Chapter 13
Jonah needed to get the fuck out of here. Like the first flight. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—spend any more time with Carla conjuring up her little witch spells. He went up to his room and used the satellite phone to call all his friends on the island to see if he couldn’t get a flight out on a supply plane.
He realized how pathetic it was that he was looking for a military-style extraction from a girl. But she’d pissed him off so much that he really didn’t care. It was like she could see inside him. He had gotten emo about Lola, but not for the reasons she thought. The only other time that he’d let a girl get in the way of his caring for family, that family member had died.
When Carla had woken up in a panic about Lola, he’d flashed back to college—to his mother. And, even though it probably made him naïve, Lola felt more like a mother figure to him than anyone since.
As soon as he woke up from the sex cocoon that he and Carla had created in the midst of the storm, he’d been nut-punched by regret.
He shouldn’t have lost himself in Carla at the possible expense of Lola’s safety, even if it was Carla—a woman who’d burrowed inside him so far that it would take some pliers to get her out.
“Charlie?” he spat out as soon as his buddy picked up the phone.
“Yeah man. Are you doing okay?”
Jonah didn’t know how to answer that question. He was physically safe, but what had happened with Carla had shifted something on his insides. It sounded stupid, and that’s not what his buddy meant anyway. “I’m fine. Looking to get off the island, actually.”
“Let me see what I can do. Stay close to the phone, and I’ll call you back in a couple of hours with some details. Carla need a ride out?”
Jonah wondered if she’d be safe here. Then, he thought about her rich family; her father would get her out of trouble. She was a daddy’s girl after all.
“No, just me.”
He hung up the phone and turned around. Carla was standing in the threshold to his room.
“You’re leaving?”
He nodded. “As soon as I can.” He looked toward the phone. “You need to call your parents?”
She stood up straighter, with an imperious tilt to her chin. “Yeah, they’re probably worried sick or dealing with the same storm we had to deal with last night.”
“It’s worth a shot trying to get in touch anyway.”
She nodded and approached him, careful not to touch him while reaching for the phone. She gave him a wan smile while she dialed. “It’s a wonder I remember any numbers, isn’t it?”
Her awkward small talk pissed him off. He’d been inside her a few hours ago, and now she was acting like they were strangers at a cocktail party.
It shouldn’t bother him because they were supposed to be one-and-done, but he wanted her again and again. He wished he could go back to a few minutes ago and tell her that he wanted to see her again. But she would probably say no. He wasn’t the kind of guy she wanted to be with in the long term. She’d probably go back to Miami and find an accountant just like the one who had dumped her.
“Daddy?”
He hated when grown women called their fathers daddy. It was weird and, to him, spoke to some sort of stunted growth. He reminded himself that Carla was a lot younger than him, and she’d been coddled her whole life. Her life hadn’t been as hard as his—where he’d been the man of the house from the time he was five.
“I’m fine. Aunt Lola’s boarder and I managed just fine.” She paused, and he heard a deep voice barking questions at her. His hands fisted, and he wanted to reach through the phone and punch her father for yelling at her that way. “He’s fine, Daddy. Good people.”
She looked at him then, and he warmed to her despite himself.
“I don’t know when planes will be getting out.” Another pause, and more barked questions. “I called you before I called the airport. I’m not sure any charters will be flying in for a few days.” One more pause, and he heard her father’s exasperated sigh through the phone. “I’ll call the charter company right now. I know it’s going to cost you a lot, but I can’t do anything about the original plan now that things are so up in the air after the storm.”
She looked down at her lap while her father talked. He could tell she was embarrassed by having him hear this conversation, but he didn’t move. As though he could protect her from something, he stood sentry while her father lectured her.
If she were his, if she belonged to him, he would have ripped the phone out of her hands and told her father how she’d helped a bunch of people on the block the day before get ready for the storm, how she’d made sure they had food and driven nails into plywood herself. That man shouldn’t be talking to her like a child. And yet, he stood next to her and allowed it because he didn’t have a right to step in.
“Everyone’s all right? You talked to Alana and Javi?” She twirled the phone cord around her finger, fidgeting. “Can I talk to Mom?”
Her face fell at whatever response came over the line. Jonah itched to grab the phone and tell Carla’s dad to get her mother on the phone—like five minutes ago.
“I love you, Daddy.” How? Seriously, how? “Okay. Bye.”
Carla hung up the phone.
“Your dad sounds like a jerk,” he said. Not that it was any of his business.
