Astrid was reeling. She'd fallen asleep in his bed while he was halfway across town with her father, screwing up his entire life. Maybe she loved him. Hell, Astrid knew she did. But he hadn't known that at the time he'd gone over there. He threw his entire life away over sex.
"I was telling the truth when I told Travis I didn't need a month," Jonah said as he reached for the first slice of pizza. "As soon as we slept together, I knew my friendship with Scott was over. Lying to him every day for the rest of our lives was never an option."
While she didn't want him to have to lie to her father, telling him the truth was beyond terrifying. She'd been so worried about Jonah's friendship with her dad, she hadn't yet stopped to think of her relationship with him.
Ever since her mother walked out, Astrid, Jonah and the business were the only three constants in her father's life. Now all of that would go up in flames around him.
Astrid would be lucky if her father ever looked or spoke to her again. It wasn't just Jonah who was betraying him, but her. And this betrayal was unforgivable. She'd have to quit the garage, not wanting to force her father to fire her or face her every day. And once the men in the garage knew, it would spread through town like a wildfire. Whoever said beauty parlors in a small town was gossip central were sorely mistaken. Men could gossip with the best of them.
If she was fortunate to receive her father's forgiveness, she knew Jonah wouldn't be so lucky. That was a guarantee in all this. Not only would he not have her father's forgiveness, Jonah would have to live out his life with her father's hatred after twenty-five years of close bond. He'd be banished, lose every friend he'd made since childhood, and what he'd get in return was still not a guarantee.
That's why Astrid was so hesitant about love. She saw it in her mom and dad's relationship. Love made no promises to stick around. It could walk away at any time, leaving the two people who succumbed to it in ruins.
And now the business would suffer because of their actions. The business they built together from a tiny two-bay repair shop her grandfather had started. The business that had given their small family a good life, sent her to college, and employed her, kept a roof over her head all her life.
Astrid's shake of her head was frantic as she took it all in. "Tell my dad it was a mistake. You've figured your shit out, and you decided not to sign over the business."
"No," Jonah told her, dropping the uneaten pizza back in the box.
"Why the hell not?"
Jonah walked over to her and placed his palms on her cheeks. "Because this isn't a mistake, and I won't pretend it is. You told me you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, and sweetheart, that's exactly what's going to happen."
Tears in her eyes threatened to fall, but Astrid was determined not to allow them to. "What if this isn't real?"
Figment love was her biggest fear; thinking she'd fallen in love with someone and giving her entire heart to them, only to watch it crush in the vice grip of reality.
Jonah's gaze grew dark at the question, and he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "This is real, sweetheart. This is the most real thing that's ever happened for either of us, and I won't run off like a little chicken shit because it's hard. Everything in life worth having comes with challenges and the great things come with sacrifices.
"If you walk away from this, I will still do the same thing I'm doing right now. I'll hand over the business to your dad, tell him the truth, and walk away. I'd rather do that with you by my side, so I'm walking toward something better."
Astrid shook her head and took in a deep breath. "I just don't want you to do anything you'll regret. Travis is right, if you tell my dad, it can't be undone. You'll lose him forever."
"I can handle losing him, sweetheart. It'll suck, but I'll manage. What I can't handle is losing you, or having you second guess every hard decision we have to make, because there will be a lot of them, and fighting you on this every step of the way is going to get exhausting." Jonah let out a huff of air, then all frustration seemed to release from his body. "Put your hands on the counter."
Astrid took a long look at him, seeing that darkness within his eyes flow like a river, and turned to oblige, knowing what was coming when her palms touched the cool countertop. The only time he was ever demanding with her was in the last ten hours, after something was unleashed within him. Lust made him a very different man than the one she'd grown up knowing.
"The only thing I can't go without is you, Astrid," Jonah whispered in her ear.
The shirt she wore lifted upwards until it landed in a pool of fabric by her wrists. Two firm hands grabbed her breasts, while his fingers worked her nipples, causing a gasp to leave her.
"Perfect fit, sweetheart. Your tits fit perfectly in my hands. Nothing going to waste."
His hands drifted lower and pulled the boxers down her body. One entered her with two fingers while the other pressed down on her clit and rubbed circles around it. "Every time I've fingered you, you've already been wet and ready for me. Your thighs are already glistening, telling me how much I turn you on. And my dick is always hard as a rock as soon as I see your bare skin. As soon as I let myself touch you." Jonah mouth moved to her ear. "And I fully plan to keep touching you. Every fucking day until I die.
"This body of yours was made for me," he told her, adding more pressure against her nub as his other hand picked up speed and was shoving in and out of her with abandoned. "Your pussy was made to stretch around me, your voice was given to you to scream my name. Your legs were made to wrap around my waist as I fill you, wrap around my head as I lick every last drop from you. Your mouth was made to kiss me and take every fucking inch."
Both his hands paused, leaving Astrid weak and desperate for more of his physical and verbal whirlwind.
"I will ask you one more time, and I want to hear your answer out loud. Do you love me?"
She shut her eyes and swallowed hard before answering. "I love you." What Astrid thought would be almost painful to say instead seemed to free her.
