The Reclamation (The Club Trilogy Book 2) (18 page)

Oh yes, oh God, yes, I’m definitely coming. And hard. Motherfucker, I can’t help myself. This is just too hot. I let out a guttural growl.

He climaxes right on my heels, letting out a strangled cry of his own.

Holy shit, this bathroom is utterly nauseating.

He collapses onto my back, a sweaty, savage heap.

Damn, that was hot. So. Fucking. Hot.

And I’m so mad at him I could cry. In fact, now that my adrenaline is rapidly receding, I very well might do just that. I tilt my pelvis away from him to force him out of me. I turn around and glare at him.

He smiles broadly: the cat that swallowed the canary.

“You’re so fucking hot,” he says simply.

Without saying a word, I pull up my panties, push down my skirt, and scrub my arms and hands and face in the sink with hot water. And then, after quickly drying myself with a paper towel, I bolt out the bathroom door. Jonas follows silently behind me.

Some guy stands outside the door of the one-room bathroom as we depart, waiting to go inside.

“She was sick, man,” Jonas says in passing. “Sorry.”

“Yeah. Sick of waiting around for this asshole-motherfucker to
fuck
me,” I say. I don’t know why I say it, but I do.

The guy bursts out laughing and so does Jonas.

“Nice,” the guy says to Jonas.

I march into the bar area, with Jonas following mutely behind me. I steal a glance at the booth where Jonas and I sat only minutes ago with Stacy the Fucking Faker. She’s long gone. Good. Run along and tell your bosses every word I said.
Bitch.

I beeline over to the bar. “Two shots of Patron,” I say to the bartender, gesturing to Jonas and myself.

Jonas stares at me, smirking, but not speaking.

The bartender pours the shots.

“Jonas?”

“Yes, Sarah.”

“Pay the man,” I say.

Jonas pulls out his wallet and lays down the cash.

I knock back the shot and bite into my lime. I stare at Jonas, defiant. I’m so mad at him, I don’t want to speak to him right now.

“You are so fucking hot,” he says. He throws back his shot and bites his lime.

I glance to the other end of the bar and gasp. There’s a guy at the far end of the bar, staring at me—and, holy crappola, he looks just like John Travolta. Granted, John Travolta from
Look Who’s Talking, Too,
but still. I clutch Jonas and he instantly puts his arm around me, sensing my sudden anxiety.

I nudge Jonas’ arm. “Jonas, look,” I whisper. I motion with my head to the end of the bar.

He looks in the direction I’ve indicated. “What?”

“Is that him? The John Travolta guy?”

Jonas looks again, squeezing me tight, trying to understand what I’m talking about. His grip on my body is so forceful that it hurts.

“Blue shirt,” I whisper.

Jonas focuses on the target and relaxes his grip. “Oh my God, Sarah, come on. You really think that guy looks anything like Vincent Vega?”

“Who the hell is Vincent Vega?” I shake my head. “Is that the John Travolta guy you saw earlier today?”

“‘
Who the hell is Vincent Vega?’
Oh my God, you haven’t actually seen
Pulp Fiction,
have you?”

“Of course, I have. Never mind. I’m pissed at you. I can’t even talk to you right now.” Sudden emotion wells up inside me and catches in my throat. Tonight has been a horrible, wretched, death-defying mind fuck. Without another word, I turn away from him and bolt out of the bar.

Chapter 16

Sarah

Jonas hoots into the chilly night air as we walk away from the bar. He keeps leaping into the air like he’s doing some sort of touchdown dance. “You were amazing, baby! Holy shit! A fucking genius! And so fucking hot!”

My legs wobble. I’m still flushed with adrenaline and anger and hurt. “I’m not in the mood to celebrate,” I mutter, my hand on my chest, steadying myself.

He sweeps me up and cradles me in his arms, just like he did after I jumped off the waterfall in Belize. “I’ve got you,” he says, kissing my cheek. He’s jubilant. “You kicked ass in there. Oh my God. Orgasma the All-Powerful strikes again!” He laughs and hoots again.

I don’t want to be cuddled by Jonas right now. I’m angry at him.

“Put me down. I’m mad at you.”

He laughs.

“Jonas, I’m not kidding. Put me down. I’m really, really mad. And hurt.”

