Chapter Eleven
Jona
The doorbell rings like crazy.
“She’s back!” Jacob warns from down the hall, a concerned lilt to his voice.
I throw items into a bag. Toothbrush, underwear, my bullshit ass desires. “Ignore her.” Monika and I are done, if we had ever had a friendship. I was used to women lying about dumb things—even expected it—but I wasn’t used to women lying about something as important as my past. They’d never been close enough to touch it, let alone blow it up.
I hear a commotion downstairs, and it lights a fire under my feet. I move faster, zipping up my bag and grabbing my wallet. I pick up the piece of paper I’d written the Brickwell address down on I found last night after borrowing Jacob’s laptop. I don’t know what I’m doing, hadn’t gotten that far, but the five-year-old boy inside of me has control of me now, and he wants to know how his Superman mom could destroy him so badly.
“You’re leaving?”
I swirl around at the question, not even catching myself when my knees give out. They hit the floor as I look up at my heart. “Jus?” I hear myself gasp.
My eyes soak her up. She’s even thinner than before. Her deep mahogany hair is in a messy bun, but her eyes are still alive, determined. There are dark circles under her eyes, and she’s about as close to whole as I am. But she’s stunning. Here. Skin still tanned, bottom lip raw and plump like she’d been chewing on it. She’s wearing a sleeveless, gray gym shirt—not hers—and it screams male. My heart lurches in acute disgusting pain.
She follows my gaze and hers softens. “It’s Bach’s shirt. I promise. I haven’t been with anyone else. And I’m so sorry you have to question that.”
Her openness takes me a few moments to catch up with. “Why are you here?”
She nods, like she expects my anger. “I get it. I know. If you never want to talk to me again, I’ll understand why. But I hope you can see where I was coming from. I … running is a defense mechanism. It’s a lot harder to feel my hurt if my back is to it.”
I’m sick of her excuses. I lost what she lost. I fell when she fell. Hell, I fell a little harder because she had in the first place. But she’s so quick to leave me. Like my mother. Like everyone.
“You know what, Justine? I love you. You know that. You want to come in and out of my life? Fine. I don’t have a life without you, but I’m not in the mood to hear another bullshit ass reason why I’m always second to one more woman.” I pick up my bag that dropped when I had and move toward the door. “Move.”
“You’re not second. You’re first. I promise.” Something gleaming enters her eyes. Panic. She’s afraid. “You can’t take off.”
“Move.” I try to walk around her, but she pushes me back roughly, slamming my door shut and pressing her back to it.
“Hear me out, please?”
“I have somewhere to be. I’ve been here for weeks. Hell, I’ve been here my entire life. You could have picked two days ago. You can wait two more.” I bend down to grab her around her waist, hoisting her over my shoulder. I march her over to my bed as she fights me, and drop her unceremoniously onto my bed, taking advantage of her position to wrench my door open and head down stairs.
She chases after me. “Marry me!”
I pause in the middle of the stairs, my heart stilling in my chest. “Really, baby? I’m fucking mad at you, trying to make a point, and you pull that card on me? What kind of shit is that?” I turn to face her, even more pissed that I’m no longer pissed.
Her fingers dig into the banister as she lowers to one knee on the stairs. “Marry me, Jona.”
I want to say yes—there’s no other answer—but I’m supposed to propose to her. I was supposed to be the only thing that matters to her. I was supposed to be enough. But none of those things happened.
“Something tells me you’d never make it to the wedding.” I keep walking downstairs.
She growls behind me, and her feet follow me outside to my Charger. “What do I have to do?”
“I don’t know, be there. Be there for me just once in your life!” I scream, ignoring her flinch. “You’re not the only one invested in this. I miss him too. I wanted him just as much as you. I lost my second chance when you did. But I stayed. I stayed when my mother abandoned me, and I stayed every time you did. Now I’m leaving you. And when I get done with her, I’ll be leaving her too. Maybe I’ll never come back. Get out of this city once and for all.”
All she says is “No,” and then she launches herself at me, wrapping her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck from behind.
“I’m selfish,” she hisses in my ear. “I’m not waiting six months without you. Are you crazy? Say yes right now.”
“No.” I open my door as best I can, fighting my grin. I missed her. “Who said six months? I might never come back.”
“Jona,” she says, and my smile falls. There’s no teasing in her voice. “What do you mean when you get done with her? Who’s her?”
“Get down.”
She falls to her feet and moves between me and the front seat, clinging to my shirt. “What’s going on?”
“You want to come and find out?”
“Yes.” No hesitation, no questioning.
“If you come with me, you’re not getting out of this car until I’m positive this is it. If I feel like you’ll run again, even if for a second, I’ll drop you off on the side of the road and let you run until you fall out.”
“Where are we going?”
“Yes,” I say, burrowing into her gaze like the dark chocolate depths are going to protect me from the upcoming storm that’s about to rain down on my life.
“Yes?”
“I’ll marry you.” I bend to press a kiss to her lips, grinning. “That was easy.”
She’s speechless. Her mouth opens, parting to make room for her heavy breaths. Her eyes fill with tears; the chocolate gleams deliciously in the sun. Her fingers dig into my abs through my shirt where they grip. “Even though …” She looks down, heartbreak on the edge of her surprise.
I lift her chin gently, pressing my forehead to hers. “Even though what? Even though we fell in love with Chance and we didn’t get to have him? I wanted him, but I have you, Justine, and that’s all I ever wanted. Everything else is a gift. You’re my life. Don’t blame yourself, baby. That kills me.” The gruffness of my plea makes it hard to breathe. I press another kiss to her tear-soaked lips. “And I think we’ve been killed enough.”
She buries her face against my chest. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give him to you.”
I wrap her in my arms. “Just give me you. That’s all I need.”
I feel the fight leave her and her body sags against me.
“Oh, goody,” someone says behind us.
Justine hardens in no time.
“Ignore her,” I whisper in her ear. “Get in and pretend she doesn’t exist.” My fiancée—that feels good as hell to say—does what I say for once, and crawls in through the driver’s seat to the passenger side. I close my door and lean against it, staring Monika Brickwell down. She’d changed from what she was wearing last night into a jean skirt and a white Crystal Gulf University shirt. Her hair’s in a neat ponytail. Now that her mask is gone, she just looks like an eighteen-year-old dumb kid. “You talk to your dad?”
“No. Are you going up there?” She points at the bag over my shoulder.
I’m not sure I believe her. “I might be. What’s it to you?”
