Page 38 of Those Who Are Bound

“Did you learn that at your fancy private college?”

She heard the laugh in his voice and playfully elbowed him. He humored her with an exaggerated grunt of pain. “For that, I’m not showing you the tricks my daddy taught me.”

“I’ll have to improvise and hope I can keep up.”

Elliott tilted her head back and raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ll try not to beat you too badly. I know all about the fragility of men’s egos.”

His mouth being at the level of her ear, he playfully bit it, causing her to yelp and try to jerk away on a laugh, but he still held her around her waist.

“What the hell?” she demanded laughingly.

“Trying to throw you off your game. I need all the advantages I can get.”

“By biting my ear off, Mike Tyson?”

Jonah laughed. He turned her to face him. “Maybe I should try this instead, since I didn’t get the chance to do it the other day.”

As she looked up at him in question, he slid his free hand into her hair and pulled her closer while tilting her head back. Her lips parted with a rush of adrenaline and incredulity as he lowered his mouth to hers, his kiss gentle yet firm. There was no slow unfurling of sensation as his tongue swept her mouth; she exploded with it. Heat burst from her core, shooting outward and consuming her.

Her loss of self-control was instant. She pressed herself to him, her arms going around his neck in an attempt to draw him even closer. Her instinct was to climb him, but somewhere in her obliterated brain, she maintained a semblance of decorum. She opened her mouth to his, her fingernails scratching across the plastic of the Frisbee as it rested against his shoulder while her other hand found the back of his head, curling into his hair.

She was aware of his hand on her back, holding her to him while still somehow hanging on to the Frisbee, but when she pressed her pelvis against him, feeling his own stirring reaction to her lightning-fast response, he shifted away. His hand slid to her hip, stilling her. The hand in her hair gripped; he pulled back, nipping at her lips a few more times before he lifted his head altogether, resting his forehead on hers as they both struggled to regulate their breathing. She could only stare up at him, dazed.

He ran a thumb over her cheek, and she tried to read his reaction in his darkened eyes.

She arched an eyebrow. “If you’d done that Monday, you wouldn’t have gotten away so easily.”

He chuckled. “That hadn’t been easy.”

The first layers of tension broken, they reluctantly parted, painfully aware that if they had been anywhere less public, they most likely couldn’t have stopped themselves from continuing the indulgence, the exploration. And it set the expectation for when they were alone. He had given them a challenge—who would be the first to break? At this rate, it was a toss-up.

Elliott transferred her Frisbee to her other hand and shook out the one that had been gripping it so hard while in Jonah’s embrace.

“First throw is yours,” Jonah invited. “Let me watch the master.”

She cast him a playfully baleful look; of course, he’d set her on edge, and now he expected her to throw worth a damn. And then she frowned. “Oh, you planned that.”

Jonah grinned. “Well, not likethat. I thought I’d distract you, not turn you into lava.”

She smacked him with the Frisbee. “You weren’t unaffected.”

“I was absolutely affected,” he said without shame. “Which is also why you’re going first.” He shifted his stance.

His admission unnerved her even more. She’d noted once that he was bold, and he was also painfully honest. “Oh, good grief. Fine.”

Stepping up onto the concrete pad, she tried to clear her mind, aware of his focus on her. She tapped the Frisbee against her bare leg as she sighted the three metal baskets at varying distances. The wind picked up again, and she pushed her hair aside as she tried to get her head into the game.

Taking a step back, she decided on her throw, gave a couple of practice flicks, and then let the disc sail. It arced, soared, and then drifted downward to skid to a halt near the middle basket. She screwed up her face, not unsatisfied, and then turned toward Jonah as she stepped off the concrete pad to allow him his turn.

He was looking at the distant green orb with curiosity. “Not bad,” he said. “The object is to get into the basket, right?”

Elliott laughed at his naivety. “Well, that would be like a golfer’s hole-in-one, but yes, which is why you count tosses; the fewer tosses to get into the basket, the better. I’ll get into the basket on the next toss.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“Want a kiss for luck?” she teased.

Jonah chuckled. “Not a chance, lady; wood doesn’t belong on this course.”

---