That Bubbling Feeling: A Feel Good Roommate Romance Novel

Chapter 38

Kai

“Get up,” I said, ripping the blankets off of Jonah. He rolled and moaned, attempting to cover his eyes with a bent arm. “Get up!” His body remained a twisted, unconscious heap on his bed. “You piece of shit!”

Two hours. We stayed at the party for two more hours after finding out he’d left, and the disappearing asshole already downed a bottle of whiskey and dozed off like some kind of depressed musician. Well, actually… Perhaps it was fitting, then. But I still didn’t fucking like it. What a fucking drama queen.

“Jonah!” I shoved his shoulder.

Finally, he jerked awake, opening his eyes before quickly recoiling back behind his lifted hand. That same hand then fell to the glass on his nightstand. He finished the swig of whiskey left over, holding it in his mouth to wash down a bad taste.

“Get up.” I snatched the bottle from his nightstand to prevent him from pouring any more. Not that there was much left to pour anyway. His hand extended to me, but I stayed out of reach. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Jonah? Get your stupid ass out of bed.”

“Oh, how original,” he mumbled rudely, finally coming to and pushing himself up to a seated position. “A lovely wake up call, complete with insults and all.”

“You,” I said, gripping the bottle by its neck as my words vibrated through pressed teeth, “still have some major issues to work on.”

“Kai, wh—”

“You loved me this whole time, Jonah?! You’ve kept that from me for over a fucking decade, are you serious?” I was officially raging, not only for his disappearing act—from the party and on the alcohol in this bottle—but as a means to cover up the mix of emotions swelling inside me as well.

He threw himself out of bed, eyes gaping as he attempted to stand, but he sat back down and rubbed his hands over his face, shaking his head. “No,” he whispered under his breath.

“Talk to me. We’re not hiding from this anymore, Jonah, talk to me!”

He began breathing erratically, ripping the collar of his shirt up to hide his face. I watched him sit there for a few seconds that felt far too long before he stood, tore his hands away from his face, and yelled at me. For the first time in our lives, he truly fucking yelled at me. “You never saw me, Kai! Twelve years! You never fucking saw me!”

“How was I supposed to know? You never told me!”

“I shouldn’t have had to tell you!”

“That’s not fair!That’s not fucking fair. I didn’t know. I wasn’t ready!”

“I know!” He heaved, taking a moment to breathe, his gaze softening as it sucked me in. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “And you never thought to ask me about it? Never thought to fucking say something?”

“That’s not fair.”

“It is!” I put the bottle down on his desk so I could flail my arms more easily. “You never thought to say something, not even in the last few weeks? I can understand not wanting to admit it when we were kids, Jonah, and I appreciate that because I would have flipped. But you didn’t think, even once in the last few days, that it might have been worth it to say something?”

He stared at me blankly. “No.”

I swung my hand out to the side. “Great. That’s great, Jonah. Maybe I dodged a fucking bullet, then.”

“Dodged a bul—”

“Yes, dodged a bullet!” I lowered my voice to mock his manly tone. “I’m Jonah, I own two shirts, shutting down hurts a lot but at least it’s better than failing! Biggest chance I ever took was cutting my fucking hair!”

I would have said anything. Any fucking thing to fill up the air, to expel my emotions into the world around me instead of keeping them in while I listened to Jonah spew any more bullshit.

“Oh, and I’m Kai!” He bent his elbows up to let his hands flop over femininely. “I play childish games for fun and push my best friend into oblivion because I don’t like it when he gets quiet!”

I put my hands on my hips and widened my legs to a cowboy-like stance. Never in my life had I seen Jonah stand in such a way. It just seemed masculine. “I live my life making assumptions and treating everyone like shit because I never learned how to cope!”

He skipped around me in a circle, flapping his hands like little wings as he went. “Being pretty is a personality trait, right? Or was I supposed to do more?”

I stomped my foot. “Stop! I don’t want to have stupid arguments anymore! This is already out of your hands, so stop fucking around and talk to me!”

“I will not!”

“Why?!”

