JASPER PACED.
I watched from the bed, my legs crossed beneath me as he strode back and forth like a caged animal. His hair was tussled and slightly damp from his shower and his jeans hung low on his hips, button undone as if he’d quickly yanked them on. He wasn’t wearing a shirt which I took great pleasure in because I admired his muscles that at the moment were flexed. And they were flexed because Jasper was . . . agitated. No, it was more than agitated, it was pissed off.
We’d been back at Xamien’s for a few hours after the long trek back.
Despite Xamien’s protests that I was too weak, as soon as we escaped the burning house, I healed Jasper enough so I was certain he wouldn’t die. I’d attempted to heal him completely but it was Guise who had dragged me away the moment I began shaking from exertion. Guise was scary as hell in a quiet, subtle way, but I still fought him to get back to Jasper and finish healing him. It was when Holden and Xamien came and stood in my field of vision, blocking me from Jasper with their unyielding expressions that I gave in.
Waleron left as soon as we were safe. The tension between him and Xamien was obvious from their fierce glares at one another. At some point they’d have it out and it wouldn’t be pretty.
Jasper remained unconscious all the way back and I knew it was due to the blood loss. I could heal a wound and repair damage, even offer the heat from my own body, but I couldn’t give blood. But his heart beat was steady even though it wasn’t strong yet and he was no longer bleeding out.
Xamien flew Jasper’s rust bucket, Fiona, and I was less concerned about dying a fiery death this time as I was too concerned about Jasper. Holden came with us to the manor, but Guise said he was going to the hotel. Something about the waitress, Vee, and he needed to talk to her.
It wasn’t until I had him in my bed and finished healing him, with his temperature up that I finally relaxed. Holden and Xamien left me alone with him and I took off my clothes and climbed into bed with him, needing to feel him up against me.
It was hours later when I woke and he was gone. I panicked and got out of bed so fast I tripped over the sheet and fell hard to my knees. Then I heard the shower.
Now Jasper paced.
I sat on the bed in my panties and t-shirt watching the angry Scar assassin and I should’ve been nervous. Maybe even a little concerned about my well-being. Instead, all I could think about was how I was going to get him to remove his jeans.
“Jesus, what were you thinking?”
And this he’d said three times now as well as “you weren’t thinking” and “you could’ve died.” Freaking out. Yeah, Jasper had been on a rampage ever since he’d come out of the shower and saw me awake, sitting on the bed.
I think the reality of what went down had finally hit him and the initial relief that we were both alive had shifted to anger over how it went down.
“Seriously, Max. Why?” He stopped pacing to stand in front of me; his arms at his sides, hands curled into fists. “What if you hadn’t been able to raise my Ink? Did you think of that? Christ, what if you couldn’t have . . . fuck, I don’t even know what the fuck you did to Drake, but it sure as hell wasn’t heal him.”
“I did the opposite. I took his life from him.”
He stared at me a second as if contemplating, and then he swore beneath his breath. “You can do that?”
“Well, I thought—”
“You thought,” he shouted.
I shrugged. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest gesture when he was reeling because that pissed him off more.
“You willingly walked right into Drake’s arms—alone—with a plan to raise my Ink, which by the way, an Ink you know nothing about. You think you can manipulate your ability to do the opposite—to a hybrid ancient Scar.” He raised his voice at the hybrid ancient Scar part. “And then you refuse to leave a burning building. Fuck, Max.” He bowed his head and I heard him growl low in the back of his throat. “Does any of that sound senseless to you?”
“Maybe.” That was my safest answer at the moment and it had been risky, but I’d do it again. I was a Scar, a fighter and I was no longer going to hide.
I knew he wasn’t done yet, so I waited quietly on the edge of the bed as he ran his hand through his hair several more times. Jasper was fighting a lot more than what we went through. He must have faced worse situations over the years in his line of work, but this was him having to face all that we were now. His past clashing with what happened. Of nearly losing someone he cares about again.
But what I wasn’t prepared for was him walking straight up to me and falling to his knees, his hands gripping my hips, head dropping forward to rest in my lap. I stopped breathing. “You wouldn’t leave. Jesus, you didn’t fuckin’ leave.”
I put my hand on his damp hair. “Jasper . . .”
“Max, everything about me is ruined and sour and I don’t deserve you.” His fingers tightened on my hips and he lifted his head and met my eyes. “But I swear every damaged piece I have left belongs to you.”
