Текст книги "Asking for It"
Автор книги: Lilah Pace
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 20 страниц)
I have no answer for her. The clock ticks on, measuring the silence.
• • •
Those words of caution linger in my mind, but they don’t make me stop wanting Jonah.
No, I’m even more turned on than before. That’s how fucked up I am.
But Doreen reminded me that, on some level—one that goes deeper than a nice dinner out, or his admiration for my artwork—I’m still a little bit frightened of Jonah Marks.
The fear is what makes it so good.
I get home just at sunset. As soon as I’ve shut and locked the door behind me, I call Jonah.
“Are you all right?” he says. Still no hello.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Is this about my e-mail earlier? Maybe that was—abrupt.”
“No, it’s good that you sent it. I’m glad, really. My records will be headed your way as soon as I can scan them.” I run one hand through my hair, restless as I pace my floor. “Are you free tonight?”
“. . . I can be.”
“Do you want to play?”
He knows what I mean. I can tell by the long silence that follows, and the huskiness of his voice as he finally answers, “Yes.”
Tonight, I’m going to test my limits.
I’m going to prove how far I can trust Jonah Marks, and how far I can’t.
Twenty-two
Quarter ’til ten.
Keiko’s pottery—put that away. Breakables have no place out in the open, not tonight. What about the lamp? If I move it to the center of the table, that’s probably okay.
I took a shower just after a light dinner of toast and eggs, plus the last of the peaches I bought a few days ago. The juice was still sticky on my chin and fingers as I stood under the hot spray of water, rubbing in something that promises to be “ultra-moisturizing.” My skin feels soft, anyway, and the faint lavender scent lingers.
I wonder if Jonah will even notice. Probably not. If tonight goes according to plan, his mind should be on other things.
“Unlock your door at ten P.M. No earlier. I don’t want you to do anything unsafe.”
Protecting me as he plans to terrorize me. This is the paradox of Jonah Marks.
Nearly everything that could break during a struggle has been put away. Now what? Lights on or off? He’ll want to see me—and I want to see him—but the dark would sharpen the edge of my fear. Finally I turn down one of the floor lamps in the far corner of my living room, so only a faint shadow of amber-tinted light falls across my bedroom floor.
“I should warn you,” I said. “When I said I’ll fight, I meant it.”
Jonah’s low voice made me shudder. “Struggle all you want. It won’t matter.”
My hair is down. Wearing makeup would be sort of ridiculous, but if I went to bed like it really was any other night, I might have acne cream on my chin. Let’s not. I settle for clean-scrubbed skin and cherry ChapStick. My shoes have all found their places in my closet, instead of their usual line near the side of my bed. This tank top is a soft shade of apricot—seemed like a good idea on the clearance rack, but it doesn’t really match anything else I own. It’s been sleepwear for a while now. My nipples are just visible through the thin ribbed cotton.
Simple cotton panties. If they get torn, so be it.
I should probably shop at the Salvation Army for more clothes I wouldn’t mind being destroyed.
“If I haven’t come in by ten thirty, something’s held me up. Lock your door and wait for me to call.”
Five until ten. On the back of my bedroom door, I’ve hung a series of hooks, which gives me a handy place to keep belts, scarves, accessories like that. I run my hands through the scarves, feeling the various fabrics against my skin—then close my fingers around pale pink cotton. This scarf is sturdy enough to stand up to some abuse. Yet thin enough to serve as a makeshift rope—if that’s something Jonah wants.
I’m about to find out.
“You remember the rules I gave you, back when we began? About what I didn’t want the first time?” I put my hand to my chest, as if my touch could slow my fluttering heart. “You can consider those suspended.”
“Fewer limits.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Jonah growled, “Good.”
Ten o’clock.
I almost never go to bed this early, but tonight is about setting the stage. So I drape the pink scarf across the foot of my bed—a careless temptation—then walk into my kitchen. By now I can feel my pulse in my throat, in my cunt, in the soles of my feet.
