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Powerful.
To have a man like Jonas just...surrender to me, feels incredible. It makes me feel comfortable and bold all at once.
I am safe with him. I know it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Why does that feel so terrifying?
I drop my hands and move away, leaning against the opposite cabinet, and stretch my legs out toward Jonas. He watches me with a mixture of longing and understanding. It's the understanding that hits me the hardest. He knows how uncertain I am of all of this.
"I'm sorry," I say, staring down at my flour-covered knees. It's going to take hours to clean this up.
"Don't ever say you're sorry for touching me."
I look at him, the fierce look on his face sending a happy little shiver down my back. "I'm not sorry for touching you," I admit. "I'm sorry for pulling away. I'm doing that a lot."
"Why did you? Pull away, I mean?"
"I don't really know...well, maybe I do, sort of." Great Janey. Awesome communicator, as always. Frustrated with myself, I rake my fingers through my hair, stirring up a cloud of flour, pulling it forward to braid as I try to sort through my mixed feelings. "It just feels strange...it's been fast, and it feels wrong somehow to be touching you like this. Like I haven't earned the right."
His eyebrows fly up. I love how expressive he is. "Earned it? You have to earn the right to touch me? How does that work? I'd really like to know. Does it go both ways? Can I earn the right to touch you?"
Now I'm the one wheezing out a breath. I wet my lips and try to come up with a brilliant response. Yes, absolutely, you can earn the right to touch me. Drop your pants and you can touch me any way you want to. "Um...I guess I didn't think of it going both ways."
He squints at me, frowning. "Explain. Be specific."
I groan and unravel my braid, starting all over again. The rubbing of the strands between my fingers is familiar and soothing. The way he watches my hands is not. "Maybe earn it wasn't the right word. But when you date someone, you spend a lot of time getting to know them. You talk and talk some more. The emotional intimacy develops alongside the physical. Yesterday morning, you were just my boss. Now you're my husband. We haven't had time to build that connection."
Bringing his knees up, he rests his arms on them and studies me. "Intimacy. Knowing each other inside and out?" I nod, my stomach in my throat. He makes a low humming sound. "I believed I was doing that, the last few months. I was trying to show you who I am. And since you broke up with him I was trying to show you how good of a friend I could be. But that doesn't build intimacy?"
"It builds friendship and, yes, intimacy. But feeling like I have the right to touch you, to hug you whenever I want...it's not a friendship thing." I groan and want to slap my own face. "Well, it is a friendship thing. I hug my friends. It's just not the same."
"You're talking about the kind of intimacy that leads to sex."
"Um...yes?" I wince at the question in my voice. "I'm sorry. I'm not explaining this right."
He stretches out one leg and studies me, head tilted. "I think I understand. We have not spent enough time touching. We need to connect more so you are comfortable knowing that I always want your touch. That I crave it. And that I would never push you away."
I don't know where to look. This big, sexy man is just lounging across from me, looking completely edible, despite being covered in flour, is my husband. And he apparently craves my touch.
"C-Crave?"
His slow smile is devastating. "I've been dreaming about you for months, Janey. Crave. Want. Need. Desire. All those words apply, but they don't come close to describing how much I actually want you."
"How much do you actually want me?"
He shrugs, and that smile shifts, and darkens. "I dream of you every night. I wake up hard, aching. My hand isn't enough, Janey. It takes the edge off, but it's not satisfying. I never really thought about women before, but now you occupy every single waking thought."
The flour on my cheeks hopefully covers their tomato-red color. I’m embarrassed but also really turned on. My body really likes being wanted by Jonas. This conversation is getting harder and harder to focus on. But wishing what he says is true and believing it are two different things.
"I still don't understand how that's possible. Women hit on you all the time." I laugh with an edge of disbelief and flash him my ring. "The saleswoman at the jewelry store would have climbed into your lap right in front of me if you'd given her an opening."
He flicks his hand like he's waving off a fly, like the interaction didn't matter at all. "I don't even remember her name. Or what she looked like." He pauses and squints. "I did not like the way she smelled. Her perfume was too strong."
"She made me feel small and plain," I confess, dropping my hair and folding my hands into my lap. Jonas's eyes scan my face, brow furrowed, and he slides forward until his legs are caging me in.
He reaches out, putting his hands on my knees. "I don't understand. Did she say something? What did I miss?"
"She didn't say anything specifically. It was the way she looked at me like she didn't understand why you would be there with me. And the way she'd shoot looks at me as she'd flirt. By the end, she would have gotten down on her knees and sucked you off, and it didn't matter that I was right there next to you. And you didn't do anything."