Oh, God. Tears pooled and I cupped the side of his face. “Jasper . . .”
“Shh, not done yet, sunshine.” There was no playfulness in him and his brow furrowed as he kept his eyes glued to me. “You’re the stars that burn away the darkness, Max. That’s what it feels like when I’m with you. Like I’m all lit up inside with brilliant specks of light. And when I touch you, it’s like I’ve grabbed one out of the sky and I’m holding it in my hand. Flawless. Bright. And fuckin’ beautiful.” His hands slid up my sides and goose bumps dappled my skin. “I want this—us. To fall asleep with the stars in my arms. Then wake up with the sunshine. I can’t ever lose you and what happened . . .” He leaned closer and pressed his lips to my neck, then trailed a slow path up to my chin until his mouth hovered over my lips. “I love you, Max.”
A tear slipped down my cheek and he wiped it away with the rough pad of his thumb. “I love you, too, Jasper.”
He kissed me lightly on the lips and when I leaned into him, wanting more, he abruptly pulled back. “Good because, baby . . .”—his tone hardened as did his grip on me—“you pull shit like that again . . . I will spank your ass so hard you won’t walk for days.”
I dragged my teeth over my lower lip as the undeniable ache heightened. He must have noticed the slight tightening in my body and my subtle change in breathing because his brows rose.
“You like that, sunshine? Does that make you wet?”
Oh, God. I swallowed. Yeah, it made me wet and I wanted him inside me.
No, it was more than that. I wanted to live. I wanted to feel every emotion there was and I wanted to do it with Jasper.
He stood and looked down at me. “Answer me, baby. Are you wet right now?”
I hesitated and I shouldn’t have because Jasper took full advantage of my unwillingness to admit the idea of him spanking me turned me on. And he was quick and agile like a panther as he dove for me.
I did a little girl scream and vaulted off to the side, kicking my leg out to push him in the chest. He grunted and landed on the floor on his back. He looked up at me, mouth gaping and eyes wide, shocked that I managed to outmaneuver him. My advantage was he wasn’t in top form, but that wouldn’t last long.
But seeing Jasper fall to the floor with that expression . . . priceless. I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. And then once I started I couldn’t stop as the unfamiliar feeling took hold of me and wouldn’t let go. My chest hurt and I became dizzy as I inhaled short gasps of air while laughing.
When I finally found some control and looked at him, my laughter stopped. He was up on one elbow on his side, watching me. His grey eyes soft and filled with . . . affection and wonder. His voice was husky and had that sexy Scottish lilt to it as he said, “I’ve wanted that since the day I met you.”
“What?”
“Your laughter. To hear you laugh. And it’s more fuckin’ beautiful than I could ever imagine.” He slowly rose and walked toward me.
“But I was laughing at you.”
He half-grinned. “Baby, I’d do anything to hear you laugh like that.”
“You would?”
His brows flicked up. “What do you have in mind, sunshine?”
I thought about it for a second. “You tied to the bed while I tickle you relentlessly?”
He snorted. “Not happening. Ever. Only you get tied up, baby.”
I pouted, but that totally turned me on. He chuckled before he leaned down and picked me up in his arms and started back to the bed. “I want to hear it again. But first I want to hear you scream my name.” My eyes widened in horror. “And we have an issue to settle.” He sat on the edge of the bed and I was straddling his lap, knees on the mattress on either side of him. I saw the desire blazing in his eyes and I was pretty sure my eyes were doing the same thing because my body was already heated and aching for him.
Suddenly, I found myself lying on my stomach over his knee, butt in the air.
“Jasper!” I wiggled and writhed, trying to get away, but he held me firmly on his lap, his arm across my lower back keeping me in place. “What are you doing?”
“Next time, don’t think about lying, baby. Not about this. Not about what turns you on.” He yanked up my shirt then pulled down my panties with a sharp tug and then his hand was caressing my ass.
I couldn’t stop the moan from escaping at the gentle touch as he stroked the surface. “I can laugh again. Let me up and I’ll laugh.”
“I think you want this more,” Jasper said, his finger sliding down the crease into the folds that were slick with moisture. “Yeah, you do. And, sunshine . . . I will always give you what you need.”
I tried again to move so I could look at him, but the hard slap on the naked surface of my butt had me screaming and arching. It hurt. Shit, it hurt. Jasper wasn’t playing. Well, he was but he was making a point and I tried again to get away.
Slap.
