Page 40 of Jason
One corner of her mouth quirked up and she gave him a push away from her.“Stop smiling at me like that.And stop making me do things like ride in little wooden tubs out into the ocean.”
“For the record, it is a bona fide boat, and I can’t stop smiling at you like that.You are adorable, and I keep thinking about last night.”
She sort of laughed and gasped at the same time.“You can’t say I’m adorable and you can’t think about last night, Jason!We’re technically at work, so it’s super inappropriate.Don’t you know anything?”
“You can’t tell me you never think of super inappropriate things at work.Because we both know you do.”
“You don’t know that,” she said, laughing it off, and began to carefully pick her way through the sand toward the cave.
Jason followed her, and when they reached the cave, he went in first, climbing up onto a rock and then helping Mallory up.This, too, was smaller and less sinister than he remembered.It was really hardly a cave it all, very shallow in breadth and in depth.It was hard to believe anyone had ever run any sort of operation out of here.
“Could the killer reasonably stash his boat here or in the cove?”Mallory asked, peering around him to see into the cave.“It doesn’t need to be a secret place.Just some place no one would suspect.Any marina would do.”
“If this place was good enough for bootleggers, I’d say it’s good enough for our guy.”
Mallory didn’t seem convinced.She tried to lean around him to look again, but when she did, her foot slipped and she almost tumbled into the water.Jason caught her before that could happen, and when he did, he felt something catch in his back.
He pulled her into his arms, twisting her around so that her back was to the wall of the cave.
“Oh my God!”she said breathlessly.“I almost fell in!”
“I’ve got you,” Jason said.She was clinging to his arms, her eyes wide with the fright that near fall had given her.“Mallory…do you know how to swim?”
“No!Do you see how dangerous this is?We can’t film in here!”
“If we had another boat for the camera and some scaffolding for the lights,” he said, looking up, “we’d be fine.This water isn’t very deep.Maybe up to your waist at low tide.”
Her eyes widened.“It would take our entire budget to set this up.What iswrongwith you and Cass?Do you have any idea how much these things—”
Jason silenced her with a kiss.Yes, he knew how much these things cost.Yes, he could see it was impractical.He would argue with her in a minute, but she looked so lush that he couldn’t help himself, and neither could Mallory, because the moment he put his lips to hers, she softened, sinking into him, like she’d been waiting for that kiss all day.
He nibbled at her bottom lip, then slipped his tongue into her mouth.Mallory’s hands went up around his neck, her fingers sliding into his hair.Jason shifted her backward, so that she was leaning against the rock wall.
“Nowwhat are you doing?”she murmured against his mouth.
“Kissing you, obviously.And just so we’re clear, you’re kissing me back, right?”
“I am.But it’s still inappropriate.”
He didn’t care.He moved to her neck.
“We shouldn’t do this,” she said through a soft moan.“This is hardly the place for a grand make-out session.We are barely able to stand on this rock as it is.”
“We are standing just fine.Where’s your sense of adventure?”he asked, and slipped his hand into the waistband of her pants.
Mallory gasped with surprise; her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him as he undid the button of her pants with his thumb.“You are thedevil,” she whispered.
“Thank you,” he whispered back, and slid his hand deeper into her pants.
Mallory’s gaze did not move from his, challenging him.“This is insane,” she insisted, and slid her hand to the front of his shorts, feeling his hardness.
“And exciting.Admit it.”He began to stroke her through the thin fabric of her panties.“Looks like forbidden fruit turns us both on, doesn’t it?”It was a rhetorical question—it definitely turned her on.She was damp, already slick with just a bit of kissing.“Doesn’t it?” he insisted.
“A little,” she murmured, and closed her eyes.
Jason smiled into her hair and rubbed her, slipping his fingers under the fabric of her panties.“You know what else turns me on?”he asked, and lightly bit her neck.
“What?”she managed.
