25. Lila
LILA - ONE MONTH LATER
The rain pelts against my skin like tiny bullets, but I barely notice it. My back arches against the cold metal of the SUV’s hood, slick with rainwater beneath me. Jonah’s body covers mine, his weight pressing me into the vehicle as the sky turns an ominous green behind him.
“God, Lila,” he groans against my neck, his hips driving forward in a rhythm that matches the building thunder.
I dig my nails into his shoulders, lifting my hips to meet each thrust. The wind whips my hair across my face, stinging my eyes, but I don’t care.
I’ve imagined this exact moment since I was twenty-two—the sky going green, the air pressure dropping, and someone’s hands on me while the whole atmosphere loses its mind.
“Lila, look,” Jonah gasps against my throat, his rhythm faltering as he turns his head toward the horizon. “It’s dropping. The funnel is forming.
“Eyes on me,” I breathe, pulling his face back down to mine. “Tell me what you feel, not what you see.”
“You,” he manages. “God—you.”
“Good answer.” I roll my hips and feel him shudder. “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.”
“The data—” he starts.
“Jonah.” I tighten my legs around him and put my lips against his ear. “I swear to God, if you say data right now, I will never let you touch me again.”
He groans like I’ve broken something loose in him and drives into me harder, deeper. “Say my name again,” he growls.
Lightning splits the sky behind him. The funnel is forming. I couldn’t care less.
“Make me,” I whisper.
“The data,” he says deliberately, and then does exactly what it takes to make me forget I ever said it.
Lightning splits the sky, etching Jonah’s face in stark relief. His eyes are black, pupils blown wide, as he stares down at me like I’m something wild and untamed he’s finally caught. Rain pours down his face, drips from his lips as he growls, “You’re out of your fucking mind, Lila. You know that?”
“And you love every fucking second of it,” I pant, feeling his hips snap against mine, driving him deeper.
His mouth crashes onto mine, all teeth and tongue and hunger. “I love you,” he groans into my mouth. “Every insane, reckless inch of you.”
Rain sluices over us, plastering his shirt to the hard lines of his body. I can feel every ridge, every muscle, as if there’s nothing between us. His hands grip my hips, tilting me up, and suddenly he’s hitting a spot that makes my vision white out.
“Fuck, Jonah!” I scream, not giving a damn who hears. We’re alone in this storm, lost in our own primal rhythm. “Don’t stop! Right fucking there!”
He grunts, a sound so raw and primal it sends shivers down my spine. “Like that, baby?” he rasps, his voice barely audible over the howling wind. “You gonna come for me like this? Out here in the middle of nowhere, with the storm raging around us?”
“Yes,” I gasp, clinging to him as the pressure builds. “God, yes!”
His lips are on my ear, his breath hot and ragged. “Then do it,” he growls. “Come for me, Lila. Let me feel you come apart in my arms.” His words send electric jolts straight to my core.
The funnel cloud is fully visible now, a dark writhing serpent against the green-tinged sky.
It hasn’t touched down yet, but it’s close—maybe a mile away.
Every rational alarm bell is screaming for shelter, not fucking out in the open like this.
But rational thought disintegrated the moment Jonah pushed me against the SUV, his voice a low growl, “I need to be inside you, Lila. Right fucking now.”
Jonah’s hips piston against me, his movements urgent and wild. His eyes flicker between my face and the funnel cloud, torn between primal lust and scientific awe. The warring passions in his expression send electric heat straight to my core.
“Eyes on me, Professor,” I demand, grabbing his jaw and forcing his gaze back to mine. “You want to watch something? Watch me come for you.”
“You feel so damn good. I can’t—,” he groans, his voice raw with need.
“Can’t what?” I challenge, clenching around him. “Can’t hold back? Can’t keep fucking me like you mean it?”
His lips crash onto mine, all teeth and tongue and desperate hunger. “You want me to fuck you, baby?” he rasps against my mouth. “I’ll fuck you until you scream so loud that even the storm can’t drown out your prayers to me.”
His words detonate something inside me. Pleasure explodes through my body, white-hot and consuming. I scream his name, the sound torn from my throat and whipped away by the wind. My body arches off the hood, every muscle taut as waves of ecstasy crash through me.
Jonah follows me over the edge with a sound I feel more than hear—a groan that starts deep in his chest and breaks apart against my throat.