Burning. Aching.
Slap.
Oh, God. It was like an explosion of fireworks going off inside me. It hurt like hell, but it inflamed me. It released me. It made me want to scream and shout, and fight. And I did. I struggled against him, but he easily held me in place as his hand came down on my butt several more times and it wasn’t nice. It was meant to make me scream.
And I did. I screamed. “Fuckkkk, Jasper.”
“That’s it, baby.” And that was when he stopped and stroked the burning pain, soft and gentle then slid his finger down my crack into the wetness and then . . .
I gasped as his finger drove inside me, my hands curling.
“I’m going to sink my cock into this.” He pushed another finger in and then thrust in and out. “And you’re going to tell me you’ll never do that again. You’ll never risk your life like that again.”
I knew what would happen if I refused, but I wouldn’t lie. Because I would do it again. “I can’t do that, Jasper.”
He pulled his fingers from my moisture and then his hand stoked over my butt again. I knew what was coming and my sex clenched. But the sting failed to come down on my ass. Instead, he flipped me over and tossed me backward so I landed on my back on the mattress.
He stood. I shifted up onto my elbows and watched him carefully as he slowly turned doing up his jeans. Doing up his jeans? What the hell?
“What are you doing?” I scrambled to my knees on the edge of the bed. “What’s wrong?”
He strode to the bathroom, the same bathroom where we’d first met, and grabbed his black t-shirt from the counter and pulled it over his head. Only then did he look at me and his expression was tight, unbending.
“You know what I do, right, Max? You know I get paid to kill.” I nodded. Yeah, of course I did. “Then I need you to agree to never do anything like that again. Because my shit, the people I deal with, I won’t have you coming after me if some fucker gets his hands on me.”
Now, I was angry and my heart pounded as I crawled off the bed. “You can’t dictate what I can and can’t do. I won’t hide anymore. I know how to handle myself and for once in my life, I can live.”
“Did you hear what you just said? Live, Max. Fuckin’ live.”
I walked toward him. He was braced and ready for me, looking like a large unmovable rock. “Yes. Live.” I shoved my hands into his chest. Of course it had no effect and he remained solid. “Live, Jasper. Whether one day or a thousand years, I want to live—with you. And if you’re going to continue to risk your life, then you can damn well expect me to risk mine in order to keep you.”
His determined expression faltered. It was a flicker of shock as his eyes widened briefly and then they narrowed again. “No,” he said. But the one word was gentle and no longer held the grip of resolve.
“Protecting me isn’t done by locking me away.” I rested my hands on his chest, feeling his steady heartbeat beneath my palms.
He took a deep breath. “They’ll use you against me.”
Like his sister. “Maybe. But it won’t be your fault. Just like what happened to Beth wasn’t.” His jaw tightened. “Jasper, love me, protect me, but let me love you and protect you, too.”
He ran his hand through his hair as his eyes locked with mine. “I can’t lose you.”
“Then you know why I’m fighting you on this. I can’t lose you either.”
“Fuck it.” He spun around and walked over to the dresser and tagged the phone. I had no idea what he was doing or who he’d call in the middle of our conversation, but when he put the phone to his ear, he looked at me, and it was the confident resolute man who always got his own way.
“Don’t send me anymore jobs,” he said into the phone then pressed end, not even waiting for a response and then he pressed a few more numbers and put the phone back to his ear. “Guise . . . yeah, I’m good. Yeah, she’s good, too . . . yeah, I will . . . tell Holden I’m with the Talde . . . fuck he’s here? Fine, I’ll tell him myself.” I heard an abrupt ‘about fuckin’ time’ through the phone, then Jasper pressed end and tossed it on the dresser.
I crossed my arms and the corners of my lips curved up. This was how he planned to win the argument. “No more jobs?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
I saw the self-satisfied look on his face. Cocky bastard. “And you’re joining your brother’s Talde?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
And that meant he’d have Guise, Holden and the others I had yet to meet in the Talde, who’d protect me and I was guessing stop me from going after Jasper if he ever got himself in trouble. The thing was . . . he now had a Talde to stand behind him and protect him.
“You’re not always going to win when we disagree.”
He cocked a grin. “Yeah, I am, baby. Get used to it.” He strode back into the bathroom and came back out with a small, thin, square package which he ripped open with his teeth. Then he undid the top button of his jeans and lowered the zipper.
