Chapter 16 I Didn’t Say No
On Fridays there was no morning practice, which my ribs appreciated more than I wanted to admit.
After I woke up, I lingered in front of the mirror longer than usual.
The bruise under my left eye had darkened into a deep purple-green that would draw stares from across the room.
The cut across my nose had closed to a thin dark line.
I reached for the powder and worked it in carefully, blending what I could, softening the edges. It helped, but not enough. I leaned back and studied the result in the mirror. Good enough. It would have to be.
My phone sat on the counter. Jackson's last message waited there unanswered, something about the project methodology. I’d been busy, but the thought of him pressed in anyway.
We had Behavioral Analysis first thing, and I was already dreading it.
He hadn’t missed the bruise on my jaw Monday.
These new ones would be impossible to ignore.
I pulled on my jacket and left for campus.
I saw him the second I reached the main building: Jackson leaning against the brick wall, hands in his pockets.
A group of girls hovered nearby whispering, but he ignored them.
His eyes scanned the grounds with quiet focus, searching for something.
Then he found me. His expression settled the moment our eyes met.
He straightened and watched me approach.
I could tell the exact second he noticed the bruises. Everything in his face shifted. The easy expression he’d been wearing vanished as he stepped forward, eyes tracing every mark like he was memorizing them.
“Harper.”
“Morning.”
It sounded weak even to me. Jackson didn’t bother with pleasantries. He closed the distance, lifted my chin with two fingers, and turned my face into the light while his other hand brushed my hair back. The touch was gentle. The look in his eyes was not.
“Who the fuck did this?” Low. Controlled. Lethal underneath.
I pulled back slightly. “It’s nothing.”
“That’s not what I asked.” He stepped closer, crowding me just enough that I felt the heat coming off him. "Someone put those bruises on you. That makes them my business."
I met his stare. “Since when?”
"Since I realized walking away wasn't happening."
I held his gaze another beat, then glanced toward the doors. “We’re going to be late.”
“We have four minutes.” He held the door open until I stepped through, then fell into stride beside me, his shoulder brushing mine in the crowded hall.
We had only gone a few steps when he spoke again, voice low. “Was it in the ring?”
I faltered for half a second, surprised. “How do you know about that?”
He didn’t answer the question. His jaw flexed as he looked straight ahead, but I could feel the restrained anger rolling off him.
“Doesn’t matter how I know. What matters is you’re still going there to spar and coming out marked up like this.”
The lecture hall was half full. Jackson followed me to our usual seats and angled his body toward mine and leaned in.
“I’m going to find out who did that,” he said, quiet, just for me.
"Don't."
"Why?"
"Because it's over."
He looked at me for a long second.
"No," he said. "It isn't."
Professor Sterling walked in before I could answer. Conversations died away as everyone settled into their seats.
"Today we're covering antisocial personality disorder," he said. "ASPD. The old labels psychopathy and sociopathy are outdated, though pop culture still loves them."
A few students snickered. Two guys a few rows ahead immediately pointed at each other.
"Psycho," one of them mouthed.
Sterling asked if anyone knew the difference.
"Psychopaths generally have less capacity for empathy," I said. "Sociopaths can still form emotional attachments, even if they're limited."
"Good," Sterling said.
I wrote it down, though I'd known the answer for years.
When I was sixteen, a school psychologist suggested I had ASPD. It was after I stabbed Chad Bowman in the thigh with a ballpoint pen. He'd shoved a twelve-year-old girl into the boys' locker room, then laughed about it with his friends. I hadn't even thought before I reacted. I'd just seen red.
The psychologist called it a lack of empathy, a clear warning sign.
She was wrong. I cared too much. That had always been my problem.
A guy in the back raised his hand. "So are people with ASPD always dangerous?"
“Not at all,” Sterling said. “Roughly one in twenty-five people shows those traits. Some of history’s most effective leaders likely did.”
I kept writing. Beside me, Jackson looked over more than once. Every time I glanced up, his eyes were already on me.
When the lecture ended, Jackson stayed in his seat while I reached for my bag.
"You answered that question pretty fast."
“I’ve read about it.”
"I figured."
I looked at him. "What does that mean?"
"That it wasn't academic."
I said nothing.
"You don't strike me as someone who reads about serial killers for fun."
"I like understanding people."
He held my gaze for another second, then nodded once. The crowd started filing into the aisle around us.
"The project," he said as we stepped into the corridor. "Library at four? After gym."
I considered refusing, then nodded. “Fine.”
"See you then."
He headed toward his next class. I watched him go and headed the opposite way, wondering how much simpler this would be if he were more like his father.
Easier to hate. Every small, decent thing he did chipped away at the case I had built against him.
He was not his father. I was more certain of it every day, and more unsure what to do with that certainty.
After joint gym session with the men's team, during which Naomi managed to send me enough dirty looks to qualify as a workout all on their own, Jackson was waiting outside for me.
He leaned against the wall, head lowered in thought. The moment I stepped out, his attention lifted and locked on me.
"Ready?"
I nodded, adjusting my bag. "Let's go."
He pushed off the wall and fell into step beside me. We crossed campus without speaking, close enough that I felt the heat coming off him with every stride. At the library he held the door.
The place was nearly empty on Friday afternoon. We claimed a table near the back, spread out our materials, and settled into the project with barely a word.
I was noting details for the methodology section when he set his pen down. When I looked up, he was already watching me.
"I want you," he said. No buildup. No hesitation. Just the truth.
My cat went very still.
I set my pen down and leaned back, studying him. Among shifters, physical intimacy was instinct, as ordinary as hunger. No one performed elaborate pretenses about wanting what they wanted.
It hadn’t been that simple for me. What happened when I was thirteen broke something.
Years of therapy, time, and the quiet persistence of shifter healing had put enough of it back together that I could function.
It took years to understand that broken didn't mean gone.
I managed it with casual sex instead. Brief encounters.
Sometimes a single night, sometimes someone I saw now and then, but always on my terms. No staying.
No vulnerability. Nothing that asked more than I was willing to give.
It had worked.
But this, with him, was different.
I stayed quiet for a long time, sorting through thoughts that refused to fit the boxes I’d built. He didn't interrupt. Didn't shift. Just waited.
“What exactly are you asking for?” I asked finally.
“You,” he answered. “All of it. Whatever you’re willing to give.” He paused, eyes steady on mine. “I’ve tried to stop thinking about you. I can’t. You’re the first thing in my head when I wake up and the last before I sleep. Everything in between is just noise until I see you again.”
He leaned forward slightly, voice low. “You’re sharp. Difficult. You give me almost nothing, and I still want all of you. I don’t know what that makes me.”
“Stubborn,” I said.
A faint, tired smile touched his mouth. “Probably. Doesn’t change anything.”
The silence stretched between us, heavy and alive. I could feel my cat pressing close, wanting.
“Don’t hold your breath,” I said finally. “But I’m thinking about it.”
Something shifted in his expression, quiet satisfaction, deep and restrained. He picked up his pen again.
“Okay,” he said, like that was enough for now, and turned back to the page.
Across from him, I forced my eyes back to my notes. My cat purred low in my chest.
What the hell was I doing?
I was thinking about sleeping with the son of the man at the top of my kill list.