“I want to come. Let me smooth things over before you crush our mother.”
Our mother. That hits me hard. I clear my throat and glare to mask my reaction. “Where’s your real mom?”
“She remarried. She’s in New York. With Mikael.”
“You know I have no idea what I’m doing, right? I have no idea what I’m doing.” The realization of what I’m doing, going to see my mother, hits me like a blow. I grab at my chest and pull in a breath deep enough to make sense of my actions. “I can’t see her.”
“Yes, you can.” She grabs my shoulders and straightens me. “I’ll be there to help you.”
I yank myself free. “What makes you think I want your help?”
“Because you haven’t told me to leave yet.” Her mouth twists condescendingly. She holds up her purse, stuffed full. “Let’s go, big brother.” She reaches for the backseat.
I cringe. “I’m going to need even more therapy after this.” Justine’s sitting still in the front seat, her expression calculated as she tries to piece together what she heard with what she knows. I’m not in the mood. “That’s your cue, Mon.”
Justine turns, giving her a look so dark and evil it makes even me sorry for Monika, but not sorry enough to save her. “Why did you call him big brother?”
“Because that’s what he is.” As I pull out of the driveway, Monika takes a deep breath. “My father married his mother.”
Jus’s brows draw together, forming a dark line of confusion. “What’re you talking about?”
I shoot Bach a text telling him I might need Monday off as Monika explains to Justine all that I can’t bear to repeat. When she’s done, Justine turns around and sits back, folding her hands on her lap. I shoot her a look, but her face is turned toward the window, hiding her eyes.
Quiet settles in the car as I get on the highway. “I almost hooked up with her,” I add, since Monika left that part out, the lying little brat. “My stepsister. That’s sick, ain’t it, baby?”
Justine grunts.
“I’m sorry,” I admit, meaning every single word. “I shouldn’t have done that. Even with how things were between us, it was messed up. If you run, I hurt you for it. I promise from the bottom of my heart that there won’t ever be anyone else but you again, Justine.”
She grunts again.
I want to make this up to her. More for me than for her. “Talk to me,” I beg quietly, shooting a look her way as I drive.
Her eyes shoot to mine momentarily before returning to the window. “If you want to use me as a shield, use away, Lover.”
It’s my turn to grunt.
“What you’re doing right now is the biggest thing you have ever done in your life. You’re driving toward so much pain; I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling.” Her hand touches my thigh.
“I imagined Monika was you the entire time,” I force out, wanting to keep this inside. “But besides being a liar, she’s a shitty kisser, too.”
“I’ll hold your hand the entire time, okay?” Justine assures me softly. “No matter what happens, I’ll be there. Forever. You know why?”
“Were you at Bach’s place the entire time? That sonofabitch.” But my voice wobbles, and I’m so close to losing it.
“Because we’re like two of the most fucked up magnets in the world. We’re drawn to each other at the same time we fight the pull. But that pull will drag us back again and again.”
I fight the burn in my eyes. “You forgive me?”
“Always,” she whispers, leaning across the seat to press a kiss to my temple. Her lips touch my ear. “And the next time any part of you touches any part of someone else, I’ll kill you in your sleep. You got that, Lover?”
I close my eyes in relief. “Yes, baby.”
“Good boy.” She sinks back down, straightening her seatbelt with an intended end to all the bullshit we’ve let get between us.
Monika’s voice drifts from the backseat. “Man, you two are crazy weird together.”
I smile.
Justine giggles.
“I’ve never made out with my stepbrother,” Justine tacks on. “Come to think about it, for once, I’m not the most messed up one in the group.”
“Yeah, about that, I was hoping you could, you know, not tell them about that part, Jona. Let me deal with it. I’ll figure out a way if it means fixing Elisa and my family.”
I look in the rearview mirror to find her cheeks the color of cherries and her intense gaze trained on the window. A twinge of guilt moves through me. I’ll have to handle that. Despite her transgressions, she is a kid. Even thinking she could handle me at all is proof she couldn’t. But she tried, and that had to count for something.
“It’s between you and me, Sugar.”
Her eyes shoot to mine in the mirror. “Thank you,” she mouths.
An hour into the drive and my actions are aligning with the truth again. I haven’t seen my mother since I was a kid. And every thought I had about her since then was fueled by hurt, anger, and neglect. There is this sick twisted pit in my stomach I’m not used to. It’s like all the years I spent not mattering were about to catch up to me and demand I fix them.
Make them matter.
Make them whole.
I bite back the bile burning in my throat. “I can’t do this. I can’t see her, Jus.”
She doesn’t say anything. My magnet pulls me back in by grabbing my hurt hand off the steering wheel and smoothing out the tightness of my fist. She rubs circles on my palm and inner wrist. She gives me a reason not to be afraid of my emotions.
But I am still afraid.
I pull over at one point and puke, kicking up dust with my boots as I pace around my Charger on the highway. Justine and Monika sit in the car, giving me privacy as I lose my mind. I’d never ditch my kid. Never. No matter what. How could she do that to me?
“Ahh!” I scream at the deep blue sky.
Justine guides me into the passenger seat and takes over driving after that. I twitch in my seat, sweating from places I didn’t know I could sweat. The stink of my fear seeps from my pores. I lick my chapped lips. I forget a lot of everything in that front seat. All that I can focus on is what I’m going to do when I come face to face with the first woman to ever break my heart.
“Turn up here,” Monika orders, her finger pointing between the seats.
Justine turns the Charger down a side street, and the land opens to mansions. A small bluff from the highway hid them, and beyond the bluff, the land dips to a golf course. Everything looks so bright, so pain free.
“The fourth turn is our place. The code is 1519.”
Justine pulls into the driveway and stops at the black gate, rolling down her window to punch the code in. The gate beeps and fawns open, granting us access to my ultimate destruction.
“Let’s go back home.” I can barely see through my panic. It’s blurring my eyes.
Again, no one listens.
“Park behind the McLaren.”
My balls tighten at the sight of it. It’s a beautiful car. Silver, mean, a two-and-a-half million-dollar tab. It makes the Ferraris I sling at the dealership look like toys.
“Whose car is that?”
“Dad’s. I know, it’s ridiculous, right? But he works hard for his money, and Elisa and I pretend he’s not a nerd in the front seat.”
There are two other cars out front. A black BMW i8 that’s at least a few years old and a simple, older model Range Rover.
“Which one of those is Elisa’s?” I ask, somehow already knowing the answer.
