Divinely Living (Surviving Series) (20 page)

Throwing Jonah a questioning glance, she hesitated before squeezing my arm. With a smile, she left us alone and walked towards the kitchen. Dressed in the compulsory red shirt and fitted black skirt, her slender figure, sleek chin length dark hair and too high black heels drew in approving stares from numerous men as she weaved her way passed their tables. She carried herself with a confidence and ease that I would have given every inherited penny I owned to possess. She reminded me so much of my mother in that moment. The pricking tears intensified as thoughts of Gina ran through my mind. Since the day of her suicide I had convinced myself that the hatred I felt towards her was purely for the life she lived, the men she chased and mostly for darkening my life with Alex. But that wasn’t the truth; my verbal exchange with Benjamin told me that. And realising the
truth was unsettling and hard to accept. Years of convincing myself I felt nothing for her and that she meant nothing to me simply wasn’t true. I felt more then I thought and a hell of a lot more than I wanted to.

“Sweetheart,” Jonah’s voice and eyes were full of concern as he broke through the memory haze and his devastatingly attractive face came into focus. “Talk to me, baby, are you okay?”

I sighed and shook my head. Staring down at the divine smelling plate of food before me, I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I never realised, Jonah.” My voice cracked as I spoke.

“Never realised what, Ava?”

“I don’t hate my mother Jonah.”

He stilled his face sincere as he searched mine. “You don’t?”

“No,” I admitted. “I miss her.”

***

We ate under a blanket of silence for the remainder of our meal. The incident with Benjamin left both of us reeling with emotions and feelings we struggled to deal with. On returning to my apartment, my mood was low and for the first time since I met Jonah, so was my libido. Jonah read me instinctively and offered nothing more than a strong pair of arms for comfort as he held me close the entire night. Admitting to missing my mother hit me hard. She had been nothing more then a ghost in my eyes for so long, a painful memory best left in the tiny crevice of my mind I buried her in, the day she killed herself. My suicide attempt was a similarity we shared, that and our looks. I despised money, but she loved it. I steered clear of attention, however, she courted it. Our taste in men and lifestyles were complete opposites. Yet, despite the differences, I couldn’t deny the blatantly obvious any longer. Gina was my mother; she was the woman who gave me life. And pushing all her other maternal failings aside, she was still and always would be the only mother I would ever have whether she was dead or alive. And that bonded me to her. It connected us both for the rest of my life. I only wished she could have found the strength within her to embrace that connection when I was a child, so she could have been the mother I deserved and now realised I wanted.

Exhaustion rendered my mind and body useless as I sank against Jonah, his front to my back. His stomach and chest pressed against me, the heat he radiated offered a protective, soothing cocoon. Warm breath blew across my cheek and throat, his face laid closely against mine. The steady rise of fall of his chest as he slept made a comforting rhythm behind me that began to lull me into sleep. With thoughts of Chicago, Benjamin and my mother swimming around my tired skull, I yawned, melted further into Jonah’s peaceful hold and eventually let the darkness take me.

After a long flight full of rising nervous tension that had lay heavy in my stomach since waking, the hot and humid summer air of Chicago clung to my skin the moment we exited the plane. The last time I stood in a Chicago terminal, I was heading for a new life with no intentions of ever returning or looking back. I was in such a fragile state back then. Broken, abused and in need of escape. London offered me that escape. The city I loved, gave me a retreat, a safe haven. It gave me a place to lay low and lick my wounds alone.

After clawing my way back to some semblance of normality my life began to change. Admittedly the changes that occurred weren’t dramatic ones; in fact as a person I was pretty much the same. Never experiencing love meant never giving it. But that had been okay. Before Jonah, I didn’t need to be loved, didn’t care if I saw out the rest of my days participating in occasional empty sex with meaningless men. I didn’t view my body as precious or a gift to share with a man who held my interest for longer than the time it took him to come. That was the lasting impression Gina left me with. She used her body to entice her next meal ticket, my next potential daddy. Her mission to live a life of luxury drove her to devalue herself at every turn. The truth was she was worth so much more then that. Opening my heart and mind to my true feelings for her had me looking at her in a different light. She still sucked royally as a mother and I would never stop despising her for ending her life but a part of me could now see that some of her flaws were circumstantial and may not have been entirely her fault.

