That doesn’t mean I want to call it off.
“We’re fine,” I say. “What got to me today didn’t have anything to do with you. I promise.”
“Okay. That’s good.” To my surprise, Jonah doesn’t hang up then and there. “Are you all right?”
“Yes and no.”
We both fall silent. Maybe Jonah is afraid I’m going to start spilling my guts to him. Sharing my secrets. I have no intention of doing so. That kind of intimacy can’t be a part of our arrangement.
Yet he stays on the line. He’s giving me the option—or, more likely, can’t think of a polite way out of this.
When Jonah finally speaks, he sounds steady again. Strong. His voice alone makes me flush with heat, from my cheeks to between my legs. “Do you want me to hang up now?”
I crave that steadiness, that strength. More than that, I crave him.
Very quietly I say, “No.”
“What do you want to talk about?” He’s wary, but willing.
My bed is only steps away. I lower myself onto it, propping myself up on the pillows. “Anything. Just—distract me.”
“Not the usual distraction, you mean.”
I wonder what phone sex with Jonah would be like? There’s something about the way he speaks—and it’s not just his mesmerizing voice. Every single word seems to have been rationed. Measured. He reveals nothing he doesn’t want to reveal. No emotion slips through unless he allows it. The totality of his control, his command of himself . . . it’s even more intoxicating now that I know the intensity he’s just barely holding back. And it reminds me of how fucking incredible it felt when he took control of me.
Phone sex with Jonah might be amazing.
But I still smell like cleaning products, and I’m wearing my grubbiest Longhorns shirt, and I feel about as sexy as Jabba the Hutt. If I’m going to get in to the mood, I need a moment.
Softly I say, “Not the usual . . . yet.”
“Interesting.” I can imagine his fierce smile as he says that. “So, what would you prefer as prelude?”
I notice that Jonah volunteers nothing. We aren’t going to discuss our personal lives or our emotions—that would violate our covenant to remain strangers to each other as much as possible. So I need a completely neutral topic. The first thing that springs to mind: “Tell me about Antarctica.”
“You want to talk about a place with no rain, little life, and temperatures down to a hundred degrees below zero. I wouldn’t have guessed that was your idea of foreplay.”
“I just meant—” I have to pause while I pull my T-shirt up over my head. “It’s somewhere I’ll probably never get to see.”
“You don’t have to apologize for being interested. I was teasing you.” Jonah pauses, and I realize he’s searching for words. “Antarctica is . . . brutal. But beautiful. Unlike anything else on earth.”
I lie back on my bed. I’m topless now, clad only in my panties; the sweat on my skin could have been earned a very different way. “By brutal you mean the cold, right?”
“The cold, and the katabatic winds—those are the ones that scour the ground, stripping away all the snow.”
“I thought Antarctica was covered in snow.”
“Some areas are. But a lot of the continent is desert. The most desolate place on earth.”
“So why do you call it beautiful?”
Jonah thinks for a few long moments before answering. “Weakness can’t survive there. People live with as few possessions as they can manage, on the very edge of survival. Even the air is clearer. The sunlight can be almost blinding. It’s the only place in the world with that kind of purity. That’s why I call it beautiful.”
For Jonah, savagery is beauty. I can believe that. “What else?” I ask.
“The aurora australis, I guess. That’s beautiful.”
I’ve heard of this. “Like the northern lights, but southern, right?”
“Right. They paint the sky green and gold, and the light surrounds you.”
I wouldn’t have thought of Jonah as someone who’d be enraptured by anything so poetic. Then again, maybe the aurora australis is truly exquisite. Even a man carved out of stone would be moved.
Though I know Jonah’s not made of stone. Until this moment, I hadn’t realized I knew that.
How much am I learning about him, as we go through this?
How much is he learning about me?
Then I feel uneasy once more—off-balance, unsure of anything. In the valley between tantalized and afraid. Which is just where I like to be, with Jonah.
“Maybe we should make plans,” I say. “For next time.”
If Jonah is surprised by my change of subject, he doesn’t show it. But when his answer comes it’s in a deep purr that’s almost a growl. “Anything you want. As long as it’s soon.”
“How soon?”
“As soon as I can have you.”
I suck in a deep breath. Already my nipples are hard, darkening even as I lie here on my bed, all but naked and alone.