A Matter of Truth (Fate Series 3)
Page 30
The Dwarven representative grunts, but in the end, it’s decided.
Annar will open its arms wide to its lost children.
“Think I should call him? See if he’s okay?”
Jonah looks up from the sauce he’s stirring on the stove. Watching him cook us dinner is incredibly sexy. “I know you mean well, but you heard what Will said. He needs to do this on his own.”
I lean against the smooth granite countertop next to the stove. At first, I’d been really hesitant to come over to Kellan and Jonah’s shared apartment, since I’d only ever been here before with just Kellan, but I couldn’t avoid it forever. So here I am, ogling Jonah as he cooks, choosing to focus all of my fretting on Will rather than Kellan for once.
Who am I kidding. Of course I’m concerned about Kellan, too. Jonah knows I’m worrying, too—so he’s tried his best to be transparent, as best he can and with Kellan’s permission, about assuring me that his brother is fine.
I miss him, though. I’m wildly, happily, fantastically in love with Jonah right now and I’m thrilled with how things are going with us and yet . . . Kellan’s absence cuts me like a knife.
I guess something never changes.
“At least I’m not the only one he didn’t allow to come,” I finally say to Jonah. Cameron didn’t go to Scotland, either; only, he didn’t seem to take it as personally as I did.
Jonah sets the wooden spoon down. “I probably shouldn’t tell you that Kellan did, though.”
I push myself up. “Why would he go?”
“I think he’s going to work in tandem with Cora on Becca’s recovery.”
I’d told Jonah the gist of Will and Becca’s history (with Will’s permission, of course) so he’d be up to speed on what I was asking Cora to do. “Huh.” I sneak a few pieces of uncooked pasta to munch on. It’s probably best I don’t spin this conversation back toward Kellan, because then I’ll probably cry and ruin the evening. So I decide to talk about yet another person that leaves me emotional. “My mom called me again today.”
He reaches over and tucks stray hairs behind my ear. I love how his fingers afterward continue to slide gently downward as they trace the curve of my neck. “When was this?”
“When I was out to lunch with Caleb.” I break a piece of spaghetti in half. “She wanted to know if we could have lunch soon. Or coffee, if lunch was too much for me.”
“How do you feel about that?”
I like that he asks me this even though he already knows how I feel, as if he knows I need to practice letting all this stuff out rather than bottling it like before. “I’m conflicted. Hopeful. Nervous. Wary. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or, maybe since they’ve already dropped, my mother to simply chuck them off a balcony.”
He smiles wryly. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve felt her remorse over the relationship you two have.”
Remorse I share, for as much as I wanted a relationship with her, I never really pushed for one, either.
I sneak another piece of dried spaghetti. “Callie likes Will, you know.”
He chuckles as he checks on the bread in the oven. “I thought we were talking about your mom.”
“We’re talking about Will and Callie now. Kellan told me before that Will’s attracted to Cal, too. Is this true?”
“Have you asked him about it?”
“Gods, yes. He told me to mind my own business.”
Jonah chuckles again before leaning over to kiss me. “Yes. He’s attracted to her. That said, he wouldn’t act upon it until whatever it is he has with Becca is resolved. He feels really conflicted about all of this. Guilty, I guess.”
It’s as I figured. Now that Jonah’s brought up the importance of resolutions, that leads me to . . . “I’ve been thinking.”
“Uh oh.” He looks up from dumping cooked pasta into a colander in the sink. “I hope you’re not planning on matchmaking. I can tell you right now that both Will and Callie are the sort to like to figure this stuff out on their own.”
My lips curve upwards; I can’t stop sighing over how adorable he is when he does mundane things like cooking. Maybe adorable isn’t the right word; maybe gorgeous is, in an unaffected, obvious way. He’s wearing an old, thin red t-shirt and well-loved jeans that hug his lean runner’s muscles in all the right places, but the effect the sight of him on me is the same as if he’d been standing before me in a pristine tuxedo.
Or in nothing at all.
“You were saying? Or rather, thinking?”
I force my eyes back up to his face. He’s amused, no doubt by the equal parts of nervousness and desire raging around my body. “Oh. Right. I was thinking—”
Wait. Can I do this? Just ask? Just . . . say it? Let him know what’s been on my mind for days now?
We’ve travelled this road before, were engaged for over a year, only for me to cry off not once, but twice. Okay, to be fair, he’d postponed once himself. Those postponements, upon reflection, had been for the best. The state of mind I’d been in, the confusion and despair . . . despite our Connection, we would’ve been doomed to unhappiness.
Things are different now. I’m sure now. Even though I love his brother, and that’ll never change—I’m sure.
So I take a deep breath and count to ten to give myself enough time to change my mind. But I don’t. If anything, each second makes me want this all the more. “Will you marry me?”
It’s clearly not what he was expecting, because he goes very still, steam coming up from the hot noodles in the colander in his hands. For the tiniest moment, I wonder if I’ve just made yet another colossal mistake when it comes to us as a couple—we’re in a good place, and I don’t want to do anything to threaten that between us, but on the other hand, I can’t very well pretend that this isn’t what I want. So, no. No matter what, this isn’t a mistake. This is my truth, and I’ve got to put it out there whether or not it goes south for me.
