Page 28 of Those Who Are Bound

Jonah smiled gently, his expression intense with heat and sincerity, reducing her to a quivering puddle of need as he said, “I want to, I do, and it would be easy to do, going upstairs with you. But that’s not how I want to start this. I want us to learn about one another first. Let’s not rush anything. I’m not willing to have sex derail the thrill of getting to know you.”

She pressed, the pulse between her legs causing her thighs to tense. “Sex in itself is a thrilling way to get to know one another.”

His eyes darkened a shade. “You’re sorely tempting me. But I mean it. I’m not rushing this.” He took a step back to put physical distance between them. “Besides, won’t the release be that much better after the tension has been built?”

Elliott sucked in a breath; the tension for her was already sky high.

“Is that a challenge you can accept?” Taking another step back, he perused her carefully, his look as thorough as the first time they’d met, only now with a hint of possession. “Get my number from Lucy and text me.”

Although it came out sounding like an order, he was giving her control over the next move; it would be her choice. Elliott could only nod dumbly, her voice lost. She was trying hard not to dissolve into shivers in front of him. Denying her, as it turned out, was more erotic than giving in to her.

Walking to the driver’s side, he cast her one last heated look before he climbed into the Jeep. Elliott watched as the vehicle backed away, disappearing from view.

Whirling, she bounded up the stairs, cursing her shaking hands as she tried to jam the key into the lock. On the third try, she got it in. Flinging the door open, she nearly tripped inside, her hand already slipping beneath the band of her yoga pants to search herself out, wet and throbbing, demanding the release he had denied her.

Falling to her knees in the doorway, she moved her fingers frantically, already quaking with the beginnings of an orgasm as she thrust her hips against her own driving hand. She collapsed forward, forehead against the wooden floor, panting between her tiny cries. Her other hand automatically reached overhead for what wasn’t there, but it didn’t matter; she came with his name on her lips.

And then she merely lay there on the floor, the residual pounding sensation moving through her as she caught her breath, feeling the flush recede as her blood settled. In that moment, she decided: she wanted him; she wanted this. He could never know what she was, what she had been.

That was past, it’s all in the past. It’sbeenin the past.

Jonah was new, pure; her clean slate.

But even as she determined it, her demon began to uncoil.

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