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“I’m glad you e-mailed,” he says, instead of hello.
“Same here. ” It was Jonah’s e-mail that changed things. I want to tell him that, but words don’t come. He doesn’t speak either, though he looks completely cool and at ease. I bet I don’t. The silence stretches between us until, embarrassed, I try to laugh. “It’s so hard to know how to begin. ”
“We haven’t had much opportunity for small talk. ”
I laugh again, for real, and am rewarded with a small smile. “No. We haven’t. ” Okay, we’ve got to begin somewhere, so we might as well plunge in. “I’m glad you like the etching. ”
“It’s extraordinary. ” Jonah doesn’t say it like he’s trying to suck up to me. He sounds like he’s describing artwork in a museum. As if this were objective fact instead of his opinion. “It’s . . . precise. Complicated. I can only imagine the hours of work it took. Yet the image doesn’t feel stiff or unnatural. Instead it’s like—like you captured a moment in time. ”
People have praised me more effusively, including guys trying to get into my pants. None of them made me feel as flattered as Jonah just did. “Thank you,” I say, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You really bid on it before you saw I was the artist?”
“Technically, no, because I read the label before I wrote my bid down. But I intended to bid from the first moment I saw it across the room. ” Even in a more casual setting, his smile remains fierce. “I might have bid sooner, if I hadn’t seen you first. After that I was . . . distracted. ”
The two of us locked together, hidden from the world by red velvet, Jonah buried inside me up to the hilt—the memories bring a flush to my cheeks. It would be easy to let myself get distracted, to start planning the next time.
But there I go again, dodging a hard truth. Better to just say it. “That night, at the benefit, I saw you with a woman I thought might’ve been your date. ”
“What?” Apparently Rosalind hasn’t spoken to Jonah about our conversation. When she said she didn’t meddle in her friends’ romantic lives, she must have meant it. “No, no. I went with a friend. ”
“I realize that now. Even when I first saw her, I knew she might not have been someone you were romantically involved with, or interested in. It just didn’t matter. ” Saying this out loud is so hard. “Our arrangement was supposed to be sex only. You and I were supposed to remain almost strangers. So I shouldn’t have cared so much whether someone was in your life. I mean—I don’t cheat, and I don’t spend time with guys who would be cheating. But that wasn’t the part that got under my skin. I was jealous. I didn’t want another woman anywhere near you. It’s that simple. ”
Jonah remains quiet for a few long moments. Then he says, “Your ex was there. Geordie, is that his name?”
“Yeah. ” I’m surprised Jonah knows that. “We’re not involved anymore. We never will be again. ”
“I know. But when I saw you near him, and I knew that he’d had you—that he’d slept with you more times than I ever had, that he’s gone down on you, that you’ve come for him—I wanted to put my fist through a wall. ”
That shouldn’t turn me on nearly as much as it does.
“Normally I’m not the possessive type,” Jonah continues. As coolly as he speaks, I can now glimpse the uncertainty deep within those gray eyes. “With you, I’m jealous of everyone who ever touched you. ”
Should that be a huge red flag? Maybe. But when I saw him with Rosalind and didn’t understand the truth about them, it made me crazy.
I can’t blame Jonah for irrational jealousy when I’m in its grip myself.
“We haven’t spoken that much outside our—games,” he says. “We both obeyed the rules. So I shouldn’t feel close to you. Not this close. ”
After a long moment, I reply, “Really you only know one important thing about me. But the one thing you know is the single most intimate, private thing I’ve ever shared with anyone. That’s why I said I bared my soul to you, every time. That’s why this relationship feels like—”
Like what? I don’t have the words for it . . . or I’m afraid to say them. Maybe Jonah’s afraid too. He says nothing, but he nods. I tell myself it’s enough that he understands.
“You’re the only woman who ever fully realized what I wanted from this fantasy. ” Jonah meets my eyes more evenly than I was able to meet his. “I always thought any woman who would understand that would be—”