“Do you feel like an ass?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “How did you get here?”
“Little black Honda.”
“Can I walk you?”
“Did you bring an umbrella? Because you broke mine.”
I took my leather jacket off and held it over her head.
“Chivalry will get you nowhere,” she said.
I sensed she meant it. A drop of water fell from her nose to her lower lip, and I had to swallow the desire to kiss it away. “I need to talk to you.”
“Really?” Sarcasm dripped from her.
She started walking, and I followed her. She kept too far away for my jacket, so I just rolled it over my arm. We walked down the block, getting ever more wet with each step.
Chapter 34.
MONICA
The neighborhood was residential, lined with single-family houses and the occasional apartment building. Wet, brown leaves covered every car, curb, and grassy patch. We said nothing the entire walk to my car. I was getting wet, but he was soaked. His hair was dark brown with water, and his eyelashes stuck together in points of four or five. He looked down, hands in his pockets. He must have been freezing.
I stopped by my car. “This is me. Thanks for walking me.”
“You could have kept the car I got you.” He put his hand on the wet bark of the parkway tree.
“I know. I drove it to my meeting because this one wasn’t fixed yet. So, thanks for the loaner.”
“I don’t like us when we’re formal. All please and thank you.”
“What do you want then?” I crossed my arms.
He pursed his lips and looked at my feet, then back up to my face. “I want you to be real with me.”
“You want me to be real?”
“Yeah.”
“Real. You want real?”
“Real, goddess.”
“You blocked me, you motherfucker!” I pushed his shoulders, and he stepped back into the tree trunk. “I wrote you that song, and you were so disgusted, you blocked me.” I pushed him again, but he had nowhere to go.
“I had to.”
“Oh, let’s hear about that.”
“If you kept sending me shit like that, I was going to come back to you.”
“As opposed to what? This?” I spread my arms to indicate the block, the rain, our bodies almost touching, the fight over who was allowed to kiss me.
“I knew if I saw you again, I’d want you.” He was pleading, leaning forward, hands out as if passing me a basketball pumped full of pain. “That f**king mouth. As soon as it opened, I knew I’d want to kiss you. And those wet clothes sticking to you. And the hair plastered to your face. You’re custom made for me to hurt. Do you understand?”
I understood all too well. “Hurt me.”
“Monica, that’s not what I mean.”
“Ruin me.”
“Stop.”
I stepped forward. “Destroy me, Jonathan.”
He cursed under his breath and pushed his lips to mine. His movements were fierce, his tongue invading my mouth, his arms circling me. He tasted of fennel toothpaste and whiskey, the same as the first time I’d kissed him. The memories went down the curve in my back and settled between my legs. He pushed me into the car, pressing his erection into me, and I pushed back, letting his hardness find my cleft. I groaned into his mouth.
“God,” he said, “I have to have you.”
“Take me. Own me. Use me. Pick a verb. Just, please.”
“Fuck you. I’m going to f**k you. That’s my verb.”
He pushed his hips into me hard, and I bent my neck in response. My legs wrapped around him, grinding. Water dripped from his forehead onto mine as he kissed me. The rain had gone from a heavy mist to a driving torrent. He straightened and pulled me off the car.
“Take me home,” I practically had to shout over the weather.
He pushed me against the car and kissed me in the rain one more time.
Chapter 35.
We fumbled up the steps with lips attached, past the porch swing where he’d tried and failed to break my heart, into the living room, where we dripped little pools of water like a reverse archipelago behind us. I took his hand and walked him into the laundry room.
The laundry room was a foul, filthy place, and I was immediately ashamed of it. When I cleaned the house, the laundry room was the last floor to get a mop-over and the last sink to get wiped clean. So nine times out of ten, I just didn’t bother. And there I was, with a guy who had a team of people clean his corners with Q-tips, dripping onto gross, 1980s-era linoleum. It was the first water that floor had seen in months.
“It’s a mess in here,” I said, turning away from the towels I had strung up to dry, weeks ago.
He put his arms behind me and unzipped my dress. I noticed his chattering jaw and the ice of his fingertips as they grazed my spine.
“What does that have to do with me f**king you?” He peeled off my dress. My bra cups were heavy, soaked, hanging off me, and he slipped the straps off my shoulders, easily releasing me. I was down to panties and shoes, and he was still freezing in wet clothes.
Pushing him against the dryer, I unbuttoned his shirt, kissing down the center of his torso as I went. He was damp, and I warmed him with my mouth, licking his hard, tight, ni**les. His arms came out of his sleeves like a molting caterpillar. I threw his shirt on top of my dress on the floor and worked on his pants while he kissed me.
“On your knees,” he said.
I got down, eye-level to his crotch, and opened his pants. The zipper didn’t work well wet, but I got it down. I hooked my fingers in the waistband and took his briefs down with the pants, arcing the elastic over his erection. He stepped out of the legs, kicking off his shoes while he did, and held up a foot. I peeled off his sock, then did the same with the other foot. He was naked. Perfect. I gazed up at him, his perfect, lean body with its cut lines and furrows making a triangle from his hips to the beauty between his legs.
I took his c**k in my mouth, licking every surface as if to warm it. He put his hands in my hair and groaned.
“Let me feel you.”
He held my head still and pushed his c**k all the way down my throat, balls-deep. I breathed through my nose, the aroma of his wet skin filling me. He held me still, and when I looked up at him, he was watching me. He slid out slowly. I put my tongue against him as he did.
“Have I mentioned you’re very good at this?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Stand up.”
When I did, he gathered up the clothes and put them in the dryer. He stared at the buttons and smiled.