by Meadow Rayne
I realized the forest around me had fallen quiet. When I’d started out I’d heard crickets singing and owls hooting, night creatures scurrying up tree trunks. It had been scary, but not like this. Now all of that was gone. There wasn’t a sound. For how long had it been this quiet? The silence was accompanied by an eerie feel.
I stood up so I could defend myself if I had to. I wrapped my arms around me and leaned against a tree, straining to see in the dark, but it was too complete—I was blinded.
Then, in the distance, twigs snapped and leaves crackled underfoot. Something was coming toward me—and by the sound of it, it was something big. I was pretty sure a human didn’t sound like that. I moved from side to side, looking in the direction of the sound, trying to see through the trees. A big shadow crossed the darkness, but when I looked again, it was gone. A moment later it popped up again, a few trees closer.
I swallowed hard. “Where are you, Jonah?” I asked out loud.
The shadow was even closer now, a dark mass of… I didn’t even know what. I knew I could fill in the blanks will all sorts of horrific things. I couldn’t do that to myself. Whatever it was came closer still and heavy breath cut through the silence. I took a deep breath, trying to control myself, but I failed.
I screamed.
“Hey, it’s okay. Rae it’s me, I’m here.” Strong arms wrapped around me. My face was buried in my hands but I’d know Jonah’s voice anywhere.
“Oh thank God you found me,” I said, and only then I realized tears were streaming down my cheeks.
“Come on, let’s get you home. The car isn’t far from here,” he wrapped an arm around my shoulder, walking me through the trees. The warmth of his skin radiated through his shirt onto my bare skin, and I felt like I would finally defrost.
We reached his Audi R8 where it was parked between the trees, and he opened the door for me. I slid into the expensive leather seat.
“I’m sorry for all of this,” I said when we were back on the road that led to civilization. The streetlights passed in flashes and the tarmac was wide and steady under the car.
“Don’t be sorry. You should have gotten rid of him a long time ago. I’m glad you’re out of it now.”
“Are you?” I asked. It seemed like Jonah’s life was perfect. He had everything he could ever want, and he was the kind of man girls swooned over whenever he walked past.
“Of course,” he answered. “I know you’re into the mythical creatures thing, but some of them really are bad at the core, no matter what they can change into.”
I nodded. It was true. Shane’s ability to shapeshift had been so attractive to me, I relished the idea of danger and mystery. But he was a bad man.
“I guess I still have to learn that people can be idiots even when they’re not human,” I said and Jonah chuckled. “I just feel like it’s what’s inside that matters, you know? I end up dating someone because I see the person they are inside. Or at least, the person they could be.”
“Not everyone realizes that potential, Rae,” Jonah said.
He was right. Shane might have had what it took to be great, but he had way too many issues dumped on top of that golden nugget of potential that sat at his core.
“I thought you were taking me to my place,” I said when he pulled in through the big cast iron gates that led into his property.
“I didn’t want you to be alone after something like this,” he said and his dark eyes rested on me. They were liquid pools of black and I felt like I could fall into them if I wasn’t careful. “Besides,” he added in a lower voice. “I don’t want him going after you because he’s sour you left him.”
“You think he would?”
“I know what I would do if I lost you,” Jonah said. His words traveled through me like a jolt of electricity, but he’d already opened the door and was walking around the car. He opened my door and I followed him into the house. He showed me to a guest bedroom with a canopied double bed and a reading corner with couches and throw pillows.
“There are clothes in the cupboard you can try on. I keep some for my cousins when they stay,” he said, walking through the bathroom and switching on the lights. “And there are towels in the cabinet. Come on down when you’re ready, I’ll make us some tea.”
He left the room, and I was left standing in the middle of it, feeling like a child. I took a deep breath and blew it out again before I walked to the shower.
When I was done showering I braided my damp hair so the curls wouldn’t frizz, and opened the cupboard. I found a tank top and slacks that fit me perfectly. I would go down to meet Jonah for tea, and everything would be okay.
It really would be fine, I told myself. Instead I sank onto the bed, and buried my face in my hands again. How could a good relationship turn ugly so quickly? How could I have made a mistake in who Shane was? I let my breath out with a shudder.
“Rae?” Jonah’s voice was suddenly in the doorway. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I lied. He didn’t need to see me break down. “I was just about to come down.”
“You’ve been up here for nearly two hours,” he said. I frowned and looked at the time on my phone. I hadn’t realized I’d been wallowing in self-pity for so long.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just—“ I couldn’t finish my sentence. I felt my face crumple and tears ran over my cheeks. My chest hurt and I tried to breathe through the pain.
“It’s okay,” Jonah said walking to me and sitting next to me on the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight. “It’s just been a bit of a rough night. You can go to bed if you want to.”
I nodded, but instead of crawling up towards the pillows, I put my head on his shoulder. His muscles were taught and they rippled underneath his shirt when he moved his arm around my shoulder. He turned his head and pressed his lips into my hair.
I tipped my head up to look at him, and suddenly his face was so close to mine I gasped. His dark eyes bore into mine, and the next thing I knew he lowered his lips onto mine and kissed me.
