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“Perfection,” he murmurs, and then he kisses me. It’s a swift kiss, yet openmouthed, and our tongues touch for one instant.
But then Jonah steps back, turns, and walks offstage. I stand there alone.
Once I feel like I can walk straight, I pull myself back together. I find a bit of the campus newspaper to toss in the trash can, so the janitor or whoever won’t be traumatized by the sight of Jonah’s condom and my torn underwear. No small wet spots mar the green silk of my dress. Did Jonah bruise my throat? I doubt it—and even if he did, the marks won’t show yet. So all I have to do is take a few deep breaths and walk back into the party.
Carmen and Geordie are talking nearby; Geordie spots me immediately and waves. I start heading in their direction, but I can’t help looking around the room for Jonah. Probably, after this, he won’t hang around long.
Sure enough, as I glance toward the exit, I see Jonah pushing the door open, about to walk out onto the street. But he holds the door a few moments longer, for someone else—
I recognize the woman in the white dress I spoke to briefly in the bathroom. She beams up at Jonah, whose arm slips around her shoulders as they walk out side by side.
She wasn’t just someone he was being polite to.
That woman was Jonah’s date.
Seventeen
Jonah smiled at her.
That’s the part that gets me. Jonah Marks comes across as cold, even forbidding, to most of the people he meets. I’ve seen another side of him—hotter than flame—but even when he’s got his hands on my body, even when he’s inside me, his smile is hard. Fierce.
To the woman in the white dress he gave a smile so warm that I know she’s not a mere acquaintance. She’s someone he cares about, deeply.
And yet he’s fucking me.
I never asked if he was seeing anyone else. It seemed to go without saying. Now, however, phrases he said that first night we spoke at Carmen’s ring louder in my memory—about other girls he tried this with, and how it never worked. They didn’t want to play rough. I think you do.
At that moment, I should’ve asked whether there was someone else in his life. Maybe the mysterious woman in white had already rejected his fantasy. Is he cheating on her with me because she can’t, or won’t, give him what he really wants?
That’s no excuse, even if it’s true. But I can’t stop wondering.
I realize I’m jumping to some conclusions here. There’s no guarantee the woman I saw was Jonah’s girlfriend, or that the two of them share any kind of committed relationship. I could’ve misinterpreted that smile. Possibly she’s just a beautiful woman he asked out for a night.
Even that is too much for me.
• • •
In the morning I send Jonah a text: We need to talk, ASAP.
Unlike me, Jonah understands the rules of remaining strangers. He doesn’t ask why, just gives me a time and place. So, just after lunch, I walk through one of the quads toward a bench where Jonah sits, waiting for me.
Even from a distance, I know him. We’re surrounded by students, who slouch around in their ubiquitous sweatshirts and pajama bottoms. Jonah wears gray pants and a black shirt, nothing fancy, but still clothes that tell anyone that he’s not an overgrown boy. He’s a man.
I’m wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a scarf wound around my neck—which looks casual but is there to hide the faint bruises of Jonah’s hand on my throat. Yet he looks at me like I’m the sexiest woman on earth.
Even now he intoxicates me. I think he always will.
He rises from the bench as I walk to him, an old-fashioned, almost chivalrous gesture that touches me in a way I can’t define. As we sit down together, he says, “Is everything all right?”
“No. ” I take a deep breath. “Jonah, I can’t keep doing this. Meeting you. Playing out our—scenes. It has to stop. ”
At first he says nothing. His expression remains cool. Is he that controlled? Will he just get up and walk away like none of it ever happened?
But it couldn’t have ended any other way.
Finally Jonah speaks. “You weren’t unhappy with—what I did at the benefit. ”
“No. ” God, no. When I think about the way he slid his fingers inside my panties, I want to take back everything I’ve said, grab him by the collar, and drag him into the nearest building for a quickie in the stairwell. It would be as scorching hot as every other time Jonah’s put his hands on my skin.
And it would only be delaying the inevitable.
I take a deep breath. “This isn’t about anything you did wrong. Okay? You’ve kept every promise. You made me feel safe at moments I don’t think any other man could have, ever. And you—” My voice breaks. Dammit. I pull myself together. “You saw something in me I’ve always hated and made me feel less ashamed of it for a while. So thanks for that. And the sex. Definitely thanks for the sex. ”