Slowly, I turn the lock, then slide back the deadbolt. Anyone could come in now.
I walk into the bedroom and turn off the one lamp on the nightstand. Now there’s just the dim light from the living room slanting across the floor. Lots of people might leave that much light on so they could find their way around in the dark, if they wanted.
Now Jonah will be able to find his way to me.
Every second is exquisite torture. I lie on my side, covers tucked up around my ears, as if I could possibly pretend to be asleep. Really I’ve never been this awake in my life. Every sound seems unnaturally loud in this silence—the wind through the trees outside, the distant rumble of a truck on the road, the soft creaks in the walls natural to any old house. Surely I’ll hear Jonah’s car pull up . . .
. . . but no. Jonah’s sedan was out front before ten o’clock; I know that as surely as if I’d seen it myself. He would be watching my door from the first moment I unlocked it, to make sure no one else tried to get inside.
A creak from the kitchen first seems normal enough, until I hear another. Footsteps. My entire body tenses in the best possible way. He’s here, now.
Should I get up to investigate? Surprise him in the front room? No. This time I want him to find me in bed.
I close my eyes.
The footsteps come closer. He’s wearing soft shoes, or none, because he walks so quietly that I think if this were real, I’d sleep right through it. By now adrenaline courses through me, setting every single nerve ending on fire.
If I even put my hand between my legs—just that contact, not even a stroke—I swear I’d come this second.
Now the footsteps are right next to me. I feel the foot of the bed sink down, the unmistakable sensation of someone sitting on the mattress. It’s so hard not to open my eyes, so hard to pretend—
His hand closes over my mouth, hard.
My eyes fly open to see Jonah leaning over me. He’s dressed in black, and his face is almost unrecognizable. This is hardly a human being I see. This is . . . a predator.
He hisses, “Don’t scream.”
I don’t scream.
I strike.
My hands close around his wrist, yanking it away from my mouth, and I pull both knees up to my chest, then kick. My feet thud into Jonah’s chest, knocking him completely off the bed.
Instantly I scramble across the mattress, as if I were trying to reach my cell phone (charging in its dock, a few feet away). But Jonah’s hand closes around my ankle and tows me back toward him.
“You hurt me.” His hand pulls at the strap of my tank top, yanking it down to expose one of my breasts. “You’re gonna pay for that.”
“No!” I shove my hands against his chest, hard, and then the battle is on.
No broken bones. No visible wounds. Those are the rules we agreed on in the beginning—permanent rules, which neither of us will ever, ever break. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fight like hell.
I shove him away again. Slap him hard across the face.
Jonah slaps me right back. The force is enough to send me staggering against the wall. Hearing the thud, feeling the sting of my skin, shakes me—this is so real, so fucking real—and for the first time since our inaugural night at the hotel, the safe word comes to the tip of my tongue. Silver.
I don’t say it.
Instead I run at him for a full-on tackle. Jonah didn’t expect that; I can tell by the way he staggers backward. We both land on the bed. I use my momentum to roll me over him until I fall off the far side. Now I’m free, and—holy shit, will I actually get to the phone? Not sure what to do then—
But Jonah’s up. He grabs my arm and throws me bodily onto the bed. Before I can scramble backward, he’s on top of me, his knees pressing down on my arms. I try to kick at him, but from this angle it’s almost impossible. So I writhe, twisting from side to side, until one of Jonah’s hands closes around my throat.
Instantly I go still.
“Now you’re going to behave.” He laughs, a sound as sharp as any switchblade. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”
Would he like it if I begged? “Let me go. Please.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You—you can take my phone, and my laptop. My purse, too, and I’ve got a lot of cash in my wallet. Just take it and go. I won’t be able to call the police, because you’ll have my phone. So you could get away.”
“I’m going to get away just fine.” Jonah straddles me, his erection clearly straining at the fabric of his black sweatpants. I can feel his balls against my belly; they’re tight, ready. “You don’t get away. You do what I tell you.”
