My Kind Of Crazy (18 page)

Blue eyes watch me appreciatively as I finally pull my pants
off. I’m kneeling between her legs with the tip of my member against her
entrance when it finally dawns on me. I pull back, look down at her, and
realization dawns over her face.

“I don’t have any.” I tell her with a groan.

“Well me neither!” She puts her hands in her hair and looks
at the ceiling with frustration.

“You’re not on the pill?” She shakes her head in the
negative. I’ve been tested for STD’s, and I assume that she has too. But
assumptions can get people into a lot of trouble. So I pull away gently and
plaster myself over her naked body.

“Then I guess we’ll either have to go get some, or I’ll have
to make this the best night of your life.” She looks at me with a little bit of
horror on her face and curiosity, but the strongest emotion I see there is
want.

“It already is the best night of my life.” She whispers to
me, and I kiss her. Her hand roams down to touch me, but I pull it away and
shake my head.

“No, if you do that I’ll do something we’ll both regret in
the morning.” Before she can protest, I reach down between her legs and flick
her once. She grows warmer under my touch again, and I take her into my mouth.
I rhythmically stroke and pull her nipples into my teeth between her climaxes
until she’s telling me that she can’t take anymore. I’m pretty sure that I’m
going to do something irrational soon if I don’t stop, so when she finally
tells me to stop, I do.

Sometime in the morning, I get up to turn off the light, and
pull her back to my front. I won’t get much sleep tonight, but I think I just
had the best night of my life too. I kiss her neck and wrap one arm around her
waist. A few hours later, when I wake up again, she’s rolled over so that she’s
facing me.

I can see the anticipation in her eyes as she strokes me
once, and I repeat the process all over again. It’s not until the first rays of
sunshine beat me in the face that I realize I never told her goodnight, and she
never told me either. I’m pretty sure that I might have actual blue balls, too,
but it was definitely worth it. Now I just have to find a sappy romance movie
to take her to, where the guy gets the girl.

Waking up to the smell of eggs, bacon, and scrapple frying
is probably one of the best moments a person could ask for. Especially after a
marathon of sex that was not sex the previous night, early morning, and late
morning. So technically I guess it’s not breakfast anymore, but brunch. I roll
over to the smell of a good brunch, and sit up on the edge of the bed.

My legs are killing me from the tension, but it’s an ache
that I’d deal with any day if I were promised the same treatment again. I wrap
the sheet around my torso and tiptoe out of the room to my own. My hair is a
disaster, so I pull it up into a quick bun and pull a camisole on without a
bra. Then I pull on a pair of yoga pants and stretch until my arms are as far
up as they can go and my toes are the only thing touching the ground.

The smell wafts back to me, and my stomach protests the
delay. I try not to feel self-conscious of the scars as I make my way from my
room. He saw all of them last night, and again this morning in the bright
sunlight. He knows that it’s not only my thighs that I cut, but worse. It was
never enough to do permanent, serious damage, but it was enough to leave thin,
white lines.

As I finally get to the kitchenette, the buffet that is
waiting for me could feed an army. Jonah is dutifully piling all manner of eggs
onto a plate with bacon and scrapple. I missed the scent of the home fries.

“Where did you get all of this?” I don’t recall us having
the ingredients for this in the fridge, and he shrugs a shoulder. When I
finally sit down, I see the pack of condoms sitting on the middle of the
breakfast countertop and smile.

“I went out while you were sleeping. I figured it would take
an entire army to get you up, so…” He trails off, and shrugs once as he pulls
toast out of the toaster. “I didn’t know how you like your eggs. So there’s
scrambled, sunny-side up, sunny-side down, and poached.” I had no idea he knew
how to poach an egg.

“I’ve never had a poached egg.” I admit to him as I dip my
toast into the runny yolk of the sunny-side up. He sits down next to me as soon
as he has his own plate finished, and I see he has his piled high with
scrambled eggs. I’ll have to remember that. I try not to let it freak me out
that this is getting serious pretty fast. What woman in her right mind would
want to say no to a man who spent hours pleasuring only her, and then makes her
breakfast in the morning?

“They’re good with a little bit of salt on them, here.” He
reaches out, grabs the salt shaker, and puts a dash across the poached egg. “So
I found a movie that’s playing seven tonight that should fit your profile.” I
pause mid-chew, and then remember to swallow.

“Oh?” So now we’re going to go out in public together? I
mean I guess we have been, but now we’re going out on an actual date. For some
reason, even after last night, that gives me butterflies in my stomach.
The
man has seen me naked! All over! What’s wrong with a movie?

“Yeah, the heroine is a cop, the hero is undercover. They
end up working a case together, but I can’t tell you the rest because that
would ruin the plot.” He smiles at me as he forks in a load of eggs and looks
away from me.

