The Culmination (13 page)

“Jonas,” I cry, gasping for air. “The babies!”

I open my eyes. “
The babies
!” But nothing comes out of my mouth. My voice isn’t working.

I’m in a darkened hospital room. Jonas is seated next to my bed, his strong arms draped across me. His fingers are woven into mine. There are tubes and wires attached to me. Oh God, I’m in so much pain. And, oh my God, Jonas is heart-stoppingly beautiful.

Jonas smiles at me through tears. “Sarah,” he says, overcome with emotion. “Thank God.” He shudders with relief. “I’ve been so worried.”

I clutch my belly. “The babies,” I say—or try to say. I can’t make sound come out of my mouth.

“They’re in the NICU,” Jonas says softly, understanding me despite my absent voice. He strokes my face tenderly. “Two little girls.” He wipes his eyes. “And they look just like you.”

A surge of pure love floods my entire body, but I can’t seem to keep my eyes open. The pain is too great. I’m too tired. I’ve never felt quite this tired before. I’m slipping away. I reach toward Jonas, trying to hold onto him, trying to stay with him in the light—did he just say we have daughters?—but I’m too weak to overcome the darkness.

“Sarah?” Jonas whispers, his voice breaking. “Baby?” He yelps. “
Fuck
. Sarah? I love you, Sarah. Sarah?” His voice breaks. “Oh, Sarah. Baby. I love you so much. Please hear me.
I love you
.”

His muffled voice cuts through the darkness for a nanosecond, and then I’m subsumed into the darkness again.

Chapter 14

Sarah

I’m standing with Jonas on the side of a Belizean highway.

“As a member of the Jonas Faraday Club,” he says, shooting me a shy smile, “you need a color-coded bracelet.” He ties a multi-colored friendship bracelet to my wrist.

“Oh yeah,” I say, laughing. “To designate my freaky-ass ‘sexual preferences.’” I look at the braided bracelet on my wrist. “I’m not a purple?”

“No, you’re not a purple, you big dummy—neither am I. We’re a brand new color—a color designated for just the two of us.” He holds his wrist right next to mine. “Because we’re a perfect match, baby.” He leans in and kisses me. “Because you were made for me, Sarah Cruz.”

I smile at him. “You were made for me, Jonas Faraday.”

“Please, please don’t leave me.”

I feel pain everywhere. Holy fuckity-fuck-fuck, what is that goddamned pain?

“S-A-R-A-H,” Jonas says, diverting my attention from the pain. He hands a platinum bracelet to a saleswoman behind a jewelry counter. “S-A-R-A-H,” he repeats.

The woman behind the counter nods. “And you, miss?” she asks me.

I’m disoriented for a moment. I look around the jewelry store and then back to the clerk. “Um.”

“Say it, baby,” Jonas coaxes. “You know what to say.”

Holy hell, I feel like shit.

“Baby,” Jonas says. “Think about our love. Let it lead you back to me.”

I take a deep breath. “J-O-N-A-S,” I say, handing her the platinum bracelet that’s suddenly appeared in my hand. I turn to look at Jonas and the pain in my body subsides. “Jonas, no matter what happens from here on out, if I have to leave, always know I loved you with all my heart and soul.”

“That’s not what you say right then,” Jonas says, clearly panicking. “Say what you’re supposed to say.”

“Sorry.” I twist my mouth, trying to remember. I look down at my hands. Where’s my wedding ring? Oh no. I never, ever take it off. Where’d it go?

“Sarah?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t remember what I’m supposed to say.”

“‘Our bracelets have to be a perfect match because
we’re
a perfect match. End of story,’” Jonas says. He flashes me a beaming smile. “That’s what you say. And then you jut your chin like a little badass.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right.”

He puts his finger under my chin. “We have to get these memories exactly right, my love. If you think about them, if you let your mind relive them exactly like they happened, they’ll bring you back to me—I know they will.”

His smile is melting me right now. Damn, he’s a good lookin’ man. I nod. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”

“Good girl. Now say your line,” he says softly.

“Our bracelets have to be a perfect match because
we’re
a perfect match. End of story.” I jut my chin.

“There’s my badass!” He laughs and sweeps me up into an embrace. “God, I love you, Sarah Cruz.” I feel his hand clasping mine. “Stay with me, love. Never leave me. I’m right here.”

“Is that what you’re supposed say right then?” I ask. “I don’t remember it that way.”

