Wicked Things We Crave

Chapter Seven

Astrid left. She hitched a ride with a friend of Anya's, who was also leaving, and left Jonah at the bar, her feet feeling filled with led with every step she took away from him. If he'd just been some guy at the bar, Astrid sadly wouldn't have thought twice about going home with him. Unfortunately, the two had a history that couldn't be ignored, and she didn't want to be his regret.

Walking away from him at the bar wasn't easy. It also wouldn't change the fact that things between the two of them would never be the same. Astrid wasn't sure how she'd ever be able to look at him again, or act like nothing was different in front of her father.

She rinsed the shame from her body until the water ran cold, but it still didn't feel like enough. Maybe Astrid needed to see a therapist, or a priest. There was no excuse for what she did- for what she wanted to do- with Jonah. There was even less of an excuse for her red eyes from crying all the way home and in the shower. Astrid wasn't the victim here, she caused nearly ending a twenty-five-year friendship between he and her father, who considered one another brother's. 

Wiping the steam from the mirror, Astrid looked at her pale face and bloodshot eyes. The woman staring back at her was a stranger. A pathetic seductress. The destroyer of friendships and the ender of lives.

Or she would have been, had Jonah not talked sense in her and told her to leave.

Astrid slipped on her robe and towel dried her hair as she walked into the kitchen in search of the strongest drink she could muster up, except a shadowy figure on her couch, cloaked the dark living room, put an end to those plans and caused a squeal to fill the otherwise silent apartment.

"You left your phone in my car," Jonah said in a hushed tone, staring at the device in his hands as her purse sat by his side. "I went crazy when I realized you left. Got halfway here before I called again and heard the buzzing in your purse."

"Hitched a ride with one of Anya's friends," Astrid explained, her voice coming out even quieter than his own had.

Jonah nodded slowly, then placed the cell phone on the table in front of him carefully. "When I asked you to walk away, I meant from me, not the bar."

The man hadn't clarified, and she hadn't asked for specifics. "I made a fool of myself. Didn't really see the point in sticking around."

"Don't think for one second that you're at fault for what happened tonight, Astrid. You did nothing wrong. I'm the one who kissed you. I'm the one who kept kissing you. I'm the one who wanted more and would have taken more right there at the bar the second I had the chance." Although his voice was louder, it was no less pained than before, yet still strangely controlled.

Then again, Jonah was always a very controlled man. Until an hour ago, at least.

When Astrid stepped further into the room, she noticed his eyes were still on the cell phone, as if it held the greatest secrets of the universe. "What would you have done if I hadn't left?" she asked, desperate to hear what his intentions were before she ran away from him.

"Don't do this to me," Jonah pleaded with a shake of his head. "I came here to apologize to you and make sure you're okay. That's it." His eyes finally looked away from the cell phone and found her, only to grow wide and turn up toward the ceiling. "Astrid, if you don't put some clothes on right fucking now, I'm going to lose my shit."

She looked down, only now remembering that all she was wearing was her very short black silk robe, having put her other one in the wash machine before she left earlier. "It's not like I realized there was going to be a guy in my apartment when I got out of the shower, Jonah. You've seen my in swimsuits plenty of times."

Jonah stood from the couch and walked further away from her, turning until his back to her. "That was before."

Not before, back when she was a child. They'd all gone to the beach just last summer. "Before when, exactly?"

"You want to know what I would have done if you hadn't left?" Jonah yelled out. "I would have taken you to some dark corner outside the bar and fucked you against the brick wall until you lost all feeling from the waist down. The last time I saw you in a swimsuit was before I had that shit floating around in my brain, back when my dick wasn't doing all my thinking for me."

Astrid allowed silence to take over her house, minus the sound of Jonah's heavy breaths, and took everything in that happened during the night, right down to the last words spoken. The way she'd held him, looked up at him with clouds of desire in her eyes, trailing her fingers seductively down his arm. The way she opened her mouth for him, demanding more. The way she clearly let him know that she wanted him before he more or less told her to leave.

She'd somehow cast a spell on him that night. Or a part of him, at least. Astrid had unintentionally tried to seduce her godfather, of all people. His 'dick' may have been fine with the idea, but Jonah himself wasn't. He could hardly stand to look at her anymore.

Tears dripped from her eyes as reality caught up to her. Astrid had just lost her best friend in the entire world. So she continued with her primary task, grabbing the closest liquor bottle in the cupboard, and poured herself a glass. Astrid took a long swig, allowing it to burn her throat.

"I ruined everything tonight, didn't I?" Astrid asked in a strained laugh. "When we were dancing, I kept thinking to myself, 'why does this feel so good? How could something absolutely not okay feel that damn perfect?' All I wanted was more of that feeling, even if it wasn't real and it was so unbelievably selfish, but I didn't care. Now you can't even look at me. But hey, at least your dick still likes me. Or did."

Jonah was across the room and in front of her in what felt like less than a second, cupping her cheeks in the palms of his hands and wiping away the fallen tears with the calloused pads of his thumbs. "We both like you, Astrid. Too. Damn. Much. And I had all that same shit floating through my head, wondering why it felt so good having you in my arms. When I kissed you, I didn't give two shits how selfish I was being. I just wanted more. Yeah, my dick reacted, but he doesn't have the final say in what I feel or what I do about those feelings. All he did tonight was wake me up to something I've been blind to."

Astrid's cell phone buzzed where he'd left it, and Jonah's hands dropped from her face and walked over to answer it, breaking her from the trance she'd fallen under having been in Jonah's embrace once again.