His lips were as strong and powerful as his body, but at the same time, he kissed me like I could shatter if he did it wrong. His hand cupped my cheek, and I felt small and delicate in his arms. I sighed into his mouth, and he returned it with a trembling sigh of his own that made me feel for the first time that he wasn’t made of steel.
I pulled back for a moment and looked at him. I ached for his lips to be back on mine, but I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.
“I don’t know if we should do this. We’ve been friends for so long…”
“And I’ve wanted you all this time,” he finished my sentence for me.
“What?” I asked, trying to wrap my mind around what he’d just said. I understood the words but I was trying to grasp what he meant.
“You’ve just always been with someone else. And I never had the courage to tell you.”
He didn’t let me reply. Instead he kissed me again, and this time I threw caution to the wind and kissed him back.
And it was like coming home.
The kissing turned from gentle to serious to urgent, from his side as well as my own. His tongue was on my lips, and when I parted them he snaked into my mouth and swirled his tongue around mine in a hypnotic dance that had my body screaming for his. As if he knew what I needed his hand slid down from my cheek to my collar bone, then onto my breast. He knew exactly what my body wanted, igniting a flame in my belly. He touched me in a way that made me feel like every inch of me was perfect. There was nothing about me that was too curvy or overweight or wrong. He was a shining knight, and I was the damsel in distress.
He laid me back on the bed, and stretched his hard body against mine. He kissed me as his hands traveled over my body, finding places I’d never felt comfortable letting other guys touch. But with Jonah, I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to give him every inch of me.
He ground his hips against mine and I felt how much he wanted me. His body was hard and rigid, asking a questio
n I was definitely going to answer. His hands found the hem of my tank top and he pulled it over my head. He worked my slacks off as well, and I lay on the bed, naked, in a pool of light for him to admire. His eyes traveled over my body and in them I saw longing and lust and something that made Jonah, Jonah. He looked at me like I was the one he’d been searching for all this time.
He took off his own clothes and crawled on top of me. My body opened for him, and when he pushed into me it drew my heart out like a sigh. My body yielded and stretched around him, taking him in. I could feel the length of him, stroking my core, telling me everything I needed to know about who I was.
He built up a rhythm, not once making me feel like I was just a piece of ass he was using to get off with. Instead, he caressed me, stroked me, kissed me until I was soft and moldable in his hands. He kindled the flame into a fire, and it turned into a raging furnace between my legs. He took me closer to the edge, asking me to jump and promising he would catch me.
And then he did. A wave of ecstasy rolled through me from the pit of my stomach out towards my fingers and my toes. I moaned along with it, and his lips were on mine. A moment later he followed me down, releasing inside me and filling me up until all I could see and all I could feel was Jonah and what he had suddenly become to me.
When it was over, when I’d come back down the heights of ecstasy, he rolled off of me and pulled me into the crook of his arm.
“Jonah…” I started to say but he kissed me, stopping me, and brushed loose strands of hair out of my face. “Stay with me tonight?” I asked, and he nodded. He pulled the covers over me then got up to switch off the light. When he got back into bed his body curled like a question mark around mine and his arms wrapped around me, and for the first time in a long time I felt wanted and safe.
Chapter 3
I woke up to the vibrations of my phone echoing through the wooden nightstand. The bed next to me was empty and cold. Jonah hadn’t been next to me for a while. A sudden void opened in my chest, and questions filtered through it. What had we done? What had it meant? Why had he left me? What was I doing?
I picked up the phone. There were a handful of missed calls, all from Shane, and a few messages. When I opened them up they were all from Shane, too.
Come back. I was wrong. I miss you. I’m sorry. Are you ignoring me? It’s a bit childish at our age, isn’t it? I love you, you know that. Answer your phone. Where are you? I went to your house and you’re not there. Are you okay?
Why aren’t you talking to me??
I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed the phone face down on the mattress, like that would smother Shane out of existence. He’d been to my house. I was relieved Jonah had insisted I stay here. I wouldn’t have been able to face Shane last night—it would just have made everything worse.
The thought of Jonah made my stomach flutter and turn at the same time. Sleeping with him had felt more right than anything I’d ever done in my life. It was like he’d been the missing half. I’d always thought of him as someone who was way out of my league.
I hoped to God that if he didn’t want me, at least I would still be able to be friends with him. Losing Jonah… it would be worse than any of the men I’d lost in my life.
I left the phone on the bed and went downstairs. The spiraling staircase that ended in the hallway led me through a room drenched in the soft light of morning. It was golden and beautiful, such a strong contrast to the dark horror of the night before. The smell of bacon drew me toward the kitchen and I followed my nose.
The kitchen was large with white marble floors, white cabinets and black granite counter tops. Stainless steel appliances made it look state of the art, and the counter island in the middle had bar stools around it. Two places were set with crisp white napkins and embroidered-print plates.
