Page 58 of Elijah’s Whim

“I’ll sit there if you join me,” he countered.

I looked at him quizzically, so he tugged me to stand, and we crossed the seating area to his coveted corner spot in the sectional, where he arranged his body against the two sides and then held his arms open to me in invitation.

“Isn’t this defeating the purpose of rearranging?”

“I’ll be good. I promise. If you feel my dick poking you, though, it can’t be helped. We both just have to resign ourselves to that fact.”

Giving in to his idea, I crawled between his legs, thinking how much better it would be to fool around than spill my guts to him. I knew my shirt’s neckline hung open enough that he should be getting a free view of my unrestrained breasts.

The masculine groan that came from him confirmed my suspicion.

“Girl, I only have so much willpower. After last night, it’s down by half.”

With hands planted on the outside of his hips, I leaned over him and kissed his full lips. Lightly at first to see if he would join me or reject me.

Between kisses I asked, “Half?”

“At least,” Elijah answered in a voice rougher than I’d ever heard from another person. He cradled my face in his hands and kissed me soundly but pulled back way too soon. “I know if we don’t stop now, I’m going to have you beneath me in my bed again, beautiful. This is too important to you, to me, and to us, to blow off in favor of sex.”

I let my chin drop to my chest with a disappointed sigh and said, “I know you’re right.”

“Sit with me here and finish your story. We’ll take it from there.”

That quickly, that easily, he made me feel like he was in control of the situation. And for this quiet moment inside his house, he was.

After we got situated, Elijah urged me to continue talking. Absentmindedly, I toyed with his fingers while I spoke.

“We were living in Orange County at the time. My dad is a CPA—I don’t know if I ever told you that?” I turned a little in his arms to look at him but realized how silly that was. He was a damn spy just about. He probably knew this whole story already. Why was I having to go through the pain of reliving it?

“Do you already know what happened? I mean, you have sneaky ways of finding things out, apparently. You probably know all about this nightmare.” Instantly I felt like an accusatory bitch, but I couldn’t help it. I hated having to relive this. It had been the single worst day of my life, and I lived with the trickle-down effects from it every day. Like drops from a mountainside spring, it eroded the rocks that formed my family, my parents’ marriage, my whole fucking life that should’ve been.

That could’ve been.

“No, I don’t know what happened. I saw the rap sheet for those pieces of shit and then saw your name and immediately closed the file. I don’t think you are grasping how much I care about you, Hannah. I know we haven’t known each other long, and I know it probably sounds like I’m feeding you bullshit to get into your pants. You know I have some painful and complicated history with a woman, and you’ve been very respectful and not asked about it.”

“Elijah, that’s not my business until you want it to be. I, of all people, understand that.”

“And I, of all people, understand the same about your past. I hope you will give me this gift.”

“Gift? Beautiful man, how is this dumpster fire a gift?”

“The gift is you trusting me enough to help you carry the burden. Do you understand that?”

“Oh, no. Don’t do it. Don’t you dare.”

“What?”

“Don’t do the”—I dropped my voice as low as it could possibly go to try to imitate his, furrowed my brow, and attempted a menacing, dominant glare—“do you understand me bit. Yes. I understand you. Sometimes you have to give me longer than one inhalation to answer.”

My God. I thought I’d seen this man at his most compelling before, but none of his alluring facets had compared to watching or simply hearing Elijah Banks laugh. Authentically laugh.

When he recovered from that much-needed break, I slung my arms around his neck and looked into his mesmerizing hazel eyes. They were less icy today. Studying this man’s face could be a fine-arts class at the college up the street.

“How is this happening?” I asked him suspiciously. I was trying to guard my heart, but with every day I spent near him, the more flank I exposed.

“When you come up with an answer, will you let me know?” He then melted me to my needy, aching core with a kiss so passionate, I whimpered when he pulled away.

“Do we have to stop? I could spend hours kissing you.”

“Hmmm, I like the sound of that, beauty. How about this, though? Because I think it’s vital you finish telling me this information. Something is making the hair on the back of my neck stand up about that report my men put together, and I haven’t even read the whole thing yet. That can’t be good. But once we get all this shitty stuff out of the way, we have the whole day to do whatever we feel like doing.”

“All right. I like the sound of that. Incentive, or reward, maybe?”

“Exactly.”