Demon Bound

been picturing them, and I’d hate to be wrong.”
    Alice pushed her gaze to the horizon again, controlled her breathing. Jake thought about her nipples more often than she did. But she was aware of them now, tight beneath the silk of her bodice.
    She needed to turn this conversation, somehow. “How in heaven’s name did you go from not thinking about sex with me at all, to this?”
    Dear God. That had been as ill-considered as her original question. It was not a turn at all, but a leap in the same direction.
    “It was your bargain,” he said, which was just as frustrating as the “I don’t know” he’d given after kissing her in Caelum—because she couldn’t make sense of how her bargain was an attraction. “Anyway, you shouldn’t bring that up. It was a stupid thing to say; I admitted it, and apologized for it. You accepted the apology, and should be telling me how sexy you think I am.”
    He was teasing, but she grabbed hold of her frustration, and pulled it close. “No,” she countered. “The apology I accepted was over your assertion that I wasn’t a real woman. I was not upset by the other. Why would I have cared whether you found me attractive?”
    A muscle in his jaw ticked, but his tone was still light. “Why indeed? You don’t care what anyone thinks.”
    Frowning, she came to a halt, crossed her arms over her breasts. “That is not true. There are people I love whose opinions I care about very much. But why should I care for the opinions of people who don’t matter to me? Do you?”
    “No.” His gaze had hardened, and she hoped that would end it—but he didn’t let it go. “So if the right guy comes along, and you care about whether he wants you, you’d start parading around in little skirts?”
    She clenched her teeth, but the idea was so disgusting she couldn’t prevent herself from answering. “No. I have no desire to let anyone look as they please.” Only as she pleased.
    “What, a little skirt isn’t modest enough for your Victorian sensibilities?”
    She forced herself to move again. He was deliberately goading her, but her resentment overrode her discretion. “I do not allow liberties to all and sundry,” she said coldly as she passed him. “And I will never expose myself unless I believe he has as much interest in my pleasure as his own.”
    It was a miracle that she did not stumble when his answer came after her, as solemn as a vow.
    “I would.”
    “I will keep that in mind,” she managed stiffly. It would not be difficult. Instead, it was an effort not to keep it in mind.
    She blinked away the image of his hands in her hair, the hot sand at her back.
    “Drifter’s one of them.”
    Alice spun around, her eyes wide with disbelief. “What a ridiculous notion. Ethan and I have never—!”
    “No.” Jake was grinning again, and she realized her reaction had been exactly what he’d intended. “One of those whose opinions matter.”
    “Well, yes—of course. He is one of my dearest friends.”
    “Yeah. He’s so close to you, but you haven’t told him about your history? Right.”
    This time, she did not let herself be provoked. “You are mistaken. He knows my history.”
    “You were worried I’d told him about the bargain.”
    “I may have left out portions of my history.”
    His brow creased. “Why? Do you think he wouldn’t help you? That he’d threaten you?” He was shaking his head, as if discarding the idea even as he spoke it.
    “Oh, no,” Alice said lightly. “I expect that of others.”
    “Irena?”
    He didn’t miss anything, she thought. And there was no point in denying it. “Only if I follow through on the bargain. And, no—I know Ethan wouldn’t.”
    “Then why not tell him?”
    Surely Jake knew—surely he’d realized the moment he’d learned what her bargain entailed. “I do not want him to know what a coward I am.” She laughed without humor. “Too much of a coward, even, to tell him that I am one.”
    “A coward.” Jake stared at her strangely. “I don’t see it.”
    Her smile was faint. “You are too kind.”
    “Or missing a big chunk of the picture. Care to fill me in?” When she didn’t reply, he gave her a wry look. “No? I didn’t think you would. All right. So, you got pissed because of the ‘real woman’ thing?”
    Now they would head back there? She sighed. “Yes.”
    “That was even a stupider thing to say than the not-sexy thing.”
    “On that, we are in agreement.”
    “Yeah, but if you