His whole body shudders, hips stuttering, hands gripping me like I’m the only solid thing left in the world.
For a long moment neither of us moves. Rain sheets over us.
Thunder rolls through the soles of my feet.
I become aware of things slowly: the cold metal under my thighs, the tornado maybe three-quarters of a mile out, the fact that I am extremely undressed in an open field. I tip my head back and start laughing
Jonah lifts his head from my shoulder, his eyes immediately locking onto the storm.Then he seems to remember our precarious position. “We should probably?—”
“Get dressed and deploy Girthmaster? Yeah, probably.” I can’t help the laugh that bubbles up from my chest. “Though I have to say, this was definitely worth the risk.”
He grins down at me, rain dripping from his hair onto my face. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“You did say where you go, I go, remember?”
I laugh, sliding off the hood of the SUV, my bare feet hitting the mud with a splash. “Best decision you ever made, Professor.”
We scramble for our clothes, tossed haphazardly around the vehicle in our earlier frenzy. I hop on one foot, trying to pull my jeans up my rain-slick legs while keeping the tornado in my line of sight.
“Hurry!” Jonah tosses my shirt at me, already buttoning his own with impressive speed. From inside the SUV, Max barks at the storm, his nose fogging the glass.
I yank my shirt over my head, not bothering with a bra. Getting dressed with two arms is much easier than one. Thank god, I was able to ditch the sling a couple of weeks ago. “Girthmaster ready to fly?”
“Always,” Jonah says, already moving to the back of the SUV. He’s fully dressed now, though his shirt is buttoned wrong and his feet are bare. The transformation from passionate lover to focused scientist happened in seconds—a skill he’s perfected over our month together.
I can’t help but smile as I watch him prep the drone.
It’s hard to believe this is the same buttoned-up guy who came to me begging for a ride-along.
We’d missed three different storm systems over the last few weeks because he wouldn’t let me leave our motel room.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. Did we collect data? Not any kind the university could use.
When Jonah tendered his resignation, the university had a collective heart attack.
I’ve never seen such a desperate scramble from academia before—the department chair calling at midnight, the dean personally flying out to “discuss his future” at the university.
They were willing to offer him whatever he wanted to stay on—double his research budget, teaching assistants, reduced course load, even his own dedicated storm chasing vehicle with university funding.
He’d been ready to turn it all down—every grant, every lab, every polished promise—until I pointed out that universities like his didn’t just want someone like him, they needed him.
So we found our middle ground. He teaches in the fall and winter, and come spring and summer, we go out chasing.
The best of both worlds, where neither of us had to give up what we loved for the other.
The university didn’t stop there. They knew who my father was, and what I’d lost out there with helping Jonah get his data.
They offered to reimburse me for all of it, every last piece, like a check could somehow square things.
But it wasn’t really about the money. Dad would always be with me when we chased, but it was time to let it go. To let him go.
So instead, they set up a scholarship in his name. Something that would carry on a little piece of what he’d built, without trying to replace it.
And me? They offered me a position as a storm chasing consultant, which I find kind of absurd considering I hadn’t set foot in a classroom since I dropped out freshman year after not being able to pay my tuition.
But they were determined to keep Jonah, and if legitimizing our partnership was part of the deal, they were more than willing to make it happen.
“Girthmaster’s battery is fully charged,” Jonah calls over the howling wind, already shifting into work mode despite his disheveled appearance. I catch myself watching the way his wet shirt clings to his chest as he fine-tunes the drone’s settings. “Barometric readings are off the charts.”
I finish tugging on my boots without bothering to tie the laces and join him at the back of the SUV. Max watches us from inside the vehicle, his nose pressed against the window.
“She’s moving east-southeast,” I observe, tracking the tornado’s path across the empty field. “No structures in sight.”
“Just how we like it,” Jonah agrees, excitement lighting his expression. He hands me the controller. “You want to fly?”
“You sure you don’t want to?” I ask, surprised. Over the past month, he’s gotten pretty attached to Girthmaster—more like a favorite pet than a piece of equipment.
“You have better instincts,” he replies simply, and my chest does that ridiculous flutter I still haven’t gotten used to.
“Careful, Professor. I might start to think you’re getting sentimental.”
“Purely scientific reasoning,” he insists, though the softness in his expression gives him away.