by Lauren Rowe
She smiles but doesn’t speak, as if she expects me to continue.
“The End,” I say again. I put up my hands like I’m saying ta-da. “Jazz hands.”
She laughs.
Sunlight streams through the window and illuminates Sarah’s face. She looks beautiful—sleepy, but beautiful. I glance out the window at The Strip below us and sigh. I hate this hellish place. I miss Seattle. I miss the rain. I miss my crisp white sheets and my home gym and my espresso machine. I want to go home and start building Climb and Conquer into the vision I’ve got in my head. And most of all, more than anything else, I want to start my life with Sarah.
“The dawn of a new day,” she says, following my gaze out the window. “Darkness, be gone.” She crawls across the bed and drapes her body around mine. “I know how you love your metaphors, baby, so let this beautiful dawn inspire you. Let there be light in your life from this day forward, filling the nooks and crannies you’ve previously kept shrouded in darkness.”
She’s speaking my language. “You’re a poet,” I say.
“Only with you.”
“How are you not fazed by everything I’ve told you?”
She shrugs. “I dunno.”
“But seriously,” I say, blood rushing into my face. “If there’s something you want to say to me—something you’re thinking, anything at all—just say it now. Please. Rip off the Band-Aid. I can take it.”
She shakes her head. “Oh, Jonas, come on. It was thirteen years ago. Give yourself a frickin’ break already—and give me some credit.”
“You’re not worried I might be a total lunatic?”
“I already know you’re a total lunatic.”
I wait for her to smile, but she doesn’t.
“Jonas, I’ve known from minute one, from the second I read your application, that you’re a wee bit crazy. Duh. But I like your crazy, baby. It makes you sexy.”
I’m utterly speechless.
“What happened back then doesn’t define you. Has it shaped you? Yes, of course. But that’s all. You’re my sweet Jonas, no matter what happened then. You’re the Jonas who spoke in front of my contracts class—brilliant and charming and intelligent and charismatic. You’re the Jonas who caught me after I leaped off a thirty-foot waterfall. You’re the Jonas who looked shy and sweet and awkward as he tied a friendship bracelet around my wrist. The guy who sent me Oreos to welcome me into the Jonas Faraday Club. The divine original form of man-ness who makes me come every single time you touch me, baby, even in my dreams.”
That last one makes my cock tingle.
She kisses me. “Baby, you’re the Jonas who unleashed Orgasma the All-Powerful.” She nips at my lips and straddles my lap. “You’re the man who saved my life—who gave me everything I needed to save myself and then literally stopped my bleeding with his bare hands.” She skims her lips on mine. “And you’re the man who’s gonna kick some bad-guy ass with me.” She licks at my lips. “You’d have to strangle a kitten or kick a girl scout in the teeth for me to run away from that guy.”
My smile stretches so big across my face, I can’t even kiss her.
“It was thirteen frickin’ years ago, love. Time to give it a rest. No más. De hoy en adelante, renaces.”
Damn. My Spanish is pretty good, but not perfect. I got most of that, I think, but I’m not positive.
“No more,” she translates, reading my mind. “From today forward, you are reborn.” She grinds herself into my hard-on. “Renaces—you are reborn. Renazco—I am reborn.” She kisses my neck.
I shiver. I love it when Sarah speaks Spanish to me, especially when she says something badass like that. “Renazco,” I repeat after her.
She kisses my cheek. “No más. De hoy en adelante, renazco.”
“No más. De hoy en adelante, renazco,” I repeat—but when I say it, it sounds clunky compared to the beautiful way Sarah says it.
“That’s right. Exactly right. You’re reborn, baby. From this day forward.”
I pull at her tank top and she rips it off, followed quickly by her pajama bottoms. I follow her lead, kicking off my boxers, and then I climb on top of her, my heart racing.
She holds my face in her hands. “There are no more dark spaces between us, Jonas, no more secrets. Can you feel the difference?”
I nod. I can. Oh God, I want to be inside her.
She kisses me. “This is how it feels to trust someone completely. Do you understand?”