“The Range.” Monika gets out and waits by the hood for us to do the same.
Justine’s sallow expression looks like she’s about to puke too. My foot taps the floorboard of my Charger. I run a hand through my hair, but the nervous energy is too much for me.
Monika throws her hands up in frustration and follows the stone pathway through the trees.
“We can take off. Go home. Just you and me?” I widen my eyes desperately.
“No, you need to do this. That little boy inside of you needs to be at peace, so you are too.”
“What if I go in there and she’s exactly who I thought she was?”
“Then you’ll know.”
“Shit,” I hiss, scraping my hand through my hair again. A pressure starts to build in the car. “Damn it, Justine. How do I look?”
She leans close and starts to smooth my hair down and situate my shirt. “Where’s your sling?”
“I don’t need it as much.”
She nods like this is so damn important. But it isn’t. It’s small talk before big talk. “You look gorgeous.” Her lips press tenderly to mine. “I got my GED.”
“Really?” I smile genuinely. Now, this I understand. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m full-time at the dealership.”
“Look at you, all grown up.” She kisses me again, her hands steadying on mine. “You’re amazing; you know that, Jona Kyles?”
“You’re my world, Justine Fenton. You know that too, right?”
Together, we exit my Charger. Together, we clasp hands and take the stone walkway. Together, we pause at the front door. And, together we enter this horribly incredible nightmare.
Finally, together.
It smells clean. That’s the only way I can describe it. Sterile. The room to our left looks like it’s just for show. Full of uncomfortable and expensive appearing furniture. “I can’t breathe,” I whisper. “I’m going to pass out or puke.”
“Please don’t.”
I look up to find a man peering over the banister. Our eyes lock. He looks to be in his early forties, still young, not yet worried about age. His hair is this deep, dark blond, like Monika’s. His eyes are the same crystal blue, and they’re trained on me like he’s seeing something he’s only heard about in passing.
“Jona?” he asks, his voice catching.
I nod once.
His eyes close in some intense emotion. When they open, they’re glowing. “Your mother doesn’t know you’re here yet. I gave her a sedative or who knows what would have happened.” He takes the stairs as he talks. “I’ll wake her after you have a chance to puke and faint.”
He drugged her? The messed-up part is, he doesn’t sound like he’s kidding. He stops in front of me and offers me his hand.
“Eddy Brickwell.”
I lift my right arm in apology, showing him the gnarled puckered flesh and scars from my screws. “I broke my arm. And I’m holding my girl’s hand with my left. She’s the only thing keeping me from puking my guts out. So, we can shake hands later. If,” I add, “I still want to.”
He surprises me by smiling like I’m fascinating. “County?” he guesses. “That is going to leave one brutal scar. If you want, I can refer you to a good surgeon to repair the cosmetic damage?”
Oh, yeah, and I’ll just pull out my checkbook and pay the bill no problem.
“My treat, of course.”
“Dad,” Monika chastises, turning the corner. “My father has a bad tendency to go the extra mile, even if it isn’t needed. Excuse him.” She grabs his arm and holds on to him, such a child-like movement that I feel this overwhelming urge to protect her again.
But she’s not in trouble. I am.
Eddy looks at Justine, giving her his hand. “Eddy. This is awkward at its most basic level, am I right?” Eddy laughs uncomfortably.
She takes it hesitantly. “Justine,” she supplies. “And I’ve never been in a situation quite like it.”
“Let’s go sit in the kitchen. Can I get you anything to drink? Eat? Maybe a Xanax?” he teases, giving me another nervous laugh. “Psychiatrist humor.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Monika whispers, mortified. “Seriously, Jona. My dad’s totally amazing. He’s just been up all night with Elisa, and he gets all weird when he’s tired.”
I don’t know what to say.
The kitchen is uncomfortably fancy. Too big and too much wood and metal. I squeeze Justine’s hand so hard she whimpers, but she doesn’t pull away, and I don’t lessen my grip. She’s my grounding force.
Keeps me human. Or monstrous. What’s living without a little monstrosity? Shit. I’m getting all weird now too.
Eddy sits at the bar, and I sit next to him, with Justine on my left. Monika opens the fridge and takes out three ice-cold cans of cola, sliding them to each of us.
Eddy and I meet each other’s gaze. “You look just like your mother.”
“I’m going to need something stronger than soda if you’re going to start this conversation off like that.”
“Right.” He goes over to a liquor cabinet and takes out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue with no shot glasses. I like him immediately. He opens the top, takes a deep appreciative sniff, and then hands it off to me. “Been saving that for something special.”
“This isn’t special.” I take a long swallow, feeling the spicy fire in my throat. “This is fucked up.”
He chuckles. “Your mother is going to lose her mind at your language.”
“Stop calling her that.”
“That’s what she is, though, Jona. She is your mother. Your ill feelings, however earned, do not take that title away from her.”
I hand the bottle off to Justine. But she shakes her head. “Let’s cut to the truth here.” I set the bottle down and stare at the amber liquid.
“If you wish to.”
“There’s my side and her side, right?”
“There are no sides, son. There is just a very sad situation that was made sadder.” He even sounds sad.
I take another drink. “I can’t breathe, baby.”
She takes my hand again, letting mine crush hers. I feel better.
“Tell me your side, son.”
I feel so weak, so young. But I realize I want to tell him my side. “How far back should I go?” I give him a haunted look that he mirrors.
“I know about the rape. I know about her drug use. Start from there.”
“No, I’m going back. I was there too.” I stab at my chest. “I watched them rape her. I watched her avoid me after. I watched her get high after. I watched her fade away and leave me at school for hours. I watched her drop me off at the library and never come back.”
He cries. Instantly. Like I broke his heart ten different ways.
And I know it’s coming. I know it’s bad. I’m shaking.
“Childhood innocence is both beautiful and damaging. Elisa was raped. She did develop a habit. But it’s who raped her, Jona. It’s who she ran from.”
I can’t breathe.
“Do you remember it?” he asks.
I shake my head and nod at the same time. “I do, but I don’t. I just remember fighting the person holding me, wanting to protect her. I just wanted to protect my mom. I can see her face. Her beautiful fucking face shattering as they made me watch.”
I barely make it to the sink before I retch.
But Eddy keeps going. “It was your father, son. A bad man your mother had the displeasure of coming in contact with. A man who did not take no for an answer. After she got pregnant with you, she took off to Crystal Gulf. And she did well. She hid you and her. But he found her, and it was only a matter of time before he took you. She panicked. She did the only thing she could do to protect you from Jory Eastwood.”