"Am I the man you want to spend the rest of your life with?"
"Yes."
"Do you want me to be the last man who ever fucks you?"
"Yes."
She could feel the smile form against the skin of her neck. "Do you like when I talk to you this way?"
"God, yes." Astrid felt dirty to admit it, but the man he became for her was sexy as sin.
"God walked out of our lives as soon as I kissed you, sweetheart. It's just you and me now."
His fingers got back to work on her until all Astrid could hear was her heart slamming into her chest at the beat of the rhythm he set, her heavy breaths, and the sound his fingers made with her wetness. He kept this up until her body tensed, needles of pleasure poking at her skin, and her mind lost all train of thought. She succumbed to her second orgasm of the day and her fifth since last night, her body from the waist down going numb.
"Get on your knees, sweetheart."
While he'd spoken of it before, Astrid wasn't sure if she'd fit the entire length of him in her mouth since she wasn't all that experienced in them, and her past boyfriends had been an average size or below, but felt determined to give it a go. So she did as she was told and rest her knees against the cold tile.
Jonah unzipped and unclasped his jeans, dropped them to the floor with his boxers and held out his erection in front of her. "Open your mouth."
Any other man who tried ordering her around like this would be slapped across the face and left with blue balls. So why was it that when he did it, it only added to the heat in the room? Why did being ordered do wicked things to her body?
Astrid did as she was told and opened her mouth, then watched as he slid his erection between her lips. She took inch after inch until it reached the back of her throat, with two inches left untouched.
"Start humming."
She looked up at him with furrowed eyebrows.
"It lifts your soft pallet so you won't have a gag reflex," Jonah explained.
As stupid as it was, Astrid obliged him once again, lifting her hand to clasp the end of the shaft.
"No hands, sweetheart. Just you and your sexy mouth."
This was the bossiest he'd ever been in her life. But Astrid relented and balled her hands into fists to avoid temptation.
He pumped in and out of her mouth, hitting the back of her throat repeatedly. Every time, she thought she'd gag on the length, but it didn't happen. She took every inch of Jonah with pride.
His hands clasped the back of her head and kept her in place and he used her mouth, his thrusts unrelenting.
"Perfect"
Thrust
"fucking"
Thrust
"fit."
She felt like she was being punished for the brief thought of leaving him for the sake of protecting him from himself, and for once didn't in the least bit mind being punished. The look in Jonah's eyes acted as a catalyst for her deepest hidden fantasies. The way he pumped his erection into her mouth with feverish need and so unapologetic left her feeling almost as an object at his disposal rather than the woman he'd loved for years and had now fallen in love with.
His erection left her mouth, and he pulled her upward, bending her over his dining room table. "I never want you to doubt us, Astrid. Not for a second. Your body, your heart and your soul are mine, just like I'm yours. Now, tell me how you want it."
Nothing about this felt like them, but Astrid supposed that was the point; living their deepest fantasies with each other. Not even her voice sounded familiar. "I want you to keep using me."
His hand landed on her back and pressed her down until her breasts crushed against the table. "That was me staking my claim on you, baby girl. But if you want it rough, that's exactly what I'll give you."
The slap filled the air, and the skin on her ass burned from impact. Another on the other cheek and a whimper escaped her lips. Her nerves lit up as she took a third, and then a fourth, before Astrid felt his firm hands grip the sensitive, burning cheeks.
Poised at her entrance, his erection slammed into her harder than anything she'd experienced before. His skin slapped against hers in a way that filled the otherwise silent air in the house. And for a moment Astrid felt like Oliver Twist begging for more. Only she wasn't so docile about it as the young orphan boy had been.
"Fuck me harder, Jonah."
One hand moved from her ass and twisted her long hair around his fist, pulling her, while the other landed on her back to keep her firmly in place. Then he obliged her request in a way that seemed to defy the laws of physics and nearly split her small body in two. Astrid wasn't sure if she was holding in air or couldn't breathe.
The way he was hammering into her without remorse left Astrid's mind in a static of stars, the feel of him bordering somewhere between blissful pleasure and perfect pain. It wasn't out of cruelty, but out of need and loss of control. Her body was thick with sweat, her own mingling with his and deepening the sound of impact, her breathless gasps and his heavy grunts joining in the beat of their bodies.
"Rub your pussy for me, baby," Jonah demanded of her.
Again, she did as she was told, his body against hers slowing down and easing up enough for her to fit her arm between her and the table. She rubbed at herself, feeling his balls smack against the back of her hand.
Then a pinching feeling of his thumb entering her ass caused Astrid to come undone. The building tension exploded in her release, leaving her feeling almost faint; dizzy. Crashing waves of sensation hit every inch of her, inside and out. Jonah released her hair and pumped into her three more times before he found his own, pressing his chest against her trembling body.
"Raw passion like this doesn't happen often, baby girl," Jonah spoke, his breath feeling like fire to her ear. "And the love we feel... people are lucky to find it at all. What that means, Astrid, is that no one can fuck you like I can. You and I are like a magnetic force. Running scared isn't an option, and neither is just walking away. The only way I'm leaving your side is if you tell me you don't want me there."