He puts me down, elation draining from his face like water swirling down a toilet bowl.

I march ahead of him, trying to collect my thoughts.

“You know I only met Stacy to gather information—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You can’t possibly think I wanted to—”

“I don’t.” I quicken my pace. I’m furious. And hurt. And just plain confused.

“Sarah, I would never, ever—”

“Jonas, just give me a minute. I’m so pissed at you, I can’t even speak. Just don’t talk.”

I can feel him bursting at the seams behind me, but he grants my request—for a solid forty seconds.

“Sarah,” he finally says. “I can’t stand it. Talk to me.”

I stop walking and whip around to look at him, tears in my eyes.

“Oh, baby,” he begins, reaching for me. But I cut him off.

“I should be studying right now!” I shriek. “Only the top ten students get a scholarship!” I burst into tears. “I need that scholarship, Jonas, and I haven’t studied for a whole
week,
thanks to you.” This isn’t at all what’s foremost on my mind. I have no idea why this is what my brain chose to barf out at this moment. I choke down the sob that threatens to rise from my throat.

He moves to comfort me again, but I put my hands up.

“Don’t. I’m so mad at you right now I can’t see straight.”

He opens his mouth to say something but stops himself.

“I’m a grown-ass woman, Jonas. I’m strong. I’m smart. You should have told me what you were up to. I can handle it—I can
help.
But you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

“It’s not an issue of trust. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to keep you out of harm’s way.”

“Bullshit.”

He raises his eyebrows.

“You didn’t tell me because you didn’t trust me not to fuck up your precious strategy, whatever the hell it is.”

He rolls his eyes. “No, Sarah, that’s not it.”

“If tonight were reversed, you’d be just as pissed as I am right now, probably more so.”

“You’re reading way too much into this.”

“Really? Think about it. If I checked in on the Club app without telling you and secretly met up with a guy—
a guy I’d fucked once before
—what would you do?”

He clenches his jaw.

“You think you might wig out just a little bit? Or at least wonder why the
fuck
I didn’t tell you?”

He exhales.

“What if I said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, Jonas, I wasn’t gonna
fuck
him, you silly goose—yes, he happens to be the last guy I fucked before I met you, but I was just planning to make him
think
I wanted to fuck him for this super-duper awesome strategy I have—a super-duper awesome strategy I’ve told you nothing about.’”

He glares at me.

“And what if we add one more little fact to this hypothetical. What if I’d slept with a different guy every single night for the past year—right up until I met you? And then I ran off to a check-in with the very last guy I’d been with? You’re telling me you wouldn’t wonder just a teeny-tiny little bit what the
fuck
I was doing when I said I had ‘something I had to do’ tonight?”

He smashes his lips together.

“Ya feeling me on this?” My chest is heaving. Damn, I’m furious. He doesn’t understand how close he came to smashing my heart into a million pieces tonight.

There’s a long beat.

“I’m a dumbshit,” he finally says quietly.

“Felony stupid,” I agree.

He looks defeated.

“The problem isn’t you meeting up with Stacy. I get what you were trying to do—whatever the hell it was. The problem is you not
telling
me about it—not trusting me enough to tell me.”

He sighs. There’s a long beat.

“My imagination started playing tricks on me tonight, Jonas.” I sigh. “That’s why I went to the bar in the first place.” Tears well up in my eyes. “Paranoia got the best of me. When I saw your car parked in the garage, I remembered how you said you used to walk to The Pine Box on your ‘hunting expeditions’ . . .” I wipe my eyes.

He’s instantly indignant. “You thought I went to the bar to pick someone up? To
fuck
someone?”

“I thought it was possible.”

“How could you think that, even for a second?”

I give him a “duh” look.

“After everything I’ve—” He shakes his head. “After Belize? After last night? That’s what you think of me?”

I glance away.

“I’d never do that to you. Look at me.”

I look at him.

“Don’t you know you fucking own me?”

“You kept The Club’s iPhone.”

“To give to Trey.”

“It was on the table this morning.”

“Because I’m figuring out how to fuck The Club up the ass—to protect my beautiful, precious baby. Everything I do is to protect you. I’m telling you, Sarah, you own me.”