She laughed. “He totally is.” She sat cross-legged on his bed, like she belonged there.
He might never see her again, but he needed to make things right between them. “He’s going to charter a plane?”
“Yep.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “He wasn’t mad at me. He was mad at having to spend so much money. He’s richer than Croesus, but he will be cheap to the death.”
“He still didn’t have to be an asshole about it. Not like you summoned the storm on purpose.”
Jonah sat on the bed facing her, the phone sitting between them. She moved to get up, but he grabbed one thigh with his hand.
“You probably need to make other calls.” She looked down at his half-full duffle bag. “It looks like you’re ready to leave.”
“Not yet.” He let his hand travel up her leg until it was pressed into the crease just near her pussy. Carla’s mouth fell open on a needy sigh. “I still have something to do first.”
Her eyes had gone glassy, and she wet her lips with her tongue. “We didn’t beat the storm.” She reached into the pocket opposite his hand and pulled out one of the remaining condoms.
“Doesn’t matter, princess.” He grabbed it from her and laid it on the nightstand. He moved the phone onto the floor.
She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t matter.”
He leaned in and kissed her. If they hadn’t found the miracle box of condoms, he would have been content kissing and touching her. He was a man of simple needs; he took what the moment gave him and was thankful for that, most of the time. Carla, though? He craved her like a drug. Her mouth against his stirred emotions he’d no longer felt capable of a few days ago.
Before long, he had her laid out, red hair splayed across his duffle bag. He wedged himself between her legs, and she wrapped them around his waist. He was too impatient to get her naked, but he didn’t want to stop kissing her. The sense of limited time, that this was the last time washed over him.
He kneeled up. “You’re a fucking siren, woman. Take off your shirt.” If he didn’t get his mouth on her tits immediately, he felt like his chest would break open and his guts would pour out.
“You like it.” She sat up enough to take her T-shirt off. At his pleading groan, she said, “You’re an addict, in fact.” She nodded at him. “Yours, too?”
He pulled the shirt off over the back of his head, pulling his hair to cover his face. When he leaned down, she moved it away, twirling her fingers in the strands like she’d done with the phone cord while she was planning to leave him.
He wanted to be here now, gorged in her beauty and the weird science their chemistry made. But he couldn’t get the thought that he would never see her again out of his head. She made him ache, and he didn’t know how to make that go away.
Crushing his mouth against hers again, he was gratified by the sigh she breathed into him when their skin made contact. He moved his mouth to her collarbone, memorizing the pattern of her freckles. He tongued his favorites, the ones that led to her fat, pink nipples. When he ran his tongue around one areola, she arched into him, grasping and pulling at his shoulders.
“You taste so good.” She still smelled like him, and the scent of their mixed sweat made his need for her so much more urgent. “I want to bottle you up and pour you on pancakes like syrup.”
“That’s disgusting.” She might not like his words, but when she pushed him away, she only did so to unbutton her pants. “Maybe you should shut up while you fuck me.”
“We’re disgusting together.” He flipped the button on his jeans. “It’s disgusting how much I want you. And you got turned on cleaning glass out of my feet.”
“Only because you were mostly naked.” She pushed her jeans and panties down to her ankles. He had his pants and boxers around his ankles, blocked by his shoes. They took each other’s shoes off, pulling at laces, and tossing them when they were done.
When they were both naked, she fell on him like she was starving. She kissed his mouth, his chest. And her delicate fingers grasped him everywhere. His stomach bottomed out when she ran them through the hair leading to his cock.
He was so ramped up for her that he wouldn’t last long if she gave him the kind of hand job she had last night. She dipped one hand between her legs and used that hand to smooth the way. “Oh. Fuck. Princess.”
He didn’t even care that she had him by the balls right now.
Above him, she was gorgeous, completely debauched. He’d removed the plywood from his window and opened the shutters. The sun flowing through her hair made her look like a sexy wood nymph. He wanted to close his eyes at the pleasure she gave him with her touch, but he couldn’t get enough of her wicked smile or the light against her luminous skin. She was a goddess.
She brought her center up to his cock, and he knew she was ready. He reached for her and pressed a thumb to her clit. She threw her head back and offered her breasts to him so enticingly that he sat up and took what she wanted to give him.
He felt her going wild with his touch, and they strained to come together.
“Condom,” he said. He needed to get covered up and inside her as soon as humanly possible.
