Page 102 of Those Who Are Bound

“Is that blush from embarrassment?”

Elliott shook her head. “Nope, that’s not embarrassment.” She glanced over toward him mischievously.

He gave her a heated look. “Are we finished with this conversation so I can take you back inside and make love to you?”

Elliott’s smile faded to be replaced with a frown. “Why that?”

“That?” Startled, Jonah sat up.

She made a pained face, admitting, “I don’t mean… Jesus, I suck at this.” She turned in the chair, literally turning her back to him as she drank her coffee.

“No, that’s not acceptable,” Jonah snapped. The legs of her chair were grasped. She was yanked around so she was facing him again. She gasped, holding her mug out so the coffee didn’t slosh over the rim. “You can stumble on your words, and we can disagree, but don’t turn your back on me and shut down.”

Elliott frowned painfully at him, silently begging for forgiveness. “I’m not trying to… It’s me I’m shutting out, not you. But right now it’s too intimate.”

“Intimate.”

She gave him an irritated look. “After last night, yes.”

He looked amused. “After last night, I think we’ve blown the doors off intimacy.”

She reached out with a foot and nudged his thigh. “Stop it. That’s not what I meant.”

“Enlighten me, because I’m not following.”

Elliott closed her eyes briefly, reminding herself that this was what relationships were about; she was supposed to talk about these things, talk tohim. He certainly didn’t have a problem expressing himself.“I’m trying, I really am,” she said.

“I get that,” he said sincerely, rubbing her feet. “Why is it easier for you to have sex than to talk?” He held up a finger to pause her answer as he added, “Unless it’s phrased as making love?”

She answered quickly, “Because there’s no emotion; I don’t have to give anything away.”

He looked concerned with her response and asked, “Are you telling me that last night was just sex for you? That it meant nothing?”

Elliott’s features softened. “No, it wasn’t just sex for me. You know that. I gave you an embarrassing display of sobbing proof of that. More than once, I might add.”

He assured her gently, “Not embarrassing.”

“Not for you, maybe, but you had to think I was mental.”

Jonah shook his head to deny it.

Elliott gave him a skeptical look, but she forged ahead. “I want to be able to talk to you the way you talk to me. To throw it all out there, but I can’t do that. I can’t yet say so many things. I already told you I wasn’t one to share much before Gage. Well, after…” She shrugged. “I’ve been alone—by choice—since he died. I’ve purposefully kept people at a distance emotionally. And last night, there were so many feelings, and they felt so good, and at the same time, scary. I didn’t know I could feel so much all at once, and it was overwhelming. My reaction came out of nowhere, and I’m sorry for the timing of it.”

Jonah grasped her ankles, giving a slight squeeze, and shook his head. “I already told you not to apologize for that.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Now, about the good ones…”

“And scary,” she pointed out, a little panicked. “And I don’t want that again, I don’t. I don’t want to be scared like that again. I don’t want to invite it.”

“You don’t get to censure how you feel, and I’m not going to be a party to that,” he said sternly. “I don’t want to be unsure of how I touch you; I can’t move forward with you like that. That isn’t living, Elliott. It isn’t honest.”

She frowned. “It doesn’t feel good to melt down like that; it’s mortifying.”

“Do you trust me?”

Elliott was taken aback by the question. She wasn’t sure what it had to do with anything, especially this conversation, but she had to admit that yes, she trusted him. Jonah was probably one of the few people in her entire life she could say that about, oddly, even after knowing him for such a short time. On a small nod, she answered softly, “Yes.”

His lips tipped up, and his countenance brightened. “Then I’m asking you to trust me with your feelings. The good ones, the scary ones—all of them. You shouldn’t ever be embarrassed by them, and I won’t mock you for having them. What you consider mortifying, I see as beautiful. You feel. That’s a good thing.”

Elliott stared at him. If he only knew.

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