by Livia Grant
She didn’t know what to make of his silence.
He finally admitted, “It’s starting to feel like a job… and I hate it. We’ve been on the road too long. I’m exhausted.”
“So why not take some time off?” She tried not to sound too hopeful that he might want to spend some of that time with her.
“I can’t. I’ve tried, but even when we’re off, I can’t relax. It always feels like someone is chasing me, ready to take it all away.”
She didn’t know how she knew, but she suspected the people chasing him in his nightmares looked a lot like her father and uncle. Renewed curiosity gnawed at her, desperate to find out more about why they’d hated each other so much.
“Let’s move on to the next awkward topic. I don’t suppose you’re on birth control pills by chance, are you?” he asked hopefully.
She snort laughed. “Ah, that would be a no.”
“I’m a dumbass. I should have got you the morning after pill. I’m guessing it’s too late now. I’m sure everything will be okay, but just in case, I’ll be sure to leave you my card so you can get in touch with me if… well… you know.”
Memories of dozens of photos of Jonah with different women on his arm flitted through her mind, courtesy of the paparazzi and gossip columns. Fear that she’d become just another notch on his belt hurt her to the core.
“You must go through a lot of those cards.” Her retort came out sharp.
“Hey, I’m not gonna apologize for living my life,” he snapped back.
“I never asked you to. At least you know I don’t have any diseases, which is more than you can say to me.”
“I’m totally clean. That’s the first time I’ve not used a condom. Ever.”
While that gave her a bit of relief, she really didn’t want to think of the details of his hundreds of trysts over the years they’d been apart. The thought of him lying in other beds like he was in the moment, sharing intimate time with women more beautiful—more famous—than her stabbed at her heart. A jealousy she had no right to feel washed over her.
“Let’s change the subject,” she suggested flatly, trying not to ruin the short time they had together feeling angry with him.
“I agree.” Sam started to relax a bit until he hit her with, “Why did you start cutting?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She tensed.
“Tough shit.”
“I promised I wouldn’t do it again. Let it go.”
“Fine. Why don’t you have any food in the apartment?” He wasn’t letting up.
“I have food,” she groused.
“Ketchup doesn’t count.” She couldn’t help but giggle. “Seriously, Sami. What’s with the poverty routine? I’d have expected you to be living in one of the cool new lofts with your apartment full of expensive things. What gives?”
She wasn’t even sure she could verbalize it. “You wouldn't understand.”
“Try me.”
“Dad doesn't want me working. He wants me to be able to focus on law school.” It was the truth, although not even close to the full story.
“Listen, I may hate the bastard, but there is no way he knows you’re living like this. He's the same guy who bought you a brand new Audi a month before you turned sixteen. He showered you with everything you asked for, and a bunch of shit you didn't even want.”
She hesitated, unsure how to verbalize her actions.
“He still does,” she admitted reluctantly.
“I don't buy it. What are you doing with the money then?” He hesitated before squeezing her as if to hold her hostage. She wished she could see his face until he leveled his accusation. “You aren't spending the cash on drugs, are you?”
Samantha slugged his chest with her free left hand, and not in a playful way. “I can't believe you'd think that.”
“Yeah, well the money is going somewhere.”
She didn't understand why, but she didn't want to explain it to him. It felt too private and she suspected he'd think she was being naive to think she could make a difference.
“Samantha.”
Damn, she'd forgotten that tone of voice. She'd missed it. It told her he was in control. Instead of revolting like a normal 21st century woman, she relaxed into his dominance, letting his safety net blanket her if only for a few minutes.
“Fine. I choose to donate it to a good cause. I don't need so much.”
“What kind of cause?“ He probed skeptically.
He was the only person in the world who could possibly understand her motivation. Would he ridicule her?
“I’m a sponsor of disadvantaged women and children at Dallas’s newest domestic violence center. I know they can put Dad's money to better use than to buy me another pair of shoes or piece of jewelry.”
Jonah started to press her away from his chest, moving to separate. Sam fought the urge to cry that he might be preparing to leave.
She shouldn’t have mentioned the shelter.
He pressed her to her back as he rolled towards her to lie on his side facing her. He propped his head up in his left hand so he could peer down at her from a just a few inches away. The only illumination in the room was the dim lamp light from the street corner beyond, which cast intimate shadows.
For a moment, it was hard to reconcile the handsome man with shoulder-length hair and a few days scruff on his face with her friend Jonah. He’d left when he was eighteen. She’d only had the ability to watch him aging through social media and the gossip rags. But his eyes, intense as ever, were the same as he peered down at her.
They’d remained quiet for over a minute as each of them luxuriated in memorizing the other’s changed features.
When he spoke, it was with awe. “You did that for my mom and me, didn’t you?”
He’d put it together. She didn’t trust her voice, choosing to nod her yes instead.
Sam was a bit surprised by Jonah’s chuckle. They weren’t discussing anything remotely funny. She waited for his explanation, praying he wasn’t making fun of her.
