Page 72 of Jonas

She glanced back over at the water.

“We have poisonous snakes in Utah, mostly rattlers.”

So she was afraid of snakes, she just didn’t want to admit it.

“I was bitten when I was a kid. It wasn’t bad. I mean it hurt, I was scared, but I didn’t need antivenom. Or at least the doctor my dad called to look at it said I didn’t. But Doc wasn’t a real doctor, he was a ranch hand and he was a medic in the army when he was in his twenties. I didn’t die or lose use of a limb so he must’ve been right.”

Wasn’t a real doctor.

The effort it took for me to lock down my hatred for her father was Herculean. I didn’t ask what happened after she’d been treated, because if she told me—like I suspected—that her father had punished her for the snake bite, I’d be taking a trip to Utah and fucking off my current assignment, leaving Zane a man down. Not that he wouldn’t understand. Hell, if I told him where I was going and why, he’d join me. There were a great many things Zane Lewis found morally incomprehensible, but near the top of that list, if not at the very top, were fathers who harmed their children.

“I’m scared of leeches,” I told her. “Well, not so much scared of them as they freak me out to the point of panic. And I’ve been known to puke when one gets on me. Just the thought of one sucking my blood.” I stopped to fight back the shiver. “Makes me want to hurl.”

The fight went out of her body and she melted into me. It wasn’t surprising she’d understood I’d leveled the playing field.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“No reason to thank me, Dee Dee.”

It took a few seconds but she finally admitted, “I hate snakes.”

“Understandable.”

“I mean, I hate them in general, but right now I really hate them.” She paused then added, “I really liked where I was and what we were doing.”

Christ.

The erection I’d managed to lose was making a comeback.

“Do me a favor, yeah?” Before I could ask, she lifted her cheek off my chest and peered up at me. The innocence in those eyes was a punch to the solar plexus. No, after the abuse she’d endured, the trauma she’d lived through, the rejection, the mere fact there was anything but wariness or distrust was a goddamn miracle.

“Favor?” she prompted.

I forgot all about asking her to stop talking about sitting on my lap. Instead, I did the opposite of what I should’ve done. I tipped my chin and took her mouth. At the taste of her, I deepened the kiss. When she moaned, my hands dropped to her ass. She caught my play and helped me lift her with a hop. Her legs went around my waist, her arms over my shoulders, and now it was she who was tipping her head down to kiss me. I did not lie, our first kiss was the best I’d ever had. The second one topped the first by a mile. Not only did she know how to give as good as she got, she was all-in to take what she wanted—no hang-ups, no reservations.

That wasn’t hot.

That was hot as fuck.

The need to take it further hummed in my blood.

My phone vibrating in my back pocket saved me from doing something regrettable.

I broke the kiss, sucked in a much-needed breath, and explained, “There are cameras, baby. Don’t know exactly where they are but I know they cover every inch of the property.”

Her eyes got wide. Then, to my shock, she grinned.

“Think I can get a copy of the recording? You know, for…a keepsake.”

With a brush of my mouth over hers, I whispered there, “You’re full of shit, baby. I know why you want the recording.”

I felt her smile against my lips.

“Nothing wrong with a girl collecting⁠—”

“Cameras,” I grunted my reminder.

Her smile turned into a smirk but that wasn’t what had me biting back a groan, though I did take a moment to file that smirk away so I could recall it at a later date. No, what had me swallowing a moan was the way her hands felt sliding into my hair.