Page 144 of Jonas

“Time to go home, baby.”

“Yeah. Time to go home,” she repeated, but did it while staring at a red-faced Lore.

We quickly said our goodbyes and rushed up the stairs and out of the house.

Home.

I was finally taking Derrika home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I was in love.

Not just with Jonas but with his house and the land surrounding it. Not to mention the view of Piney Creek was amazing, too.

The last twenty-four hours had been glorious.

No bad guys. No work talk. Just lazing around on Jonas’s huge leather sectional, talking, watching awesome action flicks, stuffing our faces with junk food, taking walks, cooking together, and sex. Lots of really great sex. But as phenomenal as the sex was, it still took second place to just relaxing and getting to know Jonas better.

No, not better—I already knew everything I needed to know about him to know he was The One. I was getting to know a different side of him—the at-home, relaxed Jonas. And I loved that side of him, too. He was still all that made him, him, but there was an added bonus of him being casual and more peaceful.

I’d noticed how his shoulders had sloped forward, like I’d actually witnessed in real time the tension leave his frame, when we’d turned down his gravel driveway. But the real change was when he’d entered his home. A heaviness I hadn’t noticed, because I’d only been around him in public, lifted as if he’d shed his armor at the front door and the weight of it was gone.

There was a sense of calm about him now that he was home.

He’d told me he was allergic to people, but I didn’t understand the fullness of that statement until I was alone with him in his refuge.

I was in love with that, too.

Jonas being free to be who he really was without needing his emotional shield. Not that I’d been on the receiving end of that buffer, but I still knew how exhausting it was to always be on alert.

Last night, we’d spent hours out on his back porch, or I should say, we’d spent hours cuddled together on the back portion of his three-sixty wraparound porch. And we weren’t cuddled as much as I was curled up on his lap since he only had one Adirondack chair. He’d mentioned buying another one and outdoor couches—there was more than enough space on the deck and a seating area would look badass—but I secretly hoped he didn’t, or if he did, it was a long time from now so I’d have more nights sitting in Jonas’s lap, with his long, strong arms around me, staring at the stars while we talked. No deep or earth-shattering conversations were had, no mention of our childhoods, or trauma, or past hurts. After the shitstorm we’d been through and what was surely to come, we needed an easy, light, peaceful evening, and that was exactly what Jonas had given us.

It was amazing!

The sound of the front door opening pulled me from my thoughts. I blinked away the cobwebs and the backyard came back into focus, as did the skillet I was washing before I started wool gathering.

I finished rinsing the skillet and was setting it in the drying rack when Jonas came up behind me, fitted his chest against my back, and placed one hand on my stomach to pull me close, while the other went to the edge of the countertop.

“Told you, I clean up when I got back inside.”

“You cooked lunch,” I told him something I knew he hadn’t forgotten, seeing as it was only twenty minutes ago. “And dinner last night, and you didn’t let me do the dishes.”

“Baby, I grilled steaks. It’s not hard to rinse two plates, some silverware and shove it all in the dishwasher.”

“You also made baked potatoes.”

I felt his big body start to shake. “Your point?”

I couldn’t remember if I had a point, especially when Jonas’s lips touched my neck.

“They were delicious,” I said, but it came out more of a question, now that Jonas had engaged his tongue and it was tracing a path up to my ear.

“Do you think you could be happy here?”

If by here he meant in his arms with his mouth on my neck—absolutely yes. If he meant here in his kitchen—another yes, absolutely.

But I didn’t want to get ahead of myself so, I asked, “Here?”