I puke again.
And again.
Justine cries behind me, holding onto me.
The father of Zane Eastwood, the guy who raped Piper and tried to do the same to Hillary, was my father?
No. Fucking. Way.
“Please tell me you don’t know him?” he begs.
I shake my head because it’s partially true. I never met Jory Eastwood, just his piece of shit son. Star quarterback at Crystal Gulf University. Monster in disguise. All that is evil in this world. That could have been me.
Behind me, Justine explains things to him, about Hillary’s attack and Piper’s.
“Hell,” Eddy bites out. “Jory’s been in prison for the past ten years. It seems his offspring still found a way to keep the legacy going.”
My eyes find his.
“Not you, son. Blood is only blood. You are nothing like those monsters. Because your mother protected you. Jory couldn’t find you without her, and if she left, he’d think you did too. But her drug use got out of hand. She spiraled, ended up in prison herself. By the time I found her, she was barely alive. Your mother, she has a one-track mind when it comes to things. She doesn’t see other options. Only the one she trusts. Protecting you meant staying away from you.”
I don’t know what to think. Only that for all of his insistence, her plan had backfired horribly. Or, maybe, it hadn’t. I could have turned out like Zane. A real monster. I wasn’t a perfect guy, but I wasn’t a monster, and that was the only good thing in all of this.
“She still left me.” I grab the nearest hand towel on the counter and wipe my face down. “She still abandoned me.” Harley’s words come to me. I’d ask why, but it doesn’t matter what her reasons were. You were a child. You were an innocent baby who relied on his mother. I ache to ask what she’d do with this new information. I can’t believe I want Little Miss Perfect’s advice, yearn for her good opinion.
“She did,” he agrees.
“She ditched out on me.” I toss the towel away, unable to look at anyone but him. “I was five, damn it! I didn’t know what to do.”
“I’m so sorry it went down that way. Your mother lives with the guilt every day, Jona. I am not defending her actions, but I am defending her motives. And I’m not undermining your pain or anger either. You deserve to feel that way. I would,” he admits. “I don’t have a good relationship with my mother. I understand the desire to defend your side; I really do—to ask what about me? But what about the “you” that you are now? Forcing all that hurt to stick around because it can, doesn’t help you.”
“Shit!” I snap, ripping the hair at my scalp. “This is even too fucked up for me.”
He gives me a tired smile. “Fucked up indeed.”
“Well.” I take a deep breath. “Where is she?” I grab at my shirt and wipe my eyes off with it, unable to breathe or see right. Everything’s wrong right now.
“I had to knock her out, or she’d go and get you herself.”
“She could have done that years ago.”
“No, she couldn’t have.” He says it like he knows it for a fact. “When she left you, she left you. She knew you’d come to her one day. When you were ready. If she came for you, you would have pushed her away forever. She made a sacrifice. And judging by the fact that you’re standing in my kitchen, I think she made the right one. Not all sacrifices have perfect tradeoffs.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I grunt and grab for the bottle, taking another swallow to chase the taste of puke from my breath. “That really your McLaren?”
He lets out a breath and gives me another sad smile. “You want to take it for a ride sometime?”
Offering surgeons, McLarens, and four-hundred-dollar whiskey? He was hitting all my spots, and they were leery because of it. “Maybe.”
“Can I go wake up your mother?”
I look around for Justine, but she’s not there, Monika either. I’m alone.
“Just you two?” he wagers. “You can go wait in her greenhouse? She feels good there.”
I tug on my shirt with my left hand. “How do I look?”
He walks over to me and matches my eyelevel. “All she wants is you. Go out back this door.” He points to a glass door off the kitchen. “Follow the path to your right. The greenhouse is open.”
“Right. Yeah.” I walk around him for the door.
“Jona?” he calls softly. “I love her. And you may not believe me, but I love you, too. I have been listening to the same stories of you for ten years. I know you have every right to break her heart, but I beg you not to.”
He doesn’t wait for my nay or yay. I don’t either. I head out back, following his directions to a huge glass greenhouse. Plant life overcomes the interior. I open the door and step inside, slammed by the scent of flowers and humid soil.
In the middle of the greenhouse, there’s a living room set up and even a bookshelf. The sun shines at an angle that isn’t blinding but glowing. It’s peaceful. Serene. But it’s making me itchy. I eye the flowers suspiciously, feeling my nose tickling.
Purple chrysanthemums.
I sneeze, feeling my spine tingle.
“You were always allergic to chrysanthemums.”
There’s no use in holding myself together at the sound of her voice. It’s been almost two decades, but it’s still familiar. Airy, sweet, soft, loving, and respectful at the same time. Beautiful.
I sneeze again. Damn flowers. A memory of falling into purple flowers and sneezing for hours comes to me. She’d thought it was hilarious, and I’d giggled between sneezes.
My back is still to her. I can walk forward to the far glass doors and keep my heart mildly intact. If I turn around, she’s going to blow it away.
Soft sobbing sounds from behind me. “You’re so tall. How tall?”
“Six-three,” I answer.
Her sobs deepen. “And your voice is so manly.”
“Yours still sounds the same.”
Her cries increase. “My Jona.”
I blink my tears free. “I am not yours.”
I hear something shift, and her sobs come from a different level; she’s on her knees.
“Yes, you are. You are my heart, my happiness. My child. My soul.”
Damn it. I’m pissed, hurt, but the sound of her heart breaking at my back is too hard not to want to comfort her. “Stop.”
I feel a hand on my leg, tugging at my jeans, and it reminds me of doing the same to her after her attack. I’d pull on her pant leg, but she’d just push me away. Everything inside of me hurts. I can’t push her away, because in some weird twisted way I still respect my mother, even if she ruined me. And that pisses me off. I should be screaming, raging, telling her everything she made me suffer through.
That was before Zane. The idea that my sperm donor—he’d never be my father—could have turned me into a monster like Zane, someone who instilled the same pain that ruined my life, made me unsteady with disgust. The thing about Zane isn’t how disgusting he is, but how smoothly he moves through society with his scales.
“Please, Jonie.”
Ah hell.
I hadn’t been called that in seventeen years. I’m suddenly five, standing on that curb waiting for my mom to come back home. Maybe she’d look at me today. Maybe she’d love me again.
