Cyberking Reclaims His Throne novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Her Bed

Oz went to bed at midnight with his headphones on and a look that said he would hear nothing.

I sat on the edge of my own mattress with Jonas beside me.

The lamp was off, and the streetlight cut a gray stripe across the floor.

He hadn't spoken in ten minutes.

I'd stopped calling him John in my head somewhere around the word pushed.

"Jonas," I said.

He turned his head.

"It sounds strange when you say it."

"Strange good or strange bad?"

"Like a name on a jacket I haven't tried on." He swallowed. "Say it again."

"Jonas."

His eyes closed.

"I don't know who I am, Melinda," he said. "But I know exactly what that felt like."

I took his good hand and held it against my knee.

"Nobody gets to do that to you again," I said.

"You don't even know me."

"I know you hid under my bed for nine minutes without complaining."

"I know you laughed at my joke when you were bleeding."

"I know you wanted to hit a rich man for my father's sake."

He opened his eyes.

"That's not much."

"It's more than she ever bothered with."

For a long moment he just looked at me.

Then he lifted his hand and touched my face, the line of my jaw, the corner of my mouth.

"I want to kiss you," he said, very low.

"You already did."

"I want to do it right this time. Without a steering wheel."

I laughed, and it came out unsteady.

"Then do it right."

He kissed me slowly.

It wasn't the hungry, shocked kiss of the car.

It was patient, and warm, and so deliberate that every nerve in my body lined up behind it.

His mouth opened mine and his tongue slid in, and I made a sound I'd have been embarrassed about in any other room.

I pushed my hands up under his T-shirt and found the tape around his ribs.

"Careful," I breathed.

"I don't want careful."

"You have three cracked ribs."

"Then you'll have to do the work."

He lay back across my bed, grinning up at me in the dark, ridiculously pleased with himself.

I straddled his hips.

I felt how hard he already was through his jeans, and heat rushed through me, heavy and low.

"You're not very good at being an invalid," I said.

"I'm told I'm a bad patient."

"Who told you?"

"A woman with very strict opinions about my couch."

I peeled his shirt up over the bandages with gentleness I did not feel.

He was lean and pale, with a long ugly bruise purpling his side.

A line of dark hair ran down from his navel into his waistband.

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