At the Heart of It

by Tawna Fenske

  Kate had a hard time breathing. How did he know what to say? That he was homing in on the things that made her proudest. The things she liked most about herself instead of the things she wanted desperately to change.

  She swallowed hard, not sure if she wanted to hug him or kiss him. Neither seemed like a good idea in a swingers club, so she was grateful when he kept talking.

  “Number four: you’re kind,” he said. “I watched you make up a plate of food for that camera guy who hadn’t gotten a break all day. I watched how you interacted with Sam and Elena. How that guy from the network kept trying to get her to cry, but you called for a break in filming. I get it, you guys need the tears for the show—but you know these are human beings you’re working with. You’re not willing to crush someone’s spirit for the sake of ratings.”

  Kate swallowed hard, feeling a pinprick of tears behind her eyes. No one had ever talked to her like this. Not even Anton, when they’d done the Five Things exercise themselves. He’d fired off single-word descriptors like he was choosing them at random from a thesaurus, while Kate had stood there with her own two-page list gripped in a trembling fist.

  “Jonah—” she said, wanting to thank him. Wanting to stop him. Wanting something else she knew she shouldn’t want but still desperately, urgently did.

  He grinned. “Okay, it’s your turn.” He picked up his beer and took a gulp before setting it back on the bar. “And yes, I know that was only four. You have to do me before I tell you the fifth.”

  Kate’s brain short-circuited a little on do me, but she took a deep breath and picked up her beer. She took a cold swallow, trying to smooth down the lump that had formed in the back of her throat. She looked around the room, trying to get her bearings. Trying not to notice the couple in the corner, the woman whose naked back arched with desire as the man slid his palms up her thighs and beneath her leather skirt.

  Kate shifted on her seat, undone by a heady mixture of desire and affection and the sense that this was probably not the setting Jonah and Viv envisioned when they’d written the Five Things exercise.

  She licked her lips and set down the beer. “It feels like I’m just repeating what you said, but I really do admire your intelligence,” she said. “Not just your geeky trivia about theater plays and books and owls, but the more understated stuff. The way you don’t just guzzle beer, you study it. The way you learn the subtle nuances and what makes it all come together. I admire that.”

  Jonah smiled and spun his beer around on the counter. A pair of lacy black panties hurtled through the air and landed on the bar next to him, but he never broke eye contact. “Thank you.”

  “You’re selfless,” Kate continued. “I know you don’t parade around shirtless because you want to show off your hot bod, though you obviously have one.” Kate hesitated there, watching his eyes flicker. Watching his response. She held her breath, hoping she hadn’t crossed some line. “You know it’ll help find homes for the animals at your sister’s shelter. Hell, you created a cat sanctuary in your bookstore, even though you flat-out admitted you’re not a cat person.”

  “I might be becoming one,” he admitted. “Marilyn’s been persuading me.”

  “And that’s another thing I admire,” she said. “You’re not afraid to change your mind. You don’t dig in your heels and insist the thing you’ve always believed is the only way it can be. You let your heart be open to a cat when the right one came along. You listened to me tell you all the reasons you should do the show, even though you’d already decided not to do it. You allow yourself to be persuaded.”

  Jonah took a swallow of beer, then set down the glass. He held her gaze for several long seconds, not saying a word. Kate held her breath.

  “Maybe I just wanted to sleep with you,” he said slowly. “Did you consider that?”

  Kate felt dizzy. She was still holding her breath, and her pulse throbbed in her head. The air was electric. Music throbbed and laughter trickled and sighs of pleasure drifted from somewhere far away, but all of it was background noise behind the echo of Jonah’s words in her head. She took a slow breath, wanting to savor these last few seconds before she said something with the power to change everything.

  “Do you?” she murmured.

  “Want to sleep with you?” Jonah nodded once. “Most urgently.”

  Kate licked her lips. “But we—can’t.”

  He said nothing. Just held her eyes with his, not blinking at all. In the dim lights of the bar, his amber-green eyes looked molten. Kate watched him, marveling at the stillness.

  Nothing in her was still at all. Every nerve was firing at once. Her skin prickled with energy, and the damp heat behind her knee made her crossed legs slip apart.

  The ball was in her court. She knew that. And she knew she wanted to grab it with both hands and run as fast as her shaky legs would carry her.

  “Let’s go,” she whispered, then slipped off her barstool and headed for the door.

  Jonah drove faster than he’d ever driven in his life, worried Kate might change her mind. Worried he might.

  But as she pulled him out of the elevator and practically dragged him down the hall to her hotel room, it occurred to him she might want this as desperately as he did.

  “For the love of all that’s holy, not now! Motherfucker!” Kate was jamming her card key into the lock with such force that Jonah considered the safety of his own appendages.

  But a little risk seemed worthwhile at this point.

  “Let me,” he said, and gently pried the card from her hand. He had the door open in two seconds, and then she was clawing at his shirt. Clothes went flying—shoes, belts, a bra Jonah hardly had time to appreciate before it was sailing across the room to land on the television.

  But the view of Kate standing naked in front of him was worthy of much more appreciation.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said as he reached for her.

