The Redemption (26 page)

“Oh, come on, Jonas—that’s all you did? Climbed, hiked, and read your books? I’m sure you did a little something else, too.” She smirks. “I bet all the horny college girls backpacking through Europe went crazy for
eighteen-year-old Jonas Faraday with the shy smile and sad eyes.”

Leave it to Sarah. Nothing gets past her. Yes, she’s exactly right—I’ve left one particular activity out of my narrative. That trip was when I first got the inkling women might be especially attracted to me compared to the next guy hiking the trail or sitting at the bar. As long as I didn’t blow it by being Creepy Jonas or Intense Jonas or Antisocial Jonas or Philosophical Jonas or Asshole Jonas or, God forbid, Crazy-Eyes Jonas, girls actually seemed pretty interested in me—though not being one of those aforementioned Jonases almost always took a lot out of me.

And on those rare and fucking awesome days when Charming Jonas randomly decided to show up, or at least Shy Jonas or Awkward Jonas, I couldn’t miss. On those occasions, as few and far between as they were, getting girls was like shooting ducks in a barrel—I had my pick of any young woman on the youth hostel circuit.

“Yeah,” I say, blushing. “I learned how much I thoroughly enjoy sex on that trip. That was when I lost my virginity, actually.” I can’t help but smile broadly. Sex with that pretty Swedish girl wasn’t objectively all that great, really, but a guy never forgets finally getting to use his cock as nature intended for the first time in his life.

“I feel like cheering for eighteen-year-old Jonas and throwing confetti on him. That poor boy deserved to have a little carefree fun, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do. And he did.”

She laughs.

Why was I so nervous about telling her all of this? She’s so damned easy to talk to, so nonjudgmental. The woman is flat-out
kind.
Why didn’t I have faith in her?

“Interesting factoid discovered by eighteen-year-old Jonas, though. Most girls don’t like dudes who are creepy and intense.”

“Really?” She’s aghast. “Wait a minute—are you sure?”

“It’s true. They run away, their arms flailing.”

She laughs. “Well, those girls were all idiots, then. I happen to know it’s the creepy and intense guys who make the best lovers.” She winks.

I feel like the weight of the world’s been lifted off me. “Well, not necessarily. I hadn’t quite figured out the
sexcellence
thing yet. Not by a long shot.” I laugh again. “I was like a frantic dog with a bone.”

“Well, you
were
just a puppy, after all.”

“Yeah, a puppy with a big ol’ hard-on.”

She laughs.

“A big ol hard-on and huge paws and a big ol’ tail that knocked drinks off coffee tables.”

“Are you sure it was your
tail
knocking those drinks off coffee tables, big boy?”

I laugh. God, I love her.

“So, okay. You weren’t quite the woman wizard at age eighteen.”

“Not quite. I’m pretty sure I thought the female orgasm was a myth propagated by the porn industry.”

She smiles broadly.

“Now, Josh, on the other hand, he was fantastic with girls—or, at least, compared to me. When school got out for the summer, Josh met me in Thailand so we could climb Crazy Horse—which is so fucking awesome, by the way, I can’t wait to take you there—and then we traveled together for like ten weeks, climbing and hiking and partying and, you know.” I grin broadly. “Fishing.”

She knows what kind of fishing I’m talking about. “So Josh taught you how to get the girls?”

I laugh heartily. “The guy was my Obi Wan Kenobi. Before Josh showed up, the only strategy I’d formulated for catching fish was sitting in my boat, all alone, without any gear—basically trying not to come off like a serial killer—and
praying
a pretty fish might by chance leap out of the water and flop right into my lap.”

She laughs. “Oh, Jonas.”

“And, occasionally, a fish did—lucky me. But Josh? That boy had skills. He could do this revolutionary thing—he could
lure
the fish into his boat with an actual fishing rod and
bait
.”

Her face is glowing. “What was Josh’s bait?”

“Check this out. He
talked
to the fish. Pretty good, huh?”

She laughs. “What? That’s crazy. He should write a book.”

“Oh, and he taught me the simple art of buying a girl a
drink
. You know, being a gentleman. Being attentive.
Smiling.
Insane stuff.”

“He was a woman wizard in training, sounds like.”

I laugh. “Definitely.”