“Please don’t. Please.”
“Will you ask me politely?” Jonah’s hands find my breasts—both exposed now as he plays with them, squeezing hard, then soft, then hard again. He tugs at one nipple, forceful enough to make me whine.
“What—what do you—”
“We’ll make a deal.” He leans over; I realize he’s seen the scarf I left out for him. “If you can suck me off, I won’t put it in your cunt.”
Next time, I’m going to come in your mouth. I want him to. But I want to get fucked too.
“No,” I say. “I won’t do it, I won’t—”
Jonah slams down on top of me, hard enough to make me cry out in genuine shock. “You don’t get to say what you will and won’t do. That’s not what this is about.”
I’m shaking so hard. My panties are soaked. I want to cross my legs, just cross them, because I think I could come by merely clenching my thighs.
Yet I keep fighting. I thrash beneath him, frenzied enough to make him swear in what sounds like genuine frustration. Then Jonah grabs the scarf. I think he’ll tie my hands, but instead he winds the scarf around my throat. One hand closes around the fabric right in front of my windpipe as he tugs me off the bed with the other, until I tumble off the bed onto the floor.
I use my feet to push myself away from him, but Jonah drags me back and slaps my face again. The very real pain brings tears to my eyes, but it only sharpens the desperate hunger inside me. His grip on the scarf around my neck strengthens.
“You fight me, I’ll tie this tighter,” he says. “Are you done?”
I nod, defeated. All I can do now is lie on the floor and wait for whatever Jonah has planned next.
His cheek is flushed from where I struck him. My face must be too.
As I pant for breath, my exposed breasts rising and falling with each gasp, Jonah starts going through my nightstand. To my astonishment—and embarrassment—he pulls out my dildo.
My lone sex toy. It was a gift from Geordie. We tried using it a time or two, but mostly it made us crack up laughing. It’s been languishing at the back of the drawer for months.
“You don’t get enough dick?” Jonah says as he inspects it. The thickness and length of the hot pink silicone would intimidate most men, but Jonah puts that toy to shame. “Well, you’re gonna get some tonight. You’re gonna take it all.”
“Please,” I beg. He likes it when I beg. “Please, no.”
“I said, you’re going to take it.”
That’s when he pushes down the front of his black sweatpants, revealing his erection—blood dark, fully stiff, jutting out at me and wanting release.
He’s even more turned on than I am. I didn’t think that was possible.
Jonah shoves one of my legs up until my knee nearly touches my chin. Now my crotch is exposed, and his hand closes around that wet strip of my panties and pulls it aside. Two of his fingers push inside, and I whimper. He won’t stop for a condom this time; this will be the first time he fully feels how wet he makes me. How hot.
“Not enough for you, huh? You want some cock?”
“No—”
“No? You don’t? Too bad I don’t give a damn what you want. Shut the fuck up before I shut you up.”
Jonah lowers himself over me and pushes inside.
“Oh, God,” I whisper against the floor as he starts to thrust. Though I try to brace myself against the floor, every move he makes rocks me. My legs splay open wider, as if that will somehow make my body ready for the enormous length and girth of him. Nothing could do that. “Please—please—”
“Please more?” Jonah shoves himself in harder, and I cry out. “Or do you like the deal I gave you? Are you ready to suck me off yet?”
“No—”
“Then take it.”
Jonah starts giving it to me good. This angle makes it harder for me to get fully stimulated, but the fantasy is so good that it pushes me the rest of the way. And the images—the muscles of Jonah’s abdomen and pelvis working with every thrust, the thatch of dark hair above his cock, the grimace of ecstasy on his face—
Within seconds I’m panting; within two minutes, I’m at the brink. When Jonah thrusts even deeper inside, the sensation arcs inside me, cunt to heart to brain, and I can’t hold it back. The world turns upside down, inside out, and I come, moaning desperately as I clench around Jonah’s cock.