  She gave a nervous little laugh and slid her fingertips over his pecs. “So are you. It’s no wonder women line up to watch you walk dogs down the street.”

  “You’re the only woman I want watching me right now.”

  God, that sounded cheesy. But she smiled anyway, and the heat in her eyes was enough to make him forget he was hopelessly out of practice at this. At taking his clothes off in the presence of another person and giving everything he had to mutual pleasure instead of standing like some motionless statue to be admired.

  Somehow they made it to the bed, kicking aside covers and pillows as they fell into each other. He couldn’t get enough of her, touching arms and hips and belly and breasts and a few body parts whose names he couldn’t recall in his lust-addled state.

  “Condom,” Kate panted as she let go of him and fumbled open a red plastic trunk the size of a small cooler. It was filled to the brim with foil packets, and Jonah felt alarmed again.

  “How long are we planning to be here?”

  Kate laughed and tore open a wrapper. “They’re for the show. It’s in the rider for all relationship-driven reality shows to have condoms on set at all times. I doubt they’ll miss one or two.”

  “So it’s product-testing, then.” Jonah groaned as she slid the condom on, then rolled Kate onto her back. “Research.”

  “Unexpected job perks.” Kate gasped as he slid inside her, and Jonah watched her fingers twist into the sheet. Then she let go and ran her hands up his back, holding on tight as he moved in and out of her.

  The pressure built faster than he wanted, and he fought to keep his head in the game.

  “Sex is the most natural expression of our humanness,” Viv coached in his brain. “When two people join together as—”

  “Shut up,” Jonah growled.

  “Sorry.”

  “No! Not you. I swear, I just—”

  “I know,” she murmured, smiling up at him.

  And he thought maybe she did.

  He moved again, and Kate arched tight against him, gasping with pleasure. He wondered if sh
e really did know, if the voices in his head and the voices in hers were sometimes whispering the same words, hinting at the same old ghosts.

  “Jonah, I’m—oh, God—”

  He felt her break open beneath him, clenching and clawing and making the sweetest, most joyful cries he’d ever heard in his life. That’s all it took to undo him. He let go with a soft groan of his own, driving into her again and again until they both lay breathless in a shocked and sweaty pile of wonder.

  When he finally rolled away, he pulled her with him. They lay facing each other for a few moments, breathing fast, with Kate’s eyes closed and her lashes fanned out on her cheeks.

  “That was unbelievable,” he said.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she laughed softly as she reached up to brush hair from his eyes.

  “I can’t say this is how I expected to end my day.”

  “Me neither. But I’m glad it happened.”

  “So am I.”

  Neither of them said anything for a long while. They lay there wrapped in each other’s arms, legs twisted together and the sheets kicked somewhere near the foot of the bed. She shivered once, and Jonah reached down to pull the covers up. He arranged them over the top of their bodies, then pulled her close, nestling her snug against his chest. They were still facing each other, but so close you could barely slide a bookmark between their bodies.

  “Kate.” He planted a kiss along her hairline, then another on her earlobe. “No matter what happens, this was never a mistake. Things like this don’t happen by accident.”

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him. There was something wary in them, something startled. She started to pull back, but he held her against him.

  “I didn’t mean that to sound ominous,” he continued. “I just meant—shit, that came out wrong.”

  “No, I get it,” she whispered. “I think I know what you mean.”

  Jonah tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and breathed in the grassy scent of her shampoo. “This might make things complicated,” he said. “Or maybe not. But no matter what, I don’t regret it. We were pulled into each other’s orbit for a reason.”

  She stared at him for a few moments, then nodded. “I agree.”

  Jonah stroked her hair again, needing to touch her. He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her more gently than he had before. The urgency had ebbed, leaving them here in this big white bed wrapped in a feather duvet. They were just two people craving each other’s touch, exploring each other’s bodies, warming each other’s souls.

  As Kate slid her palm over his shoulder blade, Jonah could almost pretend it was as simple as that.

  Kate slipped into the bathroom sometime around five the next morning. She’d always been an early riser, and having Jonah spend the night in her bed had left her too flustered to sleep well. She kept opening her eyes to look at him, hardly believing this was real.

  “No matter what, I don’t regret it. We were pulled into each other’s orbit for a reason.”

  Okay, so he’d quoted his ex-wife in bed. Not a verbatim quote, exactly, but the part about being pulled into each other’s orbit was something Viv had used in But Not Broken.

  It was possible he didn’t even know. It’s not like Viv had trademarked the expression, and it wasn’t such a unique turn of phrase that no one else could have said it. Kate probably wouldn’t have picked up on it at all if she hadn’t read Viv’s books a million times.

  She stepped under the shower spray, trying to rinse the anxious thoughts from her head. They had a busy day of filming ahead of them, and so much to do.

  Get footage of Sam and Elena walking in the park together.

  Film Sam at his office for clips to demonstrate job stress.

  Grab B-roll around downtown Seattle to lay groundwork for the second couple.

  Try not to look like you just slept with Jonah Porter.