Since he’s not speaking, I continue, “I know this may seem sudden, since we’ve only technically been back together a really short time, but I’ve learned recently that life is too short to be without the person you love. Even a life that spans two centuries, if we’re lucky.” I take the colander away from him and set it to the side. He takes a dish towel I pass over, eyes on me the entire time, like he’s trying to figure out if I’m serious or not, despite what his craft must be telling him.
He’s still not saying anything. So I add what’s been percolating around my head since the moment I gave him both my body and soul. “I want to live with you. I miss that so much. I want to wake up to your face, go to sleep with it being the last thing I see. Fight with you over which television show or movie to watch. Eat dinner together when we’re both at home. Share our successes and defeats. Encourage each other to chase the dreams we want. Know that we are free to be who we are and that the other person accepts us as is. Spend our holidays together, and share our families so they becomes ours, not just yours or mine.” I reach out and claim his hands so I can lace my fingers through his. “I want our last names to be the same. I want us, when we’re ready, to add to our family, and for that baby to know that he or she is so incredibly loved by both parents. I want us to grow old together, so that when we’re nearing the end of our existences, we can look back and think, ‘Wow, we were the luckiest and strongest because we had each other.’” I take a measured, deep breath. “I actually do wish I had the power to break our Connection so I could show you that, even without it and Fate and everything else out there, I would still choose you, Jonah. You’re who I want. You’re who I need.”
He’s still not saying anything with his mouth, but it’s okay, his eyes are doing all the talking I need to hear. They’re filled with awe—but more importantly, they’re filled with love.
I take one of his hands and press it against my heart. The muscle in my chest isn’t racing for once. It’s slow and steady. It’s sure. “I love you, Jonah Whitecomb. More than you can ever imagine. Will you marry me?”
I’ve known him for sixteen years, and it occurs to me that I fall in love with him a bit more every single day.
One of his thumbs slowly traces my lower lip. His head dips so that not only do I feel his thumb on my mouth, but his breath, too. I love him, I love him, and—
“Yes.”
I can’t help the blissful smile that overtakes my face. And then my mouth meets his, claiming sweet victory.
Dinner is totally not going to happen. Both of our shirts are somewhere in the kitchen. My skirt is in the hallway, I think. His shorts are in the doorway to his bedroom. I’m on his bed, my knees digging into the soft sheets as I rise up to meet him. My heart’s thumping a staccato that the entirety of Annar must hear, and I’m lightheaded and yet more grounded than I have felt in years.
His knees brush against the end of the bed. “That thing you do,” he murmurs, hands falling soft against the comforter. “Where you block your feelings from me—”
“Never again,” I say quietly, the vow filling the space between us.
He smiles, the dimple gentle yet lips mischievous. “I wasn’t going to ask you to hide yourself from me tonight. Because,” one knee, then two bring him up onto the bed, “I want to know exactly how you feel when I make love to you.”
Ohh, things in me go molten pretty damn fast. “Yeah?”
“Because when I get to feel what you’re feeling when I’m in you,” he continues, and heavens above is this man sexy, “it’s the most fucking amazing sensation in the entire universe.”
Oh, sweet heavens above, he just set my entire body on fire, and he did it with just words. My butt drops to hit my heels, my palms go flat against the bunched up sheets below me just to prop me up, because I’m pretty sure my muscles just turned to jelly.
“You—you were saying?” My words come out as tiny gasps.
I love how his lips curve up on one side as he slowly crawls towards me. “Right. I was asking if you think it’s possible to shield me.”
It’s rapidly become more difficult to breathe. My hands slide backwards, my spine arching as it instinctively angles towards him. He’s moving too slowly, and I need him now. “You mean, like a condom?”
He chuckles quietly. “That, too, although I come prepared this time.” He reaches over to the nightstand and produces a small, silver square. “I meant an actual shield, like the one you used to block your emotions from me last year. Because, this is about you. And me. And us.” His eyes, so vivid blue despite the dim light from the lamp next to his bed, darken with something I desperately want to hold onto forever. “And I don’t want to have to worry about holding myself back. I hate that I didn’t think about doing it before, but . . .” His grin is rueful. “It’s kind of hard to think clearly when the girl you love more than anything else in the worlds is touching you.”
He’s so close that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. Smell the mint on his breath, the spiciness leftover from his body wash. And it makes me hot, hotter than I’ve ever been before in my entire life. I want to melt right into him until we’re one.
I’m hoarse when I say, “I’ve already been doing it.”
There’s relief in his beautiful eyes, and a whole lot of desire that sends a sharp spike of longing through me.
I bite my lip, trying desperately not to moan, as my butt hits the bed and I lean back on my forearms. His body lifts over mine, his strong arms finding ground on either side of me. I grab his shirt and tug him closer. I want this. I want him. I want us. I want all of this more than I’ve wanted anything else in my life. I try to bring our mouths together, but he holds back, our lips barely brushing, as his forehead comes to lie against mine.
My heart attempts to escape out of my chest.