I nod because, yes, I understand what she’s saying. But if it were up to me, I’d have phrased it slightly differently: This is how it feels to be loved by someone completely.
Before now, I didn’t know how to let Sarah love me, not completely. Before this very moment, I didn’t understand how much I’d been holding back and pushing her away. I knew how to love her—God knows I’ve loved this woman with all my heart and soul since she leaped off that waterfall into my arms, and maybe even before then—but, as much as I’ve loved her, I haven’t been willing to leap off a waterfall and let her love me back. Until now.
I reach between her legs, eager to touch the part of her that’s only for me, and when I feel how wet she is, oh my God, I practically leap out of my skin. I bring my finger up to my mouth to sneak a taste of her deliciousness. There’s no sweeter flavor in the world than my baby’s wetness and no sweeter moment than right now.
I kiss her mouth and massage her clit with my fingertip, my cock throbbing at the slippery texture of her, the slickness, the delicious hardness, and she shudders and bucks. My hard-on strains mercilessly for her, but I force myself to take my time. We’ve got all the time in the world, after all—I’m not going anywhere, and neither is she.
I reach deep inside her and massage her G-spot, and she jolts.
“My precious baby,” I whisper, touching that magic spot again, and she moans. She’s my Stradivarius—and there’s no greater pleasure in the world than making her strings quiver. My fingers find her clit again, and she writhes. I can’t wait anymore. I slip inside her, all the way, groaning loudly, and she lets out a long, quavering sigh in return.
This is a new feeling for me, a new holy grail—making love to the woman I love with no secrets, no dark places, and no doubt. Standing on top of Mount Everest itself couldn’t possibly feel this good. She loves me. All of me. Even the fucked up parts.
She gyrates her hips in rhythm with mine and wraps her legs around my back.
“The culmination of human possibility,” I groan, my body thrusting in and out of hers.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Jonas.”
She loves me. She enlightens me. She graces me. She redeems me.
A wave of pleasure rises up inside me, threatening to push me over the edge.
“Get on top,” I say suddenly. “I need to look at you.”
We maneuver until she’s riding me, licking her lips, touching herself. I sit back and enjoy the view of her breasts softly bouncing, the curve of her hips, the fall of her hair around her shoulders. I love watching her control how deep, how fast, what angle. It turns me on like a motherfucker when she leans forward and rubs my hard cock against her clit or positions herself so that my tip touches some precise spot deep inside her. It’s glorious to witness how well she’s learned herself by now, how beautifully she knows exactly what to do to get herself off. What a transformation since day one. Jesus.
I grab her ass and let my palms go along for the magnificent ride. “I love this ass,” I groan, clutching her. My fingers migrate greedily to explore every crevice of her and she shudders.
I run my hands up her smooth back and around to her breasts and then let my thumb glide over her angry scar. It’s healing quickly. I peek down at her tiny tattoo, her secret proclamation of badassery, and shiver. Holy fuck, I love her. Sheer joy washes over me, palpably, like I’ve been doused with it from a bucket over my head. I’m going to marry this girl, I think. I know this as surely as I know my own name. I’m going to marry this gorgeous girl and make her my
wife.
I can’t hold on much longer. I’m right on the edge.
“Jonas,” she breathes, trying to catch her breath. “Oh, oh, oh.”
“Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods,” I whisper, my voice halting and straining, and she throws her head back.
She makes The Sound. It means I’m about to be the lucky, lucky boy who’s going to feel her orgasm from the inside out if I can just hang on a tiny bit longer.
I touch her clit with supreme devotion and she gasps.
“You’re gorgeous, baby,” I say, stroking her, luring her, doing my damnedest to push her over the edge. Oh fuck, I crave her release as badly as she does. “You’re Orgasma the fucking All-Powerful, baby,” I say, trembling, and her entire body quivers. “You’re the goddess and the muse, Sarah Cruz.” I buck wildly underneath her, trying to hang on. And I’m going to marry you.
Chapter 34
Sarah
Fifteen minutes ago, Henn texted an “all hands on desk” message to everyone. “I hit the motherlode!” Henn wrote. And the whole group, except for Jonas, quickly congregated in our suite to hear Henn’s news.
