The Culmination (The Club Series Book 4)

by Lauren Rowe

  Before I can respond, music starts blaring from the outdoor speakers. The song is “Love Cats” by The Cure.

  Sarah ambles through the sliding glass door, a sweater wrapped around her sexy curves. “Hey, Josh Faraday.”

  “Hey, Sarah Cruz.”

  “I’ve got a message for you from your wife.” She points up to the sky, obviously telling Josh his message is encoded in the song.

  Chapter 6

  Jonas

  I rub my eyes, trying to erase any hint of my emotional conversation with Josh from my face.

  “Hey, baby,” I say.

  “Hi, love. So, Josh, have you figured out the super-secret message in the song yet?”

  Josh smiles. “I love this song.”

  At his obvious lack of understanding, Sarah scowls at him. “Aw, come on, Josh. I thought you were the smart twin. ‘Love Cats’? Love Kat?”

  “Ah.”

  “Duh, Josh.”

  “Duh,” he agrees.

  “Despite your wife’s face being the color of Kermit the Frog right now, the Party Girl with a Hyphen has requested the Playboy’s immediate presence inside the house—so that you may love Kat, if you know what I mean.” She winks and makes a clicking sound like she’s prompting a horse.

  Josh’s face ignites.

  Sarah holds up the brand new bottle of bubbles she’s brought with her. “Gracie, you wanna blow bubbles with Uncle Jo Jo and me while Daddy and Mommy love each other inside?”

  “I luh Mommee.”

  Josh kneels down to Gracie, his voice brimming with barely-contained glee. “Gracie, you stay out here with Uncle Jo Jo and Auntie Sarah, okay?”

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  “I love you, Gracie.”

  “I luh yoo, Dadda.”

  He kisses her on the cheek, rustles her hair, and sprints toward the sliding glass door without looking back.

  “Run along and be free, Josh Faraday,” Sarah calls to Josh’s back.

  “Make it quick,” I yell. “The food’s ready and I’m hungry.”

  Sarah scowls at me. “Bite your tongue, Jonas Faraday. I can’t believe you of all people just told any man, let alone your brother, to ‘make it quick’ with his woman. Blasphemy.”

  I shrug. “Fuck him. I’m hungry.”

  Josh opens the sliding glass door and turns around to face us. “Thank you, Sarah Cruz!” he yells. “You’re my favorite person, ever. And fuck you, Uncle Jo Jo! You suck!” With that, he disappears into the house.

  “Fahk yoo, Unkie Jo Jo,” Gracie mutters, twirling around. “Fahk yooooo. Yoooo sahk.”

  Sarah clamps her hand over her mouth.

  “Oh shit,” I say. “Kat’s gonna kill us.”

  “Us? You. She’s gonna kill you,” Sarah replies.

  “Me? No way. It was Josh.”

  “Fahk yoooooo!” Gracie says, twirling.

  “Well, Kat shouldn’t be surprised. What did she expect when she had a kid with a freakin’ Faraday, after all?” Sarah says. “Kat’s only getting what she deserves.”

  I laugh. “Exactly.”

  “Yoo sahk!” Gracie sings out.

  “In fact, it serves them both right for teaching Gracie to call me Uncle Jo Jo. I should teach Gracie to say motherfucker and asshole, just to even the score.”

  “Ssh, Jonas,” Sarah says, glancing down at Gracie. “You show ’em, baby,” she whispers. “Karma’s a bleep.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Bubba?” Gracie asks, tugging on Sarah’s dress. “Auntie Sah?”

  “You betcha. Uncle Jo Jo, you wanna blow bubbles with Little G and me?” She laughs. “Hey, we sound like a rap trio: Uncle Jo Jo, Little G, and OAP.” Sarah strikes a gangsta pose. “Yo.”

  “I sense another viral video in your future.”

  Sarah laughs and throws her arms around my neck. “God, I love you, Uncle Jo Jo.”

  I pull her to me. “No. Never call me that. Anyone but you.”

  She hugs me and kisses my neck. “I love you, my sweet Jonas.”

  “Did you call the doctor?”