Gina Dawson was sixteen years old when she became pregnant with me. She was only a child herself and way too young to go through a pregnancy alone. From the little knowledge she gave me regarding my grandparents, their disgust for her condition and the feeling of disgrace they had for her, were a major part of her decision to move to Chicago shortly after my birth. They allowed her to stay in their home during her pregnancy out of shame, not out of unconditional love for their daughter. Her behaviour had brought them enough distain from friends, kicking her pregnant ass out on the streets would have brought them more. My grandfather was a wealthy businessman, my grandmother a devoted mother and wife and both held solid reputations and good standing within social circles. They had high hopes for their only child Gina. Sleeping with random older men at such a young age wasn’t one of them.

During one of the rare mother/daughter talks we had at an age when I was barely old enough to remember, she told me of her childhood. She was raised by hired staff; her parents were rarely at home and even rarer still was the quality time they spent with her. They compensated for their absence with money and gauging by the inheritance they left to me, my expensive apartment being a part of that; there was more than enough wealth for her to indulge herself in. Replaying that conversation in my mind, the similarities between our childhoods were startling. Neither of us had close bonds with our parents; both of us were raised by people who were paid to, not by the people who should. She had no idea how to take care of me because she was never taken care of herself. Realising that made me hate her a tiny bit less.

A strong hand squeezed mine as we exited customs and walked towards the airport’s main entrance. Glancing up, Jonah shot me a small, adorable smile that pricked at my heart. The suited god of last
night had been replaced, by a casual god, whose attractiveness was no less panty wetting for his less formal attire. His chocolate coloured hair lay across his forehead, his gorgeous eyes hidden behind mirrored shades. His white shirt was rolled to his elbows and the faded denims he wore hung low on his slender hips. Even now, simply looking at him never failed to make my body ache for his touch and my sex clench in anticipation of his blessed cock. He walked with natural grace, a total contradiction to his large, mouth watering, muscular frame His lip curled slightly as he caught me staring at him openly. Something I was beginning to do more and more and he knew it. “Keep looking at me with that fuck me look sweetheart and I’ll take great pleasure in doing just that.” He raised my hand to his lips and swept them across my knuckles. “I miss you Ava. One night without being inside you is one too many.”

I smiled and rolled my eyes. “Normal couples find one night without sex perfectly acceptable.”

“We’re not a normal couple,” he kissed my knuckles again. “I was respectful last night because you needed me to be, not because I wanted to be.”

“We’re too fucked up to be normal,” I sighed as he dropped my hand and draped his arm over my shoulder.

“Who says we’re fucked up?” He tucked me against his side. “We understand what we are and accept it. I tried normal for a while and it’s seriously over rated.”

Pulling a large suitcase each behind us, we walked out into the bright summer sunlight and flagged the nearest stationary taxi. Once seated inside, I pulled out my phone and powered it on in the hope that the quick text I fired to Charlotte and Cameron before leaving for the airport would be answered. The blank screen told me both texts remained unanswered. My heart sank. God, they were both making me suffer for making the decision to be with the man I loved. Even after hearing from Scarlett of Charlotte’s in discretionary outbursts during her visit to Giovanni’s, I was still prepared to hold out the olive branch and cross my fingers in hope they would both grab onto it with both hands. Seems, neither one of them were prepared to seize the gesture just yet. I sighed and shoved the phone back into my purse. I couldn’t repair broken friendships alone and in all honesty, my head was not in a good place, and I was not in a good place here. Facing Chicago could take more strength and courage than I had in my tanks and that was my main focus. Fly in, deal with the shit, and then fly the hell home.

