I chose. For me and my lover’s eyes only.”
“Mmm…” He licked his lips while letting his gaze rise slowly from her hips to her eyes.
Viola found herself unable to tear her eyes away, even as his unrelenting eye contact caused a shot of anxiousness to zap through her. He was looking so hard. Was it possible she had a piece of snot hanging from her nose? Food in her teeth? Was it finally hitting him how utterly plain she was? Suddenly remembering that he only dated fitness models? Would it have killed her to throw on a little mascara before making the trek out to the stream that night?
So entranced with Jon, Viola didn’t even notice the boulder in her path until it was too late, tripping over it so furiously she was sure a wipeout was inevitable.
His hand was around her forearm in an instant however—instincts sharper that an MVP baller—and he held tight until she found her footing, guffawing against the full-on laughter that tried to escape his smirking lips. He ensured she was upright before they continued walking once more.
During their walk, five minutes turned to ten and ten to twenty. A new question came flying from Jon’s lips with every step they took, hopping back and forth between borderline nosey and utterly mundane. There was never a lull in the conversation as they walked—a lull that would illustrate he was dying for it to end or trying to escape it. No, he always appeared more excited with every answer she gave him. Letting those answers segue into new questions and even answering a few questions of hers as well. Slowly giving her pieces of him, letting her build on the puzzle that was Jon Baca in her mind with little to no hesitation.
Viola didn’t even notice how deeply they’d walked into the forest, and how far away from the outside world they’d traveled until a sound in the distance stole her attention and ripped her out of the pleasant little bubble they’d built around themselves. Until that moment, nothing in the world could’ve pulled her out of that bubble except the sound that blasted her ears. An utterly distinctive sound that was impossible to ignore.
She froze in mid-step when the sound came again, louder this time, and looked up at Jon.
He’d stopped walking too, bringing the crunch of their shoes to a complete halt and encasing them in utter silence. He cocked his ear in the direction of the noise—proving he’d heard it too.
“The hell was that?” Viola whispered.
Another heartfelt moan, just faint enough to kiss their ears like a whisper, but passionate enough to prove that, had they been a little closer, it would’ve been loud enough to crack glass. Those muffled moans were followed by an equally impassioned, baritone grunt. Coupled together, the croaked bellows, growls and screams left no question to how the sounds that’d interrupted their conversation had originated.
“Damn, is he screwing her or murdering her?” Viola whispered, frowning toward the sound that had now become unmistakable. All she saw before her was a thick brush of trees. “Where is it coming from? I thought the family cabin was the only house for miles?”
“It’s coming from Mr. and Mrs. Washington’s place.” Jon pumped his fist through the air a few times, angled toward the moans and groans that had only grown more feverish. “Go, Mr. Washington.”
Viola took his arm, was momentarily entranced by the hardness of his bicep, and then tugged. “I wanna see.”
“You wanna see?” Jon resisted. “Damn freak. They’re senior citizens.”
“When I hear two people having sex, I have to see it. And I’m not alone, okay? The porn industry didn’t become a billion dollar empire by accident, and I know you watch it too. Probably ten times more than I do. You know damn well you want to see it too so don’t even pretend.”
“Did you miss the part where I said they’re senior citizens?” Jon’s face tightened as if he were trying to hold back a laugh. As if it had just hit him that he and the little pervert holding his arm were nothing short of kindred spirits. “Yo, something is wrong with you, Viola, like for real—for real,” he accused, even as he allowed her to pull his arm, following with a laugh.
They tiptoed through the brush and, soon, the expanse had cleared, and a one-story cabin appeared, a little smaller than the Moore house but esthetically almost identical. Viola and Jon sporadically shushed each other when one of them accidentally stepped on a branch and caused a noisy crack, creeping toward the glowing windows of the cabin as quietly as they could.
“They’re still going,” Jon whispered.
“They are getting it in,” she agreed.
As quietly as they could, they came up to the wall of the house alongside the bedroom window, the sounds of lovemaking now bordering on deafening.