Her hands turn me around. I snap my eyes closed. Refuse to look at her yet. I feel her rise, using me as support. She wraps her arms around my neck and buries her face against my chest. Her wet sobs are muffled by my shirt. Her perfume. Oh, damn it, her perfume. I squeeze my eyes shut even harder, fighting the shaking in my body. All my years of forgetting are silently imploding.
“I’m so sorry,” she pleads, repeatedly barfing her apology all over me.
I am covered in her sick, and I’ve never wanted so badly to give in to someone. I forgot the hold she had on me. Even as a child, she owned my soul. Could get me to do anything she wanted. Because I knew she loved me. The way her light brown eyes—my eyes—would glimmer with adoration, that’s something I needed. I need that in my life.
“I’m not hugging you back,” I growl, but it really comes out like a desperate plea of my own. “I’m not.”
She nuzzles her face against my neck, clinging to me so completely I get this feeling she’s not letting me go this time.
I open my eyes and glare murderously at the garden, fighting the urge to sneeze all over her. My eyes are burning along with my heart and these flames aren’t the kind that make you sweat. They’re the kind that demolish.
“You smell like whiskey,” she whispers, pulling back to inhale my breath like a fucking mother.
I close my eyes just in time to catch sight of her toffee-colored hair. But just that one glimpse makes me sway. She holds on to me. “I’m twenty-two. I can do what the fuck I want.”
“Jona,” she snaps. “Language.”
This is fucking weird. Not my kind of weird either. Just weird.
I laugh bitterly. “I’m an adult. I can say what I want.”
“Don’t swear.” Her hands touch my face and cheeks, gliding through my sweaty hair and over my nose; her fingers tremble as she touches me. “You’re so beautiful. Such a grown handsome man.”
“Yeah, seventeen years apart can do that to a person. Ouch,” I hiss when she presses painfully into my right arm. I step back and have no choice but to open my eyes to do so. I glare at my arm and cradle it to my chest.
Her absence leaves me cold. Already, I’m home. That’s dangerous. That’s waiting to be left again. That’s admitting my rage looks a lot like defiance and fear.
She grabs my chin, lifting me. For the first time in seventeen years, I’m looking at my mother. Five-year-old Jona loses his shit. I want to tell him we’re men, we don’t cry, but he doesn’t listen. My tears burn their way across me like flames searching for a reason to erupt. She’s stunning. Even after all these years. Silky warm brown hair, high cheek bones, pale skin, with a smattering of freckles on her left jaw. Eyes the color of caramel and chocolate. She’s so much shorter than me now. But she’s still her. She hasn’t changed.
I have.
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Hers does too, but she’s silent. Our glistening eyes connect. She’s my other magnet. That’s why I’ve been so lost. She wasn’t there to pull me back. Justine kept my force from going astray, she kept me grounded, but my mother gave me the pull to begin with.
“Why?” I beg.
She shakes her head.
“Tell me why!” I scream, hating myself when she flinches. She’s not like Justine. She isn’t used to my brand of asshole. I force myself to calm. “Please tell me why.”
“I can’t. I’ve had this conversation ready for years, Jonie; but now that it’s here, I realize there’s nothing to say. I did what I thought was best for you. But it was the worst for me. And I can see in your eyes that the lie I gave myself was just that, lies. No wonderful safe foster family adopted you, did they?”
I shake my head. “Just a bunch of shitty ones who never loved me and didn’t give a shit if I was hungry or sad. I’ve been on my own since I was fifteen. So, your selfish fucking plan to save me, really just ruined me. Are you happy?” I spew. “Are you proud of yourself?”
She breaks. Her shoulders hunch in and she blubbers, face crumpling in heartbreak.
“I hated you. I spent my entire life feeling nothing. Do you have any idea how fucking bleak that was? To feel nothing!”
Her legs wobble and give out, sinking into the soft earth at our feet. I don’t like her on her knees, beneath me.
“I will not feel like the asshole here!” I growl, kicking at a planter’s box full of chrysanthemums. The purple petals go flying, and my nose backfires. I sneeze, wanting to rip the petals apart.
“Just say it like it happened, Elisa. Tell me what really happened. You hooked up with a monster, and he didn’t want to let you go, so he found you and raped you in front of your son. Then you couldn’t look at me. You hated me. So, you started getting high and dropped me off, so you didn’t have to look at my face anymore.”
She sobs so hard it starts to worry me. Her breathing’s too shallow. Her hands shake like the stems I just kicked over.
“I never hated you. I knew you hated me. I couldn’t look at you because of the things I was doing. Because I knew you weren’t going to be the perfect baby I wanted to raise, but you’d be damaged by what your father did to me. What he’d do to you. My drug use was a terrible, horrible coping mechanism.” She looks up at me, her pain set free. “I haven’t been happy in seventeen years, Jona, but I am right now looking at you. It was a hard time. I couldn’t think straight; I couldn’t be a mother and a victim. I did the wrong thing so many times, and your father was coming for you. He couldn’t have me, so he was going to take my son. The librarian worked for CPS. I knew she’d do the right thing with you. I’m so sorry, baby. I could spend the next seventeen years telling you I was sorry and it wouldn’t make up for even a second of it, but I am so sorry I let you down.”
I never hated you. “You didn’t ditch out on me because you blamed me for not protecting you?”
She waves me down. She can’t stand right now and frankly, neither can I. I drop to my knees in front of her. I’m still taller, but not by much. She grabs my left hand tightly. Fire burns in her eyes suddenly.
“I have loved you since I found out I was pregnant. I have loved you all this time. I never blamed you, my sweet boy. Never. Have you thought that all these years? Have you blamed yourself for my sexual assault?”
I nod stiffly before I can think of any other reaction.
“Oh, Jona.” Her head shakes. “You take that blame, and you toss it away. You had nothing to do with that. You were just a child. It wasn’t your responsibility to protect me. It was my responsibility to protect you. The only person who failed here was me. Only me.”
But, five-year-old me says, remembering all those years ago. “It hadn’t felt that way.”
“Of course, not. You were hurting too. That emotional trauma was terrible on you. You weren’t eating, weren’t sleeping. You had nightmares every night. I had to take you out of school. I wasn’t a good mother to you, my sweet Jonie. And I know I don’t have the right to ask, and you don’t have to say anything now, but I beg you to forgive me for not being there. For abandoning you. For letting you down in the worst way for so many years.” She presses her face against mine, kissing my cheek, my ear, my neck. “Please let me be your parent again.”