Ten minutes later we were in the penthouse suite of a hotel close to the airport. I unpacked quickly and filled the huge stand alone bath tub with scorching hot water. Chicago made me feel dirty, made my skin crawl with the vile memories of the years I spent living here. I wanted to rub my skin raw, cleanse it of the past and as I flung off my clothes, hopped in the tub and submerged myself beneath the water, the too hot water burned against my flesh but I instantly felt better. Holding my breath, I closed my eyes and just stayed there beneath the water, tingling from head to toe from the heat of the water but in a weird sort of calm. My body felt weightless and so did my mind. Light and empty. Surfacing in need of oxygen, my eyes opened sharply as two hands clutched my shoulders and pulled me upwards.

“What the fuck are you doing,” I spluttered my mouth full of soapy water. Jonah stood beside the tub gloriously naked and with serious concern on his face. God he was magnificent in his purest form. He was chiselled perfection. Every inch of his body sculptured and ripped. If I wasn’t dry drowning at that moment I could have just lay against the rim of the bath and admired him for hours. As it was, air was lodged in my throat making me choke and his worried eyes made my heart beat anxiously.

“What’s wrong, Jonah?” I choked out. Silently he joined me in the tub and slid my wet, coughing body over his. Clutching me from behind, his arms were a steel vice around my waist and shoulders. I sat in his lap with my legs outstretched and his legs entwined around mine. A shudder rippled through his hard body as he sank his face into my wet hair and inhaled.

“God, Ava, seeing you beneath the water, not breathing. Shit sweetheart don’t scare me like that again.” his voice was hoarse against my scalp.

“I was just soaking. People do that in that tub.”

His head fell to my shoulder. “You looked so lifeless...and I remember what you did the last time you were in Chicago.”

I froze. Despite the water temperature cold chills swam through my veins and my whole body stiffened against his.

“I’m sorry, Ava,” he whispered against my shoulder. “But the thought of what you did. How much pain you must have been in to even attempt to...to....”

“Kill myself?” I cut him off. “You can say the words, Jonah. I tried killing myself. I swallowed a bottle of pills and hoped to die.”

His arms tightened against me, his legs pinning mine between his. “I can say the words but I don’t want to.”

I eased myself out of his grip, sat up and turned sideways to face him. “They’re not hard to say, Jonah.”

He looked utterly desolate as he gazed at me. My heart hurt for him. “Saying the words is easy, Ava. It’s the meaning of those words that I can’t bear to think of.”

Brushing the hair from his forehead with my fingers, his lips kissed my palm as my hand swept across his cheek. Desire swelled in my groin and love bloomed in my chest. He was thinking of what life would have been without me, if we had never met. I knew on instinct that he was and I hated to think of him filled with visions of living a life devoid of me. The thought of having to get through day after day with Jonah were even blacker thoughts then the ones that surfaced in deciding to come back here. “I was in a bad place and a bad time back then. My life was such a mess and when Alex...”

“Don’t.” his eyes darkened instantly and face turned to thunder. “I want to murder some fucker when I think of him with his hands on you.”

I pressed the side of my face over his heart and listened to the soft, rhythmic beat. Jonah’s hand gently stroked my back as I leaned against his torso. “I survived, baby. I lived and found you. You’re my life now and anything before you is meaningless and not worth the time thinking about it.”

He lifted his right hand, raised my left and pressed our palms flush together. His large, tanned hand dwarfed my small, pale one. “I promise you sweetheart, no-one will ever hurt you again. Nobody gets within an inch of what’s mine.”

His dominant tone and possessive meaning stoked the simmering flames of arousal, which burned within my core for him constantly, relentlessly and painfully. Dipping his head, he swept a slow, lush lick of his tongue over the seam of my lips. I granted his tongue entry, and sucked it into my mouth. Groaning as he pulled back, the desolation had disappeared from his brilliant blue irises and was replaced by intense heat.