The Redemption (28 page)

Sure, I could keep writing for another three weeks if I had the time to write my report as thoroughly as I’d like, but time is of the essence and this will have to do. I’ve outlined the facts, the law, and the evidence as best I can and attached a corresponding exhibit log with proof of every single fact I’ve proffered. Nothing is speculation. Nothing is guesswork. Nothing is subject to debate. If this report doesn’t get the FBI’s attention, then I don’t know what will.

Josh and Kat leave the suite together, both saying they’re off to “get some sleep,” ostensibly in their respective hotel rooms (but I’m not so sure). I’m beginning to suspect those two have become more than friends while we’ve been here in Vegas. I’ll have to ask Kat about that tomorrow. Today, I was too obsessed with our mission to veer off track into thinking about anything but that report.

After Josh and Kat have left, Henn calls me over to his computer. I’d asked him to search through The Club’s system for one more piece of evidence—something establishing a nexus between the names used during the application process and the codes assigned to member files post-application.

“Will this work?” he asks, his voice weary.

I stand behind him and look at his screen over his shoulder.

He explains the information he’s called to his screen.

“Yeah, that’s perfect,” I say. “Thanks, Henn. I just think we’ve got to be ultra-clear about everything. No assumptions—no leaps of logic required.”

Henn agrees.

Jonas sits quietly in the corner of the room, watching me with burning eyes and tense muscles.

“Jonas, do you want to take a look at this?” I ask.

He shakes his head.

Oh. I know that look. I bite my lip. My hunky-monkey boyfriend is sitting there with a hard-on right now.

“Thanks, Henn. You’re a fucking genius,” I say.

“So I’ve been told,” he says. He grins and closes his laptop ceremoniously. “Okay, well, if that’s all you need, then I’ll head out. I’ve got a sudden intuition I should pull the lever on the one-hundred-dollar slot machine exactly seven times before I go to beddy-bye.”

“Good luck,” I say. “See you at ten.” That’s when the whole group’s reconvening to head over to the Las Vegas branch of the FBI.

The moment the door closes on Henn, I turn to Jonas. “Will you accept that shower-sex rain check now?” I ask.

He nods slowly. Damn, he’s a good-lookin’ man.

I stride over to him in the corner, exhausted but excited at everything we accomplished today, and sit on his lap. Oh, hello there. Yup. Jonas is as hard as a rock. I run my fingertips over the engraving on the face of his platinum bracelet.
Sarah
.

“Hi, boyfriend,” I say softly.

He smiles and touches my bracelet in return. “Hi, girlfriend.” He pulls my face to his and kisses me deeply.

I run my hands over the fabric of his long-sleeved knit shirt, reveling in the feel of his broad chest and sculpted shoulders. I’ll never grow tired of touching him. He’s a work of art. I move on to his powerful biceps and then to his forearms—and my fingertips detect a different texture underneath his shirt than skin. I poke at the thin fabric above his right forearm. Yes, there’s definitely something underneath there besides skin.

“What’s under there?”

“My errand,” he says, smiling. “What I’ve been dying to show you.” He pulls off his shirt to reveal his glorious chest and abs and sculpted shoulders and bulging biceps—as well as thick, rectangular swaths of medical gauze taped to the tops of his forearms.

“What happened to you?” I ask. But then it hits me. “You got new
tattoos
?”

He smiles broadly.

I’m intrigued. In Belize I asked him if he’d ever thought about getting more ink—especially since he got his sacred Platonic tattoos so long ago—and he said no. “I don’t need to tat myself up just for the sake of it,” he said. “I’m only interested in marking my skin with ideas that are life-changing and worthy of eternity. Whose ideas besides Plato’s could ever live up to that?”

Well, well, well—famous last words. I wonder what new idea suddenly became “life-changing and worthy of eternity” enough for him now?

He picks at the corner of the tape on his right forearm and rips off the bandage with a loud “Ow.”

I hold up his arm to get a good look, and when I gasp, his face lights up. I read aloud, tears springing into my eyes, “
No más. De hoy en adelante, renazco.
” These are the words I said to Jonas last night. Oh my God.
My
words are life-changing and worthy of eternity? Tears pool in my eyes.