“Because…” He raked his hands through his hair from front to back, yanking on the short strands before finally letting go. “Because if we’re going to continue to be friends, I need you to believe that I could get over this, Kai, but I can’t. I cannot fuck you because I will never let you go. I will want to keep you, and I cannot. I’ve tried for years to work through that possession, and I can’t. I just can’t. I won’t. So, please, fucking carry on with your life. Do not get trapped here with me.”

I beat my fists down at my sides. “I want to be kept!”

The energy melted from his face in an instant. “What?”

“I want to be kept forever. I want you to be mine. I want people to check you out on the street so I can hold your hand and make sure they know in the most insane and possessive way. I want you to love me the way I love you and I want you to finally fucking accept me!” I huffed and placed my hands on my hips, walking around myself in a frustrated circle.

“Did you just say you love me?”

I pinned him with a look. “No, Jonah. I’m furious with you because I don’t care. God, you think you’d fucking know me by now—”

“What do you love about me?” he asked quietly.

“Right now? Nothing.”

He didn’t answer. He just stared at me with angled brows and wide eyes. The asshole was serious.

I did not bring my tone down. “Fine. Fucking fine! You’re the smartest fucking person I know and you somehow manage to be the most inspired loser I’ve ever fucking met! You’re obscenely talented, you’re incredibly loyal, you’re unique and genuine to yourself and you always have been! You’re so attractive, and become increasingly so each day, to the point that it honestly makes me want to shit myself. You’re well-spoken, you’re respectful, you’re sensible and incredibly thoughtful. When you want to be, of course. Do I have to keep going or can I please continue to be mad at you?”

He stepped toward me with one wary hand slightly lifted in the air. His movements sent a chilled air about the room. “Kai, think about what you’re saying. Please. If we cross that line, you are mine forever, and I will not take no for an answer. I am so fucking serious. I value your will and choice practically more than my own, but selfishly I am putting my foot down. Do you understand?”

“Why?” I asked rudely. He cocked his head. “Why do you even love me, Jonah? Because I’m the only girl who’s ever talked to you? Because you convinced yourself you liked me when you were thirteen and never let go of it? Am I just going to date you until the fantasy wears off for you?”

“How could you say such a thing?” He held a hand to his stomach like someone had just shot an arrow through it. “Everything I like about myself has been supported, or created, or enhanced by you. You are my home, my excitement, my goddamn happiness.”

“Your hap—”

“And before you tell me my happiness can’t only depend on you, I will tell you that’s not what I mean. You helped me find it, helped me foster it, and because of you, I have it. That is what I mean. My appreciation for you runs so deep. I’ve gotten this far, and I’m good, but I’m delicate. That’s why I’m trying to be careful with this. Now tell me, Kai, please, that I am finally enough for forever.”

I scrunched my face, crushing the air in front of me with frustrated fingers. “You were always enough for forever, you dick! I—”

In an instant, Jonah took my body and slammed it against the wall. A strong hand came down on my mouth, pinning my lips and ending my sentence early. “Enough.” His other set of fingers remained on my waist, pushing me against the wall as he rolled my head to the side and whispered softly in my ear, “You’re mine.”

His words send a shock down my spine, his voice rumbling through my veins. I wanted to listen to him speak forever.

He lifted me and propped my legs around his hips, pressing me into the wall. His tongue landed on my bare chest, dragging, drawing one long line up the front of my neck and under my chin. The pathetic whimper that escaped me hardly did a good job of helping me maintain my vicious composure.

“I’m still mad at you,” I gritted through my teeth.

“Mmm.” He moaned lazily as he kissed my neck, leaving wet tongue trails where he could. “I know, I’m the worst. But I’m yours.”

I was quickly giving in to the feel of him as he worked my skin, each second becoming even more unbearably euphoric than the last. Speaking back to him was no longer an option.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he kissed my cheek, then my jaw, then my neck. “I know you wanted to talk about it, and I wouldn’t. I hardly gave you a reason, and that was my fault. I couldn’t talk to you about it without explaining how much I love you, and I didn’t believe you felt the same.” He placed his nose in front of mine, coming so close to kissing me, but instead, he sucked in through his teeth and groaned as if it were painful. “I didn’t want you to tire of me. I didn’t want our relationship to become complicated. I didn’t want to have to watch you walk away from me, wishing I’d never ruined us in the first place. I would not accept you knowing that that was a possibility.”

