normal marriages talk about sex and orgasms with other men and it means absolutely nothing, and their husbands don’t bat an eyelash, then good for them. But that’s not the way our marriage works. Because I’m the husband in this marriage—Jonas Faraday—and I cannot fucking handle it.” He clenches his jaw. “Thinking about that motherfucker getting hard while listening to you talk about having your first orgasm—thinking about him promising to give you a better orgasm than what I can deliver to you—makes me feel fucking homicidal, and that’s not a figure of speech.”
Whoa.
“Sarah, I love you in a way that transcends mortal love. What I realized last night is that loving you the way I do makes me completely vulnerable. And you need to understand and respect that important fact—because the flipside of that kind of love, if you don’t handle it with care, is that I can go to a very, very dark place.”
My heart is beating out of my chest.
“The way I love you means you’ve got the power to devastate me and I can’t do anything about it.” He exhales. “It means you could utterly destroy me when you think you’re just having a little fun with some hip-hop megastar. And you’ve got to be respectful of that.”
“Oh, Jonas.” I feel like I’m going to burst into tears. “I’m sorry. I’ll never, ever hurt you again. I didn’t understand. But I do now. I’m so, so sorry. I was an idiot. Please, please forgive me.”
“I know you didn’t understand. That’s obvious.” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “That’s why I’m explaining it to you.” His jaw muscles pulse yet again.
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay.” He runs his hand through his hair and shakes it off. “There’s just one last thing.”
My stomach flip-flops yet again. “Okay,” I say evenly, but I’m literally trembling. I can’t believe how badly I fucked up. I had no idea how Jonas would perceive the events of last night. And now that I know, it makes perfect sense to me, given who he is and how he thinks.
“Don’t worry, baby, this next item isn’t another fuck-up. This is something I need to confess to you, in all fairness.”
“A confession?”
“Well, an admission.” He grins. “I must admit you were amazing on that stage last night,” he says. “Absolutely amazing. And sexy as hell. Even while I was pissed as hell at you and plotting Will’s murder, you still turned me the fuck on.”
I exhale and smile broadly. “Really?”
“Really. Every single person in that club fell head over heels in love with you, OAP Cruz, including me, all over again.”
“Oh my God. Thank God.” Relief floods every muscle of my body. “I had so much fun, Jonas. I was on cloud nine.”
“I could tell. Everyone could tell. It was pure magic watching you have so much fun.”
“Reed said he sent a video of the whole thing to Josh. Can you ask Josh to send it to you? I’m dying to see it.”
“You don’t need to wait for Reed’s video. Someone in the audience already put the whole damned thing up on YouTube.”
“Oh my God. Really?”
He gets up to retrieve his laptop from the small desk across the hotel room. “I watched it this morning—it’s already got over a million hits.” He brings his laptop to the bed, opens it, and immediately navigates to a video link. “Holy shit, Sarah. Make that well over four million hits. Oh my God. It was at a million views just a little while ago.”
“Holy crappola.”
Jonas presses play on the video and I shriek at the sight of myself bouncing around the stage acting like I own the place. Oh my God, I’m mortified. I cover my face with my hands, and Jonas laughs.
When the video ends, Jonas peels my hands off my face and tortures me by pressing play again. And then again. And again. And by the fourth time through, I must admit I’m not mortified watching it anymore; in fact, I’m kind of proud of myself. I’m actually kind of a badass up there. Or, at the very least, I’m pretty freaking hilarious. By the sixth time through, Jonas and I are screaming with laughter together throughout the whole thing, all prior tension between us completely evaporated.
Jonas puts the computer down and kisses me. “OAP Cruz.” He shakes his head and smiles. “There’s no one like you, baby. You’re a true original.”
I laugh. “Thank you.”
“My wife the hip-hop star.” He shakes his head again. “What the hell.”
I laugh.
He takes