My shoulder blades ground against the wall at the force of him. His name whispered out of my mouth, and then screamed from my throat as he drove into me again and again, until I came to the edge and plummeted over. My body shuddered and clenched around him. He let out his own masculine sounds of climax, deep in his chest and god, if that wasn’t the hottest sound I’d ever heard in my life.
Jonah’s grinding hips slowed. He released my legs, letting my feet find the floor, but his body still held mine to the wall, his hands closed around my wrists. Within the hard grip, his mouth turned gentle, soothing the burn of his stubble and the bite of his earlier kisses from my skin. Carnal need and tender care. Desired and cherished.
Loved.
Jonah makes love to me, I thought, kissing him back, my fingers soft on his skin where they’d scratched him. No matter how hard or rough we are, he’s still making love to me.
“You make me feel so good, Jonah,” I whispered. “Better than good. Like I can start all over again.”
“Kacey.” He held my face in his hands, his dark eyes intent on me. “You make me feel alive.”
He kissed me again, slow and soft, while I burned with hope, sure there weren’t thousands of moments left to us, but millions.
Millions.
“Have you ever been to a beach?” I asked Jonah. “Not a lakeshore, but a real ocean?”
We lay around in bed on a Tuesday night—typically our date night but we’d opted to stay in and fool around.
“Sure. Why?”
“I miss it. Growing up, the beach was such a part of my daily life. I used to ditch school in the mornings, and my best friend and I would go to one of the coffee houses along the boardwalk in Pacific Beach, or a breakfast place that had surfboards hanging from the walls. We’d hang out at the beach until after lunch, then go back to school so we wouldn’t miss last attendance. Sometimes it got us out of a trip to the Assistant Principal’s office. Most times it didn’t, but it was always worth it.”
Jonah brushed his hand over my cheek. “You’re pretty fair for a beach lover.”
“Big hats and SPF 1000,” I said. “And I preferred swimming or body-surfing in that big ocean. Big and endless. If you think the stars were spectacular at Great Basin, wait until you see a moonrise over the Pacific.”
He nuzzled my ear. “Sounds like you’re planning a trip.”
“I really want to take you to San Diego. Walk on the beach and hang out at all the cool spots I used to love.”
“And see your parents?”
I shuddered. “No. God, no. It would just be awkward and uncomfortable…”
“I can handle awkward and uncomfortable. If you want to see them, you should.”
“I don’t. I want to be with you, at the places I used to love best.” I lifted my head to look at him. “Can you? Two days. Flights are pretty cheap and I still have some Rapid Confession money—”
“You should save it. Don’t spend it on me.”
“I want to spend it on us. But if you can’t spare the time from the hot shop I understand.”
“I can.”
I caressed his face. “Really?”
“If it’s important to you, I can.”
I let out a little cry of excitement and kissed him. “Let’s go next Monday and Tuesday. So we don’t take time from your parents. Of course, Theo will have a cow…”
Jonah laughed. “He might, but how beautifully happy you look right now is more than worth it.”
Theo’s flight safety demonstration lasted half an hour. From what to do if the cabin pressure in the airplane dropped, to making sure we brought all of Jonah’s meds and stored them properly so they wouldn’t get confiscated by the TSA. And of course, where the nearest hospital was to our hotel. But I never took Theo’s concern for Jonah for granted. I patted his cheek and told him I’d take good care of his brother.
I’d booked us into a place with the most San Diego name ever: the Surfer Beach Hotel on Pacific Drive. Its proximity to the beach made it a little pricey for my budget, but I wanted us to be able to walk along the ocean at night, in the morning, or any time the urge struck us. The price was worth it.
At the airport rent-a-car, Jonah led me to a black Ford Mustang convertible.
“You didn’t think this entire trip was on you, did you?” he asked, holding the door open. “I’ve got savings. Between the two of us, we can make these two days pretty damn awesome.”
We put the top down, cranked the music up, and Jonah gunned the engine with a whoop of laughter. Singing loud, we cruised along a post-morning commute stretch of freeway and arrived at the hotel around ten. We had the entire day ahead of us.
“What do you want to do first?” I asked, tying on the top of my black bikini.
“What do you want to do second?” he replied, throwing me down on the bed.
“Yes,” I whispered, as he trailed kisses down my neck, his hands working the knot on the back of my bathing suit. “This first.”
It was after eleven when we made it out to the beach.
We set up near the shore, and I kicked off my flip flops to bury my feet in the hot, soft sand.
“You smell that?” I asked, inhaling deeply.
“Seaweed?” Jonah asked, eyeing a clump that had washed ashore and was buzzing with sandflies.