“We are quite the pair.” He paused. She liked being part of his pair again. “Even back when we were kids, you always tried to hide your wealth from me. I always knew you were embarrassed by it. Like you expected me to think less of you because you came from money.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Not really. It was more…” Jonah paused, choosing his words carefully. “I’d get mad at myself for being jealous of you. And I was mad at myself for blaming my mom when I knew it wasn’t her fault my old man was a drunk bastard who beat on her. But mostly, I hated always feeling vulnerable. Like I never really knew if we’d have enough and I was helpless to help her at the time. I’m so glad Mom got to live the last few years of her life without that worry.”
She heard a vulnerability in his voice that scared her. Her larger than life Jonah was laying himself bare, something she suspected Cash didn’t allow very often. She was humbled by it.
“I’m glad too. She loved you so much. I’m sure she was proud of your success.”
“Yeah.” Jonah reached out with his right palm to caress her cheek. Sam leaned into his touch, absorbing every second she could of his attention. When he grinned, his face lit up.
“All these years later, and what a mess we both are. You, giving away everything, feeling guilty for being one of the lucky ones. Me, hoarding cash. Carrying it around with me like a goddamn safety blanket to prove I have more than enough.”
A puzzle piece fell into place for Sam in that moment. “So that’s how you got your stage name.”
He nodded. “I never leave home without at least five grand on me.”
She smiled a sad smile. “Maybe you could send some of it to the shelter. It might help you and I know it would help them.”
The tension in the room was shifting as the old friends looked into each other’s eyes. It was in that moment Samantha became more aware than ever that they were both still very naked. Feeling embarrassed, she glanced away. What sh
e found on his right shoulder took her breath away.
“Is that Rocky?” she said, reaching out to trace the tattoo of a shaggy dog that looked exactly like her old family pet.
He nodded.
She glanced back into his eyes as she broke the news. “He died just over two years ago.”
“That sucks. I loved that pooch,” he admitted.
“Do you have a dog now?” she asked, genuinely curious about any scrap of private information he would share with her.
“Naw. I travel too much. Work too much.”
Sam went back to examining the mosaic of tattoos across Jonah’s body. Musical references. A shout-out to his favorite songwriter. She got a lump in her throat at the beautiful rose with a dedication to his mom.
She rolled slightly so she could examine his other arm, following his art until her heart literally stopped at the sight of the small tattoo on his inner forearm. It was mixed in with a waving flag.
Maybe I’m wrong.
She reached out to trace the simple “9/11/01 - I Remember.”
When her heart started beating again, it pounded hard in her chest. She let her gaze return to his face, but he swam before her from the tears forming. Their eyes locked and then he nodded.
“You’re the only person in this world who understands what that day really means to me. Everyone just thinks I’m a patriot. They don’t stop to figure out I was just a ten year old kid that day.”
“Why?” she managed to vocalize.
“Do you have to ask that? It was the day I met my best friend.” Sam’s heart thumped with hope. He prodded her. “Why did you keep the locket?”
“You know why. The same reason.”
She saw agitation in his eyes and it confused her. “I need to ask you something, and I need the truth.”
“Anything. I’d never lie to you, Jonah.”
He was struggling to form his question. “Are you or were you ever engaged to be married?”
Where the hell had that question come from? He’d asked her about being married before. “What?”
“You heard me. I need to know.”
She reached out with her fingers to touch his face. She didn’t understand why, but this felt like an important question.
“You know I was a virgin. Not only have I never been engaged, I’ve never even had a serious boyfriend.”
She’d thought the news might make him happy so the fire of anger she saw in his eyes confused her. “What’s wrong?” she followed up.
He struggled to compose himself. He looked away, taking several deep breaths and when he turned his face back to her, the anger was gone, replaced with the vulnerable longing he’d reserved for her and her alone.
Their years apart faded. In that moment, it was as if no time had passed. They were exactly where they belonged.
Together.
Jonah leaned in, capturing her mouth in an open mouth kiss meant to reaffirm his possession of her. Sam melted into his embrace as their bodies ground against each other. His free hand explored her body as she held onto him for dear life. She was glad she had when he pulled out of their kiss, breathing heavy as he informed her, “I should go.”
“What? No!” Her panic returned in a whoosh. She clung to him with all her strength. “I can’t lose you again. Not yet.”
The pain in his eyes told her he didn’t want to leave either, but his words didn’t match. “Sami, I’m no good for you. By some miracle, you are still this perfect, shining light. I’m dark and dirty.”
“That didn’t bother you when we were friends.”
“It always bothered me. I hated to see you ostracized by the cool kids for sitting with me at lunch.”
“That was nothing compared to the bullies that bothered you for selling out with the mayor’s daughter.”
His voice was melancholy, but she could feel him slipping away. “We really have been swimming upstream since the day we met.”
She was determined not to lose him again. Not now that she’d seen the real Jonah was alive and well. Samantha pressed him. “What is it you think you’ve done that’s so irredeemable?”
“Sam, you are too innocent. You won’t understand.”