“Will Jonas be joining us?” Henn asks. “Should we wait for him?”
“No, don’t wait. He went to the gym first thing this morning,” I say. “I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
Jonas practically leaped out of bed this morning after our marathon conversation and delicious lovemaking session, saying he wanted to “hit the gym and then run an errand”—but he wouldn’t tell me anything more than that.
“You’re not going to do something stupid, are you, Jonas?” I asked, looking at him sideways, my heart suddenly pounding in my ears.
“Of course not,” he said, his face the picture of pure innocence.
“Seriously, Jonas. You need to tell me—you’re not going to hunt down Max, are you?”
He pulled me to him. “No, although the idea of killing that fucker gives me a hard-on. I’ve got my eye on the prize, baby. Don’t worry.” He grabbed my ass and nibbled my neck. “Just running an errand.”
But I wasn’t convinced.
He cupped my face in his hands. “I won’t go off plan.”
“You promise?” I asked.
“I promise.”
I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Jonas never, ever falsely promises anything.
He kissed me, making my entire body melt into his. “I’ll tell you about the errand when I get back. See you in a couple hours, My Magnificent Sarah.” He practically skipped out the front door.
And now, Kat, Josh and I are huddled on the leather couches in the living area of the suite, staring with nervous anticipation at Henn, who looks like his eyes might pop out of his head with excitement.
Henn lets out an excited breath. “Okay.” He pauses for effect. “Are you sitting down?” It’s a rhetorical question—we’re all sitting down right in front of him.
We hold our collective breath.
“I found ‘em—and I got in.”
I gasp.
“Oh my God,” Kat says.
“You’re a fucking genius,” Josh adds.
“I am a fucking genius,” Henn says. “I’ve got the keys to their whole fucking kingdom—member lists, passwords, emails, code. I’m in.”
We all express noisy excitement.
Just when Henn is about to tell us something further that’s going to “melt our faces off,” as he puts it, Jonas bursts into the suite in his workout clothes and a sweatshirt, his hair matted with sweat. “Hey, guys. I just got your text, Henn. Please tell me you did it.”
“I did it.”
Jonas bounds across the room, bro-hugs Henn, high-fives Josh and Kat, and then swoops me up into a celebratory hug.
“Did you get your errand done?”
He smiles broadly and nods. “I’ll show you later.”
Show me?
“What’d I miss?” Jonas asks.
“Nothing yet. Perfect timing,” I say. “Henn was just about to tell us something that’s going to ‘melt our faces off.’”
“The money?” Jonas asks. “Please tell us you cracked the money.”
“I cracked the money.”
“Oh my God, Henn,” Kat says. “You’re a fucking genius.” She flashes Henn a huge smile and he beams at her.
“I’ve tracked down twelve different bank accounts in five different banks,” Henn begins. He pauses for dramatic effect. “Jonas, you’re gonna want to sit down for this next part.”
Jonas sits next to me and puts his hand on my thigh.
“Twelve different bank accounts and they’ve got cash—I’m talkin’ cash just sitting in the bank—totaling, oh, about five hundred fifty-four million dollars.”
The collective reaction of the group blows the roof off the suite.
I put my face in my hands. I can’t wrap my head around this.
“And I’ve got all their account numbers and passwords,” Henn says, smirking. “For several of the larger accounts, transfers are set up for in-person banking only—and most banks require a signature to make transfers over a million, anyway—so I don’t think we should get our sights set on grabbing the actual money. We’ll just plan on handing over all the account numbers and passwords.”
I look over at Jonas. He’s deep in thought. “Can you get me printouts showing all the accounts and the balances in each?”
“Sure thing,” Henn says. “I can do anything.”
“This is unbelievable,” Josh says. He looks at Kat, incredulous, and she returns his amazement.
“What about the member list?” I ask.
“Oh, well, that’s the second piece of big news,” Henn says. “That’s the part that’s gonna blow your minds.”
“Five hundred fifty-four million bucks isn’t mind blowing?” I ask.
