Page 42 of Stripping Bare

If he was the brother she’d seen in town, she’d describe him more as aredwood.

And Jonah’s mother sounded like a woman Tessa would very much like to know. Jonah had never shared much about his family during the time they’d both been at Steele Trap, but she knew they were all successful in their ownright.

With efficient movements, she moved around the kitchen—fixing coffee, checking the fridge and pantry, and pulling out everything she needed to makebreakfast.

Within fifteen minutes, she was sliding a plate piled with a ham and cheese omelet, home fries, and fresh fruit in front of Jonah. He stared at it as if he’d never before been introduced to the concept ofbreakfast.

“What?”

“Where did you learn to cook like that? Hell, how did you learn how to chop like that? You looked like one of those ninjachefs.”

“It’s not any different from how fast you can work a keyboard. My mom taught me how to prep fast and clean as I go.” As a child, Tessa had rolled her eyes. But after the rapes, the chopping, dicing, and slicing had become a kind of therapy for her. She could control the size of the onion, bell pepper, and carrots. She could control the thickness of a slice ofham.

She couldn’t control what had happened toher.

She fixed herself a bowl of fruit and sat on the stool next to Jonah. But she wasn’t hungry for food. She wanted answers. “Tell me about Sarah’sSmile.”

“There’s not much totell.”

“You built it and that rec center, didn’tyou?”

He cut and chewed. Cut and chewed. “Tessa, we really need to talk about last night. About why someone is targetingyou.”

“We will.” And they would, but he was avoiding answering her question. Why would he want to hide his involvement in the shelter? “After yesterday, you owe me some answers about theshelter.”

“What’s there to know?” He stabbed at a potato. “Those kind of places need money, and I have money, so I give it to them.Simple.”

“Why a women’sshelter?”

His attention didn’t waver from his plate. “Because they and their childrenare…”

“Easily victimized?” she said quietly, the rightness of her guess settling inside her. “Are you involved withothers?”

“Does itmatter?”

Oh, it mattered. So much. He was standing up for and doing for those who couldn’t always stand and do forthemselves.

But she didn’t want to be lumped in with those he thought couldn’t do for themselves. Yes, she needed his help now, but she didn’t like the idea that he might believe she needed hisprotection.

Mulling it over, Tessa absently dipped her fork into her bowl and caught Jonah staring down intently. Following his trajectory, she found that her robe had parted and was revealing a long expanse of her thigh. Her skin rippled with awareness and tiny goose bumps poppedup.

She crossed her legs, which hiked her robe up to the tie belt and inched her short nightgown farther up her legs. If she revealed any more real estate, she’d be flashing him herpanties.

Jonah swallowed hard and stabbed at his food without hitting a bite of it. He wanted her, but he didn’twantto wanther.

Their entire problem was that too much haze and too many half-truths had always stood between them. And she’d never pushed him for more because she’d been afraid of his rejection. But she wanted a relationship with him, and if she continued to wait, it could take him millennia to comearound.

Over the years, she’d been very, very careful about who she warmed up to. But no man had ever made her hot like Jonah Steele did. So she was taking off the gloves. And hopefully all her other clothes,too.

She rolled her shoulders so that her robe slipped down one arm, revealing the thin strap of her gown and the champagne-colored lace that barely covered her left breast and dipped into a deep vee. Behind the fabric, her nipple hardened to a tightpoint.

Jonah rubbed his hands over his cheeks, and again, the sound set off an ache between her thighs. What would he do if she told him she wanted to feel the rasp of his facial hair across her skin? Along the insides of her thighs? Againsther—

Jonah grabbed the neckline of her robe and yanked it up to her shoulder, covering her exposed breast. “It’s cold,” he said gruffly and dug back into hisfood.

What was she going to have to do—strip naked and jump up on his breakfast bar? This feeling building inside her was a combination of impatience and frustration and anxiety. Dangerous, because it made her feel reckless andimpulsive.

The fruit in her bowl no longer appealing, she used her fork to pursue a strawberry with a slice of mandarin orange. Somewhere along the way, other fruits became involved in the high-speed chase and a plump grape and a blueberry flew over the barrier, bounced off the counter, and made a break for thefloor.