Chapter Twenty-Two

This time, she'd had an afternoon's leisure to plan her seduction, and in the end she discarded seduction altogether. Drowning their pain in sex might be the least awkward way to smooth the tensions between them, but this was too important. This would be the foundation, the way they learned to deal with inevitable fights. Words needed to come first. If they were the right ones, sex would happen on its own, whether she was dressed in lacy panties or a burlap sack.

Not that she went that far. But she felt just as sexy in a tight tank top and vintage, pre-Flare jeans as she ever had in the skimpy little dress she'd borrowed from Lex for that first party. It was the ink, she thought as she paused outside of Jasper's door, her hand raised to knock. Staring at the O'Kane logo and the intricate framing was a reminder of what she could be. Sexual. Powerful.

Brave enough to forgive. Dragging in a breath, she knocked.

"Ow, shit." Jasper's voice drifted through the door. "Come in."

Frowning, Noelle pushed open the door only to stop dead at the sight of Jasper with a kitten perched on his shoulder, its tiny claws latched into his beard. Judging by the scratches on his cheek, it wasn't the first time.

He winced as he detached the mewling kitten from his face. "I called in a favor from the farm. It got here yesterday, and I think it hates me."

"I don't know, it seems to like you." Belatedly, she entered the room and closed the door behind her. The kitten proved her point by trying to claw its way back up to the crook of Jasper's neck. "Maybe it likes your beard."

"Fuck." He pulled its tiny claws free again and curled the kitten up in both hands. "That means it likes me? What the hell would it do if it didn't?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe pee on you?" She crossed to where he stood and stroked her finger over the kitten's head. "Is it a boy or a girl? Do you know?"

Jasper's ears turned red. "I told them to send you a good mouser."

That constant ache in her chest bloomed, expanding until she had to swallow around a lump in her throat. "It's for me?"

"Yeah." His glower softened. "I was going to give it to you with the painting, but there was a delay, and I couldn't wait on the other thing."

The kitten was an adorable bundle of orange fur with a squished little face and tiny teeth that closed on the tip of Noelle's finger in a playful bite. Her heart lurched again, and she pretended it was because she'd fallen in love with a little fuzzy ball of fluff. "Can I hold it?"

"Let's say it's a he." He gently shifted the kitten over to her hands. "I haven't done the best job of this, have I?"

Delicate claws scraped her palms as the kitten meowed and twisted. Noelle lifted him higher, nuzzled the soft little head with a cooing noise. "You got me a kitten."

"An apology," he whispered, watching her. "I'm sorry I tried to make you go back to the city."

Swallowing, she cuddled the kitten closer. "Explain it to me. Tell me why."

"You got shot, sweetheart. I wasn't thinking about anything else. I wanted to put you someplace where it wouldn't happen again." He rubbed his hands over his face and dropped to the sofa. "The whole damn thing made me a little nuts."

The wrong thing for the right reasons, then, and in her gut she'd known it all along. Jasper wanted to protect her, he just didn't know what scared her more than death.

So she told him. "I'd rather be shot. I'd rather be shot a dozen times. Maybe for someone else, someone with a less important family, Eden isn't all bad. My body would be safe there, but my soul would die. And I'm still learning what it's like to be alive."

"I know." He gestured helplessly to the cat. "I thought about all the things you'd told me about your life there, and I realized how idiotic I'd been."

The kitten bumped his head against her chin, and Noelle gave in to the smile fighting to form. "I should have told you. I guess I...wanted you to know. I wanted you to know what I needed, but maybe you couldn't understand that what I needed was you."

Jasper held her gaze, his eyes blazing. Intense. "Do you need me?"

She wet her lips. "I can survive without you, but it's only that. Surviving. I want to live."

He released a breath, sudden and relieved, and held out one hand. "Get over here."

"So demanding." Noelle cradled the kitten to her chest as she slid into Jasper's lap. "I think this little guy likes me. Or he's worn out from doing battle with you."

Jasper wrapped his arms around her. "You're a better person than I am. Animals are supposed to be able to sense shit like that, right?"

"I think you're pretty okay." With a final nuzzle, she set the kitten down on the couch. He spent a brief, adorable moment being distracted by his own tail before burrowing half under a battered pillow. Laughing, Noelle pressed her lips to Jasper's scratched cheek. "Talk to me next time. If things get intense, promise you'll talk, and I promise I'll listen."

He stroked his thumb over her cheek, the corner of her mouth. "Is this you, saying yes?"

"If you promise." She kissed his thumb. "I'll trust you with everything, Jasper. But if I'm going to be that vulnerable, you have to promise you'll always be there. No walking away and leaving me naked. Literally or metaphorically."

His voice was raw. "I promise."

"Okay." The word floated from her lips, and she felt light. "Okay. Yes."