  “Yup. She’s fitting us in first thing tomorrow—eight o’clock sharp. She said to call her tonight if I have any further pains or discomfort, but what I described didn’t sound worrisome. I feel okay. Kinda achy, but okay.”

  I take a deep breath. “Tell me if you have any more pain whatsoever.”

  “I will.”

  “Unkie Jo Jo, bubba?” Gracie asks, touching my knee.

  Sarah laughs. “Come on, Uncle Jo Jo. The girl’s been more than patient.” She breaks away from me to lead Gracie to the lawn. “Okay, Gracie. Let’s blow bubbles.” There’s a long beat as I watch Sarah open the bottle and get the bubble wand ready. “So you had a nice talk with your brother?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sarah blows a string of bubbles for Gracie, making Gracie squeal and chase them.

  “To tell you the truth, I was struggling a bit, baby,” I finally say. “Josh helped me.”

  Emotion washes over Sarah’s face. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her entire body visibly relaxes. “Good.” She puckers her beautiful lips and blows another train of bubbles for Gracie, sending Gracie squealing and running through the grass, yet again. “What were you struggling with, my love?”

  “The usual Jonas bullshit.”

  She bites her lip. “You’re worried about the babies?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “I figured. What’d he say that helped you?”

  “He called me a dumbshit, basically.”

  She laughs. “He’s so damned wise, that man.”

  “This might come as a shock to you, but I sometimes drown in my thoughts to an unhealthy degree.”

  She grins at me sympathetically. But her silence tells me she already knows this little factoid about me.

  “I always think I’m experiencing some kind of unique torment known only to me—that there’s something particularly wrong with me in any given situation simply because, you know, I’m me.”

  She nods. She knows.

  “I guess when you’ve lived a life like mine, what’s normal to feel and what’s totally fucked up is sometimes hard to gauge.”

  “I can only imagine. It is for me, too, sometimes.”

  “I always just assume I’m feeling something totally abnormal—something only I can feel because I’ve got some sort of post-traumatic fuckeduppedness. And then I start feeling so alone and fucked up in my abnormality—and then things start messing with my head. And then I just spiral.”

  She’s listening intently. She blows another string of bubbles for Gracie, but her eyes are on me.

  “Josh made me realize I need to get over myself and stop being a gigantic pussy-ass.”

  “You’re not a pussy-ass.”

  “More bubba!” Gracie demands.

  “Oh, sorry, honey.” Sarah blows another string of bubbles and Gracie chases them, shrieking. Sarah turns back to me, her face aflame. “You’re not a pussy-ass, Jonas,” she whispers. “You’re a beast. I’m actually offended you’d even say that about yourself. Men aren’t allowed to have feelings? Or express fear or pain or doubt? Is that it?” She scoffs. “You’re real. You’re human. You have emotions because you’re not some one-dimensional hero in an action movie or a romance novel. You’re not some bullshit fantasy—you’re flesh and blood and bones.” She juts her chin at me. “And balls. Gigantic donkey balls.” Clearly, she’s on a roll. “You’re a freaking badass and a sex god and a stud. You’re big-hearted and generous and honest and raw. Oh my God, baby, you’re everything a man should be, and more, rolled into one ridiculously gorgeous package. You’re not a caricature of a man—you’re a real, flesh and blood man.” She’s panting. “A living, breathing, beautiful beast of a man, in every sense of the word—and anyone who says differently needs to answer to me. Even if that person is you.”

  Holy fuck, I think my heart just stopped. I love it when my baby gets on her soapbox
—especially when it’s to say something as amazing as all that.

  “So don’t call yourself a pussy-ass ever again,” she says quietly. “Or, God help me, I’m gonna go all Latina on your ass—and that’s not something you want to experience.” She blows another string of bubbles for Gracie as if she hasn’t just given me the most epic tribute a woman could ever give a man.

  I bite my lip. “Please don’t go Latina on my ass.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  I’m rock hard right now. I lean down to Sarah on the grass and whisper into her ear. “Gracie is such a little cock blocker right now.”

  Sarah bursts out laughing. “Welcome to our future.”

  “Yeah, so Josh was just telling me.”

  Gracie grabs at the bubble wand and Sarah holds her little hand at bay.

