The Wish Collector
Page 45

It was empty of furniture, just four bare walls that surely held secrets they’d never tell and wouldn’t want to if they could.
Clara walked to the window, running a fingertip down the cracked and dirty glass. Even if there had been light beyond, the visibility would be poor.
Clara walked around the room, pointing the low light into the corners and at the ceiling, careful not to turn it in Jonah’s direction, careful to allow him the darkness where he felt safe.
After a couple of minutes exploring the room, Clara shut her phone off, returning it to her pocket.
She turned back toward Jonah, stepping carefully as she moved blindly to where she knew he stood. She heard his breath as she drew closer, the steady exhale that told her where he was.
“Reach for me?” she asked and he did, grasping her outstretched hand so she could find him.
She stepped closer, right up to him, and their breath mingled, the slow exhales she’d heard moments before growing less steady.
Something sparked in the air, something Clara was surprised didn’t illuminate the darkness, something that felt bright and shimmery and she swore was raining upon her skin like the fallout of a broken star.
“I thought there’d be sadness here,” she said. “I thought . . . I don’t know, that I’d feel heavy hearted or—”
“I know. There’s something about this one. I feel the same way when I’m here. It’s funny that you do too.”
Clara wasn’t sure what to make of that, but it felt as though she was sharing something with Jonah, something indefinably special.
She took his other hand in hers and stepped even closer, their bodies meeting. This is how they’d stood in that hotel courtyard, and she’d longed for it again. Now? It was even better, fuller . . . more. “Do you think places hold memories?”
She heard his arm move and then felt the tentative brushing of his hand on her cheek and sucked in a breath, leaning in to him.
A small groan rose from his throat, so quiet that she wasn’t sure she’d have heard it if she’d had possession of all her senses. The ones she was using were so attuned, so highly sensitized, so acutely aware.
“No.”
For a moment she was confused about what question he was answering. For a moment she’d been lost in his touch, and for a moment she’d forgotten she’d asked about places holding memories at all.
“No,” he repeated. “Only people hold memories.”
She smiled, pressing her face more firmly against his palm. He turned his hand over, moving his knuckles down her cheek and she sighed.
People . . . souls, Clara thought. Then maybe Angelina was really there, and the old cabin was a place that held happiness for her. She liked the thought, but it brought sadness too.
Clara turned her head, brushing her lips against his knuckle and he groaned, louder this time, her name following an exhale of breath.
“These walls, though,” Jonah said, “they’re sacred. They belong to others.”
He took her hand, and she inhaled a quick breath of air as he pulled her from the cabin, back out into the night. He was walking ahead of her and she laughed as she hurried to keep up, running into the solid breadth of his back when he stopped, turning so they were facing each other again. He turned them around slowly as though dancing, and she felt something hard against her back. “Just a tall fencepost,” Jonah murmured.
Clara lifted her chin, breathing in the air. She smelled something sharp and sweet and fresh. “The garden that grows on its own,” she said, a note of wonder in her tone. “I can smell it.”
“Yes. It’s the tomatoes.” She could feel his breath on her face and moved in even closer as he again brought his knuckle to her cheek the way he’d done a minute before. “They’re so big and sweet you can eat them like an apple.”
Clara smiled against his knuckles, darting her tongue out to taste him.
He froze, her tongue dancing lightly over his fingertips, tasting the clean saltiness of his skin. His breathing was coming out more jagged now, as if he’d just begun to run, and she realized her heart was pounding quickly too, moving the blood through her to the rhythm of Jonah’s.
Jonah brought his hands up and used them to frame her face as if he could somehow see her, though there was no light in the darkened corner where they stood.
Clara tipped her head back instinctively, her lips parting as she waited. A hot, liquid thrill went through her, cascading down her limbs and pooling at the apex of her thighs.
Foggily, she remembered thinking that there was nothing like the anticipation right before a stage curtain opened. Nothing at all. But oh, how wrong she’d been. Waiting for Jonah’s kiss was like that moment, only infinitely better. Oh yes. Something wonderful is about to happen, her heart sang.
His lips landed on hers, soft yet firm, and it felt like a thousand fireworks exploded in her belly. His hand moved to the nape of her neck where he gathered her hair between his fingers, pulling gently as he pressed her mouth more firmly to his.
She moaned, and it seemed to ignite him. He swept his tongue into her mouth, and she met his with her own, learning the taste of him, the feel of his body pressed to hers, the way he swelled and hardened against her hip.
Their kiss went deeper, something seeming to possess them both—neediness, desperation, only without a painful edge. Clara loved it, whatever it was.
Both of Jonah’s hands were in Clara’s hair now, and she reached her arms up, gripping the muscles of his biceps as he explored her with his mouth.
She wanted to reach up higher and touch his face, to learn the feel of him if he wouldn’t let her see him with her eyes. But she knew that would put a stop to what he was doing, and she would do nothing to discourage his kiss, the magic that was sparking around them, the joy coursing through her heart.
Jonah’s hips moved back slightly and then toward Clara again, an unconscious gesture of arousal—of his body’s need to thrust—and it made Clara throb with her own desire.
“Jonah,” she gasped between kisses, her hand moving between them, over the hard planes of his chest. He moaned as if her touch pained him, drawing away slightly, but then pressing himself toward her again as if he couldn’t help himself.
Clara nipped at his lip, running her tongue over his bottom one, feeling the ridges there and the way it dipped slightly into an unnatural sort of frown, that part of him he thought made him unlovable, the proof of all his sins. She wanted the chance to prove him wrong. Someday.
Someday.
He made a small movement with his head, taking charge of the kiss once more and leading her away from his scars, his message clear: not this day.
God, but the man knew how to kiss and apparently an eight-year dry spell—if she was assuming correctly—had done nothing to dampen that particular skill.
She felt like she was floating in a vast midnight sky, his lips her only anchor to reality, the only path out of the darkness. It was a kiss born of a thousand starlit dreams. A kiss she never wanted to end.
After a minute longer, he broke away, his breath coming out in soft pants as he leaned his forehead against hers.
She went up on her tiptoes, seeking his mouth again and he laughed, a sound that was some humor but mostly frustration and ended in a pained groan.
“Was that my present?” he asked, and she heard the smile in his voice. She didn’t dare reach for him to trace the curve of his lips with her finger. Someday, she told herself again, repeating it in her mind. Someday he’d trust her with everything he had. Someday he’d allow her to see all of him.
Clara laughed, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding him the way she’d held him in his bed a few nights before.
She turned her nose into his chest, inhaling his scent, the one she was coming to know as well as she already knew his voice.
“We should get back,” Jonah said, kissing the top of her head and breathing in the scent of her hair. He rubbed his cheek on it, the side of his face that had less scarring if it had any at all. She’d only really seen his chin, half of his mouth, and a portion of his cheek.
“Do we have to? I like being here, in another world with you. It’s like it’s just us in all the universe.”
He chuckled. “That would get lonely for you, wouldn’t it?”