Chapter Seven
~ Jasper ~
I clawed up out of the nightmare mid-scream, some sound still trapped in my throat as my back hit the headboard.
The farmhouse bedroom was pitch black around me, my chest heaving, hands fisted in the quilt.
Nebraska. The side yard. The fence at my back.
The low, ugly voices of the men, the first crack of a boot against my ribs.
The dream clung to me like a second skin. I couldn’t shake it—couldn’t breathe past it—my body still caught in the moment of impact.
I pressed myself against the headboard, knees drawn up, breath coming in shallow pulls that didn’t quite reach the bottom of my lungs.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears, drowning out the night sounds of the ranch—the creak of the house settling, the soft tick of the baseboard heater kicking on.
The only light came from the thin strip under the door—yellow and artificial, not the dawn I’d been expecting.
The door swung open with a soft click that sounded like thunder in the quiet room. A figure moved through it—fast and quiet, body already angled toward threat before his eyes found me.
Decker. His shoulders filled the doorway for a split second before he was inside, eyes scanning the room in a methodical sweep that took in the corners, the window, the closet—looking for an intruder, a reason for the scream, anything that needed neutralizing before turning his attention to me.
He moved the way he had in the side yard. There was no wasted energy, no hesitation, just the direct line from problem to solution. In the thin light from the hall, his expression was unreadable—not concern, just assessing the situation and deciding what came next.
The door hadn’t fully closed behind him when Rawley appeared in the opening—taller than Decker, broader through the shoulders, with a gun held low at his side. His eyes did a quick inventory of the room—shaking man, no intruder—and something in his face shifted.
“I’ll check the house,” he said, voice level, eyes on Decker rather than me. “You’re good?”
Decker nodded once, not turning. “We’re good.”
Rawley pulled the door shut behind him with a careful click that somehow managed to make the room feel smaller despite the solidity of it. I was still shaking, hands still fisted in the quilt, breath still coming in pulls that didn’t reach all the way down.
I hadn’t expected this—the vividness of the dream, the way my body had carried it forward into waking life. I’d had nightmares before—who hadn’t?—but never ones that stuck to me like this, that made it hard to tell where the dream ended and actual memory began.
Decker stood by the bed for a long moment, eyes on my face, then sat down on the edge of the mattress—not close enough to crowd, not far enough to signal indifference. Just a presence. A thing that existed in the same physical space.
“It’s okay,” he said, voice in the low, even register he’d used in the truck on the first night. Not calm, just offering the thing itself—the steadiness that seemed built into his bones. “You’re safe. You’re at Black Butte Ranch. Nobody’s getting to you here.”
The words were simple—almost stupid in their directness—but something in me responded to them anyway, the shaking starting to slow, breath finding its way back to a rhythm that didn’t leave me light-headed.
“Just a dream,” I said, the words coming out with a breathlessness I hadn’t intended. “I’m sorry I woke everyone up.”
Decker shook his head once—a short, definitive movement. “Not a problem,” he said. “Rawley’s up anyway. Gets insomnia. Jojo says it’s from the military. Your body learns to sleep in shifts, it never really unlearns it.”
The practical observation—the simple statement of fact rather than concern—settled something in my chest that reassurance wouldn’t have reached. I nodded, accepting what he’d offered, and let my hands uncurl from the quilt.
The room was coming back into focus around me—the window with its thin curtains, the dresser with my duffel on top of it, the closet door half-open where I’d hung the shirt Carter had loaned me. The farmhouse at night, not Nebraska. Now, not then.
Decker stood up, one hand coming to rest briefly on my shoulder—not a gesture, just a point of contact. “Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll be in the next room if you need anything.”
He’d already turned toward the door, was halfway across the room, when my hand shot out and grabbed his arm before the decision to do it had fully formed. The words came right behind the grip: “Don’t go.”
I hadn’t meant to say it. Hadn’t meant to reach for him. Hadn’t meant to do anything except get through the night without falling back into the dream. But the words were out now, hanging in the space between us, my fingers wrapped around his forearm with more force than I’d intended.