“Please, please come back to me,” his voice says softly in my ear. His fingers graze my cheek. “Please, baby, please.” He sounds like he’s crying. “I love you.”

“That’s not what you say, Jonas.” Tears well up in my eyes. Shoot. I can’t remember what he’s supposed to say. The blackness is pulling at me, coaxing me. I can’t think straight.

He squeezes my hand. “I love you,” he whispers. “Stay with me, baby.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You have to.”

“I don’t know if I get to decide.”

“Of course, you do,” Jonas says. “Who the fuck gets to decide, if not you?”

“Well, you know.
God
.”

“Fuck God.”

“
Jonas
. You can’t say that.” I look around, paranoid someone will overhear him.

“I’ll say it again. Fuck God. As far as I’m concerned, God’s been a fucking asshole to me my whole life and I’m fucking sick and tired of his bullshit.” His face is pure anguish. “So fuck it.
I’m
God now. I’m in charge. And my first order of business is decreeing that my beloved Sarah shall come back to me.”

“It doesn’t work that way, my love,” I say earnestly. “And, seriously, you can’t talk that way about God. You’re gonna get us in big trouble. Take it back.”

He exhales loudly. “Just stop being so difficult and do what I tell you to do for once in your goddamned life, woman.” I feel his hand on my cheek, his lips against my ear. “Stay with me, Sarah,” he breathes. “Please.”

A breeze rifles through my hair. I smell salt in the air. I look around.

I’m standing on a white-sand beach. The ocean is the most spectacular shade of turquoise I’ve ever seen. Jonas is bent down on his knee, holding up a ring box.

“There’s never been a love like ours and there never will be again,” he says, his face beaming up at me. “We’re the greatest love story ever told. Our love is so pure and true, it’s the amazement of the gods.” He bites his luscious lower lip and smiles. “Baby, our love is the
envy
of the gods.”

I kneel down and throw my arms around his neck. “Yes!”

“Yes?”

“Yes, baby, yes!” Tears squirt out my eyes. “Always and forever, yes. No matter whether I’m flesh and bones or ether or ash, I’ll always be yours, Jonas. I’m a member of the Jonas Faraday Club forever and ever.”

He leans back from me, his eyes panicked. “That’s not what you say, Sarah. Goddammit. You don’t say that thing about ether and ash.” His lip trembles. “You just say
yes.
” He’s obviously holding back tears. “You don’t get to say anything but yes.”

I nod. “I’m sorry, Jonas.” I touch his chest. “
Yes
.”

He slides the diamond onto my finger and takes my face in his hands. “Never leave me, Sarah.”

“I’m trying.”

I look down. I’m holding a huge plastic cup filled with liquid that looks like lemonade. My wedding band is on my finger, thank God. It freaked me out not seeing it there a minute ago. And my engraved platinum bracelet is on my wrist, too. Phew. All’s right with the world.

Samba music is blaring in my ears. I look to my left and there’s Jonas, swigging from a big cup and shaking his gorgeous ass to the infectious beat of the music, his engraved platinum bracelet on his wrist, as usual. Okay. We’re good.

I look around. Beautiful Brazilian people. Palm trees. Warm, luscious air.

Ah, yes. I remember this place—Rio de Janeiro. Jonas and I are here for Carnivale during my second year of law school and we’re drinking
caipirinhas
’til we can’t feel our faces or toes.
Hellz yeah,
we are
.
Woot woot
! Yay for numb faces and toes!

Jonas wraps me into his arms and gropes my backside with zeal. “Your ass should be very scared,” he whispers into my ear, grinding his hard-on into me. And then he throws his head back and howls like a wolf at the top of his lungs.

I burst out laughing. God, I love Drunk Jonas.

Before coming on this trip, I would have bet the farm no version of Jonas could love my ass more than Drunk Jonas. But here in Brazil, I’ve discovered a whole new iteration of Jonas that gets off on my backside more than I ever thought possible:
Carnivale
Drunk Jonas. Oh, holy crappola, how Carnivale Drunk Jonas adores my moneymaker. And it’s no wonder—the Carnivale parade Jonas and I witnessed just now was a frickin’ booty-lover’s paradise. Ass porn, you might even say. Holy Butt Cheeks, Batman, that sucker was the holy grail of beautiful bottoms.

