Then he’s atop me again, the hardness of his erection pressing insistently against my belly as we kiss. I take his cock in my hand and guide it downward; Jonah closes his eyes in pleasure as he feels how wet I am.
“Now,” I whisper, and Jonah pushes all the way inside me with one long, slow thrust.
Yes. I arch my back, close my eyes. Now I can imagine anything I want.
“You feel so good,” he murmurs. “So fucking tight. I love feeling you wrapped around me.”
I ought to enjoy hearing him say that. On some level I do. But his praise only cuts into the fantasy I need.
As Jonah begins driving into me, I fill my mind with images of what we’ve done before. If—if maybe that first night at the hotel, when he threw me on the bed—if he hadn’t ended the scenario then. If he’d kept me there, calling me a whore and a slut, until he could fuck me again—
—it might have felt like this—
As I get close, my entire body tenses against his, and he feels it. Jonah starts thrusting harder. Answering me. I fill my mind with the memory of that hotel room, the savage way he took me, not so unlike the way he’s inside me now. I can’t think anymore, can’t see. I belong only to him, only ever to him.
The world goes white-hot as I clench around him. My orgasm hits me so hard I think for a moment I’ll pass out. I manage to stifle my cry of ecstasy against Jonah’s shoulder, and I hear him sigh with satisfaction.
“Vivienne,” he groans, and then he’s there with me. Pleasure shudders through Jonah’s body as he grips me closer, and there’s nothing better than this.
Or there shouldn’t be.
But I can’t forget that I still had to fantasize about rape to get myself all the way there.
“At last,” he murmurs as we lie together in the aftermath. Jonah spoons behind me, drowsily kissing my neck and shoulders. “I got to take my time enjoying you. Now I get to sleep beside you.”
“I should warn you—sometimes I talk in my sleep.”
Jonah chuckles, the vibration of his laugh resonating against my back. “What do you say?”
“Nothing intelligible, apparently. Just mumbling.”
“Doesn’t matter. I could sleep through a tornado.”
“My perfect guy,” I say. I mean it as a joke—thinking of how Geordie used to grumble about my waking him up in the middle of the night. But once I’ve said the words, I realize how true they might be.
Some men would hear that and instantly panic. Jonah simply kisses the nape of my neck and holds me tighter.
I should be so happy right now. And I am—in so many ways—but the dark weight of doubt lingers deep inside. Whatever else my sexual relationship has been with Jonah, it has been completely, utterly, honest.
Tonight, for the first time, I hid the truth from him. When I indulged in that fantasy without him—in a way, I lied.
But the only thing worse than lying to Jonah would be telling him the truth.
? ? ?
The rest of our time in Scotland is as beautiful and unearthly as the beginning. Jonah spends most of his days out on the water, getting readings about the nearby ocean floor that I would need at least a master’s in seismology to understand. Meanwhile, I hike along the coastline, almost never seeing another human being save for the driver of the occasional truck that rumbles by on this lone, deserted road. Sometimes I run into sheep. Here, a flock is as close as you get to a crowd.
This landscape is both beautiful and strange. Not a single tree grows as far as I can see. The ground only lies level right next to the water; otherwise, the land bows and buckles into countless rocky hills. Although low clouds cover most of the sky, it only rains on me once, and then when I’m close enough to the B&B to make a dash for it.
Each day, I fill my sketchbook with more drawings. Sometimes I try to portray everything as far as my eye can see. Mostly, though, I concentrate on smaller details—the delicate, fading heather next to weather-worn stones, or the slim dark shapes of otters just beneath the water.
Each evening, Jonah returns to me, and we eat and talk in the small, darkened dining room of the B&B. He never opens up about his childhood, or really about anything else truly intimate—but even the simpler conversations we have about books we like or places we’ve been carry their own weight. Jonah isn’t someone who reveals himself easily, I realize. These smaller confidences aren’t his version of small talk; this is how he builds a bridge. Slowly, gradually, stone by stone.
Besides, I can’t be impatient with him for holding back when I’m doing it too.
Every night, we make love. Jonah’s caresses only become more tender, more fervent. I treasure every kiss, revel in the way we learn to move together. Finally I get to see his entire perfect body and worship it with my hands and tongue.
But there always comes a point where I have to imagine the rape.
It’s easier to pretend he’s forcing me when he fucks me from behind, so I ask for that a lot. Jonah seems to love it. Even when he’s on top of me, though, I can close my eyes and lose myself in yet another fantasy.