  “Let me help you, honey,” Sarah says. She dips the wand into the bottle for her. “Okay, here you go. Pucker like this—no, like this, baby.” Sarah bursts out laughing at Gracie’s unsuccessful attempt at a pucker. “You are so darned cute, do you know that, love monkey?” She holds up the wand. “Okay, now blow.”

  “Grassy bottuhl.”

  “No, you can’t hold the bottle, Little G. Your mommy gave me this bottle because she figured your daddy already let you spill the other one all over the ground.”

  “Wow. Maybe there is something to this mother’s intuition thing,” I say.

  Gracie tries to grab the bottle out of Sarah’s hand, but Sarah holds it up high, out of her reach. “No, monita. You can’t hold the bottle. You can hold the wand.”

  Gracie starts to whine and stomp her feet.

  “Oh good lord,” Sarah says. “She’s so much like her mother, it’s frightening. No, bebe. No es para ti.”

  Gracie grabs for the bottle again.

  “No, no, no, pequañita. No.”

  “Grassy bottuhl.”

  “No.”

  Gracie grabs at the bottle again.

  “Jeupucha culo. That’s enough.”

  “Uh oh, Gracie,” I say. “Run for the hills. Auntie Sarah’s cursing in Spanish.”

  Sarah levels Gracie with unflinching eyes. “No tócala. Me entiendes, sobrina?”

  Gracie nods, every bit as mesmerized by Sarah as I am.

  “Muy bien, amor,” Sarah says to Gracie. “Ahorita, dame un besito.” Sarah leans her cheek into Gracie for a kiss and Gracie complies. “Buena chiquitita.” Sarah looks at me, her eyebrow raised. “And that, my dear, is how we do it, Latina-style.”

  “That poor girl never stood a chance.”

  “We don’t put up with crap from anybody, no matter how tiny and adorable they happen to be.” She looks at me sideways. “Or how big and gorgeous and full of muscles.”

  I exhale loudly. My cock is tingling. This woman slays me. “Put the bubbles down,” I say evenly.

  She puts the bottle of bubbles on a nearby table and returns to me.

  “Gracie, will you go look for the bunny that lives by those rocks again?” I ask. “I think I just saw him poke his head out and look for you.”

  Gracie traipses over to the rocks, just out of earshot of us.

  I put my hands on Sarah’s cheeks. “You’re the goddess and the muse, Sarah Cruz Faraday.” I pull her into me for a deep kiss and reach around to grab her ass. I have to reach a little farther around to get a good grip on her backside these days, but it’s worth the extra effort. “Damn, I love this ass,” I say, squeezing it with enthusiasm and grinding my hard-on into her.

  “My ass loves you, too.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  “For my ass?”

  “For always kicking my ass when I need it.”

  She shrugs. “I love you truly, madly, deeply. That’s what love is—kicking someone’s ass when they need it.”

  “Don’t give up on me,” I whisper.

  “Never. You’re stuck with me.”

  “Good. Because if you ever do try to leave me, I’ll hunt you down and drag you back, kicking and screaming, and then lock you in our bedroom and put bars on the windows and doors.”

  Her face lights up. “Ooh.” She presses herself into my hard-on. “I love it when you get all creepy and intense on me.”

  I laugh. “My baby loves herself some crazy.”

  “Hellz yeah, I do.”

  I kiss her again.

  “I wish we were doing whatever Kat and Josh are doing right this very minute,” she breathes. “I can’t stop thinking about that box of goodies you gave me.”

  “It’s gonna be fun,” I say. “I’ve been thinking about it, too.”

  “So that’s what you were thinking about when you looked like a serial killer earlier?”

  “Well, it depends which time you’re referring to.”

  She laughs.

  “I’d say of the twenty or so times I looked like a serial killer today, probably four or five of those times I was thinking about putting those cuffs on you.”

  She glances at Gracie, her cheeks bursting with sudden color, and then back at me. “And here I thought you looked like that because you were stressed about the babies.”

  “Well, yeah, the other fifteen times, I was stressing about the babies.”

  “Please stop worrying, baby. Everything’s gonna be fine. I promise.”

  I nod, even though I’m not sure I believe it.

  “You’re really okay with the whole bondage thing?” she asks. Her eyes dart to Gracie again.

