25. Lila #2
“Mmm-hmm.” I take the controller, unable to hide my grin. “Keep telling yourself that.”
Girthmaster lifts into the air with a strong, steady hum, holding firm against the rising winds. I guide him toward the tornado, keeping enough distance for safety while staying close enough for solid readings. The drone responds beautifully, steady and reliable.
“Readings are coming in clear,” Jonah reports, focused on his tablet. His hair is dripping, water tracing down his neck as he works.
“She’s widening at the base,” I call over my shoulder, watching the tornado expand in real-time.
Jonah steps up behind me, his chest pressed against my back as he peers over my shoulder at the screen displaying Girthmaster’s feed. His wet shirt soaks through mine, but his body heat keeps me from shivering.
“Incredible,” he breathes against my ear. “The inflow jets are symmetrical.”
I guide Girthmaster in a wide arc around the tornado, keeping him at a safe distance while capturing every angle of the magnificent storm. Rain pelts my face as I concentrate, but I barely notice it anymore.
“Pressure’s dropping,” Jonah reports, his voice taking on that excited-scientist tone I’ve come to adore. “Look at these readings!”
I can’t help but smile. His enthusiasm is as contagious as it was that first day in my truck. Only now, I don’t find it annoying. Now, it’s just another part of him that I love.
“Send Girthmaster in a little closer on the northeast quadrant,” he suggests, pointing toward a particularly active section of the storm. “There’s something unusual about the wind shear pattern there.”
“On it,” I reply. I maneuver our drone through the gusting winds, angling him toward the northeast quadrant as Jonah requested. The massive drone holds steady despite nature’s best attempts to knock him off course. That’s my boy.
“Careful,” Jonah warns, his breath warm against my ear. “Don’t get too close to the debris field.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I remind him, though I can’t help but smile at his concern. “This isn’t my first tornado rodeo.”
Through the camera feed, I can see the swirling vortex in stunning detail, the way the clouds twist and churn, defying gravity and common sense. It’s beautiful in the way only truly dangerous things can be.
“Look at that!” Jonah points excitedly at the tablet screen. “I’ve never seen anything like this in the field before.”
“That’s because you spent most of your career hiding in a lab,” I tease, nudging him with my elbow.
“A mistake I’m thoroughly enjoying correcting,” he replies, his hand settling on my waist in a casual gesture that still sends warmth through me despite my rain-soaked clothes.
The tornado shifts suddenly, its path veering northward. I adjust Girthmaster’s position accordingly, keeping him at a safe distance.
I watch the tornado shifting further away, its form growing smaller as it moves toward the horizon.
“There it goes,” I mutter as the tornado begins to shift further northeast, moving away from our optimal viewing position. “It’s heading toward the county line.”
“Do we follow it?” he asks, turning to me with a sharp glint in his eyes—the one that tells me he’s fully engaged, hungry for more data.
I guide Girthmaster back toward us, preparing for retrieval as I consider our options. The tornado is moving at a decent clip now, probably 25-30 miles per hour, heading across empty farmland. We could chase it, get another hour of data collection if we’re lucky.
But as I look at Jonah—rain-soaked, half-dressed, with his shirt buttoned wrong and I make a different calculation.
“Let’s let this one go.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Really? We could easily?—”
“There will be other tornadoes,” I cut him off, guiding Girthmaster to a smooth landing a few feet away. “But how many chances will we get to mark off another item on my sex bucket list?”
“What did you have in mind?”
I grin at him, biting my lower lip in a way that I know drives him absolutely crazy. “Number six.”
His breath catches. I can feel his heart hammering against his chest where we’re pressed together. “And what exactly is item number six?”
I lean up on my tiptoes, my lips brushing against his ear as I whisper, “Using the handcuffs that I might have found in the glove box, and a headboard,” I pause, letting the words settle. “But here’s the thing—it requires dropping Max off with Auntie Emily for a few hours.”
His hands tighten on my waist. “How close is Emily’s apartment?”
“About thirty minutes. She’s been texting me all week about missing her favorite furry nephew.” I drag my teeth along his earlobe. “And I might have asked her if she could take him tonight.”
“Handcuffs” he repeats, his voice gone rough and low. “A headboard.”
“And my mouth around your cock while you’re tied to it,” I add, just to watch his pupils blow wide. “I want to suck you until you’re begging me to stop. And then I want to fuck you while you’re completely at my mercy.”
“Aren’t I always?”
I grin up at him. “Help me pack up?”
We dismantle the chase in record time. Jonah is already breaking down the instrument array before I’ve even closed Girthmaster’s controller case.
I watch him work and something about it makes me laugh out loud.
He shoots me a look. Not embarrassed. Just impatient.
He reaches past me and collapses the last tripod in one clean motion.
I take one last look at the horizon.
The tornado is smaller now, blurred by distance and rain, already becoming something we’ll talk about later instead of something we’re inside of. A story instead of a pursuit.
For so long, I thought it was the storms that twisted me, bent me into someone who only felt alive in the middle of chaos.
But standing here, soaked to the skin, with Jonah beside me and the storm slipping away, I understand it wasn’t the wind or the pressure or the violence of the sky.
It was him.
Somewhere along the way, without permission or warning, he learned exactly how to twist my heart and make me want to stay.