“Stop saying that. I don’t
own
you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t. If I
owned
you, as you allege, you would have told me what you were up to.”

He exhales in exasperation. There’s another long beat.

“If I truly
owned
you, there wouldn’t have been room for doubt in my mind. By keeping things from me, you left room for me to doubt.”

His face is etched with pain.

“Jonas, tonight was horrible. My heart was a whisper away from shattering. I started thinking maybe you couldn’t resist teaching Stacy the Faker a lesson about truth and honesty—getting your
redemption
the second time around.”

His eyes burst into flames. “How could you think that?”

“Oh, gee! Maybe because I saw you sitting in a bar having drinks with her—
and you didn’t tell me about it!
”

He throws up his hands, totally pissed. “Jesus.”

“And then I thought, ‘Oh, wait, no, Jonas would never fuck a
prostitute
.’”

He nods emphatically, like I’m finally making some sense.

“But that’s the problem right there. I shouldn’t have been thinking, ‘Jonas would never cheat on me with a prostitute.’ I should have been thinking, ‘Jonas would never cheat on me, period, with anyone.’”

He runs his hand through his hair. “I thought we were done with this. Remember what we said in Belize? Full steam ahead? No more one step forward, two steps back? No more trust issues. You promised.”

“Yeah, and we
were
done with this. I kept my promise. I trusted you—completely—until you gave me a reason to doubt you.”

He shakes his head.

“Secrets create spaces within a relationship, Jonas—dark spaces. When one person keeps secrets, the other person fills in the dark spaces with their fears and insecurities.”

He stares at me for a long beat. “That’s profound, actually.”

“Thanks. I made it up. Just now. On the spot.”

“I like it. It makes a lot of sense.” He shoots me a half-smile. “You’re pretty fucking smart, you know that?”

I shrug. Tears threaten my eyes.

“Sarah, I do trust you. More than I’ve ever trusted any woman, ever. I’ve told you things . . .” He sighs. “I’ve opened myself up to you in whole new ways.”

I shiver in the cold. “Let’s keep walking. It’s frickin’ freezing.”

He puts his arm around me as we walk. He’s warm. His arm around me is strong. He smells delicious, even after he’s just had sweaty sex in a men’s bathroom. His physicality is so alluring to me, such a welcome distraction from the rambling dialogue inside my head, I’m tempted to blurt, “Never mind” and just kiss him. But sweeping my emotions under the carpet won’t solve anything. It only means they’ll come out later, and probably with a vengeance. We need to have this conversation now.

“You made me jump off a frickin’ waterfall, Jonas,” I say. “And I’m deathly afraid of heights.”

He smiles. “I know.”

“This whole relationship has been about
me
. Making
me
let go. Making
me
‘surrender.’ What about you?”

He doesn’t reply.

“You’re fucked up, too, you know.”

“Royally.”

“Well, what’s your waterfall? When are
you
gonna jump off a waterfall for
me
?”

We walk in silence for a minute longer.

He stops short all of a sudden. He pulls me into him and kisses me. His nose is cold against mine, but his lips are warm. He abruptly pulls away from me and cups my face in his hands.

“This. This right here,” he whispers. “Every single minute I’m with you, I’m jumping off a waterfall. Don’t you understand?” His eyes burn with intensity. “You’re afraid of heights? Well, I’m afraid of
this.
I’m standing on a cliff a hundred feet tall, and every day with you, I jump. I don’t know how to do this, okay? It’s all new to me—and I’m terrible at it. So, okay, I’m gonna fuck things up sometimes. But... ” He swallows hard, suppressing his emotions. “But every day, I see your beautiful face, every day I get to touch your smooth skin and kiss your spectacular lips and make love to you—oh my God—and talk to you and laugh with you and tell you things I’ve never told anyone else,
ever
—all of it makes me want to keep climbing higher and higher to the next waterfall, to the next day, and just keep jumping and jumping and jumping into the abyss.” He’s shaking. “With you.”

Tears spill out of my eyes.

“
Because you fucking own me, Sarah.”

He kisses my wet cheeks. He peppers my entire face with soft kisses. He kisses my mouth. I kiss him back. He presses his body into mine. His lips find my eyelids, my ears, my neck. His hands are on my butt, cradling my back, stroking through my hair.