Chapter 36
Emma
My heart is a trampoline and a million different feelings are bouncing off it like they’re at the world trampoline championships.
We’re home from dinner.
Leftovers are in the fridge.
Bash is sleeping.
Yolko Ono is tucked in for the night.
The chickens outside are settled too.
Zen and Jack have left.
The security guard has left.
And I’m pulling Jonas up the stairs to my bedroom.
When I sold the house that was supposed to be my young bride starter home, I traded house size for lot size. Neighbors for privacy.
The four-bedroom, three-stall garage house was too much.
Especially knowing that I’d never have more than one baby.
That I wouldn’t ever let a man back into my bedroom.
But here we are, with me whispering for Jonas to skip the fourth step because it squeaks, on the way to my very, very, very feminine bedroom.
Where I hope he’ll tell me every detail of whatever fantasy left him unable to speak before dinner.
Bash’s door is shut, and there’s a soft glow coming from my bedroom.
I don’t remember leaving any of my lamps on, but it’s not unusual for one of my friends to do little things for me like switching on a lamp.
Or, apparently, scattering peach rose petals across my wooden floor.
My lips part as I stop in my bedroom doorway and take in the full scene.
It’s not just the rose petals complementing my peach-and-white bedding.
It’s candles illuminating the wispy, soft, abstract painting of a woman’s profile, hidden behind petals much like those scattered across my floor, rug, and bed.
Soft music coming from the Bluetooth speaker on my nightstand.
The fairy lights strung over my live-edge wooden headboard.
My gauzy curtains billowing softly in the breeze.
More candles visible around the soaking tub in my attached bathroom.
The quilt turned down. Pillows fluffed.
Water bottles on both nightstands.
And the scent of something soft and sweet, but very, very subtle, tickling my nose.
Jonas settles a hand on my waist as he stands behind me. “Beautiful,” he whispers thickly.
I swallow my instinctive I didn’t set this up .
It doesn’t matter.
The candles and the rose petals and the—oh my god.
The bowl of strawberries between the candles on the sideboard under the painting.
It doesn’t matter who set up my bedroom.
What matters is that Jonas is snaking both of his arms around my belly as he buries his nose in my hair. “But you’re still the most beautiful part of all,” he whispers.
My eyes sting.
People don’t call me beautiful . Chandler used to tell me he loved me despite my ears and nose. I went on three dates with someone in college who told me my personality made up for my face, but not enough. And that’s why he dumped me.
Laney and Sabrina insist I’m beautiful, but they have to.
They’re my best friends.
They don’t see the flaws.
When Jonas says it?
When the world’s most beautiful man tells you that you’re beautiful, when you know he could’ve simply demanded a paternity test and sent his lawyers after you to get visitation rights with his son, when you’re the most difficult part of this equation that’s turned his life upside down, what reason do you have left to doubt him?
I turn in his arms to face him, looping mine around his neck, and pull him along as I step backwards into my bedroom.
Staring into those beautiful brown eyes that are trained on me like he’s memorizing this moment, memorizing me , drowning in me .
“Shut the door,” I whisper.
He kicks it softly shut with one foot. “When you crawled under that table,” he starts, and I can’t help it.
I smile.
A smile so big it instantly hurts my cheeks. “When I crawled under that table?” I prompt.
“I thought you were going to have a pre-dinner snack.”
“And were you ready for me to eat you?”
His pupils dilate, making his eyes dark as night. And his voice—his voice is dark as night too. “You breathe and you turn me on, Emma. When I thought you were going to suck on my cock? Yeah. Yeah, I was ready. Even though I don’t think I’ve earned that yet.”
The implication that’s been hanging between us all evening already had my panties wet. The idea of going down on Jonas?
Yes.
Yes .
It’s not enough to kiss him. It’s not enough to touch him. It’s not enough to dry hump him in a hot tub or anywhere else.
I want to lick him from head to toe.
I do. I can’t help it, and I’m tired of trying to fight it.
But hearing him say he wants me to suck his cock?
There’s now a complete and total flood happening between my thighs. It’s potent enough that I can smell myself, and I have no doubt he can too.
“What do you think you have to do to earn it?” Is that my voice? Breathy and needy and seductive?
The things this man brings out in me…
“Be here,” he says without hesitation. “Put you first. Make you come first. Always. Every time. Multiple times. Be an equal partner. Make up for everything I’ve missed.
Cook. Clean. Laundry. Fix things. Make you laugh.
Hold you when you cry. Listen when you need to vent.
Anything. Everything. All of the things that I—that I should’ve been here?—”
I put a finger to his lips. “You’re here now. That’s all I need. All I want .”
“I swear I’ll keep you safe,” he whispers. “Both of you. I don’t want to give you regrets. Not again.”
“I will never regret my time with you. Ever. Ever .”
“Emma—”
“You could leave again tomorrow, and I’d have zero regrets.” Would my heart break?
Yes.
But if he left tomorrow, I’d know there was a reason.
That it was beyond his control.
That he didn’t go willingly.
Or that he did it because he thought it was for the best.