He knows what he’s done to me—he always does—but he says, “You ready to suck me off yet? Or you want to get fucked some more?”
I don’t answer. The breath won’t return to my lungs. I lie dazed, openmouthed, against the floor.
“You won’t choose,” Jonah pants. “So you get both.”
When he pulls out, I expect him to immediately get his cock into my mouth. Instead, Jonah takes the dildo and slowly pushes it inside me. My cunt, still tight from my orgasm, spasms around the thick silicone.
“You want me to use this on you hard? Or are you ready to suck?”
I want both. But I nod, half in a daze, unable to resist his will any longer.
Jonah rolls me onto my back, and I prepare myself for the blow job he wants—opening my mouth, wetting my lips with my tongue. But when he straddles my chest, he doesn’t move any closer to my face. Instead he cradles my breasts, then pushes them tightly together and thrusts his cock between them. He’s already so slick with pre-come and my wetness that each stroke is frictionless.
“Has a guy fucked your tits before?” When I don’t answer, Jonah pants, “Tell me!”
“Yes.” It’s the truth. Derek and Geordie both did this, though not to completion.
Because I asked them not to come on me, I asked Jonah not to come on me either, that’s a forever rule. Please don’t come on me and make me think about Anthony, please, please.
“Yes?” That wasn’t what Jonah wanted to hear. “You’ll give it up to anybody, won’t you? About time you gave it up to me.”
His thumbs rub against my nipples as he thrusts faster. My breasts ache from the pressure, and I can see nothing but the swollen head of his cock pushing toward me over and over again.
Jonah stops—perhaps catching himself on the brink of orgasm. Then he rocks back and forth, very slowly. His voice is a ragged whisper, now, all the more frightening for its quietness. “You’re gonna give me your throat. Say it.”
“I will.”
He pulls back, and for a moment I can only suck in a deeper breath, freed from the pressure across my diaphragm. My aching arms tingle as blood rushes back into them.
Then Jonah grabs me by the hair as he stands up, towing me to my knees. As I sit, the weight of my body forces the dildo deeper into me. It’s going to be like I’m getting fucked in both ends at once.
No doubt he sees me writhe around the unfamiliar sensation between my legs. His smile is smug—self-satisfied—and all I can think is, I didn’t fight hard enough.
My eyes narrow. “Fuck you.”
He stares at me. “What did you say to me?”
“Fuck you. You think you’re so tough—surprising me when I’m asleep. But you’re not. You cheat. You cheated. I don’t see how anyone can stand you, you fucking coward.”
That did it. I can feel Jonah’s anger in the way he pulls my hair. “Just for that, you’re gonna swallow it all.”
He steps forward, his glistening cock right in front of my lips.
His voice is hardly more than a whisper, but it shakes with rage. “Now open your goddamned mouth.”
The fist in my hair doesn’t leave me any choice. I open, and Jonah pushes inside.
This time he doesn’t wait before he starts fucking my mouth. My head is held between both of his hands, inexorably tight, and I cough and struggle for breath as he thrusts in and out, shallow and then deep. My body rocks back and forth with each thrust, and I feel the dildo shift within me. He’s close to finishing—so close I feel his cock pulse once against my tongue.
“You want this over with?” Jonah sounds breathless, but still totally in control. “Then suck.”
I go to work on him, giving him everything I have. The abandon with which I start going down on him—the way I relish the salty taste on my tongue—it totally goes against the fantasy of force. But Jonah’s too far gone to notice that now. His breaths come shorter and sharper, each one just short of a moan. Slowly I rotate my hips in a spiral, enjoying the thickness of the dildo inside me. And when it hits me right there . . .
Oh, God, I’m going to come again already.
