Cara #2
“Thank you. We will make it okay. Together, Jasper. Promise we’ll talk to each other. I’m done being away from you. Being without you has been worse than the hurt. I’d rather be hurt in the same room as you than hurt alone in my apartment with the phone off. I didn’t expect that, but it’s true.”
“Cara…” His voice broke on my name. “I know I hurt you,” he said.
“And I know sorry doesn’t fix it on its own.
But I need you to know why I was scared to tell you about the job, and it wasn’t about the job.
It was because somewhere along the way you became the thing I was most afraid of losing, and I didn’t know how to say that without saying everything, and saying everything meant—” He exhaled. “It meant saying this.”
He looked at me steadily, both hands flat on the counter between us, and his eyes were bright, and he wasn’t trying to hide it.
“I love you, Cara. I have been trying to find the right moment to say it, and there isn’t one—there’s just this moment, right now, with you looking at me like that across your counter in your bookshop—and I don’t want to wait for a better one anymore. I love you. I’m saying it now, and I mean it.”
The shop was very quiet.
I pressed my fingers to my mouth and looked at him and felt the tears come, and didn’t try to stop them, and said the only true thing I had. “I love you too,” I said. “I’ve loved you for a long time.”
He came around the counter, and I met him halfway.
“But I need you to understand something first.”
“Tell me.”
“If you ever keep something like that from me again, I will leave. You need to hear that and believe it, because I mean it with everything I am.”
“I believe you. I swear I will never keep anything from you again.”
“Good.” I drew a shaky breath. “Because I’m coming to the cabin with you tonight.
I’m going to see the bookshelf. I’m going to bring the book and put it on that top shelf where it belongs.
And after that, we’re going to sit at the kitchen table, and you’re going to tell me everything about the job.
I’m going to ask questions, and you’re going to answer them, and we’re going to figure out what this life looks like.
Together. At the table. The way it should have been from the beginning. ”
“Yes,” he said simply, the word carrying the weight of a vow.
“Good.” I held my arms out. “Come here.”
He came around the counter. I met him in the middle.
I reached up and framed his face with both hands the way he had so often framed mine—thumbs brushing his cheekbones, fingers sliding into the hair at his temples.
His skin was warm, stubble rough beneath my palms. His eyes were still wet, raw with relief and longing.
He was shaking.
I had never felt Jasper shake before.
I rose onto my toes and kissed him.
I kissed him with everything—the terrible days apart, the long nights on the couch with the cats, the cold coffee in the reading nook, and the stubborn hope that had refused to die.
I poured it all into him, and he took it, arms wrapping around me so tightly my feet nearly left the floor.
His hands spread across my back, one sliding up to cradle my head as he kissed me back with desperation and gratitude.
When we broke apart, I rested my forehead against his. “Take me to the cabin.”
I went upstairs to fetch the book while he waited in the shop.
The cats greeted me at the door with their usual quiet curiosity.
I slipped the book into my bag, added a change of clothes, fed them, and whispered goodnight to Wentworth, who blinked his slow acceptance.
Then I locked the apartment and returned downstairs.
Jasper had placed the flowers in the mason jar on the counter. He looked up when I appeared, something soft and wondering in his eyes.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
We slipped out the back alley door to his truck.
The drive to the cabin was quiet, my hand resting on his thigh, his larger one covering mine.
The headlights carved through the dark evening, trees black against a deepening sky, the air crisp with pine and coming frost. No words were needed.
The silence between us felt full—two people who had finally said what mattered and now sat together in the aftermath.
When we pulled into the gravel drive, the cabin glowed softly from the lamp he’d left on.
Inside, the space welcomed us with warmth. The lamp cast a golden pool of light across the wooden floors. On the kitchen table, two mugs sat beside the kettle, the space cleared and waiting, as if he had prepared the room for the conversation we both knew was coming.
He led me down the short hallway to the bedroom without a word.
The room was unchanged—the full bed with its quilt, the nightstand, the dresser—but against the far wall stood the bookshelf.
It was small, waist-high, crafted with evident care and visible imperfection. Three shelves of warm brown wood, the stain a little uneven, the joints slightly rough. A small gap showed between the second and third shelf. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
The books rested on it in the order I had given them. And on the top shelf, where morning light would spill through the window, an empty space waited.
I reached into my bag and drew out Devotions. I placed it gently in the empty space.
I turned to him.
Jasper leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, face carefully still—the way it went when emotion ran too deep for words. Only his eyes moved, drinking me in, shining with unshed tears.
I crossed to him and laid my palms on his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heart beneath the fabric. His hands came to my hips, warm and trembling.
“The bookshelf is perfect.”
“It’s not—”
“It is,” I said softly, rising to brush my lips against his. “The rough joints are perfect. The uneven stain is perfect. The little gap is perfect. You built it with your hands while I wasn’t speaking to you. No one has ever done anything more romantic for me. So stop telling me it isn’t perfect.”
A low, rough sound escaped him—half laugh, half broken exhale. His forehead dropped to rest against mine. “I missed you so much I couldn’t breathe,” he whispered.
“I know. I couldn’t breathe either.”
His hands tightened on my hips, pulling me closer until our bodies aligned.
I kissed him again, slower this time, deeper.
His mouth opened to mine, warm and tasting faintly of salt from the tears we’d both shed.
We undressed each other with unhurried hands—my sweater sliding off, his shirt following, belt unbuckled, bra unclasped.
Skin met skin in the cool air of the bedroom, warm where we touched.
He guided me down onto the bed, the quilt soft and slightly cool beneath us, the window cracked open so the steady murmur of the river drifted in on the night air.
He moved over me with aching tenderness, kissing the fading bruise on my wrist, pressing his lips to each one slowly, reverently, as if he could erase the memory with devotion.
When he settled between my thighs, I wrapped my legs around him, drawing him closer.
He slid on a condom, then entered me slowly, inch by inch, stretching me with that familiar, delicious fullness until we were locked together, breath to breath, heart to heart.
A soft moan escaped my lips as he filled me completely, thick and hot and perfect.
We moved together in a slow, sensual rhythm—deep, rolling thrusts that made pleasure coil tight and liquid in my belly.
Every slow withdrawal and smooth glide back inside sent sparks of heat radiating outward.
I felt every ridge, every pulse, the way he throbbed deep within me when I clenched around him.
His hips rocked with controlled power, stroking that sensitive spot inside me again and again until my breath came in soft, broken gasps.
He kissed me through it all—my mouth, my throat, the curve of my breast—his stubble rasping gently against my skin.
One large hand slid down to grip my hip, angling me so he could sink even deeper.
The wet, intimate sound of our bodies meeting filled the quiet room, mingling with the river’s murmur and our ragged breathing.
The pleasure built in slow, powerful waves, drawing tighter and tighter until it finally broke over me.
My body arched beneath him, inner walls pulsing hard as I came with a cry of his name, trembling and clenching, waves of ecstasy rolling through me.
He followed moments later, burying himself to the hilt with a low, guttural groan, pulsing deep inside me as he spilled hot and thick, his body shaking against mine.
Afterward, he held me close against his chest, one hand stroking through my hair, my ear pressed over the steadying beat of his heart while the river sang outside and the fireplace crackled faintly in the other room.
We lay like that for a long time, skin warm and damp, breaths slowing.
Eventually, I traced a lazy circle on his chest. “Jasper.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to be okay.”
“Yeah,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to my temple. “We are.”
“I need you to bring me here more often,” I said softly. “To the table. Not just for the good things. Especially the hard ones.”
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise you, Cara.”
I slipped my hand into his and held on.