He released me, and I was placed back on wobbly legs, his arms holding me still as I caught my bearings. He lowered himself in front of me on both knees and took my hands in his. A kiss fell to both sets of my fingers, my palms, my wrists, before he placed my hands around his jaw and looked up at me with a confident but genuine tinge to his expression.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. His touch drew up the sides of my torso. He planted soft kisses along my waist, murmuring to me. “You are everything to me, my beautiful girl, absolutely everything. I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

I stared down at him. It was as if thousands of words and promises gushed out of him after years of being barricaded in that mind of his. “This is the most talkative I’ve seen you in a decade, Jo. Are you drunk?”

“Only a little,” he said with a grin.

How was I supposed to stay mad?

I weaved my fingers into the short pieces of his black hair as a question formulated at the back of my tongue. “Jonah?”

In lieu of an answer, his movements stopped and his arms wrapped around the backs of my thighs, hugging me as he rested his chin on my front and smiled up at me, offering me his loyal attention.

“Aren’t you ever going to kiss me?” I asked. He thought for a moment. Then, he planted one mischievous kiss on my hip, maintaining eye contact with me. “That’s not what I mean, Jojo.” My smile could hardly be contained as he tried again on the other hip. “No, not like that.”

“I will,” he finally answered, eyes wide with hope, rolling green hills in my daydream of our future. “But when I do, Kai, it will send me barreling into a very long list of very filthy things I’d like to do to you, and I don’t think Oli and June would appreciate that very much. So please accept my apologies when I say that I will not kiss you until we’re somewhere very secluded, and accept yet another when I say that we’ll stay in that secluded space until I’m feeling ready to come back out, which may take a while.”

I was hardly able to keep from dropping to my knees and forcing him onto the floor. “That sounds like an excellent plan, because all I want is to finally be alone with you, to leave this world and escape to ours.”

The look in Jonah’s eyes was somehow both feral and wholehearted, crazed yet fulfilled. He stood, taking my cheeks between his hands. “That is all I have ever wanted, Kai.” I watched those lips with such close inspection that my body begged me to take that first kiss he was withholding. Fingers gripping my hair let me know he’d noticed, because he pulled my head back just in time for me to watch the feline grin melt across his face. “Why don’t I help you say goodbye to an old friend? Just to take the edge off.”

Moments later, Jonah’s hand was in my jeans. Only the little, teal vibrator separated his fingers from that mind-bending spot at the apex of my thighs. I twisted against the wall as he leaned over me, refusing to kiss me, to lick me, to even touch me. He only watched, whispering little musings into the air around us. “I thought you’d want to use it at least once before I take away any reason for you to keep it around.” He leaned into my ear. “This will feel like nothing when I’m done with you.”

It most certainly didn’t feel like nothing now. The bubbles—waves—filling me to the brim were nothing short of overwhelming, and this beastly version of Jonah surveying me only made me want to explode in an even more catastrophic way. I gripped his shirt in fists, then grabbed his neck, his hair, anything to hold onto while my senses flew away from me. He simply relished it.

“Shh. Our roommates won’t appreciate hearing you like that.” His free hand fell over my mouth. “Can you be quiet for me?”

The smirk on his face as he said that sent me straight over the edge. I most certainly could not.

◆◆◆

Jonah

I slid the toy from between Kai’s legs and brought my hand to my mouth, consuming every last bit of her that had dripped onto my fingers while she writhed so beautifully.

Quite a few mental monstrosities had built up in my brain over the last twelve years, and Kai was about to receive every single one of them. I forced myself away from her for a few minutes alone so I could clear my mind and body.

She stayed in the room, packing random bits of clothing and necessities of ours into a little suitcase while I locked the bathroom door and began to touch myself. After I finished, I called the nicest hotel I could think of, asked for their nicest room, and then proceeded to call two more until one of them had immediate availability. After securing the perfect space for my perfect Kai, I touched myself once again, a bit to my surprise, praying it would be enough to let me last more than five minutes with her. Having sex for the first time in years was one thing, but having it with the woman of my dreams?

Oh, she was in for it. Big time.