Decker went perfectly still. The tension in his arm was readable under my fingers—a man holding himself in check, muscles tight beneath the skin—but he didn’t pull away. Didn’t shake me off or step back or do any of the things he had every right to do.
Instead, he turned—slow, deliberate—and looked at me directly. “You sure?” he asked, the question simple but carrying more weight than its two words should have been able to.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
He crossed back to the bed in two strides and sat down against the headboard—not next to me where a friend might have placed himself, but with his back to the wall, shoulder touching mine, close enough that conversation wouldn’t require raised voices, far enough that it wasn’t the intrusion of a stranger’s body.
“Come here,” he said, and it wasn’t quite an order but wasn’t not one either—a tone that expected compliance without demanding it.
I went. He shifted, drawing me in against his chest with the careful consideration of someone handling something he didn’t want to break.
One arm came around my shoulders, hand resting lightly at the base of my neck where it met my spine.
His chest rose and fell in a rhythm I could feel against my cheek—steady, unhurried, nothing pretend about it.
“This okay?” he asked, voice low enough that I felt it in his chest more than heard it with my ears.
I nodded, not looking up, and felt him relax slightly.
We sat like that for a long moment, the house quiet around us, the nightmare receding with each breath.
I told myself it was just the dark, just the aftermath of the dream, just the wrongness of being alone with the memory of what had happened.
Nothing more complicated than that. Nothing that would matter in the morning.
“Go to sleep,” Decker said, voice even. “I’ll be here.”
I closed my eyes, ear pressed to his sternum, and listened to his heartbeat—slow and steady underneath, a counterpoint to the lingering panic in my chest.
It was the first time in longer than I could account for that I’d been this close to another person without it being about what could be taken from me. The first time in months that touch had been offered rather than claimed.
* * * *
I woke again in deep night, the farmhouse completely silent around us. In the first second of consciousness, I knew three things with absolute clarity: I was plastered against Decker’s side—one leg thrown over him, face against his throat, one hand fisted in his shirt.
Decker was awake and had been for a while, his breathing too measured, his body too still; and his cock was hard against my hip, the evidence of it impossible to mistake even through the layers of fabric between us.
I didn’t move—couldn’t quite make my body respond to the thought that I should—just lay there with my face against Decker’s throat, the scent of him filling my lungs with each breath.
Decker shifted slightly, the movement careful in a way that told me he’d been trying not to wake me. “Jasper,” he said, my name coming out in a voice doing a great deal of work to stay level.
I stayed where I was, not trusting myself to speak, not ready to acknowledge what was happening between us.
“I need to go,” Decker said, the words coming out with more force than he’d probably intended.
“Why?” I asked, the single syllable hanging in the dark between us.
There was a beat of silence—the pause of a man deciding how much truth to offer—and then Decker’s hand closed around mine where it rested against his chest. He moved it with deliberate pressure, pressing my palm firmly against the hard length of his cock through his shorts.
His jaw was tight, eyes on my face in the thin light from the window. “Now do you see why I have to go?”
I held my hand where he‘d placed it, feeling the heat of him through the fabric, the slight jerk of his hips as the pressure registered. Something in my chest loosened at the contact—a door opening just a crack, not enough to walk through, but enough to see what was on the other side.
“No,” I said, the word simple but carrying more weight than its single syllable should have been able to.
Decker stared at me, something moving behind his eyes that I couldn’t quite read. “If I stay,” he said, very quietly, “I’m going to fuck that tight little ass of yours.”
The statement landed between us with the weight of a physical thing. I met his eyes, not looking away, not backing down from what he’d just offered. “No one is stopping you.”
The silence that followed was short and absolute—the pause of a decision being made. Then Decker’s hand was on my face, thumb tracing my jaw line with a touch so gentle it made something in my chest ache.
“You sure?” he asked, the question carrying the weight of all the things we weren’t saying.
“Yes,” I said, not waiting for him to finish.
Something changed in Decker’s face then—a door opening, a line being crossed. He rolled me onto my back in one smooth motion, his body following, and the careful quality went out of him all at once.