“Don’t move.” Her voice was strained as if she was almost there. So, he followed orders and rubbed her clit in time with her movements even though her hand on his cock was about to cut this whole shit show short, and he was certain this was the last time they could be together.
Her voice was a raspy whisper of “Coming now” before she stiffened and jerked in his arms. He held her close; his grip was probably too tight. But, fuck, he loved touching her.
When she’d quieted, he loosened his hold, aware that he was probably a freak for the way he was with her.
But she smiled at him. “Condom now?”
He thanked all the deities he could remember that she still wanted more, that his last memory of her wouldn’t be leaving him hanging.
“I want you inside me, Jonah.” He loved the way she said his name. She breathed it, like it was part of her.
He didn’t move right away, but he grabbed the back of her neck so she looked at him. “Do you know how much I want to get there?”
Her eyes got big and soft at his growl. She knew it was worse than his bite. But, then again, she liked his bite just fine. “Not enough to get a condom right now?”
To make her point, she rubbed her wet center against his dick, drawing out sounds from both of them. But he wasn’t done talking yet. He didn’t know why, but he needed her to know just how much she’d affected him in their short time together.
“I’ll wake up thinking that I’m going to roll over and see you tomorrow and a bunch of mornings after that.” He rubbed one hand down her side, and she buried her head in the crook of his neck. So he spoke into her ear. “When I don’t, I’ll grab my dick. Because I’ll be so hard for you. Just you.”
“Will you get yourself off?” she whispered. So, she was on board with the talking.
“I will, but it won’t be my big, clumsy hand. It will be yours.” She moved her hand back to his cock and rubbed. He sighed.
“What will I do with my hand?”
“That thing you did last night.” She added a twist that had him pumping up into her grip.
“What else will I do?” And then she squeezed, and the time for talking was over.
“You’ll get a condom and fuck me.”
She laughed and scrambled over his shoulder to get to the nightstand. Once she’d rolled it on, he surged up inside her just as she slammed her hips down.
“You want it hard, princess?” Her heat melted over him, soothing him just as surely as she stirred him up inside.
“Yes,” she hissed. “I won’t break. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.” She punctuated each plea with a slam of her hips into his.
He rolled them over, and elevated her pelvis to get a better angle, so he could rub her clit on every stroke inside, to draw out a long moan. “This what you want? Are you going to miss this?”
Not that he expected answers to his questions, but he wanted them out there. He wanted to know that she was going to think about him when she was all alone. At the same time, he knew she would find someone else. But he couldn’t help feeling like this would be wasted on them.
“Yes. Oh my. Fuck. Yes.” He wanted to think that she was answering his questions, but she was coming again. Watching her blush all over and yell her pleasure had his orgasm rolling through him. She’d cut him wide open and exposed all the soft bits that he thought he’d killed off over the years.
He didn’t know how he’d put himself back together again now.
He withdrew to dispose of the condom, but he wanted to hold onto her just a little longer. “Oh shit.”
“What?” Her eyes popped open, but she didn’t move from her wrecked-prone position on the bed.
“The condom broke.”
She laughed. “That’s because your big dick was way too much for it.”
“You’re not worried?” He was. She didn’t know it, didn’t need to know it, but this was a big fucking deal for him.
She raised herself up on her elbows and looked at him where he held the destroyed prophylactic in one hand, scrunching up her nose at the sight of so much him in his hand. “I told you, it’s not the right time of the month. We’re both clear on all our tests, so it’s fine.”
“What if it’s not fine?” He hadn’t meant to say that. All too well, he knew what could happen when it was not fine.
“We’re adults, Jonah.” She touched his chest. “Cell phones exist. If it’s not fine, I’ll call you, and we’ll figure it out.”
“You’ll get rid of it?” He was thinking that there was a baby, when chances were that there was no baby. Having a baby with Carla wouldn’t be terrible, and the idea that she wouldn’t want to have a baby with him stirred up a shame cocktail in his gut.
“That’s not what I’m saying.” She touched his arm, rubbed it. He instantly felt better. He hadn’t wanted their last interaction to be arguing over an embryo that they weren’t even sure existed. Plus, she really shouldn’t have his baby. It would be too big and probably break her frame in half. “I’m just saying we’ll cross that bridge when—if—we come to it.” She sat up and kissed his shoulder. “Get rid of that thing. I want to cuddle while you’re still being nice.”
He cleaned up the mess in the bathroom before rejoining her in bed, trying to put the broken condom out of his mind but failing. Still, he held her tight, wanting to soak up all of her that he could.