  Kate was smiling before she knew it. She ordered herself to knock it off. This was serious business, after all. She could be jeopardizing her working relationship with Viv, her future on the show. Her whole career, dammit.

  But still, she was glad it had happened. Grateful she’d had a chance to be with Jonah like that, no matter what came next.

  She finished rinsing the conditioner from her hair and stepped out of the shower. Grabbing the lone towel off the rack, she dried herself off and wrapped up in one of the plush hotel robes. The towel rack was empty, so she padded back into the room and phoned the front desk with a whispered request for more towels.

  “Hey there.”

  His gravelly greeting made her turn, then smile at the sight of his tousled hair and his bare chest peeking over the edge of the sheet. “Hi.”

  He smiled back and watched her with sleepy eyes at half-mast. “You’re up early.”

  Kate padded back to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. Leaning down, she nuzzled the side of his neck, planting a soft patch of kisses just behind his ear.

  “Mmm, that’s nice,” he murmured.

  She sat up again, making her robe gape open in front. She started to reach for it, but Jonah caught her hand. “You’re so beautiful. I love looking at you.”

  She smiled. “I should get dressed.”

  Part of her didn’t want to, but she knew she couldn’t linger here all day. Jonah sat up and scrubbed his hands over his eyes. “I take it you’re an early riser?”

  Kate nodded and stood up, cinching the belt on the robe. “It’s my secret to getting so much done in a day.”

  Jonah groaned and flopped back on the bed. “I’m the opposite of an early riser,” he said. “A lazy ass?”

  “You’re not lazy,” she said with a little more vehemence than she’d aimed for. But she remembered their conversation about dyslexics feeling lazy or stupid, and it seemed important that he know she didn’t believe that. “You’re one of the hardest-working guys I know. Your body clock is just different from mine.”

  He reached up and brushed hair off her forehead. “I never told you the fifth thing, did I?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Nope.”

  “It was a toss-up, actually.”

  “Between?”

  “Your willingness to look for the best in all people, or your stellar ass.”

  Kate laughed and began shuffling through the closet. She stopped at a navy pencil skirt she’d always thought flattered the latter feature. “Which were you leaning toward?”

  “Ass,” he admitted. “Might as well stick with Average Joe mode. But I appreciate the other stuff, too.”

  Kate selected a V-neck top that dipped just a tiny bit lower than she normally chose for work. She felt sexy this morning, her skin humming with delicious energy.

  She set the clothes on the dresser, pulled out a bra and panties, and began to get dressed. “You know, I only gave you three,” she said. “Last night at the club? I only told you three of the five things I appreciate most about you.”

  “Intelligence, selflessness, and an openness to changing my mind,” Jonah recited. “Were there really two more, or did you just sleep with me so you wouldn’t have to come up with the rest?”

  She laughed and fastened an earring on her left lobe. “Guilty as charged.” Slipping the other earring into place, she sat down on the edge of the bed again. “Actually, that’s not true at all. You want the other two?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Loyalty,” she said. “And your sense of humor.”

  “Why those?”

  Kate pulled off her towel turban and began to rub her hair dry. “Well, sense of humor because it’s hands down the sexiest trait a guy can have,” she said. “And because you’ve been making me laugh from the first day we met. Since before we met, actually. Your parts in On the Other Hand were hilarious. There were so many things in that book that made me want to cry the first time I read it, but then I’d flip to one of your sidebars, and suddenly I’d be smiling again.”

  Jonah reached up to catch her hand in his. He planted a kiss
over the top of her knuckles before releasing it. “Why loyalty?”

  “Because you’re always looking out for other people,” she said. “You came to my aid last night at the swingers club. You made sure Viv was really okay with you being part of the show before you agreed to do it. And you look out for others—the animals at your sister’s shelter, your sister herself.”

  Something flashed in his eyes. A darkness Kate couldn’t quite place. Then it was gone, and she wondered if she’d imagined it.

  “I think you’d like my sister,” he said.

  The words startled her a little, the implication that she might actually meet his family. She knew that would never be possible, but—

  “Speaking of my sister, Viv brought up a pretty decent idea yesterday.”

  Kate went back to toweling her hair, ignoring the twinge in her gut. So what if he brought up his ex-wife while they both sat on the same bed they’d made love in the night before? Modern relationships were complicated, and this wasn’t even a relationship. It was only sex, wasn’t it?

  Jonah must have seen something in her expression, because he reached up and touched the side of her face. “Hey. I know this is weird. Dating’s hard for anyone post-divorce, but when you throw in the high-profile nature of my previous marriage—”

  “And the fact that your ex-wife is my longtime idol?”

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “It makes things a little more raw.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Like you said, nothing’s ever a mistake. Sometimes it just feels weird, that’s all.” Kate tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “What were you saying about your sister?”

  “Oh, right. You know how the network folks have been after me to shoot a bunch of footage with my shirt off?”

  Kate grimaced. “For the record, that wasn’t my idea.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’m actually okay with it, and I thought maybe we could tie it to Clearwater Animal Shelter. You know, explain why I do the whole shirtless dog-walking thing, maybe shoot a little promotional footage that draws attention to the shelter.”