Chapter 5: The Apology
I didn't move. I couldn't. The door stood open, the cold draft from the hall wrapping around my ankles, but my body refused to obey the simple command to flee.
"Did you hear me?" His voice was still ravaged, still hollow. He hadn't turned around. His hands were braced on the footboard of the bed, his head bowed between his arms.
"I heard you." My own voice came out thin, scraped raw. "I'm not going anywhere."
He turned then, and the look on his face nearly undid me. It wasn't anger. It was something far worse—a man drowning, reaching for a lifeline he knew would drag him under.
"Isabella." My name was a plea, a warning, a prayer. "You don't understand what you're asking for."
"Then make me understand." I pushed myself up from the mattress, my legs unsteady beneath me. I crossed the space between us, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him, to see the muscle jumping in his jaw. "You kissed me back, Jonathan. You brought me in here. You could have let me go at the door, but you didn't."
His eyes closed. A shudder ran through him, visible even in the dim firelight.
"You're grieving. You're scared. You don't know what you want."
"I know exactly what I want." My hand came up, trembling, and settled against his chest. His heart hammered beneath my palm. "I want you. I want you to be my first."
His eyes snapped open. The raw hunger in them stole my breath. "You're nineteen."
"And I'm standing here, asking you. Not some boy at a party. Not James Foster with his charming smiles. You."
His hand closed over mine where it lay on his chest. His thumb traced the line of my knuckles, a reverent, agonized gesture. "I'm forty years old. I have a girlfriend. I'm your guardian."
"I don't care about any of that."
"You should."
"But I don't." I stepped closer, until the tips of my breasts brushed his shirt, until I could feel the trembling restraint in every line of his body. "I care about this. About the way you look at me. The way you touched me in the library. The way you kissed me just now like you were drowning and I was air."
He made a sound, low and broken. His hand came up, cupping my face, his thumb tracing the swell of my lower lip.
"You'll hate me in the morning."
"I'll hate you more if you send me away."
The silence stretched between us, taut as a wire. His eyes searched mine, looking for hesitation, for doubt, for the sanity he clearly thought he'd lost.
He found none.
His mouth came down on mine, and this time there was no anger in it. No battle. Just a slow, devastating claiming that made my knees buckle. He caught me, his arm banding around my waist, pulling me flush against him.
"Tell me," he murmured against my lips, "what you want. Use your words, Izzy. I need to hear them."
The request undid me. The demand for my consent, my desire, spoken aloud in this room full of shadows and secrets. It made my heart stutter and my thighs clench.
"I want you to touch me." My voice was a whisper, but it didn't waver. "I want to feel your hands on my skin. I want you to show me what it feels like to be wanted."
A sound escaped him, something between a groan and a growl. His hands found the hem of my sweater, and he paused, waiting. I nodded, and he pulled it over my head, leaving me in just the thin cotton of my bra.
His gaze raked over me, dark and hungry. "More," he commanded, low and rough. "Tell me more."
"I want you to take your time." My cheeks burned, but I held his gaze. "I want to remember this. Every second."
His eyes softened, something tender and fierce warring in their depths. He lifted me, and I gasped, wrapping my legs around his waist as he carried me to the bed. He laid me down on the velvet coverlet like I was something precious, something worth protecting.
"Every second," he repeated, his voice reverent as he followed me down, bracing his weight on his forearms. "I'll give you every second."
His mouth traced a path down my throat, his hands learning the curves of my body. He asked me again and again what I wanted, and I told him—hesitant at first, then bolder as his touch taught me what pleasure could be. He learned me, mapped me, until I was arching beneath him, gasping his name, shattered and remade by his hands alone.
"Jonathan." The word was a plea, a prayer. "Please."
He stilled above me. "Are you sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything."
The breath he released was shaky, reverent. He kissed me, slow and deep, as he moved above me, and I felt the sharp, bright ache of the inevitable. He stilled, giving me time, his forehead pressed to mine.
"You're perfect," he whispered. "You're so perfect."
And then he moved, and the world fell away.
The pain was brief, swallowed by the overwhelming sensation of him filling me, completing me. He moved with a careful rhythm, watching my face, adjusting when I winced, groaning when I clenched around him. He made me tell him what I needed, and I did, my voice breaking on the words.
When it ended, we lay tangled together, his breath hot against my hair. The fire had burned low, casting long shadows across the ceiling. His hand traced idle patterns on my bare shoulder.
I felt changed. Reborn. The grief was still there, a constant weight in my chest, but it was quieter now. I had been claimed, chosen, wanted.
"Jonathan." His name was soft in the darkness.
"Mm?" His arms tightened around me.
"You said you wouldn't apologize for keeping me alive."
"I meant it."
"Good." I turned my head, pressing my lips to the hollow of his throat. "Because I'm not sorry either."
The silence stretched, comfortable and warm. But beneath it, I felt the shift—the new understanding that had bloomed between us. He had made me his in the most elemental way possible, and I had let him.
Outside, the first gray light of dawn began to creep across the sky.