She barely heard his low growl as he dragged her mouth to his. She felt it, felt his chest vibrating when he edged her lips apart with his tongue. No mercy, no hesitation, just him, inside her in not nearly enough ways. Groaning, she tangled her fingers into his hair and bit the tip of his tongue.

Jasper bit her back as the kitten wiggled between them. He broke the kiss and swept up the tiny animal. "Put him in the bathroom. I have something else for you."

It took her a few tries to detach the kitten from her shirt, but his yowling protests cut off abruptly when she set him down in front of the small bowl of food in the bathroom.

She eased the door shut to avoid distracting him, and turned to find Jasper holding two strips of leather padded with velvet.

Her heart damn near kicked its way out of her chest. Anticipation tickled up her spine, and she took two steps toward him. "Those are for me?"

"Mmm." He shook them, rattling the buckles. "Know what they are?"

"I think I can guess." She stroked the soft velvet and smiled, imagining how it would feel against her wrists...or ankles. "Cuffs?"

Jasper trailed each section of leather between his finger and thumb as he explained. "This longer one buckles around your upper thighs. The shorter one around your wrists."

"Oh..." Even imagining it tightened her body. Bound, helpless. Open to him. Trust, again, and she offered it by smiling as she toyed with her shirt, edging it up just far enough to flash skin at him. "Are you going to teach me about make-up sex?"

He shook his head. "I'm going to show you what it means to be mine, with nothing held back."

His. No shame, just anticipation and a thrilling tremor of something almost like nerves. Not fear, just the understanding that Jasper would push her beyond herself, beyond anything she'd known.

And she'd love it.

Noelle closed the distance between them and rose on her toes to kiss him. "Do I get to be bad?"

He licked her lip and wove a hand in her hair. "If you're willing to pay the price for it."

Even that was sweet heat, the softness of his mouth and the roughness of his hand a beautiful contrast. "What's the price?"

Velvet and leather brushed the back of her hand, and he drew the open cuffs up her arm. "Say yes and find out."

"Yes." She pressed closer, rubbed her tight nipples against his chest, and groaned her assent. "Yes."

Jasper dropped the cuffs on the bed and kissed her, already moving his hands over her clothes. Pushing up her shirt to meet her waiting hands, and then moving on to the button on her jeans. They had to pull apart to get her tank top over her head, but her lips found his again as she twisted her arms behind her back to open her bra.

He shoved her jeans and panties down, and for a giddy moment Noelle imagined hard, fast sex, Jasper slamming her into the wall and plowing into her, but she should have known better.

Jasper always took his time.

Her back hit the bed, and he leaned over to strip off her shoes. "Second thoughts?"

"Maybe I'm wishing I'd brought my new jewelry..."

He yanked off her jeans and panties and dropped them on the floor. "You don't need it. I want you just like this. Ink and leather."

She inched up the bed, squirming when he loomed over her. He blocked out the room when he did, his broad shoulders filling her vision. "So is that what you want me to wear to Dallas's next party? Cuffs and ink?"

"We'll see." He buckled a band of leather around one thigh, then the other, and waited for her to hold out her wrists.

So serious. Biting her lower lip to hide her smile, Noelle moved her arms into place, savoring the soft slide of velvet as he buckled the cuffs.

"Now you're stuck." Jasper teased the tip of one finger over her hipbone before twining his fingers with hers and lifting her arms up and out. With those cuffs tethered to the ones on her thighs, the movement drew her legs apart. Wide open.

She drew in a ragged breath, tensing in spite of herself as his gaze drifted over her. That first thrill still hit her, the vulnerability of being bared to him, the illicitness and the pleasure. "I don't mind."

Her thighs trembled under his touch, even more when he bent his head, his beard tickling as he dropped openmouthed kisses to her skin. Slow, hot, the heat of his tongue and the scratch of his beard. She tried to press her thighs together and growled when the short chains snapped tight. "Jas..."

He ignored the plea as he licked his way to the top of her thigh. "You're wet."

"Of course I am." His breath ghosted over her, and she choked on another moan. Maybe if she begged with all the dirty words, he'd forget whatever torment he had planned and touch her already. "I'm so wet. Please, can I have your--your tongue in my pussy?"

"No." He spread her wide and circled the tip of his tongue lightly around her clit instead. Pleasure jolted up her spine, lifting her hips even as she cried out.

"That's a start," he whispered, then began to explore her pussy, tracing every fold, slow and firm. She was panting in minutes, tugging restlessly against the leather cuffs as he coaxed her body to painful, trembling arousal.

But not over the edge. Noelle raised her head and lost herself in the sight of him, bent over her, so intense, his fingers parting her, opening her for the lash of his tongue.

Erotic overload. Groaning, she dug her head back against the bed. "I'm never going to get to pay the price if you won't let me be bad."