“Nope.” He pauses yet again, a master storyteller. “I’ve confirmed, with documentary proof, no doubt about it, you can stake your life on it, the member list includes seven U.S. congressmen, two state governors, a Canadian mayor, and . . .” He pauses like he’s waiting on a drumroll. “The fucking Secretary of Defense.”
Everyone expresses simultaneous shock.
“The dude in charge of the entire U.S. Department of Defense—like, the guy who runs the entire fucking military.”
“And sits on the President’s cabinet,” Jonas adds, his face pale.
Intense panic overtakes me. I feel my heart skip a beat.
Jonas rubs his face. “Shit,” he mutters softly.
“Shit is right. Holy fucking shit,” Josh says.
We’re all silent for a moment, processing this new bit of information.
My heart is quite literally palpitating. “This is gonna be a huge scandal,” I say. I know that’s obvious and I sound like a simpleton right now, but it’s all I can muster.
Henn nods furiously. “Insanity, right? The Secretary of Defense pays money to a sex club that supplies money and weapons to aid Russian imperialism.” He snorts. “Oopsies.”
“Not great for the guy’s future prospects in politics,” Josh adds.
“Not something he’d want to get out,” Jonas says darkly.
Holy Baby Jesus in a manger. We’re about to unleash a scandal onto the world of epic proportions—information that will surely rock the highest levels of government, all the way to the White House itself. I have no interest in toppling the Secretary of Defense—not to mention various congressmen and governors—or, hell, athletes and CEOs and everyday software engineers, either. And I certainly have zero interest in splattering incidental mud onto the President of the United States. Holy hell.
“When this gets out about the Secretary of Defense, I wonder if it’s gonna cause a problem for the President?” Kat asks, reading my mind.
“Of course. The Secretary of Defense sits on the President’s cabinet,” Josh says. “He’s in the inner circle. A guy like that being involved in a large-scale prostitution ring is sc
andalous all by itself—the press is gonna have a holier-than-thou field day with that little nugget—but add the fact that the guy’s been indirectly funding the Ukrainian separatists, and that’s the kind of shit that explodes like a political grenade on anyone within spitting distance of the guy—including the President.”
“I’m freaking out,” I mumble. I look at Jonas and Josh. “What about you two? How bad is this gonna be for you when all of this comes out?”
Jonas and Josh look at each other. “I don’t know,” Josh answers. He shrugs. “It won’t be a shining moment for either of us, I’m sure.”
I look down, suddenly nauseated. Josh might suffer minor embarrassment, but Jonas is the one who’ll take the lion’s share of the heat. Josh joined The Club for a month, after all, while Jonas paid two hundred fifty thousand bucks for a full year’s gluttonous membership. Will this scandal obliterate Jonas’ reputation in the business community? Will it affect his ability to build Climb and Conquer into the global brand he envisions?
And what about me? In two years, when I graduate from school and the Washington bar processes my application for a law license, will I be able to pass the ethics review? Will they believe me when I swear I didn’t know the true nature of my employer?
Jonas squeezes my hand. “We’ll just have to figure this out one day at a time. Maybe we can come up with a solution where none of this gets out.”
I’m doubtful about that. “How?”
“Leave that part to me and Josh,” Jonas says. He looks at his brother for confirmation.
Josh nods decisively, but the look in Josh’s eyes doesn’t instill confidence.
After a lengthy discussion during which everyone in the room basically shits a brick and says this is way too big for us to handle on our own and oh my God how did we get here and what the fuck are we going to do, we finally decide on an immediate strategy: I’ll finish my report today with as much supporting evidence as we can put together in such a short amount of time, including printouts showing the balances in The Club’s many bank accounts, Josh and Jonas will put their heads together about our strategy for submitting my report to the proper authorities, and then first thing tomorrow morning, we’ll all traipse down to the Las Vegas branch of the FBI and do our best to convince whoever the heck is in charge over there to arrange a meeting with his or her boss in Washington, D.C. What else can we do? This is too big for us to sit on any longer than absolutely necessary and way too big for us to handle without backup from some pretty big guns. Not to mention, we’re all paranoid The Club might transfer some or all of their funds out of our reach at any moment.