“I’m surprised they haven’t cracked the damn windows,” Viola whispered.
“It’s just now hitting me that I haven’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Washington in ten years. That means he’s almost eighty. You sure you wanna see this—‘Cause I’m not.”
Viola guffawed breathily, her nostrils expanding as she did everything she could to keep her laughter in her belly. After shushing Jon one more time, with a finger over her smiling lips, she cradled her hands on the wall of the house for leverage and leaned forward, peeking into the bedroom window to get a gander at the crazy old kids that’d spent the last several minutes filling the forest with their lust-filled music.
The sight that greeted her, however, caused her mouth to fly open, a gasp to fill her lungs, and a wave of dizziness to consume her body as she realized what she was looking at. She couldn’t even appreciate the hardness of Jon’s chest as he laid it against her back so he could peek inside the window as well—too busy noticing the exact moment when he saw what she saw. When he gasped so hard, she felt it tightening his abs against the small of her back. When every bone in his body immediately began shaking wildly against hers. When he cursed under his breath.
For a long moment, they were speechless. It wasn’t until Mr. Washington—an eighty-year-old black man who was more husky and broad than most of the trees in the forest behind them—put Betty on her hands and knees on top of the bed and entered her from behind that Viola squealed at the top of her lungs.
Her uncontrollable scream was muffled the instant it came as Jon clapped his hand over her mouth in the next second. Then, her feet had left the ground, and she was airborne. She kicked and screamed as Jon carried her away from the house and back into the forest, the vision of Betty’s naked breasts burned into her brain for all eternity. Infiltrating her body like a deadly sneak attack, so much so that she found herself pounding her fists into the arm Jon had locked tightly around her waist. She couldn’t tell if her every breath left her lips in a gasp because she was screaming, because she was traumatized, or because Jon’s forearm was digging into her ribcage and making the act of breathing impossible.
So lost in the dark world that the sight she’d just seen had taken her too, Viola didn’t even realize Jon had carried her all the way back to the front yard of the Moore house until he set her down on her shaky feet, took hold of her shoulders, and shook her.
“Calm down.” He tried to keep his voice a whisper even though it was as unsteady and wobbly as every bone in her body. “Breathe, Viola.”
Viola tried to draw in a deep breath, but her chest was heaving too quickly, her heart racing too ferociously. She shook her hands wildly in front of her body as she struggled to speak, feeling on the verge of all-out panic.
“Boobs! Betty’s boobs! Eighty-year-old Betty’s boobs!”
“Please don’t remind me.” Jon clenched her shoulders tighter.
“Betty—naked—doggy style—getting railed—boobs! Wrinkled… jiggling… sagging…”
Jon sucked in a breath and let his chin collapse into his chest, his brown hair falling forward and blowing with the breeze.
“Oh my God,” Viola clapped both of her hands over her mouth as she slowly came back down to Earth, her eyes wide as saucers as she continued speaking, voice muffled in her hand. “Oh my God. Betty’s fucking a married man. Your grandmother is fucking a married black lumberjack.” Her hands fell from her lips and collapsed down to her sides, face growing more stunned by the second, spluttering. “The complete… absolute…fucking nerve—the gall…” She struggled to find the right words and finally exploded. “That… fucking hypocrite!”
Jon raised his eyebrows high, pressing his lips into a thin, trembling line.
Viola studied his face for a long moment, frowned, and then bent forward at the hip, a deep belly laugh flying from her wide open mouth so violently it felt like her lungs were trying to climb up her throat.
Jon blew a raspberry a second later, his face going beet red, unable to hold back his own heaving laughter at the sight of Viola falling to pieces before him. They cackled until they grew breathless, stopping only long enough to fill their lungs with much-needed air before collapsing into sniggers once more. They clutched at each other’s arms as their laughter grew so strong it made it impossible for them to breathe at all, causing them to grow dizzy and unsteady, stumbling over their own feet.
As the laughter nearly took her to her knees, it hit Viola that it was the most joy she’d felt since touching down in Utah. A joy she was sure wouldn’t leave her body for many moons to come.