  “Are you trying to talk me out of it?”

  “Hellz no. I’m just surprised, given what you’ve said in the past.”

  I shrug. “At the touch of love, every man becomes a pervert.”

  She smiles broadly. “Hmm. Is that the quote? I could have sworn Plato said something about love making a man into a poet?” She crinkles her nose.

  “I believe the exact quote from Plato is, ‘At the touch of love, every man wants to cuff his wife to a bondage sheet and fuck her brains out.’”

  “Gosh, that Plato’s got a quote for everything.”

  “Do I detect a certain annoyance with my man Plato?”

  She touches my left forearm, grazing her fingertips over my tattooed declaration of love to her. “No, baby. Never. Plato’s my homey. I’m in favor of anyone or anything that helps you, Jonas. Always.”

  “That’s what Josh said, in so many words.”

  “Your brother’s a wise man.” She smiles. “And powerful.”

  “He has his moments. So you know what I’ve decided?”

  “What?”

  “I’m gonna stop thinking so much.”

  “Ha!”

  “No, really. I’m just gonna enjoy the ride—just like Josh said. I’m gonna focus on our happiness and nothing else. Fuck everything else.”

  She exhales like she’s been holding her breath underwater. Her eyes glisten.

  “A man can think himself into sorrow if he’s not careful.”

  She wipes her eyes. “Plato?”

  “No, Jonas Faraday.”

  “Damn, it’s getting harder and harder to tell you two apart.”

  I pull her close. “When you and the babies are in the clear, I’m gonna give you the most unbelievable sexual experience of your life. It’ll be Jonas and Sarah’s Fucktastic Adventure. Thailand 2.0. Bigger, better, and harder. A whole new peak.”

  She glances at Gracie again—and once she’s confirmed her niece is happily throwing a beach ball, her eyes return to me.

  “You wanna know what the rules to this Fuckstastic Adventure are gonna be?” I ask.

  “Of course.”

  “One, I get to do whatever the fuck I want to you.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “And, two, I get to do whatever the fuck I want to you.”

  She exhales, clearly turned on.

  I brush my lips against her jawline and then her ear. “Another round of delicious anticipation, baby.” She looks exactly the way she did when I kissed her outside the cave in Belize.
Holy fuck, I want to take her right here and now on the lawn. “Your cocky-bastard-asshole-motherfucker is back, baby.” I whisper. “And with a fucking vengeance.”

  Chapter 7

  Sarah

  Jonas comes out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist, his body as chiseled and ripped and muscled as ever. Good lord, I will never get over the sight of him. He’s a work of art.

  He rips off his towel and chucks it across the room, giving me the view of him that never gets old, and then he growls like a polar bear and flexes every muscle in his arms and chest.

  “Wowza,” I say. “Hello, Incredible Hulk Jonas.”

  “Damn, I wanna fuck your brains out, woman. Holy fuck.”

  My heart lurches in my chest. “Do it.”

  He leaps onto the bed and hovers over me, his muscles taut. “Oh, the things I want to do to you.”

  “Do ’em.”

  “Nope.” He kisses my nose.

  “Just this once. I won’t tell.”

  “Nope.”

  “Yep.”

  “See, I’ve already explained this to you, woman. If I fuck you the way I want to do it and hurtle you into premature labor, I’ll never, ever forgive myself. Is that what you want?”

  “Well, jeez. No.”

  “I thought so.” He bites my neck and pretends to rip at me like a shark.

  “Jonas!” I shriek.

  He growls. “Just six more weeks, and then you’re all mine, woman.”

  “Well, you do realize I’m gonna have to, you know, heal after giving birth.”

  “Fuck that. Once those babies are out of you, I’m going in, any hole I can get. You’re just gonna have to fucking deal with it.”

  “Jonas!”

  He laughs and licks my face.

  I wipe my cheek, scowling at him. “Another Hallmark moment brought to you by Jonas Faraday: ‘My darling, once those babies are out of you, I’m going in any hole I please, no matter how bloodied or mangled you happen to be from birthing my children. Happy Valentine’s Day.’”

  He belly laughs and licks me again.

  “You really are a master of Valentine’s Day bullshit, you know that?”