Jasper laughed and turned his head. Bit her thigh. "This is the price. On the edge, Noelle, for as long as I damn well please."

She tried to close her legs and only managed to crush her knees against his shoulders. "Oh, God."

Again, deeper this time, his tongue thrusting inside her before dipping back out to flick her clit. She might have come then, if he'd kept up the pressure, but he retreated as she started to tense, easing back only to begin the slow exploration again.

And again.

The third time his tongue darted away from her clit just before release broke over her, she lost control of her tongue. With pleasure a throbbing, frustrating ache, the words barely registered as they tripped from her lips, begging and hoarse. "Let me come, please... I'll do anything, anything if you just--just--"

He flipped her onto her stomach, her cheek pressed against the blanket as the click of a buckle and the slither of leather broke through the fevered haze of blood pounding in her ears. One breath, two, and then his belt cracked against her skin, drowning pleasure in a momentary sting of pain.

Her body reeled at the sudden shock. It hurt more than his hand or the crop had, and Noelle sucked in a confused breath only to lose it in a groan as the belt hit her again, burning a stripe of fire across her ass. It was like the tattoos, sharp pain that built into something else, something hotter that left her squirming.

The third stroke drew everything tight. The fourth made her cry out. One more agonizing slap of leather and the throbbing of her blood in her ears expanded. She was throbbing everywhere, pulsing and tensing, clenching, and it had built so inexorably that she could do nothing but groan as heat burst through her, the sweet relief of an orgasm so intense she tried to muffle her screams against the blankets.

The sting faded into a warmth that unfurled slowly, an afterburn both soothed and urged on by Jasper's hands rubbing over her back and ass. He bent low, his now-naked chest pressed against her skin as he nudged her hair aside with his nose and murmured into her ear. "Beautiful."

She shivered and rubbed her cheek against his, still floating. "You like me like this?"

His teeth scraped her earlobe. "I love you like this."

Love.

Drunk on the word, she laughed. "Would you love me with my lips around your cock?"

"Yes." Jasper rose and pulled her upright to sit on the edge of the bed. He shed his jeans and gripped his cock. "Want it? Take it."

She started to reach for him and laughed again when her wrists snapped to a halt, tethered by chains she'd almost forgotten. He watched her, one large hand wrapped around his shaft, and at another time it might be beautiful to watch him stroke himself to release.

Today--today it was her turn to torment.

Flicking her gaze up to his, she leaned forward and extended her tongue, touching only the tip of it to the flared crown. A slow lick brought the taste of him into her, salty and musky and intense. "Like this?"

He urged her mouth wide with his thumb on her jaw. "Open up, sweetheart."

She obeyed--but not without a teasing retort. "You love to tell me that."

"Hell yeah." Gripping her hair, he teased the head of his cock past her lips, over her tongue...then deeper. Over and over, pausing to let her lick his cock as he groaned.

His next advance drove him against the back of her throat, and his fingers tightened on her skull, gentle but unyielding steel holding her in place as she struggled to relax, to ignore her body's instinctive response and savor the darker one, the should-be-shameful pleasure to be had in submitting to his whims.

She choked--gagged--and he eased back with a shudder. "Again," he commanded, but he didn't thrust forward. He waited for her to come to him, cupping her head as she took him as deep as she could.

Not all the way, not this time. And as if she'd proved her willingness by coming to him, his fingers tightened. She only had the chance to make an encouraging noise before he was pushing forward once more, choking her with his cock as her pussy clenched around aching emptiness.

Two heartbeats. Three. Jasper drew back, gliding his fist over his slick shaft. "Do you want me to fuck you?"

She wanted so much. She wanted everything, and for the first time she truly believed that was exactly what she'd get. Everything she craved, everything she needed. Heart pounding, she watched him stroke his cock with his broad fingers and gave him raw truth. "I want you inside me, any way I can have you."

He lifted her against him and spun, pressing her to the wall. "When I mark you--" The shaking words cut off as he drove into her with one long, hard thrust. "I want more than your throat. I want the ink all the way across your shoulders." With his hips pinning her in place, he lifted one hand to trace a meandering line across her collarbone and down to her upper arm.

With her legs wrapped around his body, the chains had just enough give to allow her to touch his sides. She scraped her nails along his skin, marking him in her own way as her body pulsed around the unforgiving steel of his erection. "You might need to get Ace another painting."

Jasper's eyes went dark, his pupils dilating as he ground deeper. "I'll think of something." His fingers slipped around to tease at the back of her neck. "Down your spine?"

The thought made her groan. "Only if you want to fuck me right there in Ace's chair."

He cupped her ass and lifted her higher. "Maybe we'll take turns."