I pursed my lips together and watched as he slid off his jeans. He was naked underneath and already hard. I stood, throbbing, my breathing ragged as he slid the condom on. “And now I’m going to fuck you. On the bed, sunshine.”
Oh, I wanted to fuck him. God, I wanted to fuck him. And I was still pulsing and aching for him, but Jasper couldn’t get what he wanted all the time and despite me losing out on hot sex, I had to prove a point. I darted for the door.
I’d almost made it when his arm curled around my waist. His yanked me back hard against his chest and then my feet were off the floor as he scooped me up and carried me to the bed, my body wiggling like a fish out of water.
“Jasper, put me down.”
He did. He tossed me on the bed and before I could move an inch, he was on top of me, hands grabbing my wrists and locking them together above my head. I had no leverage as his weight pressed me hard into the mattress.
His teeth snared the lobe of my ear and then his tongue licked the bitten surface. “Never try to run from me.” He groaned as he moved his hips and his cock jutted into my inner thigh. “I’ll always catch you.” He slid one hand down the length of my stretched arms and then along my waist to my hip. His breath swept across the back of my neck as he trailed kisses and tiny nips on my skin. “And you’re not always going to like it when I do.” He shifted to the side and then he flipped me over and was on top of me again.
I didn’t fight him. I was so hot and aching, it was torture just waiting for him to put his cock inside me. But I knew if I begged, he’d make me wait. He liked the control. No, he needed the control and I was turned on by it. I could finally let go and knew he’d take care of me.
“Fuck, Max, I love every piece of you. Every fuckin’ piece. Even the stubborn, irrational side.” He slid his hand between us while he lowered his head and his mouth took mine.
I sighed beneath his lips as our kiss inflamed the charged sparks between us. His hand holding my wrists above my head released, and my hands shifted into his hair, drawing him closer, needing him closer.
I arched as his finger circled over my sex and my legs fell open wider and then I broke from his kiss, tilted my head back, eyes closed as I moaned, “God, Jasper.”
“Not yet, princess.” His finger stopped and I groaned with frustration. “You will always come around my cock or my tongue. Right now, it’s going to be my cock.”
I thought I was ready for him. Shit, I was but he was big and he thrust hard inside me and it hurt, but damn, it felt good too. He kissed my neck, the hollow of my throat and then just above my right breast. “You good with that?” He took my nipple into his mouth and suckled as his hips moved slowly and with ease.
What? What was he talking about?
He bit down and my entire body tensed. “Oww.”
His tongue flicked over the sensitive surface of my nipple and I heard the sweet suction of his heated mouth on me. He drew back. “You good with that?”
“Yes?” I still wasn’t certain what he was asking, but I’d say anything to get him to fuck me harder. “Jasper . . . please.”
He pulled part way out of me then slammed back in and I met his thrust with my hips so our bodies slapped together.
“Jesus.” Jasper wrapped his hand around my hair at the back of my neck and kissed me, thrusting repeatedly until I was throbbing and sore.
I curled one leg around his waist and he grabbed the other and hitched it over his shoulder pushing deeper inside. Then he let me go, placed his hands on the bed on either side of me and moved faster and harder.
“Jasper,” I breathed, the cusp of my orgasm latching onto me and holding me in limbo. For a few seconds, he continued to thrust and then he tensed and made a low, deep growl, sending me over the edge. I screamed his name as every part of me tightened and shook around him.
“Fuck, baby. Fuck.” His hips rocked forward a few more times.
He kissed me again and this time it was filled with gentleness as his lips molded me to him.
And that was what it was, us molding into one another. Us becoming one.
We weren’t fixed and neither of us pretended to be. I fell in love with the broken parts of Jasper and he did mine.
He kissed the corners of my lips and gently nipped the tip of my nose before he pulled back. I felt him lift to slide out of me, but I looped my arms around his back keeping him in place. “I want to live with you.”
He grinned. “Baby, I’m not letting you go. We can live anywhere you want.”
“The house in the mountains. Your house, Jasper.”
He stilled. “You know?”
I knew eventually we’d have the conversation about how I knew, but for now, this was about us having a family again. “Jasper, it’s time you went home. And I want you to take me with you. You’re my home now, Jasper.”
His head lowered into the crook of my neck and his mouth was moist against my skin. I waited quietly until he finally lifted his head again and then cupped the side of my cheek.
His eyes were glassy and his voice shook as he said, “Yeah, sunshine. I’ll take you home.”
The End