- FOURTEEN
Cece
I started, the smile freezing on my face.
Beside me, Baba Yaga had gone positively rigid at the sound of a masculine voice and I was forced to consider that maybe her need to champion women started with her own kind of trauma.
What else could possibly explain it? Why would she hate men so much as a whole?
Surely she must have known that he was Jasper when he said my name.
Why then did she seem so angry at his presence?
I had told her he could be coming for me.
In fact, we were just killing time until he showed up.
As much as I had genuinely been considering her offer, I knew it wasn't for me.
At least, not until I knew Jade was safe.
Maybe then I would come back and get some lessons, just so I understood myself and my powers better, could take care of myself, wouldn't need to rely on anyone else.
Because, quite frankly, I had no idea what would happen when Jade was found.
I was pretty sure Jasper and Jade would hightail it right back into the human realm out of fear of their parents.
And while I did crave that safety, that normalcy I had known my whole life, a part of me wanted to understand this whole other world as well.
And, Baba Yaga promised me, I could have both.
She gave me an open-ended invitation with a little amulet so I could always get onto her land, regardless of my feelings toward men.
So I could go into The Green on weekends and then go back and live my little life with Jade on the weekdays.
And Jasper, well, I probably wouldn't ever see him again.
That, somehow, almost made me want to double over in pain.
Then I heard his voice, unexpected, breaking through my excited tour of the grounds so I could collect food to make a soup for myself.
Baba Yaga found my steadfast determination not to eat anything but what Jasper, Doyle, or I foraged, amusing she humored me and led me around her yard.
It was like a knife to somewhere in my center.
"Hey Jasper," I said a little awkwardly, my brows drawing together at the image of the woman standing beside him, watching the interaction between us with a small smile.
If I didn't know better, I would have sworn she was his mother.
That was how similar they looked. But Opal was his mother so maybe it was just some relative that I obviously would know nothing about.
"Hey Jasper? Hey Jasper?" he asked, balling up his hands into fists.
"Uncurl those fists, boy," Baba Yaga called, her voice low and vicious. "You shouldn't be trespassing on my property at all, let alone doing it with any anger toward my women."
"She's not your woman," Jasper said, shaking his head. "She's..." he stopped himself abruptly, leaving me to wonder if maybe he was going to say I was his woman. But that was absurd.
"She's on my land, she's my woman. She wouldn't have even been here if it wasn't for you."
"It was a misunderstanding."
"It was a fuck up," Baba Yaga shot back, making me bite my lips to keep the smile in.
Jasper ignored her, looking at me, sizing me up hair to feet, looking for anything amiss. Finding nothing, his shoulders relaxed slightly.
"I was just collecting some food for soup," I explained, pointing toward my basket.
"You really thought this was the time to spend an hour making soup? Doyle went on to the Dark realm by his fucking self and we're wasting precious time standing here while..."
"I know," I cut in, blinking hard against the tears that stung at the idea of Jade.
He was right. I was being silly. But I was just waiting for him to show up.
Was I supposed to do that sitting in a corner rocking thinking about all the awful things that could be happening to her?
I turned to Baba Yaga, reaching for her hand and squeezing it.
"It is most kind of you to offer me a place here. "
"One day I hope you take me up on the offer. You need guidance."
"Yeah," Jasper said, striding forward and grabbing my arm roughly, "I got that covered," he added, starting to pull me away.
"Not on my land," Baba Yaga said in her creepy vision voice, her eyes going white. Then Jasper started to double over, clutching at his stomach, his face contorted in pain.
"No!" I shouted, moving in front of him, my arm going up automatically, sparking, reaching for her hand. It reddened, but she didn't scream, simply lowered her own hand and Jasper stopped grabbing his center.
"I see," she said, nodding a little. "You two may go. You," she said, addressing Jasper, "never return. You," she said, looking at me, "are always welcome. Alex," she said and the woman beside Jasper nodded a little solemnly, "we need to have words."
With that, Jasper reached for me again, but this time he took my hand and entwined our fingers, pulling me with him, but gently, squeezing my palm in a very 'please cooperate' way.
We didn't speak until Baba Yaga's cottage was nothing but chimney smoke in the distance.