What’s wrong with a movie is the fact that it makes this
so much more serious than just a one night stand. This is a commitment,
Anastasia D’Salvatore, and you’ve never made one of those.
I try to hide my
inner dialogue with a sip of water and some of my scrapple.
The man
can
cook.

“Okay, so seven it is. Are we going to dinner first or just
skipping to the movie?” I try to keep the tremor out of my voice, but it slips
through on the word ‘movie’. Jonah looks up at me as he puts his fork down on
his plate gently and wipes his mouth with a paper napkin. I swallow once as I
try to keep eye contact with him.

“Anastasia, if this is too far or fast for you, you can put
on the brakes. I’m not going anywhere if that’s what you’re afraid of.” I feel
tears starting to form in my eyes and turn away from him, using my water as an
excuse again. I don’t know what to tell him, but he’s waiting patiently for an
answer of some sort. So I try to stifle the fear of loss, and look at him.

“Why don’t we just try the movie tonight?” He smiles at me,
and if I had known accepting the offer for a date would give me that look in
return, I’d have said it sooner.

“Great, so at seven I’ll pick you up.” I wrinkle my nose at
him with my confusion.

“What?” He’s almost done breakfast, and I’m only halfway
finished.

“I’ll swing by your door and pick you up at seven.” He
confirms, and I can’t help my laugh. Is this how it will be when we move back
in together at the farmhouse? Then I feel a pang of hurt at the thought that he
might stay in his cabin. He might not want to stay with me anymore, and I’ll
have to settle for dates like a normal person.

I’m about to tell him he’s crazy when my cellphone buzzes
across the room. I don’t remember plugging it in to charge, but Jonah must have
last night sometime. I slide off my stool reluctantly, and walk across the room
to retrieve the pesky piece of technology. The number on the screen is
unrecognizable, but the area code is from around here. So I hit the answer
button and put it up to my ear.

“Hello?” Half a second goes by.

“Anastasia?” For some reason,  I was holding my breath, and
I let it out when I hear Chief Robertson’s voice.

“It’s me,” I tell him as I sit down on the arm of the sofa.
The leather feels cool on the back of my thighs. Jonah’s cleaning up his mess
in the kitchen.

“I wanted to call and let you know that we got the DNA test
results back. Would you like me to tell you now or do you want to come into the
station?”

“Now’s a good time.” He doesn’t sound upset, so I have a
feeling he’s going to tell me what I already know.

“The man who kidnapped you the first time was Benjamin
Cooper. Henry Cooper admitted to burning down the barn because they thought the
tapes were in there. But he’s claiming that they did not kill your father.” I
feel the smile fall off my face as I cross my free arm over my stomach. The
sofa budges when Jonah plops down onto it and puts his cheek on my back.

“But I thought for sure that one of them did it. Maybe he’s
lying, or maybe Benjamin did it.” I’m grasping for something that might be
true.

“He passed a polygraph test, Ana. Benjamin was away during
the time of your father’s murder, as well. So he’s not a suspect in that case.
So far, we’re back to square one.” I grit my teeth with my frustration and
Jonah senses my tension. A strong arm comes up around my middle, and he pulls
me down onto his chest. I know that he can hear Chief Robertson on the phone
now.

“What about Mark Taylor?” The infamous Mr. Taylor threatened
me, and I wouldn’t put it past him to murder my father. “We’ve checked into
him, and so far there are no leads there.” I remember the incident in the
laundry room.

“He threatened me.”

“Oh?” Now the Chief sounds interested. I suppose since I was
right about the Coopers, then he’s more inclined to listen to me now.

“Yeah, while I was doing laundry he came in and said that if
I wasn’t careful I’d end up like my father.” Those weren’t his exact words, but
it’s close enough. Jonah tightens his arm around me, and I have to wiggle
around to get him to loosen his grip. My wiggling just fits me closer to his
body.

“I’ll have a word with him again. Maybe we can flush
something out this time.” I thank him for the information and we hang up
without saying goodbye. After three deep, long breaths, Jonah finally pipes up.

“What was that about?” He’s reaching a hand up to massage my
right shoulder as he playfully nibbles at my upper arm.

“It seems that neither one of the Coopers are to blame for
my father’s death. They were not around at the time of the murder.” His hand
goes tense on my shoulder, and we both sit in silence for a few seconds as if
we’re thinking. I wonder if we’re thinking the same thing, but he doesn’t
mention the name Mark Taylor. Instead, he slides me off his lap so that he can
see me.

“Who do you think it was?” The way he asks it makes me
wonder if he’ll go murder the bastard himself. But I don’t want Mr. Taylor’s
blood on my or his hands if there is even the slightest chance the rat is
innocent.

