“Just one last time,” she breathed out, while I dipped my hands under her blouse, pulling her bra up, and ran my thumbs over her breasts. They were soft, well-rounded and fit so well into my hands. Gently, I palmed them, and she let out a gasp while I pinched her nipples.
“It’s all yours for the moment,” I said, my voice rough with desire, while I caressed her bare breasts. I dipped my head, running my tongue along one of her nipples, teasing it to a point, and her moan was even louder. My hands ran up and down the sides of her torso as I sucked a nipple into my mouth.
Her skin was burning against my palms, and I groaned, adding my teeth as I scraped her nipples. Her legs moved to go on either side of me, and unthinkingly, I helped her. She rocked her hips once, twice, while I teased her swollen breasts, my hand skimming down her sides before I found her clit under her pants.
I circled my thumb on her clit, and she moaned before putting a hand out to stop me. “No, Jonah,” she said, with a glance at the door. “Not here. Not now. There’s no way I could be quiet enough for what we both want.”
She was right. This wasn’t the time or place, and I wanted more than just a quick fuck with Lexi. I wanted hours and hours with her.
With deep regret, I let go, pulling her bra back down over her before I buttoned my shirt up. She quickly pulled her blouse back down and when she made to stand up and move off me, I circled my arm around her waist firmly and held her tight. “Don’t leave,” I said quietly.
When it looked like she was going to protest, I added in a softer voice, “Not yet.”
23
LEXI
The change in his tone convinced me. He was no longer commanding, but asking. So I rested my head against his shoulder as we sat catching our breath.
My gaze fell on the coffee thermos on his desk. Of all the flashy things in his life, this one looked out of place. “Why is your coffee thermos so old?”
He followed my gaze to the old stainless-steel coffee thermos, the kind made long before sleek travel mugs took over.
“Because it’s my mom’s,” he said, unable to hide the vulnerability that crept into his voice. He was quiet for a long moment, and I could feel him making the choice to continue. “When I was four, my mom gave me up,” he said finally, while I rested my head on his shoulder.
A muscle in his jaw tightened, and it looked like this conversation was something that was costing him a lot to bring up. “She believed it was for my benefit. But …” He looked the most vulnerable I’d ever seen, and a shadow of his younger self flashed across his face briefly. “I found out later that the guilt of giving me up weighed too heavily on her. She became an alcoholic and drank herself to death.”
His voice broke slightly on the last words. “This thermos is something I carry with me to remind me of her. Of what I lost.”
I’d heard about his father before, but this was the first time I’d heard him talk about his mother.
“Was she your dad’s first wife?” I asked gently.
Jonah shook his head. “My dad was married to Cora when he had an affair with an employee and I was born. I spent the first four years of my life with my mother in Dallas.” He drew in a deep breath and I recognized that it was the second time I was hearing about the city of Dallas that day. “Once my dad found out about my existence, he demanded I be raised in his home, and my mother gave in. She was a single mom with two jobs, and I suspect I was just a burden, of no use to have around.”
A bitter note crept into his voice while my heart ached for the younger Jonah. I hoped I would never make Evie feel that way.
“When did she die?”
He was quiet for so long I thought he might not answer. “Twenty-nine years ago. She passed away when I was ten.”
So he never even had a chance at a relationship with her. Good grief. It changed the way I looked at Jonah. He was invincible to the world, but I could see the cracks within him.
“Dallas,” I said, remembering something from Rafael’s conversation earlier. “Were you in Dallas recently for her?”
Jonah met my gaze and nodded. “I bought the house she used to live in. Everything’s the same in there–her furniture, and her things. I have a cleaner who comes in weekly to maintain it. And every year on the day Mom died, which was over the weekend, I make a trip out there. To… apologize and to try to remember what she sounded like, or smelled like. To remember her in some way.”
“I’m sorry, Jonah,” I said, cupping his cheek and forcing him to look at me. I couldn’t imagine a mom giving up a child, and Icertainly couldn’t imagine the trauma a child would go through to be separated from their primary parent.
Jonah was like a silo, operating independently and alone. It ought to hurt, not having the kind of support that family could give. I knew a little of how that felt since I had a difficult Mom myself. But I also had Evie. At the end of the day, I loved her fiercely, and she loved me right back.
“So, without understanding why, at the age of four, I moved in with my dad and Cora. Cora wasn’t happy about it, but my dad had his way. However, she has never forgiven me for being a daily reminder of my father’s transgressions.” He paused, his voice growing quieter. “I never saw my mother again. Cora didn’t want her involved in my dad’s life in any way, and my mother agreed to stay away.”
I watched the pain flicker across his features as I looked at him, noticing the tension in his face.
“Fat lot of good it did, staying away. Cora wasn’t any nicer to me for it, and I never got a chance to get to know my mom.”
He stopped speaking, looking like it was taking all his energy to talk about it. “Did Cora make your childhood miserable?” I asked, getting incensed at the idea of that woman taking her unjustified hatred out on a child.
