Chapter 8
Eight
A motion-activated security light snapped on as Jonah pulled his truck up to the cabin. The building was nestled in the trees, as if it were a part of the mountain itself. He knew from Porter that the nearest neighbor was half a mile away, and the only vehicle access was this driveway that was barely even visible from the road above. That could be a blessing and a curse, but he didn’t intend to leave Rachel here on her own at any point, so the remote location suited his purposes for the time being.
She’d been quiet since they’d left the house, but he couldn’t decide how much was upset and how much was just tired. It had been a long-ass day, even before the break in, and Jonah hadn’t missed the worry in her eyes. No matter that she hadn’t been the target, her space had been invaded. She had to be rattled.
Wanting to put her at ease, he shoved open the driver’s side door. “C’mon. Let’s get inside and get settled.”
She slid out of the truck when he did. “I bet it’s cute in the winter, when there’s snow on the ground.”
Cute .
If he hadn’t already had plenty of evidence of exactly how far apart his world was from hers, that was it. He didn’t think he’d ever look at a space without evaluating it from a tactical perspective immediately.
Rachel glanced up at him. “Do you even get snow this far south?”
“Yeah. Not the kind of snow that would live up to your Yankee standards, but we get some.” Using the keys Porter had brought over, he opened the door and punched in the security code.
She stepped in behind him and fumbled along the wall for a light switch. When it came on, they both blinked at the glare. The place was tiny. Porter had warned him, but Jonah hadn’t quite grasped how much he’d meant it. A single room, with a kitchen tucked into one corner and a sofa and armchair set in front of a wood stove. A loft above them held the lone bed, accessed by a steep, narrow set of stairs that might as well have been a ladder. The single bathroom was tucked beneath the overhang of the loft. Only the vaulted ceiling saved it from feeling claustrophobic.
Jonah moved to the wall and slid back a hidden panel where the brain of the upgraded security system lived. It only took a few minutes to follow Porter’s instructions for pairing the system with his phone.
Rachel peered over his shoulder at the panel. “Why is this place so heavily secured?”
“Ty Brooks—He’s one of Xander’s deputies. Former Army Ranger—When he lived here, a stalker came after his then-girlfriend/now-wife, Paisley. I don’t know all the details exactly, except that she was kidnapped, and after he got her back, he vowed never again. They lived here until they got their house built. Porter didn’t see any reason to take the extra security out. It comes in handy from time to time.”
She folded one arm across her middle, betraying the discomfort she hadn’t voiced. “Do you think we really need all of this?”
Skimming his hands from her shoulders down her arms, Jonah tugged her closer. “I don’t know. But if it makes you feel safer, it’s worth it.”
She wrapped around him with that easy physical affection he was coming to crave and lifted those blue eyes to his. “You make me feel safe.”
Her words seemed to carry the weight of something other than their current predicament. He wasn’t sure he deserved that trust, but he’d do everything in his power to earn it.
Because he couldn’t stop himself, he brushed a soft kiss to her lips. The unhesitating way she melted into him had his resolve wavering. “Let’s haul in our stuff. It’s late.”
It only took a couple of trips. As neither of them was keen on taking a header over a stray bag if they got up in the middle of the night, they elected to go ahead and unpack, stowing their clothes in the dresser and half closet beneath the slope of the roof and their toiletries in the small bathroom. They’d still need to stock groceries. He hadn’t grabbed more than the bare minimum to get them out of the house, figuring they’d get breakfast and coffee at the bakery when they went into work. That was a problem for tomorrow. For tonight, they both needed sleep.
The moment Rachel stepped out of the bathroom, sleep was the last thing on Jonah’s mind. There was nothing overtly sexy about the oversized T-shirt, except that it hung down so low, it looked like that was the only thing she was wearing. Logically, he knew she probably had on the sleep shorts she’d been lounging in for much of the week, but all his brain could focus on was the long, lean expanse of her legs. Legs he wanted wrapped around his waist while he buried himself inside her.
“I’ll sleep on the sofa.” The words came out in a croak as he struggled to get a grip on his libido.
Those lips that were becoming his obsession tipped into a frown. “Don’t be ridiculous. You aren’t going to fit on that sofa. We’re grown adults. And that aside, given our arrangement, it doesn’t seem like there should be any issue with us sharing a bed.”