I don’t say anything. But I do finally embrace her. She sobs against me in relief and clings to me as I hold her too tightly. I’m probably hurting her, but for us, pain is exchangeable. My fists knot in her shirt. My breath moistens her neck. The smell and feel of her are new, but fucking beautiful. Like a bad thing you want to make right.
We remain that way for what feels like hours. My chest opens, and a strange warmness seeps into my veins. The sun shines between the glass walls and gleams on the purple chrysanthemums, making the soft petals glow.
I get the impression she isn’t pulling away first. It’s up to me. I hug her for a second longer and then unwrap myself from around her. She looks at me, giving me a soft smile I can’t help returning.
“Now what?” I ask.
“What do you want? I don’t deserve to call the shots anymore. This will all be up to you.”
“And if I want to leave and never come back, you’re cool with that?”
Her breaths speed up. “No. No, I’m not.”
“It’s okay, you know? My girlfriend’s bossy as hell. I’m used to being told what to do.”
Her eyes shine within her pain. It’ll be that way for a long time for both of us. Happiness within our pain.
“I don’t have any right.”
“Neither does she, but she knows I love her, and she can get whatever she wants from me. Maybe, maybe,” I stress before she thinks she’s off the hook. “It’s the same way for you.”
“I want you in my life forever. I’ve gotten into my car and driven to Crystal Gulf too many times to count. But I never found you, because I knew it wasn’t fair of me to demand you face something you didn’t turn away from. Plus, in my mind you were a pediatrician in impoverished countries healing sick people and fluent in ten different languages and had five degrees.” She laughs a little.
I smirk. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“No,” she rushes, looking almost angry. “That was a stupid dream I created to comfort myself. You are perfect. Just be you. Never be anything else.”
I shift on my knees uncomfortably, rubbing my itchy nose. “Can we get out of here before I start growing weeds?”
“Is that a yes?”
I push to my feet and offer her my hand, pulling her up carefully. “I need another drink.”
She grips my hand unbearably tightly as we head to the exit. “That’s a yes,” she breathes, hope and longing in her voice.
“You lost your accent.” If I remember correctly, she had one.
“Okay. Avoid the avoidable. I’ll remember that about you.” She sniffs. “And yeah. Prison snuffed it out. It comes back when I get really mad. But that rarely happens.”
“Bet I can make you really mad.” I grin at her, my heart flipping at her soft smile.
Bach was right. We made this fucked up bed. What else we gonna do but lie in it?
“Don’t.” She nudges me as we walk hand-in-hand to the back door of the mansion. She nods for me to go in first, holding my hand in a stronghold. The kitchen’s empty.
“Who did you come here with?”
“My girlfriend. Fiancée.”
“You’re getting married?” she squeaks. I nod carefully. “Kids?” She holds her breath.
My heart shatters, and so does she. She grabs my face like she knows what I’m feeling. And maybe she does.
“She was pregnant. Miscarriage.”
“Oh, my poor baby.” She hugs me to her, rubbing the back of my hair like I’m a kid.
I let her.
“You can try again, right?”
“Oh, I intend to,” I purr.
She stiffens and pulls back to glare at me. “Jona.”
Her admonishing tone makes me laugh. And she’s right. On the edge of her anger, there’s a slight accent that makes me feel like I’m at home.
“Are you okay? Is she?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. Justine’s strong. She’s been putting up with me since we were fifteen. She’s got to be. You want to meet my fiancée, Mom?” I chuckle at the weirdness. “I’ve never introduced a girl to a parent before.”
She simply stares at me, fingers digging into my forearm. “You called me Mom.”
“Avoid the avoidable, remember?” I give her a hard look.
But of course, she doesn’t take heed. She hugs me again, and since it’s been seventeen years, I let her. “Say it again.”
“Mom.”
She gushes against me, her tears so strong they’re echoing in the quiet cavernous house. I pat her back awkwardly, careful to keep my right arm away from her.
“Let’s go meet your fiancée,” she says, pulling back eventually and patting the tear-soaked wrinkles from my shirt. “She’s probably with Monika.” She heads for the stairs with me following. “Who, I owe everything to. Sweet girl.”
I snort. But when she turns around questioningly, I shake my head. Better keep step-sister’s secret. Plus, I don’t think Mom will handle that well. My brain’s confused. Who is this Mom? It wants to know.
At the top of the stairs, she goes right, traveling down a hall covered in pictures. One picture brings me up short. It’s me. I’m standing in front of my elementary school, missing two teeth, with my kindergarten graduation diploma and a little hat with a dark blue tassel. I look so stupidly happy, so unaware how far I’d fall.
“You were so proud. You thought you were done with school forever. When I told you, you had to go back for another twelve years, you cried for hours.”
I reach over to touch my little face through the glass. It’s okay, I tell him. Everything’s okay.
“Did you graduate?”
“Mhm. By the skin of my teeth, but I did it. I had detention for six months toward the end of senior year, and my teacher was threatening to contact CPS since I was seventeen if I didn’t cooperate. Actually, I should thank her. I had nothing to do but my homework and study. I passed because she forced me to.”
Mom rubs my back, gazing at the picture with me. “Detention for six months?”
“I used to sell drugs to make money.” I don’t bother hiding anything. What good is it at this point to not be myself? “Back then I was selling weed, and someone got caught with it and ratted me out. But my math teacher found out and convinced the principal to give me another shot.”
“Did you do drugs too?” she asks softly, not an ounce of judgment in her voice.
I nod. “Not heroin though, never heroin. Didn’t sell it, didn’t touch it.”
Her sigh is haggard. “Do you still?”
“No. It’s a long story, but I’m done with that life.” I meet her eyes. “I’m done with it all. And you are too, aren’t you? Because I can’t keep going back there. I can’t.”
She takes a moment to answer, returning to the picture. It’s the only one she has on the wall. The rest of are of a guy who looks identical to Monika and her young, gap-toothed, and happy with a younger Eddy.
“I’m not sure I deserve to be done with it.”
“Well. I’m not going to hold it over your head. I … forgive … you. But you better not take off again. You and Justine keep leaving me like this, and I’m going to end up kidnapping you both and feeding you tacos and beer for the rest of your lives.”
She smiles and at the same time she frowns, but she sifts through it the best she can. “Jona, I have seen Eddy every day for the past ten years. I have attachment issues, as you can imagine, and you’re going to have to deal with it. I will never leave you again. Never. Please trust me, Jonie?” She holds my face and presses a kiss to my nose.
“Let’s go find the girls.”