I’m amazed. I never in a million years thought Sarah and I would be laughing during a conversation about The Lunacy. I thought we’d be crying—or that I’d be begging, apologizing, reassuring. But laughing? Never.

“You should have seen Josh in action. He was Mr. Smooth—or at least eighteen-year-old Jonas thought so. Josh would always say, ‘Jonas, just shut the fuck up and look pretty, okay? Your job is to be the dew-covered web that attracts the girls—
you’re the something shiny
—and my job is to be the
spider
who lies in wait and bites their legs off before they know what hit ‘em.’”

She bursts out laughing and I join her, yet again.

“So, to answer your initial question, that’s when everything started turning around for me—when Josh dragged me all over Kingdom Come in search of big rocks and pretty girls to climb. That’s when I started to glimpse the divine original form of Jonas Faraday-ness for the first time in my life, however dim and blurry the image might have been back then.”

“Where’d you guys go besides Thailand?”

“Well, I’d already done pretty much all of Europe by myself. So with Josh, it was Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and then a little bit of Central America on the way home. Actually, that’s the first time I went to Belize—on that trip with Josh.”

The mere mention of Belize is enough to make Sarah’s face light up. “Belize,” she says, sighing dreamily.

It suddenly strikes me, full force, how much my little caterpillar has transformed since we first huddled together in our Belizian cocoon-built-for-two. I thought I loved her then, and I did, in my own way, but my love was a shallow pool compared to the limitless ocean I feel for her now.

“Belize was just the beginning, my precious baby. I’m gonna show you the world.”

Her face bursts with excitement.

“Wherever you want to go, we’ll go. You name it.”

She squeals. “Oh, Jonas. Thank you.”

God, I love this woman. Why was I so afraid to talk to her about this stuff? This entire conversation has felt so
right.
This woman
loves
me. My skin feels electrified.
She loves me.
 

“So, what happened once you got home?”

I’m reeling. I can’t concentrate. She loves me, despite everything—and maybe even
because
of everything. She’s told me she loves me many times by now, of course, but this is the first time I’ve believed it.
She loves me.
All of me. The real me. Not the pretend me. Not some ridiculous projection of me.
Me.
For better or worse.

“Jonas, what happened when you got home?”

“Um.” I smile at her. Damn, she’s beautiful.

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m great, baby. Never better. Uh, Josh went back for his second year at UCLA. I went off to Gonzaga and later down to Berkeley for my MBA, and when Josh and I finished all our fancy degrees, I took over Faraday & Sons in Seattle, Josh started the L.A. branch, and Uncle William moved to New York to start a satellite office out there. And that’s when the company took off like a fucking rocket, beyond anything we’d imagined.” I pause. I can’t think of anything else to say on this topic. “And-now-I’m-here-with-you-in-Las-Vegas-and-I’m-totally-normal-in-every-conceivable-way-and-I-want-to-be-inside-you-more-than-I-want-to-breathe. The End.”

She smiles but doesn’t speak, as if she expects me to continue.

“The End,” I say again. I put up my hands like I’m saying
ta-da
. “Jazz hands.”

She laughs.

Sunlight streams through the window and illuminates Sarah’s face. She looks beautiful—sleepy, but beautiful. I glance out the window at The Strip below us and sigh. I hate this hellish place. I miss Seattle. I miss the rain. I miss my crisp white sheets and my home gym and my espresso machine. I want to go home and start building Climb and Conquer into the vision I’ve got in my head. And most of all, more than anything else, I want to start my life with Sarah.

“The dawn of a new day,” she says, following my gaze out the window. “Darkness, be gone.” She crawls across the bed and drapes her body around mine. “I know how you love your metaphors, baby, so let this beautiful dawn inspire you. Let there be light in your life from this day forward, filling the nooks and crannies you’ve previously kept shrouded in darkness.”

She’s speaking my language. “You’re a poet,” I say.

“Only with you.”

“How are you not fazed by everything I’ve told you?”

She shrugs. “I dunno.”

“But seriously,” I say, blood rushing into my face. “If there’s something you want to say to me—something you’re thinking, anything at all—just say it now. Please. Rip off the Band-Aid. I can take it.”

She shakes her head. “Oh, Jonas, come on. It was thirteen years ago. Give yourself a frickin’ break already—and give me some credit.”

