Page 6

Jonah

For the second time today, my world has been entirely thrown off its axis.

Only this time is so, so much worse.

I stumble down the hall outside Susie’s apartment. I feel drunk. Or like… I was drunk. Drugged, maybe. Under hypnosis. Lost in a trance that I’m just now coming out of, thrust back into the stark light of day.

I have to get back to the Bureau ASAP and fix the mess I made of the reports Kingston just rightfully chewed me out for, but I barely make it to the stairwell before I have to pause.

Both hands braced on the wall beside the door, I hang my head down between my shoulders and try to breathe through the waves of arousal and shame and disappointment coursing through me, every single instinct I possess screaming at me to go back to her.

Damn those spreadsheets and damn my job. Damn anything that’s not Susie and that incredible body of hers, that sweet, tight, hot cunt that was just soaked for me, the way she was so fucking responsive for me, what she sounded like when she came all over my—

“Fuck,” I rasp, making myself push the memories aside.

But it’s useless.

I’ll be clinging to each and every one of those memories for the rest of my damn life.

They feel like they’re etched into my bones, every inch of me branded by her. Her scent still clings to me like a second skin, and my cock has never, in my entire, godsforsaken life, been this hard.

My instincts are still raging, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

The last fucking thing I want to do right now is go back to the office and spend the next couple of hours unravelling the mess of what I sent Kingston.

I want to say the hell with it all and go back to her, keep touching her, kiss her, and let her…

Only… do I?

My skin crawls, and a choking wave of sanity tightens my throat when I remember Susie’s hands on me, the way she wanted to get me naked.

The way I immediately froze up when she did.

It’s a familiar feeling, one I’ve been trying to get over for the better part of the last year, and one that’s kept me from being intimate with anyone for a long, long time.

I wish I wasn’t like this.

I wish I wasn’t such a self-conscious mess about my body.

I shouldn’t be.

I know I shouldn’t be, but the hangups I have around how I look after all the weight I’ve lost over the last couple of years are a hell of a thing.

Every time I think I’ve made progress in accepting that—barring surgery of some sort—I’m just going to have to deal with some loose skin, that it’s okay to have some loose skin, to look the way I look, to exist in my body without feeling shame about it, something will happen to put me right back to square one.

I don’t blame Susie for it, not at all.

She was so goddamn beautiful, lost in the moment and in her pleasure.

Pleasure that I gave her. She wanted me, she fucking wanted me, and after the pathetic mess I’ve been—pining after her for two godsdamn years—the fear that she’d see me naked and all that desire in her eyes might have turned into disgust hit me like a ton of bricks.

It made me pull away from her, and that’s on me, not her.

Taking a few more deep breaths, I give myself a minute.

Thirty seconds to freak out. Thirty seconds to pull myself back together.

But I barely make it through ten of those seconds before my phone’s ringing again. I pull it from my pocket and answer, already knowing who it’s going to be.

“Sorry sir,” I say hastily. “I’m just on my way out. I should be there in—”

“Not until next week, hopefully. And though I’m flattered you’re finally recognizing my authority, you really don’t need to call me sir , Jonah.”

My older sister’s voice on the other end of the line draws a bark of startled laughter out of the back of my throat, and I run my hand through my hair, cheeks heating.

“Sorry, Gem,” I say, heading down the stairs with the phone pressed to my ear. “I thought you were my boss.”

“Hey, make no mistake, I’m still the boss of you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“And what the hell would your boss need from you on a Friday night, anyway?”

Reaching the ground floor and stepping out into the lot next to Susie’s building, I let out a long sigh. “I fucked something up earlier today, and I’ve got to go back in and fix it.”

“Jonah Greenwood, math whiz and all around nerd extraordinaire, fucking up something at work? I don’t believe it.”

Unable to come up with a good retort, I just grumble a little as I reach my car and slide in the driver’s side. I turn the ignition, but don’t leave right away, tipping my head back against the headrest and closing my eyes.

“Everything alright with you?”

Gemma’s voice has taken on a different tone now, all traces of teasing older sibling superiority evaporating.

“Yeah, I’m alright.”

She hums, like she’s trying to figure out whether she’s going to take that at face value or keep pushing, but must decide to let me off the hook for now.

“Alright. I just wanted to call and see if you’re still planning to fly out next week?”

“Of course I am. You know I wouldn’t miss it.”

I can almost hear her smile over the phone. “It’s alright if you’re busy. I know you’ve got a whole life out there, and all this stuff is so traditional and outdated and—”

“Gem,” I gently interrupt. “I’ll be there. You and Kasey are too important for me not to be.”

Another long pause, and a pang of homesickness spreads through my chest as I imagine her grin and the sight of rolling green hills behind her. I honestly have no idea whether she’s outside or not, but in my mind she is, enjoying a beautiful night in the quiet little village where we grew up.

We discuss a few more details about my flight and when I’ll be arriving before saying our goodbyes and hanging up. With no more excuses and no reason to loiter, I finally put the car in drive and reluctantly pull out of Susie’s lot.

The work I need to do on the reports ends up being just as tedious and irritating as I thought it would be, and it’s nearly eight by the time I leave the office for the second time tonight.

Kingston’s still working, too, and he barely gives me more than a grunt of acknowledgment when I give him a heads-up that the new reports are in his inbox.

By the time I make it outside, it’s already getting dark, and for the thousandth time since I left her apartment, I wonder what Susie’s doing. My hand twitches toward my phone where it’s tucked away in my pocket before I remember.

I never got her number.

It’s one more damning failure, one more way I let myself get in my own way and potentially screwed up my one and only chance with the woman I haven’t been able to get out of my mind for the last two years.

Disappointment is a heavy, bitter weight in the bottom of my stomach, and I silently vow to do everything I can to make sure that’s not the case.

Monday.

I’ll find her Monday.

I’ll talk to her and let her know in no uncertain terms that I don’t want what happened tonight in her apartment to be one-time thing.

Monday. I’ll make it right on Monday.