The Culmination (23 page)

“Do it now. I own you. I command you. Now.”

“I can’t.”

He grunts with exasperation—or maybe it’s just arousal—and pulls away from me. “Fuck this. You’re in such big trouble.”

He sits up, his erection straining for me, abruptly bends my legs up toward my head, and slams into me with the full length of him.

I shriek at his sudden and very, very deep entry.

“We don’t need
artificial
ecstasy,” he grunts, pounding into me. Holy fuck, he’s fucking the shit out of me, pummeling me without mercy. “
Because we have the real thing
.”

I’m nonverbal. Oh my God. He’s never pounded me like this. This is savage. Holy shit. He’s ripping me in two. He’s fucking me so hard, it’s like he’s trying to literally break me—and, yet, it feels oh so good.

Finally, my body releases with an orgasm that wracks and twists my entire torso and brings me to sudden tears. But Jonas just keeps slamming into me, even as I convulse and twist. When my body finishes releasing, I’m a quivering mess—a twitching, sweaty, quivering mess. I instinctively pull on my bindings, wanting to wipe my tears, but they hold firm. Oh, shit. I’m like a carcass hanging from a tree branch. A dead fucking cat. My head flops to the side, my cheek resting against my arm as Jonas continues savagely plowing into me.

A strange look suddenly flashes across Jonas’ face. A look of horror, I might even call it. He freezes, his eyes wide and blazing. Quickly, he reaches up to the headboard and unties my wrists, and the minute he does, I collapse into a heap on the bed, rubbing my wrists and wiping my teary eyes.

“Sarah,” he says, his voice tight.

I can’t reply.

“Baby.”

He scoops up my limp body and sits down on the edge of the bed, positioning me onto his erection as he does. I wrap my legs around his waist and lay my sweaty cheek on his glistening shoulder, but I can’t seem to do anything more than that. I can’t speak. I can’t move. I can’t think. I’m completely incapacitated.

In this new position, Jonas begins fucking me again, doing all the work for both of us, since I’ve apparently lost temporary control of my muscles.

As he manipulates my body to grind on top of his, I lift my head off his shoulder and look him in the eyes, my body undulating with his. The rage I saw a moment ago in his eyes has been replaced with excruciating pain.

Oh my God, I blew it tonight. I hurt my beautiful, beloved Jonas. I crossed some line I didn’t even know existed. I tripped a landmine and it went ka-boom—all over my sweet Jonas.

Jonas grits his teeth and grabs my ass, coaxing my clit to rub against his erection. Sweat is dripping down his chest and mine.

“Jonas,” I gasp.

He doesn’t respond.

I grasp at his chest, my tears coming fast and furious. “Forgive me.”

He’s moving underneath me, in and out of me, his hard-on stroking my clit as he does.

“I’m sorry,” I say, panic and pleasure rising inside me in equal measure.

He doesn’t speak. He’s just fucking me, as calm as a sniper, rubbing his erection against my clit at just the right angle to push me into yet another orgasm. After several minutes, I shudder with another climax, and when I do, he closes his eyes slowly and jolts with a massive release.

When he opens his eyes after he’s done, he levels me with a heart-stopping gaze. But, still, he doesn’t speak.

“I love you, Jonas,” I say, my pulse racing. “Please, please forgive me.”

“My Magnificent Sarah,” he says, finally breaking his torturous silence. He cups my face in his strong hands. “The next time you even
think
about letting another man into our sacred cocoon, my
church
, even if it’s just in his own fucking imagination, even if it seems like harmless flirting to you, like something any other normal woman would do in a normal marriage, I want you to ask yourself if the validation you’re trying to get from making another man want to fuck you is worth pushing your unstable husband firmly over the fucking edge.”

Chapter 20

Sarah

I feel his fingers brushing against my cheek.

I hurt all over.

My head is throbbing.

My stomach hurts.

Gah.

“Sarah,” he whispers.

I can’t remember where I am. Why am I in so much pain? Oh God, have I been stabbed again? Where am I?

His fingers are clasped in mine. I just want to stay immersed in darkness and sleep forever, but his fingers brushing my cheek are pulling me back to him, into the light.

Holy crap, am I in the hospital? I feel like death warmed over.

My eyes flutter open.