“You’re not worried I might be a total lunatic?”

“I already
know
you’re a total lunatic.”

I wait for her to smile, but she doesn’t.

“Jonas, I’ve known from minute one, from the second I read your application, that you’re a wee bit crazy. Duh. But I like your crazy, baby. It makes you sexy.”

I’m utterly speechless.

“What happened back then doesn’t define you. Has it shaped you? Yes, of course. But that’s all. You’re my sweet Jonas, no matter what happened then. You’re the Jonas who spoke in front of my contracts class—brilliant and charming and intelligent and charismatic. You’re the Jonas who caught me after I leaped off a thirty-foot waterfall. You’re the Jonas who looked shy and sweet and awkward as he tied a friendship bracelet around my wrist. The guy who sent me Oreos to welcome me into the Jonas Faraday Club. The divine original form of man-ness who makes me come every single time you touch me, baby, even in my dreams.”

That last one makes my cock tingle.

She kisses me. “Baby, you’re the Jonas who unleashed Orgasma the All-Powerful.” She nips at my lips and straddles my lap. “You’re the man who saved my life—who gave me everything I needed to save myself and then literally stopped my bleeding with his bare hands.” She skims her lips on mine. “And you’re the man who’s gonna kick some bad-guy ass with me.” She licks at my lips. “You’d have to strangle a kitten or kick a girl scout in the teeth for me to run away from
that
guy.”

My smile stretches so big across my face, I can’t even kiss her.

“It was thirteen frickin’ years ago, love. Time to give it a rest.
No más. De hoy en adelante, renaces.
”

Damn. My Spanish is pretty good, but not perfect. I got most of that, I think, but I’m not positive.

“No more,” she translates, reading my mind. “From today forward, you are reborn.” She grinds herself into my hard-on.
“Renaces—y
ou are reborn.
Renazco—
I am reborn.” She kisses my neck.

I shiver. I love it when Sarah speaks Spanish to me, especially when she says something badass like that. “
Renazco,
” I repeat after her.

She kisses my cheek. “
No más. De hoy en adelante, renazco.
”

“
No más. De hoy en adelante, renazco,
” I repeat—but when I say it, it sounds clunky compared to the beautiful way Sarah says it.

“That’s right. Exactly right. You’re reborn, baby. From this day forward.”

I pull at her tank top and she rips it off, followed quickly by her pajama bottoms. I follow her lead, kicking off my boxers, and then I climb on top of her, my heart racing.

She holds my face in her hands. “There are no more dark spaces between us, Jonas, no more secrets. Can you feel the difference?”

I nod. I can. Oh God, I want to be inside her.

She kisses me. “This is how it feels to trust someone completely. Do you understand?”

I nod because, yes, I understand what she’s saying. But if it were up to me, I’d have phrased it slightly differently: This is how it feels to be
loved
by someone completely.

Before now, I didn’t know how to let Sarah love me, not completely. Before this very moment, I didn’t understand how much I’d been holding back and pushing her away.
I
knew how to love
her
—God knows I’ve loved this woman with all my heart and soul since she leaped off that waterfall into my arms, and maybe even before then—but, as much as I’ve loved her, I haven’t been willing to leap off a waterfall and let her love me back. Until now.

I reach between her legs, eager to touch the part of her that’s only for me, and when I feel how wet she is, oh my God, I practically leap out of my skin. I bring my finger up to my mouth to sneak a taste of her deliciousness. There’s no sweeter flavor in the world than my baby’s wetness and no sweeter moment than right now.

I kiss her mouth and massage her clit with my fingertip, my cock throbbing at the slippery texture of her, the slickness, the delicious hardness, and she shudders and bucks. My hard-on strains mercilessly for her, but I force myself to take my time. We’ve got all the time in the world, after all—I’m not going anywhere, and neither is she.

I reach deep inside her and massage her G-spot, and she jolts.

“My precious baby,” I whisper, touching that magic spot again, and she moans. She’s my Stradivarius—and there’s no greater pleasure in the world than making her strings quiver. My fingers find her clit again, and she writhes. I can’t wait anymore. I slip inside her, all the way, groaning loudly, and she lets out a long, quavering sigh in return.