“I don’t want to speculate, Jonah. It might never be solved,
and I think soon we’re just going to have to face that truth.” The swift anger
that sweeps across his features startles me, but it disappears as soon as it
shows. I try to placate him. “It’s not that I don’t care. I care a great deal
about my father’s death and having this mystery hanging over our heads solved!
But are we going to spend the rest of our lives searching?” It takes him a few
minutes to respond. I believe he’s actually thinking through my words and
trying to see reason.

“No, I guess we can’t. We’ll give it another week here,
though before we go back to the farmhouse.” He looks at me suddenly as if he
might have said something wrong. “I mean, if you don’t want me to stay there, I
can always go back to my cabin.” He doesn’t
sound
hurt by the idea, but
I can tell by the dimness in his eyes that he’s hoping I will let him stay at
the house. I tell myself it’s because he wants to stay, not because I want him
to.

“Sure, you can stay at the house. We’ll work out the
arrangements when we get there.” I’m having a hard time believing we’ll be
staying in separate bedrooms at night, but maybe we should have a semblance of
being roommates before we move into the same room together.

I’m drifting off into my own world as I think about how that
would work. I don’t want to live in my father’s old bedroom, and I don’t think
Jonah does either. So I’ll take my old room upstairs, and he can take the room
downstairs. If we ever do move in together, I could make my room into an
office. It’s not until his lips are brushing over my earlobe that I realize
Jonah’s been speaking, and I wasn’t listening. Embarrassed by my lack of
attention, I swat him away.

“What? I was listening! You were saying about…” I wait for
him to fill in, but he just grins at me.

“I was saying that perhaps we could build a newer house
someday on the property. I know that it’s strange for you to be in that house,
and it’s no less weird for me. Tearing it down would be a shame, but we could
use it as a work building. You could have an office. I could have an office,
and we’d be able to keep our lives separate from work.” I lean back with a hand
on his shoulder and study him for a time. He’s serious. Jonah Quinton is not
planning on leaving that property, and I’m stuck with him whether I want to be
or not.

“I guess that could work. Speaking of work,” my hand slides
down to take his. Hand holding is normal when people first start dating. Even
though we didn’t go out last night, I would consider that a first date. While
it was the best first date of my life, it was also the most unconventional.
“The farm hasn’t been a working one for over a decade, and the barn is gone.
I’m not much into planting corn and raising cattle, but I’m good at keeping the
books. I’ve had to do it for myself for a long time. So if you want to pick up
where the farm left off ten years ago, I’d be willing to give it a shot.”

There’s this moment where we both don’t look at each other,
and I wonder if he feels as if this is a commitment as I do, albeit a business
one on my behalf. His thumb twirls around the flesh between my thumb and
finger, and then his hand pulls away to push some of my hair back. I know he
sees worry on my face, but it’s not because of him saying no to this agreement.
I’m worried that if he says yes and we as a couple do not work, he’ll leave me
with a half working farm and barely any knowledge how to run it.

“How about I focus on rebuilding the barn, and if that goes
well, we can rent equipment next year for the first season rather than
purchasing. After the first season, we’ll think about buying our own
equipment.” I smile because I know that, without a doubt, he’s talking about
our relationship this way to make me feel less panicked about the idea of
living with him. Besides, he’s also being smart about being in business
together. There will be less of a mess if there is not farm equipment to sell
and debts to be paid back. If either one of us decides it isn’t working, we can
walk away rather quickly.

“So we’ll give it another week here, and during that time
we’ll work the kinks out in our plan.” He gives me a quizzical look.

“What kinks?” He asks innocently.

“Oh, there are kinks in that plan somewhere, and I will find
them. We will smooth them out, and by the time you can say barn building
project, we’ll be running this business smoothly.” Just for shits and giggles,
he responds:

“Barn building project,” But before I can retaliate, he has
an arm around me with a hand on the back of my head as he lowers me to the sofa
cushions. If I had known talking about barn building would make him react this way,
I would have done it earlier. As he’s ravaging my mouth, I forget about the
fact that my father’s killer is still on the loose.

Jonah’s leading me back to his bedroom with the box of
condoms in hand when the doorbell rings and I glance at the clock. It’s one
thirty in the afternoon, and I haven’t showered yet. But Jonah has to go back
and hide his goodies, so I try to fix my hair and tiptoe to the door. I glance
out the peephole, but it’s fogged over with a water droplet. Frustrated, I
unlock the door’s deadbolt, the doorknob, and the chain lock before I open it
up.

“Mr. Taylor!” I say loudly to attract Jonah’s attention. He’s
pulling a shirt over his head as he comes out of the room, and I wonder if he
was actually getting ready back there without me.