Chapter 16 Jason
Jason
Please don’t come. Please don’t come. Please don’t come.
The words chant through my head as I ease into Violet.
Fuck. She feels… beautiful. That’s the only word for it. Not just tight or warm or any of the crude things my body wants to scream, but right. Like this is exactly where I’m meant to be.
I almost lost it earlier, when she slid the condom over me with those searching fingers, curious and sure all at once. I had to bite down on the inside of my cheek just to stay in the moment, just to keep from unraveling too fast.
I don’t move once I’m inside her. I stay there, letting her adjust to me, letting myself adjust to the reality of it—the trust in her hands, in her body, in her having chosen me.
There’s something a lot of men don’t understand about a woman giving herself to you like this.
A woman has to open herself to you. First her legs, when she exposes something deeply vulnerable in that action, then her emotions and her mind.
And when someone offers you that kind of vulnerability, you don’t take it by force or hunger or ego.
You take it with gratitude.
For Violet’s trust—right now, right here—I will always be grateful.
“Jason, please.”
Her whispered moan feathers across my face, giving me permission to take, to want, to share this heat instead of locking it down.
I lean over her, careful not to crush her beneath my weight as I begin to move. Violet arches into me, meeting me stroke for stroke, and my breath stutters. It feels choreographed, like a dance written into muscle and instinct, something ancient and wordless that our bodies already understand.
I’m losing the careful grip I have on my control.
I dip my head and claim her mouth, coaxing rather than taking, inviting her to open for me there too. She does willingly, eagerly, her tongue meeting mine in a way that sends a low sound rumbling out of my chest before I can stop it.
That sound startles me.
I break the kiss just enough to breathe, forehead resting against hers, jaw tight as I steady myself. I don’t want to rush her. I don’t want to turn this into something she has to brace for instead of lean into it.
But fuck, being met like this, trusted like this, being felt so completely… it’s eroding the last of my restraint.
I press another kiss to her mouth, slower this time, grounding myself in her warmth, reminding myself that I’m still in control.
My wolf approves.
“Jason?”
“You okay?” I murmur against her lips.
“Remember that time I asked you to fuck me?”
The air rushes out of me on a low chuckle, and I once more press my forehead to hers. “Distinctly.”
“So why are you treating me like a virgin on her wedding night?” she asks, her tone teasing.
“I’m trying to be respectful.”
“What you’re doing is driving me insane.” She spanks my ass, and I yelp. Yup, I actually yelp. Fuck me, my man card just took the first exit. My wolf growls his utter disgust. Jason, time to take your man card back.
I pull out of Violet and flip her onto her stomach, giving her a taste of her own little spanking. “Be careful what you wish for Violet.” My voice is a low growl. That’s much better than the girlish yelp I let out five seconds ago.
“You can’t scare me,” Violet says, the words rushing out of her in a pleasurable sigh.
I thrust into her again. “Violet, are you sure you really want me to fuck you?”
Her response is to push her ass back against me.
“Fuck.”
“Exactly what I’ve been saying.”
“Remind me to put your smart mouth to some good use.”
She raises her head. “Alexa, add reminder to give Jason—”
I clamp a hand over her mouth. “With my luck, that reminder will play when Meemaw is here.”
She turns to the side. “Wouldn’t that serve her right for trying to set me up with all her friends grandsons?”
My wolf growls at the thought. Fuck that shit.
“Violet, I’m going to have to ask you to stop talking about other men while I’m inside you.”
Gripping her hips, I pound into her, and she meets me with every thrust, her fingers gripping the sheets. Her moans pull something low and feral from my chest, and my wolf rises in quiet approval.
For a long, perfect moment, I don’t move. I lie on my side, propped on my elbow, staring at her.
Violet sleeps curled toward me, one hand tucked under her cheek, her hair spilled across the pillow in soft, dark waves.
The moonlight slipping through the cracked curtain brushes over her like an old lover, softening every edge, kissing the gentle curve of her mouth, the slope of her nose, the faint scar near her temple she probably doesn’t know I’ve noticed.
God. She’s beautiful. Not in that fragile, delicate way people talk about beauty. In the real way, the earned way. In the way that says she fought through hell and still came out on top.