Their arrangement. The benefits portion of their friendship. The part he’d been doing his damnedest not to think about because he couldn’t quite get past seeing her injured, his brain continuing to superimpose that image over her face. The dissonance was killing him.
At his continued silence, she crossed one arm over her middle again, her expression shuttering. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
Jonah cursed himself for his incessant need to recheck himself, re-ask the question, to make absolutely certain that whatever he did was the best for her. He stepped toward her, wanting to smooth hurt feelings and find some way to reassure her.
“It’s not that. I definitely haven’t changed my mind.” He stroked her hair back, running his fingers softly over her temple. There was no flinch, no sign of residual tenderness. “I just need you to be okay.” Beyond her injuries, he needed her to come out of the other side of this change in their relationship unscathed. And that was something he didn’t know how to guarantee.
“I am.” She closed the distance between them, fitting her body flush to his, her hands on his chest. “I need you to see me, Jonah. Not my injuries. Not what happened to me. That was why I was drawn to you. Why I chose you. Because when everyone else saw my circumstances, you saw me.” Rising to her toes, she pressed the softest part of her against the hardest part of him, angling her mouth a mere breath away from his. “Come to bed. I need you.”
Jonah shuddered, the remnants of his resolve crumbling under that simple statement. Nothing and no one was more important to him in that moment than her, and he was willing to do anything and everything she asked.
Banding his arms around her, he bent his head until they shared a breath. “Be sure.”
Her fingers slid into his hair. “I am.”
Rachel held, trembling, at the threshold of everything she’d wanted for months. On a basic biological level, Jonah wanted her. That was obvious enough. But he’d held back and hesitated often enough that she wasn’t certain where he stood. She needed him to make the next move, to close that infinitesimal distance. To prove he was actually in this, not just humoring her because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
He didn’t disappoint.
On a sigh, he took her mouth, threading his fingers in her hair until he cradled her head, angling it exactly how he wanted it. She opened for him as he sipped and savored, drugging her with his patient exploration. There was more than gentleness in his touch. There was reverence. Rachel’s heart stumbled. She’d known he wasn’t the man for a fast, hard tumble. He took too much care with everyone and everything. But she hadn’t expected this.
Nerves sprang to life inside her. It was one thing to think about doing this. To dream about it, even. But it was very, very different to face the reality. She and John had been each other’s first everything, and they’d been happy and satisfied together. But for all that, she lacked experience. What if she disappointed Jonah? What if her body betrayed her, and this was all a supremely terrible idea? What if sex ruined their friendship?
But Jonah just kept kissing her and kissing her, his fingers still in her hair, until the nerves gave way to sensation, and her arms felt heavy and languid around his shoulders. Only then did he pull back far enough to lightly nip her bottom lip. “Let’s go upstairs.”
She took extra care climbing up, not entirely trusting her dexterity after he’d kissed half her brain cells away. The queen-sized bed seemed huge, as if it had grown two sizes in the space since she’d put her clothes away. It was the only thing she could see.
Jonah’s hands settled on her shoulders, his lips pressing against the side of her neck from behind. “Do you want me to stop?”
Dropping her head to give him better access, she whispered, “No.”
She felt the shape of his smile against her skin as he kissed her neck again, his big hands curving around her hips, drawing her back against the erection straining his jeans. Those lips cruised across her collarbone, his beard brushing the sensitive skin of her throat, and her knees threatened to buckle.
“God, you make me weak.”
“Only with pleasure.” With a quick spin, he tumbled them onto the bed.
His weight pressed her into the mattress, lighting up nerve endings that had long been dormant. All those lovely, languid sensations sharpened to need. She wanted more. Wanted skin against skin, slick and heated. Wanted, too, to feel the rasp of his beard against her sensitive flesh. It was a new sensation for her, completely Jonah.
Restless now, she dragged at his shirt until he tugged it off and tossed it to the side. It was her turn for reverence as she ran her hands over the planes of his chest. He was beautifully made, battle-hardened, even this far out from his military service. Dark hair dusted his pecs, narrowing down to a trail that disappeared into the waistband of his jeans. She could just make out the V-grooves at his hips. She definitely wanted to spend some time admiring those. With her tongue.