His hand held mine as he moved faster through the trees that suddenly seemed less comforting and more dark, the leaves more sporadic, but somehow the light much darker even so.
I had a feeling it was a sign that we were getting closer to the Dark realm.
"Jasper, please," I said, yanking back on my arm until he released it, turning with an impatient brow raise.
"I get that we need to make up for lost time, but I want to get something straight right freaking now.
" When he didn't say anything, but continued to watch and listen, I went on.
"You have no right to be mad at me. I didn't do anything wrong.
It was a freaking Will-o'-the-Wisp. I didn't exactly have a choice, okay?
So why you're being a jackass is completely... "
I lost the rest of that sentence. This was mainly because he charged toward me, one hand raised, holding the side of my jaw as his face descended on mine.
His lips were hard and hungry, urgent, demanding everything from me in return.
And despite everything that had transpired during the course of the last day and a half, I gave it to him, happily.
My hands sank into his hips, pulling his body closer to mine.
My body heated. My breasts swelled. My sex clenched in response.
Every part of me wanted him to lift my skirt and sink inside of me finally.
I needed it like I needed to keep breathing.
Against me, his cock was pressing into my lower belly, promising an end to the clawing desire inside, offering the only solution to my need.
My fingers sank deeper into his hips as his tongue slipped inside to toy with mine.
Going up on my tiptoes, his cock pressed against me and I ground into it shamelessly, whimpering out a choked sort of moan against his lips.
His free hand moved down my back, landing on my ass and squeezing, using it to help me move against him, build friction, build pleasure.
His hips rocked into me, mine to his. My whimpers became moans and Jasper let out a low, deep growl that I swear reverberated through every inch of my body, causing a pre-orgasm flutter in my core.
My back slammed up against a tree, his hand leaving my ass to grab me under my knee and haul my leg up, giving him better access.
His cock slid fully against me, making me gasp as my hands slid to his ass, pulling him, demanding more.
His mouth ripped from mine suddenly, his face burying in my neck, his breathing ragged. "Not like this," he said after a second as my body sent off a thousand jolts of unfulfilled need.
"Jasper..." I heard the pleading in my voice and was too far gone to care how pathetic it sounded.
"Honey," he responded, the word heavy. "You deserve better than a fuck against a tree while fuck-knows who might be watching on."
And, well, yeah, that effectively killed the mood.
Even so, I let out a small, unhappy noise.
"I know, honey. Fucking believe me, I know," he said, his nose running up my neck slightly, making my belly turn liquid.
I leaned forward, putting my forehead onto his shoulder and taking a deep breath, something about the rawness of that moment making it easier to open up. "Are you going to be an asshole to me again now?"
There was a pause and a slow exhale. "Listen, I wasn't being a dick because of what happened with us. It wasn't about some bullshit loss of respect."
"Then what was it?"
"It was because of what I knew would happen if I didn't push you away."
"What's that?"
Jasper chuckled, pulling back suddenly, his light eyes on me and there was the barest of smiles on his lips. "You're not stupid. Don't act like you are. You know exactly what."
"Humor me."
"If I didn't push you away, shit was going to happen between us."
"And that would be a bad thing?"
"It would be a distracting thing," he corrected.
I mused on that for a second. "But isn't it a distraction regardless? I mean... you could have gone on, you know. Found Jade. You could have left me with Baba Yaga."
"No I couldn't."
"Because you were distracted..."
His smile went just the barest bit boyish. "I couldn't risk a fire ant castration," he said, lips twitching.
"Hey!" I said, shoving at his shoulders. "That's really annoying."
"If you'd fucking talk to me about shit, I wouldn't have to do it."
"Says the winner of last years' Most Communicative award," I drawled, making him chuckle, reaching up to boop my nose in such a casual way that it must have been characteristic of him, going against so much of what I had seen of him.
But I had only gotten to see the Jasper he needed to be to survive: strong, brave, stoic.
I didn't often get to see who he was when he wasn't just trying to navigate us through an impossible land to find his sister. Maybe he was sweet and gentle and kind.
"Cece," he said, head ducked a little, looking in my eyes.
"What?"