“
Renazco,
” he says softly, staring into my eyes. “I am reborn, My Magnificent Sarah, thanks to you.” He looks shy for a moment, mustering the courage to say whatever’s on the tip of his tongue. “
Mi amor siempre,
” he whispers.
My love forever.
 

Oh, Jonas. I can’t believe he’s given
my
words equal billing with Plato’s on his body. For eternity. I rearrange myself on his lap and straddle him. “
Mi amor siempre,
” I whisper, kissing him softly.

He returns my kiss deeply, and, just like that, I’m crazy-pants hot and ready to go. But there’s a bandage on his other arm, too, of course, and I’ve got to know what lies beneath. I force myself to pull away from our kiss, though the feeling of his erection poking against my panties is driving me crazy.

“What about that one?” I point to the bandage on his left arm.

He smiles mischievously and begins picking at the corner of the tape.

When the bandage is off, he holds up his arm across his chest to give me a right-side-up view. I can’t believe my eyes. The phrase is in English and easily readable by anyone who happens to glance at it.

But that makes no sense—Jonas once told me he’d purposefully gotten his tattoos in ancient Greek because he emphatically did
not
want casual passersby to know what they said. “My tattoos are there to inspire
me
, not the masses,” he said. Well, it looks like Jonas Faraday has had a change of heart—on a lot of things, actually.

I read the bold English lettering aloud, this time with a quavering voice. “Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods.”

He nods emphatically.

I recall Jonas saying this phrase to me, twice, I think, but both times when we were making love and I was too busy having an orgasm to ask him about it.

“Is it Plato?” I ask, running my fingers over the letters.

He nods. “Plato attributes it to the poet Agathon. It’s from Plato’s
Symposium
—Plato’s lengthy dialogue on the nature, purpose, and genesis of love.
Romantic
love, specifically.”

I bite my lip.

“According to Plato, romantic love is initially
felt
with our physical senses, but with contemplation, it transforms into something greater: the soul’s appreciation of the beauty within another person.”

My heart skips a beat.

“Ultimately, it’s through love that our souls are able to recognize the ideal form of beauty—the divine original form of beauty itself.” His eyes are on fire. “Which, in turn, leads us to understand the
truth
.”

I place my hand over my heart to steady myself. “But Jonas.” I’m reeling. “Plato in
English
? Not ancient Greek?”

He nods.

“I thought you didn’t want people to understand your tattoos.”

“This one, I do.”

I hold my breath.

“Plato might have written these wise and sacred words thousands of years ago—but Jonas Faraday is declaring them today.”

“Oh, Jonas,” I breathe.

“With this tattoo, I’m shouting about my love for you from the top of the highest mountaintop, Sarah. I want the whole world to read it and know the truth—
I love Sarah Cruz
.”

I’m melting.

He cups my face in his large hands. “Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods.” His eyes are fierce. “That means you, Sarah Cruz. You and me. You’re my beauty. You’re my truth.”

My heart is racing.

“There’s never been a love like ours and there never will be again. We’re the greatest love story ever told.”

I can’t believe the man who once professed his disdain for “Valentine’s Day bullshit” has turned out to be the most romantic man in the world. I bite my lip.

“We’re epic,” he says, his eyes burning. “Our love is so pure and true, we’re the amazement of the gods.”

Who talks like this? Jonas Faraday, that’s who. God, I love this man.

He’s got that look in his eye—his patented Jonas-is-a-great-white-shark-and-Sarah-is-a-defenseless-sea-lion look. It’s the gleam that means he’s about to swallow me whole. He kisses me deeply and that’s all she wrote—we’re both suddenly crazed. He tugs urgently on my shirt and I lift my arms over my head to help him out. He unlatches and removes my bra and sucks at my nipples voraciously the minute my breasts are freed.

“Shower,” I gasp, my body writhing with arousal.

He stands, pulling me up with him by my ass. I throw my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and kiss him fervently, grinding myself into him, attacking him, inhaling him, as he carries my writhing body into the bedroom. He throws me down on the bed and rips off my pants and G-string—holy shit, he
literally
rips
my G-string off my body—and then he buries his face between my legs in a frenzy of ravenous animalistic greed. There’s no buildup, no finesse, no slow burn. There’s no such thing as
sexcellence
this time around, folks
.
This right here is nothing but a shark tearing into his prey—and it’s turning me the fuck on.