“Hey,” he says softly. He’s sitting in a chair next to the bed, staring at me.

“Jonas.” I try to sit up, but I can’t. I feel too weak, too sick to move. My stomach hurts so effing bad.

He brushes my hair away from my face. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’m dying.” My stomach turns over and I dart out of the bed, into the bathroom. I barely make it to the toilet before heaving every last bit of champagne and vodka and jet fuel and pot and Ecstasy out of my body. Oh my God, I feel like donkey dung. I don’t even have the strength to crawl back into bed, so I do the unthinkable: I lie down on the tiles of the bathroom—onto the floor of a
hotel
bathroom, people, oh my effing God, I’m subhuman—and close my eyes.

He crouches over me. “You planning to pitch a tent down there and stay a while?”

“Everything hurts,” I mumble against the tiles.

“Serves you right, numnuts.”

“I know.”

He scoops me up into his strong arms and carries me back into bed. A moment later, he’s got a cool, wet cloth on my forehead. “Here,” he says. He hands me four pills. “Ibuprofen. Take these.” A water bottle is pressed to my lips. He sits next to me on the bed. “I changed our flight. I didn’t think you’d be up for a flight tonight. We leave tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.” I moan.

“What hurts the most?”

“My head.”

He exhales. “Oh, Sarah.” He leans down and kisses my forehead. “A
besito
for your booboo.”

I whimper. “My stomach, too.”

He pulls up my tank top and kisses my belly button softly.

I moan. “My heart.”

He kisses my sternum and then plants a soft kiss on each of my nipples.

“My nipples don’t hurt,” I say.

“Kissing your nipples was for me.”

I let out a long exhale. “I’m sorry, Jonas,” I say. “I fucked up.”

He lowers my shirt. “Yeah, you did.” He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night—couldn’t stop playing and replaying everything in my head.” His jaw muscles pulse. “I think I finally know what I want to say to you.”

Uh oh. By the look on his face, this isn’t gonna be good. I take a long, deep breath—partly to calm my churning stomach, and partly to prepare myself for whatever he’s about to say.

Jonas brushes my cheek for a moment, staring at me quietly. “Last night was such a fucking shit-show, it took me forever to figure where to even start.” He pauses for a long time. “Sarah, when I say I love you more than life itself, when I say I
worship
you, that you’re my
religion
, those are not just words to me. I think maybe you don’t understand the intensity of my feelings for you.” He swallows hard. “But I need you to understand it so you don’t
crush
me, however unintentionally, going forward.”

My stomach drops into my toes.

“When you were lying in a puddle of blood on that bathroom floor at U Dub,” he says softly, “I felt the worst pain of my entire life. And I do mean my
entire
life.” He lets that sink in for a moment. “I knew if I lost you, I physically wouldn’t survive it. And last night brought that all up again. I felt like I was in danger of losing you.”

“Oh, Jonas. You were never in the slightest danger of losing me last night. That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you. My feelings aren’t ridiculous.”

“I didn’t say your feelings are ridiculous. But if only you’d heard the actual conversation between Will and me, I think you’d realize that—”

“No. I’m not talking about him right now. I’m talking about something bigger. Just listen, okay?”

I nod.

“I was in danger of losing you in a lot of ways last night—so many fucking ways.” He rubs his hand through his hair. “Jesus. I don’t even know where to start.” He takes a deep a breath. “First off, fighting tooth and nail to get my stupid-ass wife released from a Thai prison is not the way I’d prefer to spend the next decade of my marriage, thank you very much.”

I nod. “I was an idiot.”

“Yes, you were. A flaming idiot. And that’s only the beginning of the shit-show.”

I close my eyes. “I’m just gonna shut my eyes as you talk, okay, love? I’m not sleeping or ignoring you, I promise. It just hurts my eyelids too much to keep them open.”

“Oh, Sarah. You dumbshit.” He sighs. “Let me rub your temples, baby.” He lies down on the bed next to me, leans his forehead against mine, and begins massaging my head.

I moan in appreciation of his touch.

“Does that feel good?”

“So good.”

“You’re such a big dummy,” he says softly.

“I know. The biggest dummy ever.” I moan as his fingers slide along my scalp and over to my temples. “Oh my God, thank you.”