So I move faster, rocking my pelvis at just the right rhythm, as I feel the head of Jonah’s cock swell between my lips. Sensation shivers upward through me, strengthening by the moment—
My second orgasm isn’t as strong as the first, but it’s better. Slower. It ripples through me in waves, claiming my whole body in white-hot ecstasy. I groan around Jonah’s cock, and the vibration must push him over the edge. He shouts out, and then he comes, filling my mouth with heat. Quickly I gulp it down, every drop, the action almost lost in the spasms of pleasure still echoing through me.
Jonah pulls out. His cock—still half-hard—dangles in front of my face. A thin line of come trickles down the side of my mouth, and Jonah’s finger catches it. “There,” he murmurs, and already the scene is over.
He eases me onto the bed, unties the scarf. As I lie there, rubbing my tingling throat, Jonah gently parts my thighs, slides the dildo out, and readjusts my panties. Then he stretches out beside me and pulls me against his chest.
We’ve never held each other in bed, after sex. Such a simple thing, but new to us. Even now we’re more or less clothed. Yet this is a more intimate moment than I’ve shared with any other lover.
“Was that okay?” he whispers against my temple.
“Yeah. It was amazing. Was it for you?”
“Every time.” Jonah kisses my cheek, then my mouth, not shying away from the taste of his own semen the way some guys do. “You destroy me every time. Completely.”
I’m the one who gets slapped around, thrown to the floor, tied up. But I’m the one destroying him? To anyone outside this bedroom it wouldn’t make sense. Doesn’t matter. Jonah and I understand.
He turns my face by the chin, examining me carefully. “I didn’t slap too hard, did I?”
“No. It was just right.” I pull back enough to give him a look. “Sometime I want to fight you a lot harder.”
“Oh, yeah.” There are no words for the wicked anticipation in Jonah’s smile. “Maybe on a night when we don’t have to be on campus the next morning.”
“That would work.”
Postorgasmic drowsiness has begun to tow me down. I can stay awake a long time after coming once—but after the second climax, sleep beckons fast. I yawn against Jonah’s chest, and he cuddles me closer.
He says, “Do you want me to stay?”
That’s what most people would do now. We’re dating. We just had sex. We’re lying together in my bed, worn out and deeply satisfied. What could be more natural than asking him to spend the night?
And yet I can’t.
“Not this time.” I prop up on one elbow. “After this—just not after this.”
Jonah’s disappointed, I can tell, but he takes it well. “I understand that. It’s going to take a while to—to make both sides of our relationship fit together.”
“Exactly.” I feel more relieved than I should. “You don’t mind?”
He shakes his head no as he looks down at me. “You’ve shown me so much trust, Vivienne. More than any other woman ever has. However slowly you need to take this, it’s up to you. Always. All right?”
“All right.” And in that moment, I like Jonah so much that I nearly ask him to stay anyway.
But I don’t.
He locks the door on his way out. I can still hear his car pulling away as I drift into deep, fathomless sleep.
Twenty-three
Maybe it’s not a big deal that I didn’t ask Jonah to stay over the first night we had sex at my house. But the fact that it was the first time since we admitted we might mean something to each other—since I realized Jonah was a man I could come to care about deeply—
That feels important.
Usually this is the kind of thing I would share with Doreen. On Monday I might. But I already know where this will lead. Doreen will ask lots of leading questions meant to tell me what I already know: If I want to have a meaningful relationship with Jonah—an honest one—I have to tell him the whole truth about my rape fantasy. What an extreme fixation it is for me, how dirty it still makes me feel sometimes, and worst of all, what happened with Anthony.
I’m not ready to talk about any of that yet. I don’t think I’ll be ready to talk about Anthony ever.
So for now I just have to carry this weight around, and hope Jonah wasn’t too offended by my asking him to leave.
He shouldn’t be, though. I get the sense Jonah likes to run into locked doors once in a while, for the pleasure of kicking them open.
• • •
The next morning, when I park my car near campus and do the usual postdrive phone check, I see a text from Jonah: Call me when you get a chance.
Rather than walk to my office, I sit down on the nearest metal bench. It’s still strange to me that Jonah’s in my contacts. That he’s a guy I call in the middle of the day, like any other important person in my life.
