All these cute, scrunchy lines form on his forehead.
I sit down next to him, lacing our fingers together. “Kellan told me once that you guys hide money in all your houses. When I left, I went to one and found the secret box you had there. I didn’t take everything in it, but . . . I took a lot. Okay, most of it. Obviously you haven’t discovered that, right?” I twist my head to study him, looking up through my eyelashes.
He’s shocked. “Which house?”
I take a deep breath. “Rome.”
I worry when he’s quiet for a long time, because Rome is a sacred place for us, but then he laughs. Really laughs. I’m bewildered, because I thought for sure he’d be pissed. I had to tell him, though. There can’t be any more secrets.
“You aren’t mad?”
“Maybe if I’d learned that four months ago I would be.” His dimple taunts me. “Today, it’s just . . . wow. It just figures that that’s how it was.” And then, more serious, “I have one last confession, too.”
I brace myself. This could be the moment he decides to tell me that, when I was gone, he met somebody. Did things that—no. I refuse to think about it. And if he tells me this is what happened, I’m just going to have to deal.
“Maybe you running away was the best thing to ever happened to us.”
Ohhh. I’d only thought I was melty before. Now I know I am. “Yeah?”
His hand curves around the back of my head, and he leans in, the smell of him, all spice and mint, flooding my senses until I go lightheaded. This is love. This is true love. This isn’t Connection love, or Fate love, or anything other than an old fashioned case of being hopeless, deliriously in love. I know the difference now. “You know what you want, right?”
Gods, yes. Him. Preferably naked right now, and in me, on me, and around me, but I’ll take a kiss, too.
I nod slowly.
“I used to think I did, too,” he says, his breath warm against my mouth. “I was wrong. I only thought I knew what I wanted.”
“Do you now?”
“Yeah, I think I finally do.”
It’s becoming increasingly hard to breathe, but not because I’m crying or upset. He’s stealing my breath away. “What do you want, Jonah?”
His lips are so, so gentle against mine, yet every last nerve in my body flares to life. “Everything you mentioned earlier. I want to be able to come home and lean on you. Know that you’ve got my back. I want to be the same for you. I want us to be lovers. Best friends. Partners. Because, it’s you I want. Not my Connection, not a Creator, but just Chloe Lilywhite.”
You have me, I want to say. You’ll always have me. But I don’t think I could get a word out right now if I tried. I’m pretty sure it’d just sound like a moan.
“This you,” he continues, lips flutter soft against the corner of my mouth. A finger traces down my neck, down my chest until it’s over my overworking heart. “The one who finally knows what she wants.”
What I want is for him to kiss me. So, I grab his face in both hands and crash my lips into his, and all of those nerves that just lit up with a tiny kiss burn white-hot when his tongue enters my mouth.
I have never, in my entire life, been so turned on and in so much need as I am in this moment. I want him. I want him so much that it’s hard to think of anything else. I get up, my lips still on his, my tongue still swirling around his, and rotate so I’m straddling him on the bed. Gods, he tastes so good.
If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to seduce this man. We no longer are bound by any stupid proclamation from my father insisting we wait until marriage to have sex. That said, I am painfully aware of what Kellan told me once, of how when they lose control physically during love making that they can feel one another. Kellan knows that I’ve chosen Jonah, but I refuse to pour salt into the wound we share. So I decide to build a shield around us, one much like the one I used to use to mask my emotions from the twins, one that hopefully will keep the link he has with his brother out.
He breaks away, trailing his tongue and mouth down my neck. I arch into him, heat spreading through all of my limbs until I’m trembling. When he gets to where my shoulder and neck curve together, his teeth graze my hot skin, sending shivers skittering down my spine. My fingers dig into his shoulders, curving around until there’s no way I’ll let go of him again.
Our mouths meet once more, not gently, and I marvel at the intensity of what his kiss alone can do to me. I’m on fire, soaring, diving, exploding, suffocating, and it’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. I suck his bottom lip in my mouth, and he gasps. It’s possibly one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard. I swallow this sound, wanting to keep it in me forever.