She wanted to reply, but the new angle was too sharp, driving his cock up into her with an intensity that scrambled her thoughts. Pleasure was building again, the kind that would wipe everything else away but the driving need to shatter that tension, and she was utterly helpless. Pinned between him and the wall, caught in his grip, her hands trapped. She couldn't even get the leverage to move, only to squirm.

"That's right." He rocked his hips in a short thrust, then backed away from the wall, kept moving until his legs hit the bed. He sat down and then lay back with Noelle on top of him. "This is what you were trying to do--ride my cock."

Still gasping for breath, she dug her fingernails into her own thighs and shifted experimentally. It might have been easier if she could have braced her hands against his chest, but there was something more intoxicating about having control--almost. The velvet and leather shackled her, a constant reminder of his power even as she claimed her own, lifting her hips only to drive down, taking him deep and hard, just how she wanted him.

Jasper met the next desperate rock with a rough noise. Instead of guiding her hips, urging her on, he slipped his fingers up her thigh, past the leather, to center on her clit. "Come on me."

Her hips jerked. Her rhythm faltered. It shouldn't have been so easy to haul her back up to that edge, but he had a way of touching her, the calloused tips of his fingers circling rough and fast, building up friction that rocketed through her in jolts that came closer and closer together.

In moments she'd lost her thrusts entirely, settling into a grinding rock that did more to rub her clit against his fingers. "Jas," fell from her lips, again and again, each time more breathless, but as the tension twisted tighter his name twisted, turned to yes, yes, yes--

When her body seized, throwing her into the bliss of release, even that word was beyond her. She cried out--groaned, moaned, screamed--coming so hard the blood throbbed in her ears and she could barely hear her own voice.

He took over then, gripping her hips and pounding into her. It kept her up when she might have floated down, twisted her straight into another orgasm so fierce and powerful it ached. His short fingernails dug into her skin, quick flashes of pain that traveled to her lower back, higher, his hands scrabbling as if he could draw her closer.

"Noelle." A curse and a prayer. Jasper arched, his muscles rigid as he shuddered beneath her, pumping his release.

She slumped forward when he stilled, and he caught her and lowered her to his chest with more gentleness than she would have managed. With her ear pressed to his skin she could hear the racing of his heart, as quick and frantic as her own, and she closed her eyes and drifted on the peace of being his.

After long moments of silence broken by nothing but their ragged breathing, Jasper's chest heaved under her cheek in a sigh. "I meant it, you know."

Her thoughts were so scattered that it took a moment to understand. But only a moment. It had been there all along, seething underneath her skin, the truth that had made everything that much more intense, that much brighter.

I love you like this.

I love you...

Turning her head, she pressed an openmouthed kiss to the skin above his heart. "I don't know anything about love. But I've never felt..." She trailed off and lifted her head. "I've never felt. Not until you."

"Then I have a lot to show you, don't I?"

She tried to lean up to reach his lips, but her arms were still trapped, and she found herself oddly reluctant to do anything that might change that. Instead she nuzzled his throat. "If love is trust and need and always feeling better when I'm with you...I love you."

"Good," he said gruffly. Then he kissed her, soft and lingering. "How long do you want to wait to get your marks?"

"Until my knees aren't so wobbly?"

Jasper laughed. "It takes a little longer than that, sweetheart. First, we have to ask Dallas."

That made her frown, though she doubted he would protest. "He gets a say?"

"This is Sector Four," Jasper reminded her gently.

Of course. Apparently Dallas got a say in everything that happened, from sweeping political grandstanding to the quiet moments between two people. Though maybe she shouldn't begrudge him that, when he clearly took the responsibility seriously. "All right. So we ask Dallas. And then what?"

"Then we go see Ace, get your marks. And when they're all done and healed up, we show them off to the rest of the gang."

"A party?"

"Mmm. Let everyone know we belong to each other." Jasper tilted her head up and studied her. "Do you want me marked too?"

Her ink on his skin. Her mark, as permanent and undeniable as the one he'd place on her. "Yes. Even if I have to pay Ace for it myself."

A grin. "Nah. In this case, I think he'll kick it in for free."

"Maybe, if he's hoping for another show. Or a chance to play." She rested her chin on his chest and watched his face. "I don't care either way, you know. Whether you let other people touch me, or don't, it was never about them. Ace, Dallas... It doesn't matter who's touching me. It's hot because of you."

"I know." He stroked the delicate skin at the base of her throat. "I always knew."

She couldn't help but smile. "That doesn't mean I don't still like how...illicit it feels. Maybe I should be ashamed of that, but I don't think I am. You like me this way."

He arched an eyebrow and tightened his hand ever so slightly around her neck.

Blood singing, Noelle closed her eyes and savored the gentle steel grip, savored its warning and its promise. A lifetime without shame, because of the words that tripped from her lips, the truth he'd demanded.

The only truth that mattered now. "You love me this way."