Page 78 of The Sailor in Polynesia
His eyes rolled back. “Oh thank God.” He pushed off me and fetched condoms from a cabinet across the room. I propped myself up to watch him slide the condom on.
He crawled over me and aligned himself. Jonas tangled his fingers in my hair, kissing me deeply before pressing gently into me.
We both lay there, relaxing into each other with him seated so deeply. Jonas took my mouth again and we began a rhythm: kiss, breathe, grind, gasp, arch, thrust. Over and over again, we made these deep, real imprints on each other.
Jonas panted harder, and his kisses became more sparse, his thrusts more uncontrolled. “Mia,” he whispered. “Mia, Mia, Mia...”
Clenching, Jonas came, his gasps echoing in my ears.
Twenty-Nine
We lay in bed stroking each other, lightly touching, kissing and teasing while we relaxed on the bed. I traced the ridges of his chest as he stroked and twirled my hair around his fingers.
Suddenly there was a bump against the boat, followed by loud stomping across the deck.
“Jonas!” Eivind’s voice shouted out.
Jonas’s eyes widened. “Oh shit.” He leaped out of bed, scrambling to throw clothes on. Confused, I followed suit and was halfway decent when the banging started on the door.
“What’s going on?” I hissed at Jonas.
“I was supposed to have the radio on to pick them up from shore.”
Eivind was calling through the door, sounding pissed. When I was fully dressed, Jonas opened the door.
Eivind started talking rapidly in Norwegian and Jonas held his hands out, keeping a calm tone as he responded. Lila’s eyes bounced back and forth between the two men until finally she smacked Eivind’s arm with the back of her hand.
“Eivind, in English so I can yell too!”
That broke Eivind’s anger, and his emotions drained away. He raked his hands through his cropped hair, then sat on the bench and put his face in his hands.
The whole boat was silent for a moment.
“I am sorry, Eivind.” Jonas hung his head.
Eivind sighed and sat back, resting his arms on the table. “What are we doing?”
Jonas darted a glance at me. “We were, ah...”
Eivind let out a dark laugh. “No, Jonas, us.” He gestured around the boat. “Elayna is gone, Marcella is gone, we have no new crew member. Lila’s visa runs out in less than a week. There are still several islands between us and Bora Bora. We will have to skip them to get to Bora Bora to start the clearance formalities. And that is just the next week or so. The season will be over before we know it, and we will need to get to New Zealand in a rush.”
“Ja. I know,” Jonas said quietly. He hesitated and looked at me. “If we leave tomorrow, to sail to Bora Bora, will you come?”
I knew what he was really asking me: How far would I go to stay with him? He would get his boat to New Zealand before cyclone season. If I moved far enough west past the invisible line, I was committing to going all the way to New Zealand. Every mile I went west would make it harder for me to sail back to safety.
And the only other option would be to sailWelinaall the way to New Zealand. By myself.
“No.”
The look on Jonas’s face broke me. He was stunned.
“It is only a few days of sailing to get to Bora Bora.”
“I know. I would be alone.”
“You are a great sailor. You can solo sail—I know you can.”
I looked at Jonas, his eyes pleading with me. “I know I’m a great sailor, Jonas. I know I can do it. But I don’twantto. This is not just Bora Bora.”