He went back to kissing her, his hands sliding beneath the hem of her sleep shirt to coast up her torso, lighting little fires along the way as they passed so close to where she wanted him to touch and taste. With one arm, he lifted her up, pulling off the shirt and sending it to the floor with his. Those green eyes went dark as pitch as he stared at her bare breasts. Her nipples pearled under his gaze, begging for attention.
“So damned beautiful.” The rasp of his voice had moisture pooling between her thighs.
When he took one nipple into his mouth, curling his tongue around the stiff peak, she almost exploded off the bed. After two years of feeling next to nothing, this was almost too much. He palmed her other breast, rolling the nipple lightly between his callused fingers, and Rachel pressed her head back into the pillow, searching for some kind of purchase. She could almost come from this alone.
“Jonah.” His name was all she could manage in the moment, but he seemed to understand the inherent plea.
One hand slid down her belly, into her sleep shorts, to cup the heat between her legs. That intimate, possessive touch had her bowing with a whiplash of an orgasm that left her blind and gasping.
By the time she saw anything but the stars behind her eyes, he was laying more of those languorous kisses along her throat and jaw. “You okay?”
The absurdity of the statement had an impossible giggle bubbling up in her chest. “It’s been a really long time, but I’m having a hard time finding a reason to complain about having a hair-trigger orgasm at the moment.”
“Been a long time for me, too.” His lazy smile turned smug. “But I can absolutely work with a hair-trigger orgasm.”
She speared her fingers into his hair and dragged his mouth back to hers for a fierce, decadent kiss. “Then get to it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” On a grin, he scooted away, down the bed, his fingers snagging the waistband of her shorts to drag them off as he went, leaving her entirely bare. He hummed in satisfaction, his eyes full of so much hunger as he stared at the apex of her thighs. A flush worked its way up her body, the muscles low in her belly pulling tight with fresh need.
Jonah’s gaze lifted to hers. “Can I taste you?”
“God, yes.”
Hooking his hands behind her knees, he dragged her to the edge of the bed, keeping his tone conversational as he knelt, pressing her legs apart to fit his shoulders. “I’ve been thinking about this almost from the moment we met, wondering if you’re as sweet here as you are everywhere else.”
He’d wanted her from the start. It did something to her deep inside to know that. To know he’d seen her as a woman first. Then his mouth was on her, driving her on a fast, reckless ride up the peak again. He backed off at the crest, bringing her down just a little, only to drive her higher. Over and over, he repeated the pattern, until her breath sobbed out and she was half-mad with wanting, her hands fisting in his hair. At her ragged, “Please,” he relented and sent her flying again.
When the pieces of her knit themselves back together under the ministrations of more of those drugging kisses, she took in his justifiably self-satisfied smirk. She wanted to break that smirk. Wanted to wreck him physically, as thoroughly as he’d wrecked her. Curling a hand around his nape, she kissed him back, tasting herself on his lips.
“I need you inside me.”
He pulled away, shucking his clothes in short order and donning a condom before rejoining her on the bed. Then he was over her, the blunt head of him nudging her entrance.
“Are you sure? There’s no going back after this.”
She framed his face between her palms. “Yes.”
He pressed forward, sliding into her wet heat, and she kept her eyes on his, needing him to know that she was with him , not imagining someone else. Despite the double orgasms, she was still incredibly tight. But like everything else, he took his time, giving her body a chance to adjust to his girth, inch by slow inch, until he was seated fully inside her. They sighed as one, and he dropped his brow to hers.
“You feel incredible.”
“Jonah.” His name was all she could manage past the knot of emotion that lodged itself behind her breastbone. Gratitude that this amazing, generous man had consented to become her lover. That he was hers, if only for now.
She didn’t realize she was crying until he brushed the tears from her cheeks, his face twisted in concern.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She brushed her lips against his. “No. This is perfect. Beautiful. Thank you.” Levering up, she kissed him again, drawing him down, wrapping her legs around his waist and rolling her hips in a silent plea for him to move.
After a moment’s hesitation he did, beginning a slow thrust and retreat that seemed to fill her deeper with every stroke, lighting up all the dark places she hadn’t been willing to acknowledge. And as he dragged them over the edge together, she knew this could never be the simple friends-with-benefits affair she’d asked for.