His breath is heavy against my lips, and I ache, just ache everywhere. I wrap the shield around us like a hug, its strength fortified by the love I feel for him consuming every last atom that makes me me.
He licks his lips slowly, the edge of his tongue just barely grazing my mouth. All that jelly in my arms now liquefies. They tremble so hard I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep myself propped up.
I mimic his movement, and he shudders in response. There’s a heartbeat between us before his mouth finally meets mine. From that moment on, everything is magnified between us, every touch, every kiss, every motion of brushing, sliding, grazing, worshiping skin against skin. Thousands of tiny nerves flare to life all over my body so that I am all feeling, no . . . no thinking. Worrying. Right now, this here, with this man . . . this is everything.
As turnabout is fair play, I take my sweet time exploring his body, kissing so very many places, licking others just so I can hear him groan and feel just how strongly his body reacts to me and my touch. Just like I’d wanted to do days before, I take him in my mouth, sucking him until I know he’s perilously close to shattering. When the torture becomes too much for him, he pulls me up and flips me over so he’s now over me, his mouth reclaiming mine for long, scorching minutes that leave me panting. And then he traces pulse lines down my neck with his lips and tongue until he finds my heart and then one, then the other breast. I arch up into him, all the cells in my body sparkling in fizzy, combustible, achy heat that threatens to tear me apart.
I need him to feel this, too.
I trail a hand down in between our bodies and stroke him. I delight in the sharp intake of breath, how his body now jerks and curves toward mine. With my other hand, I bring his face back up to mine and kiss him until starbursts bloom in my closed eyelids. “I need you,” I whisper against his mouth, my nails grazing him until he quakes against me again, “in me.”
His lovely, shuddery sigh nearly undoes me right then and there. “I need that, too. Gods, I love you so much, Chloe.”
Nothing has ever sounded so beautiful to me before. These words, they’re a gift. So is this man. Even though I don’t know if I deserve him or his love, I’m going to hold onto them with both hands.
“I want . . . can we try something?” he murmurs against my neck as he positions himself above me.
I reach down and grab his buttocks, angling him so he slides into me. I gasp; he’s so big, I’m so tight, but oh the sweet gods above, does this feel like heaven. “Anything.”
He’s so deep inside me, I can feel him all the way to my inner core. My eyes nearly roll right back into my head, I’m so very wonderfully filled. But then he pulls up so he’s nearly all the way out. “Before you come . . .” And then he’s back in me; I buck my hips up to meet his. “I want us to . . .”—another thrust that nearly disintegrates me—“merge.”
The thought of this has me precariously close to coming already. But I don’t want this moment to be over so soon, so I refuse to let my body have its release just yet. Kiss to kiss, caress to caress, thrust to thrust, we move together in perfect synchronicity. And then, just as I no longer have any more control over holding myself back, I surge into his mind, he into mine.
Before today, whenever we merged, I would have laid down money that it was better than any kind of orgasm that rocks a body, because it’s born from souls. We’ve even done something very similar to this before, although never during actual intercourse and only ever with one person climaxing at a time due to oral sex or the like. It was phenomenal. But tonight, though? Tonight I learn the real truth—when merging souls and physical orgasms collide during actual intercourse, a person’s being becomes nothing but stardust in the vastness of time and space. We are no longer just lovers separated by bodies.
We are one.
We are
nothing.
We are everything.
My apartment—well, my old apartment—is exactly how I left it down to the placement of my purse and keys on the counter and my pajamas on the floor near my bed. There are magazines open on the coffee table and dishes in the sink. When I open the refrigerator, there’s even a bottle of half-year-old orange juice.
I’ve just stepped right into my past.
“Callie said you tore this place apart,” I say to Jonah when we’re in my bedroom.
He leans against the doorframe, hands in his pockets. “I did.”
I glance around my room. It’s . . . not clean, by any means, but it’s the kind of messy I would have left behind, not the kind made by a desperate man searching for answers.
“I straightened up afterward,” he says quietly. “Just in case you came back. I didn’t want you to have to deal with my . . .” His smile is bittersweet. “Rage, I guess. Or desperation.”
I come over to where he’s standing. “I’m so sorry I put you through that. I will regret that every day until I die.”
He pulls me flush against his body. “I don’t want your regret, Chloe. I think that we’ve had enough of that from both of us to last more than a lifetime.” A leisurely kiss precedes, “Let’s just focus on all the good things we’ve got going right now. Stepping back into old habits in which we drown ourselves in guilt doesn’t do either of us any good.”
I press another kiss against his mouth. “One day at a time?”
The dimple appears, even if just barely. “One day at a time.”
I lean my head against his chest. “What about your stuff? Is it still next door, too?”
My face rises and falls with his sigh. “No. It’s all either in storage or at Kellan’s.”
Next to my bed is a candid picture of the two of us taken maybe a year or so ago. To almost anyone looking at it, all they’d see are two people content in love. I’m kissing his cheek and he’s smiling and looking away from the camera. I loved this picture for so long, but now, as I look at it, I realize it was just as fake as we had been. To move on, we need to let these pieces go and build ourselves new ones.