13. Lila #4
“Get your feet under you first,” he murmurs, his arm sliding around my waist to support me.
“I’m fine,” I try to reassure him, but even I know that it’s a lie. A clap of thunder draws my attention.
“She’s perfect,” I breathe, unable to look away from the storm unfolding in front of us. “Something so destructive yet beautiful in its own way.”
The churning clouds turn slowly against the darkening sky, hypnotic in the way only dangerous things can be.
The wall cloud hangs low beneath it now, tightening as it descends, the rotation growing more defined by the second.
Curtains of rain wrap around the edges while lightning flickers deep inside the storm like a living pulse.
Storms like this destroy homes. Tear apart towns. Change lives in minutes. And somehow they’re impossibly beautiful.
“She is,” Jonah says quietly.
Something in his voice makes me turn. He isn’t watching the storm.
He’s watching me.
We make our way slowly to the equipment setup, Max trotting nervously behind us.
The golden retriever stays close to my legs, as if he's appointed himself my personal guardian.
The wind picks up as we stand there, making my hair whip across my face.
I try to brush it away with my good hand, but it's a losing battle.
I can't see the storm properly with these wild curls blocking my view, and I growl in frustration.
“Here, let me,” Jonah says, stepping closer. His fingers gently tuck my hair behind my ear, lingering for just a moment longer than necessary. Our eyes meet, and something shifts in the air between us that has nothing to do with the approaching storm.
The storm rumbles in the distance, but for once, my attention isn't on the forming funnel cloud. Instead, I'm caught in Jonah's gaze, those intelligent eyes studying me with an intensity that makes my breath catch. The wind swirls around us, creating our own private cyclone.
“Thanks,” I murmur, suddenly aware of how close we're standing. His hand is still near my face, and I can feel the warmth radiating off his skin.
The wind screams across the open prairie, tossing my hair back across my face. Thunder rolls low enough to vibrate in my chest. But Jonah isn't looking at the storm anymore.
He's looking at how close I'm standing. At the way my breathing has gone uneven. At the fact that I haven't stepped back.
Something moves through his expression that I don't have a word for.
Then his hand finds my waist.
The pull is slow, deliberate—like he's giving me every chance to step back. I don't. His other hand comes up to my jaw, tilting my face toward his, and then he's leaning down into the space between us that has been shrinking for days.
His mouth is warm. Sure of itself in a way that surprises me.
The sound I make surprises me too. Jonah's grip tightens at my waist in response, and he kisses me again before I've fully processed the first one—unhurried now, like he's been patient long enough already.
My fingers find the front of his Henley and twist into the fabric.
He's tall enough that I have to tilt my head back, rising onto my toes, and his grip at my waist tightens to meet me halfway.
The scrape of his stubble against my skin pulls the breath clean out of me.
When his thumb brushes beneath my jaw, my knees go soft.
I don't have the vocabulary for what his mouth does to me.
The hand locked at my waist. The solid wall of his chest against mine. The unhurried way he kisses me, like the pretending is finally over.
The wind drives cold rain against my skin, but I barely feel it. Lightning bleaches the sky white behind my closed eyes. His hand slides into my hair and he bends lower, and I stop thinking about the storm entirely.
My heart is loud in my ears.
When I kiss him back, something in him gives way—a sharp exhale against my mouth, a tightening of his grip, like I've answered a question he'd been afraid to ask.
Thunder cracks directly overhead. Neither of us moves.
His forehead drops to mine, both of us catching our breath, the wind cutting around us in hard, uneven bursts. His hand at my waist hasn't loosened.
His eyes drop to my mouth.
“Tell me to stop,” he says. Low. Like he already knows.
He already knows I won't.
I fist my hand tighter in his shirt and pull him back down.
He kisses me deeper this time, slower, and his hand slides up my side until his fingertips find the edge of the sling. He stops there. All that intensity, suddenly careful.
It's the careful that gets me.
His thumb traces the strap near my collarbone. “Hey,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Easy.”
“I'm fine.”
The laugh he exhales sounds more undone than amused. “No you're not. “He’s not either.
He kisses me again—less urgent now, more like a conversation. Like he's saying things in the only language he's sure I'll hear.
Thunder moves through the plains in a long, low roll.
Then both our phones go off at once. The tornado siren is unmistakable. Jonah pulls back, breathing hard, his forehead dropping to mine. We stay there a moment, mouths close, the alarm cutting through the wind around us.
Lightning flashes behind the storm, illuminating the rotating wall cloud in sharp white bursts while the National Weather Service alert blares over and over around us.
“Shit,” Jonah mutters.
He drags a hand through his windblown hair and turns toward the storm almost immediately, focus snapping back into place with infuriating ease. His eyes track the horizon, expression sharpening as thunder cracks overhead.
Just like that.
The wind surges harder around us, tugging at my hair and the loose fabric of his shirt, cold rain-scented air rushing between us where all that heat had been seconds ago.
Jonah squints toward the lowering wall cloud. “The storm’s tightening up. We should?—”
“Yeah,” I cut in. My voice comes out flatter than I mean for it to.
He glances at me briefly, distracted already, attention split between me and the radar data flashing across his screen. Then his gaze drifts right back to the storm.
And irritation sparks hot beneath my ribs. Because apparently he can kiss me like he’s been thinking about it for who knows how long and then switch gears fast enough to start analyzing rotation signatures thirty seconds later.
I step back first, putting space between us even though every part of me immediately hates it. The absence of his hands on me feels abrupt. Wrong.
I turn toward the equipment before he can look too closely at my face, forcing my good hand to adjust the camera settings while my brain struggles to catch up with everything that just happened.
My lips are still warm and Jonah is already staring at the storm again instead of me.