She smiles to herself, already used to my shit. She knocks on a door at the end of the hall and steps back, holding her hands in front of her. I can’t stop watching her, tracing her delicate features. Standing close enough to feel her.
Monika opens the door and then exhales in relief when she sees us. “Come in, come in.”
“Like we needed your permission.” I shove past her and waltz in. Not shocked to find a palace. My queen is sitting on a makeshift throne on a window seat, legs crossed, eyes trained below her on the window. Her jean-clad legs are tucked under her. With the sun shining on her, she looks like she’s drenched in gold.
“Is that her?” Mom whispers, close to my side.
“Wait here. She’s kind of scary. And I swear she bites.” I cross the room to join her. From where she’s sitting, she can see directly into the greenhouse. I swallow hard and stretch over to kiss her cheek. “Talk to me.”
“I am so in love with you right now, I don’t even know what to do with myself.” Her eyes meet mine; life and want shimmers in their depths.
I press my forehead to hers. “You want to meet my mom?”
A soft smile touches her lips, and she nods, kissing me just barely. “You think she’ll like me?”
“I think she’ll love you. Know why?”
“Why, Lover?”
“Because I do. And we’ve all done enough shit to not want anymore. I just want to try being happy, you know, baby? I just want to be happy.”
Tears glisten in her eyes. “Me too, Jona. Me too.”
***
Justine
It smells like lavender.
Jona’s hand is on my knee under the table. He draws circles on my kneecap as we wait for Eddy to come down from outer space and come back with the food. He’s in the kitchen whistling to himself as Elisa and Jona talk across the table. The ease with which they communicate makes it hard to keep my composure. The light in my lover’s eyes makes it hard not to drop to one knee and propose once again. He already seems lighter, like letting go of his past and reclaiming what he lost has scabbed over the holes inside of him.
The lavender candles in the middle of the long wooden table in the dining room burn tranquilly. I watch their glow, ignoring Monika’s cheesy smile as she gazes at her stepbrother and stepmother adoringly.
She’s still on my shit list.
“Takeout’s here!” Eddy announces. He drops bags of steamy takeout from a Mexican restaurant onto the table.
“Did you get the beer, honey?” Elisa asks, standing to kiss her husband.
He grabs her face between his hands and gazes into her eyes for a moment. When he finds what he’s looking for, he smiles, pressing a kiss to her lips. She looks like the female version of Jona. Stunningly beautiful and alluring. “I got it,” he promises. “Sit down. I’ve got dinner tonight. I dish a mean takeout.”
She laughs. “Serving forks are in the drawer by the dishwasher.”
He gives her an indulgent smile and takes off, returning a moment later with two six packs of Coronas.
Jona and I groan. Tacos and beer right now is literally the best thing ever. I open his beer for him and then my own.
“Soda for you.” Eddy sets down a can of pop in front of Monika.
She opens it sullenly. “I wish Mikael was here.”
“So do I, sweetie. But the people we love make choices in life, and sometimes we don’t always understand or agree with them. He’ll come back one day. I promise.” Eddy sits beside his wife and daughter and then digs in along with the rest of us, eyes barely concealing his pain.
“So, Jona. My colleague, Joseph Weinstein, will be expecting you at his office tomorrow at nine. Your arm is atrocious. Not set right. Your use will be minimal. The scar tissue will be horrendous. You’ll be a brand-new man when he’s done. You can convalesce here.”
Jona pauses in the middle of taking a bite, glaring at his stepfather.
Hell, he’s hot. So … twenty-two. No pressure, no pain, just tacos and beer with his family. I squeeze my thighs together. I want so much to be a part of this.
“I have to work.”
“Where do you work?” Elisa’s eyes burn like any tiny detail about her son will hold the key to her guilt.
“A car dealership in Houston.”
Eddy’s eyes twinkle. “Isn’t that interesting, Elisa?”
“Mhm,” she mumbles, lips pursed. “How did you hurt yourself, Jonie?”
Jonie? I bite my lips to keep from pinching his cheeks. “He drove us over an embankment.” I hold my arm up to show her my scar.
Her eyes twitch. “Was it bad?”
I clear my throat and slide closer to him. “Yes.”
“Oh, no.” She can’t breathe suddenly. “I told you, Eddy. I told you something could happen.”
“But he’s fine. Elisa, breathe. No point in panicking, right, love? He’s fine. We’re all eating. This is happy. Don’t let your mind wander.”
She takes deep breaths until she calms. Then she grabs her soda. I notice how she never even looks at the beer. Recovering addict. I set my beer down.
“Well, what about college?” Eddy continues.
“Yeah right,” Jona snorts. When his mother scowls, he shrugs. “What do you want, Mom? The cool, sexy-as-shit, bad boy, or the nerdy loser virgin? I can only be one, and as you can tell, I’m well off into the first one.”
Monika laughs, covering her mouth with her hand. I roll my eyes, but don’t deny it, because the truth sounds so much better when it’s true.
Elisa, on the other hand, doesn’t find the exchange funny. “You should think about going.”
“To college? What am I going to study? Honestly?” he asks, dropping his bravado. “How to make thousands selling ecstasy to college kids?”
She shrugs. “You got this far, I can only imagine what you’d do with the right tools.”
I can tell this is weirding him out. His gaze is stuck on mine as his mind churns. Jona and I don’t have support or encouragement. We encourage ourselves and take what we can get and make do. But maybe it’s okay to rely on others; maybe it’s okay to trust.
“Are you trying to tell me I can make something of myself?” He sniffs, taking a long swig. “Fine, I think I’ll become a doctor or a lawyer. That make you happy?”
I tip my beer at him. “You could actually be a lawyer. You’re charismatic, you’ve been on the other side of the law, and you’re one hell of an arguer. You don’t even listen to the other person long enough to question yourself.”
“Not you too,” he groans, glaring at me. “I’m twenty-two. It’s too late.”
“Jona Kyles, you can do anything you want to do. Who says there’s an age limit on succeeding? Half of college kids switch majors anyway. You’ll think about it, won’t you?” Elisa reaches across the table to grab his right hand, careful not to hurt him.
He works his mouth in irritation, but it’s really just a mask. Anger hides our pain. It makes it easier to deal with when our rage acts like a buffer, protecting our soft spots.
Jona has soft spots. I have soft spots.
Getting a second chance showed us that there can be others. There are chances, and there are hopes, and it’s okay to want them both.
That night, after Eddy manages to tear Elisa from her son, and I manage to cajole him away from his mother, we head upstairs to the guest room Eddy showed me earlier. It’s made up; even the bathroom has soap and razors. The only thing missing is our clothes. Clothes can be bought.
