“What about you?” Jonah says. “Have you done this before? I doubt it.”

Not the way he’s talking about. “No.”

He cocks his head, studying me intently. “We could start slow. Not too much at first. We’d work up to what you really need.”

Jonah knows what I really need. And I can’t stand him knowing.

“This is crazy.” I tuck a few strands of hair behind my ears and straighten my camisole, trying to pull myself together. But I can’t help noticing that my nipples are obviously hard beneath the thin black fabric; even though I haven’t caught Jonah looking at my breasts, I know he’s seen that too. “Like you said, it’s just a fantasy. I think we should leave it there.”

“Too bad. Would’ve been a wild ride.”

It takes a lot of gall to be that confident about something this outrageous. To hell with being intimidated; to hell with being polite. “Where do you get off, asking me to do something that kinky when I hardly even know you? We’re supposed to make plans to fuck before we’ve even touched?”

Jonah doesn’t answer at first. Then he cups my face in one hand, rough and possessive, and brings his mouth to mine.

His kiss is hard. Insistent. His tongue pushes my lips apart. I don’t want to kiss him back, but I do. My head falls back as he steps closer, claiming me with an arm around my waist. I surrender to his touch. He wakes up every nerve in my body—like I hadn’t known I was sleepwalking until this second. Desire sears my mouth, my breasts, my cunt.

Just when it feels like my knees might buckle beneath me, Jonah suddenly pulls back. It throws me off balance, and I nearly stumble. He must see that. He must see me flushed and breathing hard. This man already knows how much power he has over me, and he wants even more.

Jonah says, “The ball’s in your court.”

With that he strolls back toward the house, like what happened is no big deal. I can only stand there and watch him go.

Five

I can’t sleep.

Carmen’s party wrapped up a couple of hours ago. I made up for my freakout by staying until the very end, until I was helping Carmen scoop up beer cans and toss empty Tostitos bags in the trash. If anyone made a joke about anything, I laughed, even if I didn’t think it was funny. More sangria? Sure. The life of the party: That’s me. I pretended Geordie hadn’t spilled my secret, and for the most part people either didn’t know or didn’t care. The only one who put me on edge was Mack, who kept staring at me. Then again, Mack always stares.

Jonah must have left right after he kissed me. I can imagine him walking back into the house, then out the front door, without even saying good-bye. Apparently no one saw our clinch in the backyard. That’s a relief. The last thing I need is Carmen asking me if I think he’s cute.

Cute. Jonah is—handsome. Attractive. Overpowering. Hot as hell.

Not “cute.”

I go onto the UT website to look him up. Earth sciences, Shay said. A professor. That’s virtually the last profession I would have guessed for him. Maybe—SWAT team member. Navy SEAL. Hit man. Not a teacher.

When I pull up his faculty page, the photo there isn’t reassuringly ordinary, with Jonah in glasses or a cardigan or whatever else the PhDs usually wear in their official pictures. Jonah is shown standing outside—someplace rocky, with a broad expanse of sky behind him. He wears khaki pants¸ a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and a frown, like he wanted to punch the photographer. The frown doesn’t make him any less attractive. He doesn’t look like any professor I’ve ever seen, unless you count Indiana Jones.

Professor of Seismology and Volcanology, says the caption. That makes more sense. Now that I study his photo carefully, the rocks beneath his feet look like volcanic stone—that is, if I remember a damn thing from that geology class I took four years ago. I can picture him on the edge of danger, wearing gear that can only barely protect him from the forces nearby, walking straight toward lava flow or an eruption without hesitating.

With a shiver I realize—Jonah is a man who doesn’t give a damn about danger.

No more. If I want to get any sleep tonight, I need to stop this. I turn off my tablet and try to settle down. My skirt goes back in the closet; the camisole gets tossed in the hamper. A thin white sleeveless undershirt and panties are about all I can stand to sleep in during weather this hot. The cotton clings to me, so that I can pretend it’s a second skin. Sometimes I sleep naked, but tonight I feel like I want to be more covered up. Less vulnerable.

My neighborhood is safe, but tonight I double-check the deadbolt on the door. I go to every window to make sure each one is locked. Instead of turning off all my lamps, I leave one burning—the one by the window that looks out onto the street. If anyone drives by, maybe he’ll think I’m still awake.

By anyone, I mean Jonah.

He wouldn’t come after me, I think. Mostly I believe this. Jonah swore that he would never force a woman against her will. When he said it, there was something about his voice—something raw, something real. I trust my instincts enough to know Jonah was telling the truth.

But what if he thought he wasn’t forcing me? He knows I fantasize about rape. He said he wants to give me my fantasy. Would Jonah break in, thinking I was waiting for him? We talked about acting everything out. Breaking in could be part of that. I want to think he wouldn’t take it this far—but with something like this, the lines between fantasy and reality could get blurred much too easily. If I protested, even if I fought, Jonah might believe that was only part of the game.

He said the ball was in my court. Surely that means the next move is up to me.

Why am I thinking about the next move? I turn over in bed, restless beneath the thin sheet. This idea is insane. I told Jonah as much. When I said no, I meant it, and that’s the end.

What I don’t know is whether Jonah accepts that this isn’t going any further. Whether a guy who gets off fantasizing about rape can even understand No. Whether I can trust him. This man asked me to be completely vulnerable to him, to put myself completely in his power.

And he’s already proved he won’t misuse my powerlessness.

Jonah’s had me vulnerable and at his mercy before—last Sunday night, when he pulled over to help me with my flat tire. We were out in the middle of nowhere. When I told him that I had help coming, he had to know it was a lie. He’s a big man, obviously strong. If he’d wanted to take me against my will, he could have done it. I’m not sure even that lug wrench would have saved me.

Now I know his fantasies were just like mine. He saw me. He desired me. He envisioned pulling me into the back of his car, pinning me under his weight—

But he didn’t. Jonah had me exactly where he wanted me, and all he did was help me out and send me on my way.

Does that mean I could trust him after all?

I don’t know. I couldn’t know unless we actually tried this.

Which is crazy. Unhealthy. Possibly even dangerous. And it gets me hotter than anything else ever has.

I glance over at the window nearest my bed. That’s one I don’t have to worry about locking; over the past eighty years or so, the window’s been painted shut so many times that it’s practically part of the wall. Nobody’s coming through there, not without slicing himself to shreds on broken glass.

That’s what makes it safe to imagine Jonah just outside.

In my mind, the window slides open for him easily. I’m lying here in my skimpy tank top, breathing hard, paralyzed by fear. I imagine Jonah sliding through as easily as a cat burglar, his feet barely making a sound as he makes contact with the floor and stands up, looming over me. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to. In this fantasy, I know that I have to do whatever he says. What he wants to do to me, I have to take.