Page 68 of Lies and Lullabies
“I didn’t answer your letter,” he whispered.
My heart spasmed. “Did you even read it?”
Jonas used his hand to tip my head onto his shoulder. “Here’s where it gets weird,” he said in a low voice. “I read it every day for two years. I carried it in my pocket wherever I went. That letter has been to Australia and Japan. And a bunch of other places, too.”
“What? Why?” I breathed.
Jonas let out a sigh. “Because that’s how much I liked it. Reading that you cared about me felt like winning the lottery. I wanted to see you again so bad. But I was afraid of fucking things up. I didn’t trust myself enough to follow through.”
“That makes no sense,” I argued.
He turned to kiss the top of my head. “It doesn’t make sense toyou,” he said, “because you’re not an immature twenty-five-year-old guy.”
“I am too twenty-five.”
He chuckled, and I was so close to him that I felt the vibration in my own chest. “Kira, the fact that I’m five years older than you is not evenenough. You already have more sense than I ever will. And that’s why I didn’t tell you all of this right away. I want you to believe in me, even though I’ve been such an idiot. It’s not an easy sell.”
“Well… I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say that we have a chance. Or at least that you’ll consider it. Not just for Vivi’s sake. I’d want you whether we made a baby or not.”
There were goosebumps on my bare shoulders. It wasn’t easy to keep my wits about me when I was cuddled up against the hottest man I’d ever met. And he’d just said something about making babies.
Focus, Kira. There were still lots of reasons why this was a bad idea. “It’s not that I think you’re trying to… trick me or something. But you haven’t thought this through. You and I lead very different lives. You’re traipsing the world, but our life in Boston is quiet. A big event at our house is like… taco night.”
Jonas gave a sexy little grunt of disagreement. “I think you’re overestimating this so-called big life of mine.” He palmed my lower back and gave it a squeeze that I felteverywhere. “What looks like a big life to you can feel pretty damned small. When I got in the car tonight after the show, there were a dozen girls yelling my name. But they don’t know me at all, Kira. I’m too old to think that’s cool anymore. I just want…” He seemed to be reaching for the right words. “I just want two girls who look up at me when I come in the door at night. I want to hear, ‘Hey, wemissedyou today. And by the way, it’s taco night.’”
I tried to picture it—a future in whichPeople’sSexiest Man Alive came home after work to eat tacos in my kitchen. Even Vivi’s yearnings for a pony sounded more realistic. And if it didn’t work out? Disaster. “If things went badly between us, it would hurt Vivi.”
He rubbed my back. “Is that your objection? Because if things are great between us, that’s good for her, right? I want us all to be together.”
I tipped my head to look him in the eye. “You say that,” I whispered, “because you feel guilty.” He opened his mouth to object, but I raised a hand. “I know you’re going to love Vivi, because she is irresistible. But you shouldn’t assume that there really is more between us.”
His turquoise eyes got wide. “There wasalwaysmore, Kira. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Five years was a long time ago, Jonas.”
Slowly, he shook his head. “When I look at you, it feels like five minutes.”
“We weren’t even together then.”
“We should have been. I loved you so much more than the ex-girlfriend I’d just left. Every time I’d come to Boston, I’d think about you the whole time. I just wish I’d done something about it.”
I turned away, because it was too hard to keep the shock off my face. “When you’re in Boston, I look for you in the crowds,” I admitted.
“Jesus,Kira,” he breathed. “What a waste, right?” He held me a little more tightly. Tipping his head back against the pillows, he closed his eyes. “I won’t rush you, sweetness. But I have to say that just having you next to me right now makes me so happy. I’ve loved you a long time.”
My eyes got hot, and my throat felt tight, which was all very inconvenient. What I needed was a few hours alone to try to process all the things that Jonas had said. I could just say so, and toddle off to the empty bed in the other room. Except his fingers were tracing a soft circle on my back. It wasn’t an overtly sexual touch, but it might as well have been. There was no place that Jonas Smith could touch my body that wouldn’t make me instantly and urgently aware of him.
“Jonas,” I said, my voice roughened by both emotion and desire. “It’s hard for me to put aside the fact that you could have anyone.”
“But so could you.” He pulled me even closer. “There isn’t anyone else I want, sweetness. Youdisarmme, the way nobody else can. I don’t know any way to prove it to you. But it’s true.” His thumb brushed my lip with such tenderness that I almost couldn’t bear it. “Be with me, Kira. In my heart, I really just want you.”
The world went a little blurry then, and I felt Jonas’s thumb sweep a tear off my cheek. “I worry that it’s not that simple,” I said, my voice cracking.
“It’sjustthat simple,” he whispered. In the darkness, the color of his eyes was lost, but not their intensity. For a moment, we only stared at one another. But then we were kissing again. I wasn’t even sure how it happened. I probably started it.
But I wasn’t sorry. His lips were firm and hungry against my own. When he kissed me like this, it was possible to believe that he needed me as badly as he’d said.