And in the middle of it all, looking as rich and glossy as the surroundings, was Jonah. He stood at the large stove, pushing bacon around the pan with a spatula. He wore boxer shorts only, his upper body exposed and muscled in the morning light. He hummed softly to himself.
I sat down and the barstool scraped along the floor. He turned around and smiled at me, a brilliant smile that flashed a row of perfect teeth.
“Good morning, Beautiful,” he said.
I felt a blush creep from my collar.
“Morning,” I said shyly.
He turned and scraped the bacon onto a plate. He took a dish with scrambled eggs out of the oven drawer by his knees and produced warm toast as well.
“Breakfast is served. I hope you’re hungry.”
So this was what he’d abandoned me for.
“This looks amazing,” I said and helped myself to the food. He dished for himself as well.
“I thought you had servants for this kind of thing,” I said. He had a cook, a butler, a driver, and a small army of cleaners and gardeners.
“I gave her the morning off. If you want something done just right, do you it yourself. Besides, I wasn’t going to let someone else cook breakfast for my woman, was I?”
My woman…
I swallowed my mouthful of food and looked at him.
“About that…” I started. His eyes were impossibly black when he looked at me, open for me to get lost in. If he let me off now, I wasn’t sure how well I would be able to take it.
“What are we?” I blurted out.
He blinked, surprised, and a slow smile crept over his face. “What do you want us to be?”
I shook my head and looked down at my food. “I don’t want to play games, Jonah,” I said. “If you were just a rebound and I have to go back to being friends, tell me now. If you don’t ever want to see me again…” I breathed in shakily. “…break it to me nicely.”
“Hey, what’s all this?” he asked, reaching out his hand and touching the back of his fingers to my cheek. My skin tingled as it had the night before, my body remembering his touch even when my mind was trying to ready itself for a harsh wake-up call.
“I just need to know what’s going on so I don’t get myself deeper in heartbreak. I have enough to worry about as it is, without you telling me you want nothing to do with me anymore.”
Jonah smiled and leaned forward, so his forehead was against mine.
“I don’t want you to go away. I was hoping this would be more than just a one-night-stand. I know it was probably a rebound for you, or something like that. But you’ve been more than a friend to me for a very long time. I’d really like for that to be more of a permanent arrangement. But if you don’t want that, I’ll understand.”
I looked up at him, expecting to see the off-balance smile on his face that proved this was a joke. But he was dead serious, his eyes staring into mine with the question hanging in them.
“You want me?” I asked, and my voice sounded thin. Jonah chuckled, and his voice was filled with warmth that washed over me like soothing wave.
“I do,” he said.
The rhythm of breakfast changed completely after that. We laughed and talked and ate. It was as though it had been that way between us for a long time, not just twelve hours. By the time we’d both had coffee, I’d agreed to stay there for a while, and we would see how things went. Jonah had work and he would be away most of the week. As for me, I had my life to get back to.
It wasn’t like I was moving in, I told myself. I was just extending the night before. I grinned like a fool from ear to ear, though, when I thought about the concept of ‘moving in’.
“I have to go home to pack a couple of things,” I announced after lunch.
“I’ll get Claude to drive you,” Jonah said, already picking up his phone and dialing the driver’s number.
“That’s great, thanks,” I said. “But I’ll drive myself back here.”
Jonah frowned at me. I heard the ringing through his phone’s speaker and the driver’s accented voice answering the call. Jonah told him a time, and then he hung up.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
I sighe
d heavily. “Look, Jonah. This is amazing, all of it. I love that I can stay here and you and me have become, well, this. But I still need to be able to live my own life. I’m not going to let you pamper me and do everything for me. That’s even worse than what I just got out of. Just let me bring my stuff, and let me do it myself, okay?”
Jonah nodded slowly.
“I’m not going to run away,” I said, because I knew that was what he was afraid of.
“You’re right, I’m being an idiot. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to be, right?”
“Right.”
He looked around, suddenly unsure, a younger version of himself, maybe what he was once upon a time before his riches and confidence and suave self-assurance.
“I just thought that maybe last night you would have preferred to go home, and now I’m suggesting you live here and everything. Too much?”
I shook my head and smiled at him. “We’ve been friends forever, Jonah,” I said. “Just because we slept together doesn’t mean it isn’t me anymore.”
Jonah grinned sheepishly.
“I’ll be back by tonight,” I promised.
Claude drove me home. The small house I lived in suddenly seemed dreary and sad. I walked from room to room, grabbing things I needed. Clothes, toiletries, a picture of my father.
There was a knock on the door. I walked toward it and opened up.
Shane stood on my doorstep. My heart plummeted to the floor and my body filled with dread like someone had opened a tap.
“Where were you?” he asked me, stepping into the house without me inviting him in.
“That’s none of your business,” I said sharply.
“What is this, Rae?” he said, his voice rising. “We have one misunderstanding and now you’re avoiding me like I’m a criminal?”
I turned my back on him and walked deeper into the house. I knew he would follow me, but I wasn’t going to try kick him out. I knew from previous experience that didn’t work.
“There wasn’t a misunderstanding. You and I are through. I thought I made that clear enough.”