“You’re this weird little ticking time bomb, you know that? You always have been, from day one. Little Miss Overachiever Goody Two Shoes Perfect Rule Follower ninety-nine percent of the time, and then that one percent pops up, and—bam!—you turn into Miley Cyrus.”

I laugh. “Can we agree right now that we’re never, ever gonna tell our future children about the time Mommy went to a nightclub in Bangkok and got shitfaced drunk and smoked pot and took Ecstasy with a world-famous rapper?”

“Yeah. I think we can confidently agree we won’t tell our future children about any part of that.”

His fingers are truly magical on my scalp. “You’re so good at this,” I say softly. “Thank you.”

“Please tell me what the fuck you were thinking.”

“I have no idea. My dirty girl just took over, I guess.”

“Oh no. Don’t you dare blame your dirty girl for this. She’s a class-act compared to the hot mess who showed up last night.”

I laugh, even though it hurts my head to do it.

“What the fuck?”

“I don’t know. I seriously do not know.”

“Try.”

“I told you at dinner, I was ready to go completely crazy.” I exhale.

“Well, mission fucking accomplished.”

I groan.

Jonas pauses a long beat before speaking. “There’s no rush on starting a family,” he finally says. “I had no idea the thought would turn you into Lindsay Lohan.”

“Jonas, talking about starting a family isn’t what turned me into Lindsay Lohan. I’m so excited to start a family with you. But I do wonder what was the point of all the years of hard work and studying and dreaming of helping all those women at Gloria’s House if I’m just gonna go home and start popping out babies before I’ve even gotten my bar results? Because I know myself, Jonas: when I become a mom, I’m gonna wanna do it full-time if I can, at least when they’re really young—and that means I’d be letting a lot of people down.”

“Sarah, stop thinking so much. Just do what feels right. Your mother, of all people, wouldn’t begrudge you starting a family. And now that Gloria’s House is one of Climb and Conquer’s sponsored charities, they’re in a totally different situation than when you first started dreaming of working there—they could hire ten Sarahs if they really wanted. Don’t create imaginary electric fences around yourself. If you want to make a baby with me, let’s do it. If you’re not ready, we wait. This is about us—what we want—how we feel—and absolutely nothing else.”

I’m suddenly flooded with excitement. He’s absolutely right. My heart palpitates. “I think we should start trying as soon as sex won’t make me barf.”

His face isn’t flooded with excitement the way I thought it would be. Didn’t I just tell him I want to start trying for a baby right away?

“I tell you what, Miley. Get your bar results, work for at least a few months, and figure your shit out. After that, whatever you decide, I’m in. Today’s not the day to make this decision. It’s one thing to have make-up sex; it’s another to have a make-up baby.”

I’m speechless. Is that what he thinks I’m doing—trying to apologize to him for my bad behavior by giving him a baby?

He moves his hands from my head to my neck. “Does this feel good?”

I purr like a cat. “Oh my God, baby. Yes. You’re so good at this.”

He nuzzles his nose into mine. “It always shocks the hell out of me when it turns out I’m the sane one between the two of us.” He shakes his head. But he doesn’t seem angry, just amused. “You’re such a train wreck sometimes, Sarah.”

“I know.” I exhale. “I’ll never do anything like that again. I promise.”

“You better not.”

“I won’t.”

“With drugs, you never know what the fuck you’re taking. That pill could have been
anything
—or laced with something. Something horrible could have happened to you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“If you wanna get out of your head for a while, get shit-faced, baby. Alcohol is
regulated
. You know exactly what you’re ingesting and how your body’s gonna react to it.”

“No need to stage an intervention for me. One-time thing.”

“Good. So let’s move on to talking about the next way you fucked up royally, shall we?”

“Yippee.”

He pauses, thinking. “What do you know about Judo?”

“Judo? Um. I know it’s a martial art. Hand-to-hand combat. That’s about it.”

“Judo is one of the few martial arts that by definition involves no equipment or weapons of any kind, but instead relies solely on two combatants attempting to subdue each other through nothing but the forces of balance, power, and movement. Which means it’s about harnessing human power and strength in its purest form.” He continues massaging my neck as he speaks. “For me, sex is a form of Judo—and it’s my life’s mission to become a tenth-degree black belt.”