Page 70 of Those Who Are Bound

His gaze bored into hers as he asked, “How well has that worked for you in the past?”

Hurt, she shifted away, picking up her beer and bringing it to her lips, settling her gaze on the bottles behind the bar.

Jonah brushed her hair back behind her ear as she drank the brew. “You deserve better than a man who puts sex first and you not at all.”

She set the glass down and turned it, absently running her finger along the condensation. She glanced over at him. “And what do you deserve?”

Better than me.

A devastating grin broke out across his face. “You. I deserve you.”

Unable to resist his grin, she smiled back. “Be careful what you wish for.”

So careful.

“A woman who comes with a warning label is irresistible to me,” he quipped, sitting back with a lesser version of his grin intact, taking up his beer. “And you’ve warned me twice.”

Elliott raised a brow of challenge. “I’m not the only one who likes competition.”

“Uh-oh, she’s on to me,” he joked.

Elliott marveled at how… perfect he was. He said the right things, took her in stride, knew how to calm and comfort her. Men like him weren’t real; they were fantasies. As wonderful as her father and Gage had been, not even they had the calming influence of this man. Maybe her father had been that for her mother; Gage… she would never know what he could have been for the right woman, but she knew women constantly let him down. Vice versa on that, actually.

And Becks… she shouldn’t be thinking about Becks, but she couldn’t not think about him. He was the last of her family in a way, and the only one alive who knew the deepest, darkest, blackest parts of her soul. But he’d been right when he’d told her that he did not ground her.

Jonah, however, was singular, seeing her as no one ever had: desirable, wanted… valuable. If she wasn’t careful—or maybe she should give up being careful—she was going to fall crazy in love with him.

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