That he did it to protect us. To save us from something worse than my viral wedding video.
Zero doubt.
None.
Jonas Rutherford is a good man.
The best man.
And I can’t keep myself from going up on my toes to press a kiss to his mouth.
I want him.
I want his kisses. I want his hugs. I want his hands on my naked body.
I want my hands on his naked body. Feeling the ridges of his muscles. Tasting his skin. Breathing in that delicious butterscotch scent of him. Losing myself in being with him.
His breath shudders out of him as he surrenders and kisses me back while he gathers my dress in his fists and lifts. Cool air rushes around my calves, my knees, my thighs.
The scent of my arousal gets stronger as he raises it to my belly, and I know he notices.
The feral growl in the back of his throat, the way he deepens the kiss, thrusting his tongue into my mouth, claiming me while he arches his hips and that thick ridge against my stomach—he notices.
We break apart just long enough for him to pull my dress the rest of the way off my body, and then we’re once again attached at the mouth.
I attack the buttons on his shirt.
He unhooks my bra, slides it down my arms enough to make the cups fall away, and then he’s teasing both of my nipples with his broad, flat, talented thumbs.
It’s nearly enough to make me come right there, and my own fingers fumble on the buttons of his shirt.
“Can—go—slow,” he says against my mouth.
“Round two.”
His erection pulses against my stomach like the very idea of sex all night is a turn-on.
Like he’ll never get enough of me.
Of me .
I finally get all of his buttons undone and shove his shirt off of his broad shoulders. My bra falls all the way off while his hands are momentarily off of my breasts.
And then my bare chest is against his while he pulls me closer, kissing me harder, walking me backward to the bed.
The smooth, firm skin on his back radiates heat beneath my hands. I can’t stop stroking him, flashing back to rubbing aloe all over him.
He’s broader than he was in Fiji. Thicker. More solid.
My shield against the world.
The only thing that matters.
The backs of my thighs bump the mattress, and then Jonas’s lips are gone from mine, and he’s scooping me up into his arms and settling me on top of the rose petals.
I hear a clink and a swoosh, and before my lust-addled brain can translate the noises, a fully naked Jonas is crawling onto the bed with me.
And he?—
I swallow.
Swallow again as I stare down between our bodies, at his thick erection jutting out from a nest of dark curls, the broad, wide head, the veins wrapping around the silky skin of his cock.
I stroke him once, twice, and then he puts a hand to mine with a muffled grunt.
“Next time,” he says.
And then Jonas Rutherford, my former celebrity crush, the father of my baby, my friend—and now my boyfriend?—slides down my body, peels off my panties, and settles his head between my thighs.
He presses a kiss inside my left thigh as I part my legs wider. Then he presses a kiss inside my right thigh.
And then my breath comes out in a gasp as his tongue traces my slit and ends with a flick of my clit. “ Oh my god .”
“Delicious,” he murmurs against my pussy.
And then he does it again, holding my quaking thighs that I can’t spread any wider despite how hard I’m trying. I arch my hips into his mouth while he licks and sucks and feasts on me, my brain going completely blank, nothing existing except the sensations he’s sparking between my legs.
He strokes my thighs with gentle fingertips, nearly tickling, but not quite, while he swirls his tongue around my clit.
I’m pumping my pelvis into his mouth. Can’t stop. Don’t want to stop.
I’m reaching—reaching— reaching for that sensation spiraling deep inside of me, so rich, so heady, so close, building heavier with every stroke of his tongue until my vagina clenches and my hips buck off the bed.
I can’t speak.
Can’t say his name.
Can only pant incoherent noises while the strongest orgasm of my life sweeps over me. My legs go straight up in the air. I curl my fingers into his hair, and he keeps going.
Sucking on my clit while I come.
And come.
And come.
All over his face.
I come so hard my feet cramp. My shoulder too.
And I don’t care.
Not when he’s making my pussy feel so gloriously loved.
Pampered.
Adored.
My body sags back into the mattress, my legs falling again, my thighs wide open as the spasms abate.
I ride out the aftershocks with Jonas slowly climbing back up my body, pressing kisses to my belly, under each breast, avoiding my nipples like he knows they’re too sensitive right now, until his face is buried in the crook of my neck, breathing me in like he’s never wanted to be anywhere else in his life.
Like I’m his world.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” he murmurs.
“That was— wow .”
I have bigger words.
Better words.
But not right now.
He kisses my neck once more, then shifts off me.
I whimper.
He huffs, and it sounds amused, so I let my lips fall into a smile.
But he’s doing something with the covers, rolling me to my side, then onto my stomach.
“Jonas?”
“You worked hard,” he murmurs, his body lining up beside mine as one broad hand sweeps down my back. “Need some pampering now if we’re going another round.”
He kneads a thumb into that spot between my neck and my shoulder, and ohhhhh .
This.
This .
I can feel his erection resting against my thigh. He’s still hard as steel, and that knowledge has my vagina lifting one sleepy eye in interest. But right now? Right now, I choose to let this man treat me to a backrub.