Jonah answers almost immediately. “Vivienne.”
Still no hello. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“I just got a call to consult on locations for a deep-sea rig in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Scotland.”
“Wow. That’s the kind of thing you do in person?”
“Not necessarily. But they offered to fly me out there, and Scotland is one of the places I visit whenever I can. I’ll leave tonight.”
Jonah’s going away again. I’m glad he told me. I feel a pang at the thought of being without him, even for a few days. And yet I’m slightly freaked out that I already want him around all the time. “Thanks for letting me know. How long will you be gone?”
“About a week and a half. Do you think you could get some time off?”
“Wait. What?”
“I was asking if you’d like to come with me.”
“To Scotland?”
“An island just off the coast of the Highlands.” Jonah acts like he just invited me to the movies. “I realize it would take a couple of days for you to get things in order and join me—and I’ll be working—but we’d have some time away from it all.”
I can’t think of what to say. “I’m sorry, you surprised me. Seriously, you want me to come meet you across the Atlantic in a few days?”
“On the Isle of Skye. It’s a beautiful place, Vivienne. Stark and wild. Not everyone appreciates it, but I suspect you would.”
“But—a transatlantic flight—”
“It’s on me,” Jonah says. “I have the miles.”
You shouldn’t waste them on me, I nearly say, before I remember that one news story I read about his family. His late father was one of the founders of Oceanic Airlines. Not only is Jonah not short on money, but he also probably gets to fly himself or his friends for free whenever he wants.
That makes this invitation less of a splurge for him—but no less of a leap for us both.
I laugh in surprise. “You really know how to step it up for the second date.”
“I realize it’s unusual. But I wanted to ask.”
This is impossible, of course. I have a class to help teach, a dissertation to write, Shay to look after—
But a reckless whisper in my head answers, You’ve covered tons of classes for both Marvin and Keiko; they owe you, big-time. You ought to turn your dissertation over to your advisor for a preliminary look soon anyway. Shay’s not due for nearly another month. Arturo and Carmen are taking good care of her—Rosalind too—
Somehow I find myself saying, “Let me see if I can reschedule some things.”
“You’ll come?” Jonah sounds surprised, but in a good way.
“If I can make it work.”
He speaks with a knowing, arrogant assurance that should infuriate me. Instead it curls my toes within my ballet flats. “You can.”
“We’ll see!”
Five minutes later, as I walk into the departmental office, Kip glances over from his computer, eyebrow arched. “Well, well, well. I hear you’re painting the town red these days.”
“Huh?”
“A friend of mine who waits tables in the area reported seeing you and Jonah Marks strolling along Congress this weekend. Quite lovey-dovey, at least for Professor Marks, which means he seemed to acknowledge you were there.”
Does he have spies everywhere? The “campus Sauron” comparison is starting to feel a little too accurate. “Yeah, we went to dinner.”
“If he’s treating you right, I withdraw my earlier objections,” Kip says as he types something so quickly his orange nails fly across his computer keyboard. “But let it be known, if he breaks your heart, he’ll regret it.”
From anyone else, that would be pure bluster—some guy threatening to punch Jonah out, knowing full well this battle will never take place. From Kip? It means Jonah could find himself reassigned to a smaller office, denied a campus parking sticker, and God only knows what else. Could Kip derail Jonah’s chance at tenure? I wouldn’t put it past him. “Hey. Jonah’s been great, okay? No need to break out the nuclear option.”
“Yet,” Kip says with relish. “He remains under watch. Is he taking you on some other outing soon? I want to spy on you.”
Note to self: Never set up one of our “games” at any location where we could run into Kip. “Actually, now he wants to take me to Scotland. Can you help me clear next week?”
I really should’ve pulled out my phone before I said that, because the look on Kip’s face would make the greatest Vine ever.
“Wait. Hold everything.” Kip clasps the desk as if he thinks he might fall down. “Did you say he wants to take you to Scotland?”