She breathes in slow, steady streams, that tiny little sound she makes on the exhale catching in the back of her throat, and something in my chest gives one hard, painful twist. I shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t be in her bed, watching the rise and fall of her chest like it’s the first peaceful thing I’ve seen in years.
I shouldn’t be memorizing how her lashes rest against her cheek, or how the moonlight finds the streak of healing skin near her eye and makes it glow instead of fade. But I can’t look away.
Because there’s something about seeing her like this—unguarded, safe, trusting the world enough to fall asleep with me inches away—that hits me deeper than anything has a right to.
She shifts slightly, her fingers brushing the sheet between us like she’s reaching for something even in sleep. Maybe warmth. Maybe reassurance. Maybe me.
My throat tightens.
If I had a heart left that wasn’t already battered and frayed, she’d have just wrapped her hand around it without even knowing.
And the worst part? I don’t want to take it back. Not even a little.
She looks so peaceful, when last night had rearranged my bones, my instincts, my entire damn existence. My wolf stretches inside me, smug and sated and unbearably tender. Ours, he whispers.
I swallow hard, trying not to agree with him.
Her breathing evens out, each exhale brushing my chest. Her hand is inches from my ribs, close enough that I feel the ghost of it. She trusted me with her body, with her vulnerability, with her sounds, her pleasure, her truth.
And I? I turned into something I’ve never been allowed to be. Something gentle. Something wanted.
She’d shifted under me like she was made for my hands. She’d said my name like it meant something. She’d touched me like she could see me, not with her eyes, but with everything else.
My gaze drops to her mouth.
God, the way she kissed me. Slow at first, like she was mapping my mouth with intention, like every brush of her lips was a question she was afraid I’d answer wrong.
Then deeper. Hotter. More desperate when she realized I wanted her just as much, maybe more.
I can still taste her on my tongue. Still feel the imprint of her thighs tightening around my hips.
Still hear that tiny, breathless sound she made when—
I stop myself. Barely. My hand curls against the sheets, knuckles tight enough to crack.
Because if I let myself think about it—about her, about the way she opened for me like I wasn’t dangerous—I will never leave this bed.
A burn settles low in my spine, sharp and wanting, but beneath it, beneath the pleasure and hunger and awe, something colder surfaces.
Guilt. It creeps up like an old wound, one I keep pretending isn’t there. Because she kissed me with her whole heart. And I kissed her back with a half-truth in my mouth. I’m not the man she thinks I am.
I’m not even a man, not really. And every second I lie here beside her, memorizing the shape of her breath, I’m pulling her deeper into something she never consented to.
I force myself to breathe. To blink. To tear my gaze away from the peaceful slope of her shoulders. But God, it’s the hardest thing I’ve done in years.
If I keep thinking about it, I’m going to wake her up and take more. But she needs sleep. She needs safety. She needs someone who doesn’t lie to her every morning.
My chest aches. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t want this—her—so much. It’s dangerous. For her. For me. For the pack. For everything we’ve spent years trying to outrun.
Yet here I am, memorizing the shape of her sleeping body as if imprinting her into my bones will somehow make this less impossible.
She murmurs something in her sleep, brow crinkling for half a second before smoothing out again. Instinct takes over, and I brush a strand of hair off her cheek. She sighs, a soft sound that hits straight through my ribs. My wolf leans forward. Stay, he urges. Protect. Keep.
But reality slams into me.
I don’t get to keep this. I don’t get to stay. I don’t get to be hers, not when she thinks I’m a dog, not when my whole life is a lie wrapped in fur and instinct and survival. The warmth in my chest curdles.
Because the truth is simple and awful. Last night was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And that makes it the most dangerous.
And that’s why I quietly slip out of her bed like a thief in the night.
I stand in her dark hallway with my palms on the wall, breathing hard, trying to force myself back into my own body.
She tasted like warmth and kindness and everything I’ve been running from.
The guilt chokes me, nearly folds me in half from the inside out.
My wolf whispers, “go back to her”, but my conscience whispers, “you don’t deserve to”.
I decide not to shift as I bolt into the trees. The cold air slices against me, but it does nothing to quiet the ache. Her citrusy scent still clings to me, and every inhale burns.
By the time I reach the campfire, I’m shaking, but not from the run or the cold. From everything I realize I can’t have. But that small spark is there—the hope. Can I?
Buff and Froggy are waiting, the fire a dim glow against the dark pines.