“You know we’re never leaving here, right?” I sink onto the bed as he looks around. “Elisa wouldn’t even let you go to the bathroom. Monika told me she had to sneak off to college, that’s how much she can get attached. But you’re her son. You’re literally going to rot in this room.”
But he smiles, like rotting is finally living. “I wouldn’t really miss Crystal Gulf. Maybe the only reason I ever stayed was because of you and because it was the last place I had Mom. I have you with me now, and she’s just down the hall. Why would I ever leave?” He sinks to his haunches and looks up at me, moving to kneel on one knee. He pulls something from his pocket. “Give me your hand.”
I do, ignoring my shaking fingers as he wraps a piece of foil from the tacos around my ring finger. It’s so us I can’t help but laugh.
“Mom can’t believe you don’t have a ring. Figured I’d make you both proud.” He winks, moving to sit beside me. “I’ve never been so exhausted in my life, and I don’t think it’s all from today.”
I know what he means. I’m exhausted emotionally too. “I can’t pawn it, so I think I’ll keep it.” I move my left hand, examining my finger in a new light. It looks like so much hope and desire.
“I really thought she hated me.” He falls back on the bed.
Even before I met her, I didn’t believe that, but I could understand his way of thinking. Now, after meeting his mother, I’d never believe that. There is nothing in her eyes when she looks at him but bone deep adoration and love. She did the best she could with a situation that took seventeen years to fix. I could understand her—didn’t agree—but understanding rarely needs approval.
“I never let myself hope until I found out you were pregnant. That went away fast.” He clears the pain from his throat. “I’ve been doing nothing all day but hoping. Hoping to make up for the years lost. Hoping to make more with you. Hoping to figure out how to be a son again. To be a husband.” His hand pulls at my arm. “Maybe even try hoping to be a father again?”
He’s leaving it up to me. After all, I’m the one who fled.
I move to straddle him, bracing my hands on his chest. “I wouldn’t mind hoping again either.” I can’t take it anymore. All day long he’s been feeding this ache inside of me. “Our month is long over.” I inch his shirt up. “You mind if I start by hoping to make you come, husband-to-be?” I bend down to kiss his abs, sliding my tongue across his smooth, hard flesh.
In response, he moans low in his throat. There’s no fight in him. He’s mine to do with as I please.
I push his shirt up the rest of the way and help get it over his head and off his arms. I start with his handsome face, kissing his forehead, closed eyes, and temples. I want to love him.
I savor his face for a long time, making love to his full warm lips. His hands roam my body like his fingers are doing the same to me. I move down to suck on his neck. His pulse pounds against my lips, so strong, so hopeful. A faint hint of his cologne clings to his skin. I inhale it until it’s gone, moving down to cater to his nipples.
He moans beneath me when I suck on one, pulling it between my lips. He’s mine tonight. I continue down his abs, then work on his jeans, getting the buckle undone. I pull his jeans along with his boxers down his thighs and over his knees, dropping them in a heap and leaving him naked for me.
I stand for a moment and admire his body. It’s long, lean, and muscled, with trashy tattoos across his abs and his pelvic bones. But they’re also him. Drunken decisions that still exist. His cock is thick and hard, standing at attention and leaning ever-so-slightly to the right, with a hint of a curve that hits every aching spot inside of me. His piercing gleams enticingly. I can’t wait to sink down on him, to have the curved silver barbell of his piercing send me into an orgasm.
His eyes are glimmering hungrily in the dimly lit room. Cheeks flushed. Lips parted. I reach for my shirt and lift it over my head, following it with my jeans and panties. I let my hair down and shake it out, tossing the tie aside as I stand before him.
His eyes devour me. I know I’ve lost weight from being too depressed to eat, but the way he’s looking at me, I feel the sexiest I’ve ever felt. My nipples harden under his intense stare, and my pussy is already so wet I can feel it between my thighs.
He swallows hard and inhales an uneven hungry breath. We don’t need words tonight. We only need each other.
I settle back on his lap and reclaim his lips, matching the wet, hot, torture of his tongue. When he’s deeply lost in my kiss, I break it, sliding down to settle between his legs. His cock feels like hard stone and warm steel in my hand. I meet his eyes, lick the sheen of pre-come from his tip, and then nestle his cock between my lips.
His eyes flutter into the back of his head, and his good hand fists the fancy paisley duvet. I relax my throat and take as much of him into my mouth as possible, fitting him into the back of my throat where it’s tight. His breath expels from clenched teeth. I find the perfect rhythm and then bob my head over him, splaying my hands on his abs.
His cock is too thick to breathe around, and my eyes tear from holding my breath, but I have so much to make up for. I don’t need to breathe as much as I need him.
His fingers tangle in my hair, and he sits up, thrusting himself impossibly deeper into my throat. I know he’s about to come when his thighs tighten and the grip he has on my hair is painful. But it’s just the right kind of pain. His pain. His warm load slides cleanly down my throat. I pull back, gasping into the crook of his thighs as he sags beneath me, his hand still in my hair.
I knock it loose and shove his chest back. “We’re just getting started, Lover. Open your eyes.”
He complies. They’re burning with warmth, glowing amber like the sun is shining on the other side of them. And maybe, for the first time, it is.
I kiss his tired love-drunk lips as I nestle him between my slick heat. When he’s rock solid again, I lift until his tip teases my opening, and then I sink slowly and completely onto him. It’s been a while since we hooked up, and the burn of his thickness is what my tightness needs. It’s so delicious I feel a small orgasm steal its way through me. I ride him faster, deeper, making it last, building it to unimaginable heights. It’s pure intoxicating perfection, orgasming for what feels like hours.
When it’s too much for me, I fall against his chest, and he takes over. He thrusts into me rough and deep, owning every part of my body as my orgasm moves in like a wave. It tosses me to nowhere and nothing, and I’m perfectly fine existing only in his arms.
When I feel him empty his end inside of me, I clench my inner muscles to pull every drop inside.
Just one more second chance, I pray. I won’t run anymore. I won’t be afraid to hope.
“I love you,” he whispers, reverence thick in his voice.
I know it’s true. That nothing has ever been truer in my life than the love Jona has had for me. He’s kept it alive, nurtured it; a strong, patient man who didn’t mind waiting on the women in his life to wake up and come home to him.
Jona is home. He is love.
And he is every part of my heart that has ever been good.