His condescension pissed her off. “Is it just about the sex? That I was a virgin?” When he didn’t answer her right away, she started grasping at straws. “Fine. Then let’s go back to just being friends again.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Why? Do you hate me?”
“Of course not, but I do hate your father and your uncle.”
Just the mention of the other men in her life had Jonah pulling away from her physically. As he rolled to his back, Samantha let her instincts take over. In her desperation to hold onto the tenuous last thread she had to the man in the room, she pushed to her knees and threw back the sheet that had been hiding their bodies.
His muscular physique was a work of perfection. Muscles rippling in all the right places. She prayed she’d have time to become intimate with each and every inch of him, but in that moment, she knew she had one chance to keep him there. She wasn’t too proud to use it.
While she may have remained a virgin, they’d done plenty of heavy petting as teenagers. Jonah had instructed her on the art of oral sex as they’d experimented as teenagers. While she was a bit rusty having had no practice since he’d left her almost seven years before, she was determined to show him she had been a very good student.
His cock was larger than she’d remembered. A nest of course hair surrounded his phallus, merging with the line of masculine hair pointing down from his belly button. Sam reached out and encompassed his girth with her left hand while leaning down to lick the head of his shaft.
His groan of pleasure encouraged her to proceed. She placed the tip of his expanding manhood in her mouth and sucked gently like he’d taught her so many years before.
“Christ, Sami.” She felt his half-hearted attempts to pull away and doubled her pressure. “You need to stop, baby.”
She moaned ‘uh-ha’ as she took him deeper into her mouth. His corresponding groan made her feel powerful. She knew that soon he would be helpless. His erection was like flesh covered steel in her pumping hand and she yearned for it to be inside her again. Surely she would die if he didn’t make love to her.
In one fluid motion, Jonah regained control over their tryst, pulling her off his cock and rolling them both to the other side of the bed where she ended up flat on her back, him towering over her with a pained yearning on his face.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Never more sure of anything in my life,” she answered truthfully.
She’d expected him to resume their kiss, but instead, his lips found her neck, nibbling and sucking his way across her body. When he got to the now dark bruise where he’d bitten her two nights before, he kissed her lightly, as if his kiss could take her boo-boo away.
Down her body his mouth went. Kisses… nibbles… sucks… He moved slowly, leisurely, as if he were memorizing every inch of her. As he got lower, he moved so he could spread her legs wider. She fought the urge to close her eyes and just enjoy the sensation of Jonah’s lips and tongue caressing her, not wanting to miss watching him as he worshiped her body.
Like after the shower, he took the time to kiss her self-inflicted scars covering her flesh. He situated himself between her legs, opening her up so that her pussy was laid bare for him. She expected him to kiss her there so his words startled her.
“I mean it Samantha. You will never hurt yourself again. Promise me.”
“I told you…”
“Promise!”
Their eyes met as she pledged. “I promise, Jonah.”
Satisfied with her agreement, Jonah leaned down to spread the lips of her pussy open like the petals of a flower. Sam was self-conscious because she suspected she was very wet. Her suspicions were confirmed when Jonah leaned in, dragging his tongue from the bottom to the top of her slit, ending at her sensitive nub which h
e took into his full mouth, sucking hard enough that it brought her both pleasure and pain.
Sam closed her eyes, letting the sensations of his mouth and hands roaming over her most private anatomy take her higher and higher. She felt as if she was about to explode when his attention stopped.
Her eyes flew open, trying to understand why he’d aborted. There was a look of desperation in his eyes. “I don’t suppose you have a condom, do you?”
“Yeah, right. I stocked up on the off-chance you’d stop by.” Her snarky response won her a tiny slap on her inner thigh. The contact had been light, yet the impact drove deep to her core and it confused her.
Jonah tried to hide the guilty glare he was giving her, but he failed miserably as he admitted, “I need to confess. Do you hate me for being glad you were a virgin for me the other night?”
Sami shook her head no, not trusting her voice in that moment.
Jonah added on, “God knows, I didn’t deserve that gift.”
Samantha answered truthfully. “It was always yours, Jonah.”
“Ah, Sami.” Jonah maneuvered himself so that he could blanket her body with his own. He was just heavy enough to make her feel more secure than she could ever remember feeling.
Samantha threw her legs open wider, letting him settle in between her thighs until she could feel the tip of his cock at her entrance. He waited there so long she thought he might back out. Finally, she begged him with a simple, “Please.”
When he entered her, it was so different from two nights before. Gone was his anger, replaced with a gentleness that kind of pissed her off. He was being careful. Treating her like she was a breakable china-doll. She didn’t know how, but she knew he was holding back. She wanted all of him. Every unbridled inch, not this watered-down version who was trying to give her what he thought she needed, when in reality what she needed was for him to lose control. Only then would she know he’d given her his all,
The slow, steady pace of their lovemaking helped in one way—it allowed her the time she needed be aware of every inch of him. Her hands raked down his muscular back, holding onto him for dear life as she took him inside her again and again. Their intimacy brought out complex feelings, and tears formed in her eyes as Jonah’s face began to swim before her.