Of course, the parade included a helluva lot more than Brazilian ass cheeks—there were spectacular floats, musicians, feathers, sequins, and dancers with plenty of spectacular body parts having absolutely nothing to do with spanking or sitting down. But as exciting and stimulating as all that other stuff was, nothing came even close to giving me a lady-boner like those jaw-dropping Brazilian backsides. And if those gyrating female asses turned
me
on, holy shitballs, I can only imagine the hard-on they must have induced in my ass-loving husband.

A taxi pulls up right in front of us to let some (extremely attractive) people out and Jonas grabs my arm and yanks me roughly through the wide open door. “Come on, baby,” he says, squeezing my bottom as he guides me into the backseat. “Prelude fucking over.”

The minute we stumble through the door of our rented beachfront bungalow, Carnivale Drunk Jonas literally drags me onto our moonlit deck overlooking the sand, bends me over the railing, yanks my skirt up and my panties down, and bites my ass so hard, I’m rendered momentarily mute from the delicious pain. A second later, his erection plows into my wetness with astonishing force—so hard my knees give way—and I yelp at the sensation. This is not the way Jonas normally does things—this is pure animal force—sloppy, even—and, holy fuckkola, I like it. He’s ramming my G-spot over and over with his massive erection (good lord, has that thing grown?) while groping every inch of me like he’s frisking a felon, and it doesn’t take long before my body begins clenching from deep, deep inside. This ain’t no usual orgasm, folks. This one’s emanating from a place buried deep inside me. Oh my God. What the fuck is this? I’ve never experienced an orgasm quite like this before. It’s making my entire body convulse, not just the areas immediately connected to my clit.

People are walking on the moonlit beach in the distance, but Jonas doesn’t give a fuck if anyone sees or hears us in the dark shadows of our deck and neither do I. He grabs my hair and yanks my head back, growling in my ear as he fucks me, biting my neck, groping my breasts, ripping me in two—and, all the while, whispering to me about how he’s going to fuck me ’til I “pass the fuck out.” And through it all, I’m thinking an incoherent stream of syllables that, roughly translated, mean something akin to, “Make me your bitch.”

When I climax, Jonas doesn’t. As usual, booze has given my hunky-monkey husband superhuman-stamina. (Fine by me.) After pulverizing me for what seems an awfully long time, he pulls out, roughly turns me around, puts his hands on my face, and blurts, “I fucking
love
the
fuck
out of you, woman! Fuck!” And then, without warning, he reaches down, picks me up at my knees, throws me over his broad shoulder, my ass cheeks hanging out there for the world to see, and strides into the bungalow.

He hurls me onto the bed onto my belly, rips off my clothes, and spanks my naked ass so effing hard, I stop breathing for a brief moment; and then he gropes and licks and bites my backside—every square inch of it from sea to shining sea, without exclusion, all the while grunting and moaning and extolling the virtues of my assets with exuberance.

Over the past two years, Jonas and I have performed every form of oral and vaginal intercourse known to man—at least, I think we have—good lord, if there’s something left to do on God’s green earth that involves a penis, a vagina, and two mouths, then I give up already—and yet, despite all that experimentation, Jonas has surprisingly never once pushed to penetrate my final frontier. And since I’ve never offered, it’s simply never happened. But right now, I’m feeling like a minx—a minx who can’t feel her cheeks or toes.

“Do it, baby,” I groan.

He licks my ass cheek and shoves his fingers into my ass crack.

“Jonas,” I slur. “
Do it
.”

Without another word, he leaps off the bed and bounds to his suitcase in the corner.

I bite my lip to get a read on just how drunk I really am. Yep, I’m drunky-drunkerton. I can’t feel my lip under my teeth. That’s good, because I’m suddenly nervous I’m about to experience excruciating pain.

I hear Jonas fumble with something—a bottle of lube, I’m guessing—the man never travels without it—and when he returns to me, his fingers slide without hesitation into my ass crack and then straight up my ass.

“Relax, baby,” he whispers, his lubed fingers confidently working me. “You’re gonna love it.”

My breathing is suddenly shallow. Every muscle in my body tenses, even as my clit flutters with anticipation. Maybe my body’s not going to be able to cash this particular check, after all?

“Relax,” Jonas coos, his confident fingers skimming up and down my crack. “I’m gonna make you come harder than you ever have, baby. Just trust me.”

I’m suddenly wondering when was the last time I pooped? Oh my God. Is he going to fuck the poop out of me? “Poop,” I blurt.

He laughs. “
Relax
.” He rubs my back and leans down into my ear. “
Relax,
baby.”