“He’s going tonight, but he wants me to meet him over there in a couple of days. Probably I could leave on Saturday, if I get somebody to cover my classes early next week. But getting out of the departmental meeting, making sure I can move my appointment with Dr. McFadden—”
“Scotland as in another country, across the ocean?” Kip shows no sign of recovering from the shock anytime soon.
I shrug. “I realize it’s kind of extravagant for a second date.”
Kip is one of the only people who might realize that Jonah and I have a connection that dates further back than our evening out on Congress, but he’s too bowled over to catch it. “Kind of? He wants to whisk you away to foreign parts for glamorous locations, uninhibited vacation sex—”
Jonah and I don’t wait for vacations to be uninhibited. I have to smile. “He’s traveling for work, so I’ll probably be on my own most of the time. Still, I’d like to go. Can you help me out?”
“Of course I can, sweetie. Just give me a moment.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and takes deep breaths, like someone trying not to faint. “My God. You’ve ensnared the most elusive man in Texas. Tamed the untamable. It’s like I’m talking to the big game hunter who brought down the yeti.”
“He’s not the yeti!” By now I’m laughing.
“Then he’s George Clooney, and you’re Austin’s answer to Amal Alamuddin. But . . . this is a big step for you two. It’s not too big, is it?”
“What do you mean? It’s just some time away—a little farther away than usual.”
“Sometimes what looks like generosity can be control.” Kip speaks more quietly now, and something in his tone tells me he’s speaking from experience. He’s made some allusions to a significant love affair in his past that ended badly, but this is the first time he’s ever suggested any of the real details. “You think you’re being swept up in this big romance, but really it’s all about separating you from your own life.”
That’s not what’s happening at all, I want to say—but I can’t deny that Jonah likes control. I’ve been wondering whether the change in our relationship would take away the sense of danger that excites us both. Maybe I should have been wondering if the danger would instead become real.
Being with Jonah is a risk. It has been since day one. Someday I might flinch—but not today.
“You’re overreacting,” I say. “This is a trip. Just a trip, and one I’d love to take. Come on, Kip, work your magic.”
Kip shakes his head, as if to clear it. “For this, darling? You get the full-on Dumbledore.”
• • •
Unsurprisingly, everything falls into place just the way Kip said it would. Within the day, I’m able to e-mail Jonah: Hope you were serious about that invitation, because I’m coming.
Which is how I wind up spending Saturday night thirty thousand feet in the air, suspended between the sea and the moon.
Until now I’ve spent my aviation life in coach, so first class feels surreal—more like Inception than real life. Flight attendants and passengers alike speak in hushed tones as we recline in large, cream-colored seats that turn into perfectly flat beds. Free champagne arrives the moment anyone lifts a hand. We’re given blankets softer than the ones on my bed, face masks that feel like silk. Even though a transatlantic trip is already a long journey, this feels like even more daring—like traveling from one world to another.
I am flinging myself into the unknown, and trusting Jonah to catch me.
Jet lag means my arrival in Scotland is no more than a blur, just like the driver who brings me into the Highlands, onto the ferry, across the water to Skye. Somehow I manage to stay awake until we reach the bed-and-breakfast, where the kindly manager shows me to Jonah’s room, gives me the key Jonah left behind. Then I collapse into bed for a three-hour nap of the sweetest, most perfect slumber, like returning to the womb.
When I open my eyes again, I feel as if I’ve awakened from hibernation, and I’m more vividly aware of my surroundings than I’ve been in a long time.
Our room is small, and just barely on the right side of the line that separates “cozy” and “tacky.” A blue-and-green quilt covers the bed; the paintings on the wall show Highland hills blooming violet with heather. Jonah’s square, hard-sided suitcase stands in the corner, next to my lilac duffel bag. I’ve seen his stuff before I see him. It feels strange to be in Jonah’s room without him, to have come to an entirely different country to be with him and still remain alone.