When he stands back up licking his lips, he’s Incredible Hulk Jonas. A beast. The poet is gone. The romantic is gone. He pulls down his pants and briefs, giving me the view of him that never gets old, and before I can do a damned thing, he scoops me up like a rag doll and carries me to the bathroom, kissing me hungrily all the while.

I grab fistfuls of his hair in both my hands as I kiss him, and he grunts like a gorilla. Oh God, I love that primal sound he makes. He turns the water on behind my back as I writhe around, kissing him and yanking on his hair. Hot water pelts me in the back and cascades down my breasts. I try in vain to slam myself onto his erection, but he evades me.

“Let me down,” I say, but I don’t wait for his reply to slide down his slick, wet skin to my feet.

“I’m in charge,” he says, his voice firm.

But I’m not listening. I get down on my knees and take him into my mouth, sucking on him enthusiastically, as hot water pounds the back of my head. He grabs fistfuls of my hair and gyrates into my mouth, groaning like I’m causing him extreme pain. Oh God, it turns me on to do this. He makes a sound like he’s dying—of happiness, of course—and I reach down and touch myself, thinking about the look on Jonas’ face when he showed me his new tattoos.

He shudders and growls and grips my hair harder than he ever has—but I don’t care about a little discomfort to my scalp, not when I’m making him feel this good. Oh God, I can barely breathe, I’m so turned on. I continue touching myself, sucking on him, visualizing his new tattoos. Jonas engraved
my
words alongside Plato’s. He declared his eternal love for me permanently onto his skin, in English, for the whole world to see.

My eyes spring open. My dream. The ten poltergeist Jonases, the dripping wine, the noisy spectators—
and Jonas looking up and declaring his love for me to the entire world.
Oh my God. My dream wasn’t about
sexual
exhibitionism—it was about
emotional
exhibitionism—about me wanting Jonas to claim me in front of the entire world. Oh my God, with his new tattoos, Jonas has done just that.

My entire body seizes with a powerful orgasm and I moan loudly (though the sound is stifled somewhat by the vast amounts of penis down my throat). I yelp, trying my damnedest to continue sucking on him as my body ripples from within, but I can’t do it.

He pulls out of my mouth. “I’m gonna fuck you, baby,” he says.

My orgasm finishes. What did he just say? Hot water pelts my face as I look up at him, in a daze of satisfaction.

“Me,” he says, caveman-style, pulling me up off my knees. “Now.” His voice is raw. He’s in charge. “I’m gonna fuck you.”

He pulls me roughly to him, his eyes blazing, and touches me between my legs. I buckle. Oh wow, I’m not done—not by a long shot—I’m still totally turned on. He turns my body around away from him and I passively follow his nonverbal command.

“Bend over,” he grunts in my ear. “Bend over and grab your ankles.”

I have no thought in my head but to do his bidding—my desire for control is totally gone. I bend over and grasp my ankles. Holy hell, I’m utterly exposed and at his mercy in this position. I shift my grip on my ankles and shudder with anticipation.

One of his hands rubs my back as his other one reaches between my legs from behind and works my clit. He’s aiming for another orgasm from me, obviously, and, oh my God, he’s gonna get it. Hot water cascades down my back and gushes over my dangling face. I tremble with anticipation. What’s he waiting for? My legs buckle and he steadies me.

His fingers are working me too well. The sensation is too intense. I can’t remain in this position anymore if he’s going to keep touching me like this—I can’t maintain my balance while feeling so much pleasure. I bend my legs. I’m too turned on to stay bent over like this. I need to gyrate my body, to rub myself against him, to kiss him. I can’t take it anymore. I need a release.

He enters my wetness without warning—and so deeply, so forcefully, and with such unapologetic ownership of my body, I scream—and, much to my surprise, I come, too, instantly.

Jonas thrusts mercilessly in and out of me as I climax, roaring loudly as he does, and in under a minute, he climaxes too, from deep, deep, deep, deep inside me, bellowing as he does. I shriek in reply. Oh man, we’re loud. I love us.