Chapter 19 Violet
Violet
Jason’s hands settle on my waist as we sway under the open sky, and I nearly forget how to breathe.
There’s no music, just the wind moving through the tall grass, the distant rustle of the sanctuary fences, the soft swish of the blanket under our feet.
When I rest my head against his chest, I hear the quiet thrum of his heartbeat, and his warmth wraps around me like he was built for this.
Built for holding me. Built for grounding someone who hasn’t felt grounded in a very long time.
The cool night air moves over my damp skin, and for one fleeting, impossible moment, it feels like the stars themselves are brushing against me, leaving tiny kisses of cold light dancing along my arms, my neck, and my cheeks.
Like the whole sky is leaning close, blessing this moment, urging me deeper into it.
His palms move in slow, reassuring strokes along my sides, each pass smoothing all the jagged pieces inside me.
I can feel the heat of him through my clothes, smell the spicy, earthy scent of his skin.
It’s overwhelming, dizzying. I hadn’t expected this.
Any of this. Not the dancing. Not the closeness.
Not the way my body reacts, like it recognizes something I’ve always wanted.
He exhales against my hair, a soft sound that’s almost a sigh. I feel it more than I hear it, brushing across the top of my ear, sending a shiver straight down my spine.
“You okay?” he murmurs.
I nod against his chest. “More than okay.”
His hand slides up my back, fingers tracing a slow, thoughtful line along my shoulder blade, like he’s getting to know me through touch alone.
I feel him swallow, a subtle, warm shifting of muscle against my cheek and something inside me tips again, deeper this time, into that soft, terrifying territory where affection starts turning into something else.
“I don’t dance often,” I whisper, unsure why I’m confessing, only that it feels safe. “But… this feels right.”
His thumb brushes my waist. “It does.”
Just two words.
But they land low in my belly, settling like truth.
The breeze lifts my hair as we sway. The quiet spreads around us like a cocoon, unreal in the best way. And for the first time in over a year, I don’t feel broken. I feel wanted. Seen in all the ways that matter.
“I could get used to this,” I whisper.
His breath catches, so quietly most people would miss it. But I don’t. I feel it against my temple.
“So could I,” he murmurs.
Something inside my chest breaks open.
I tilt my face up toward him, feeling for his breath, and when I find it, when he leans in that tiny fraction.
When he stiffens, I do, too. Did I read this wrong? I was sure I didn’t.
“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh?” I echo right as thunder punches the earth so hard it vibrates up my legs, and a sheet of icy rain slams down on us from nowhere.
“Oh my god!” I squeal as the cold water drenches me.
Jason covers me with the blanket but it’s no use. It’s like someone has poured a bucket of water over my head.
“I’ll grab the stuff. Run!”
I mean, I can barely walk without annihilating myself but okay.
We scramble blindly over slick grass, half-laughing, half-screaming. Water soaks through my blouse instantly, cold rivulets racing down my spine. My shoes skid in the mud, my cane slipping uselessly at my side.
I find my footing again, but then the ground gives way into a puddle. My foot slides. I yelp.
Jason catches me under the ribs, hauling me upright in one smooth motion. His chest is a drenched furnace pressed to my soaked back, but I can smell and feel the mud sticking to me from the waist down.
“You okay?” he asks, breathlessly.
For a beat, I don’t say anything, but then I burst out laughing. “I’m drenched!”
His laughter joins mine. “You and me both.”
We cling to each other in the downpour, laughing like idiots as the storm pounds the ground around us.
Then something reckless and fizzy snaps loose inside me, and before I can second-guess it, I kick water straight at him. He gasps and splutters. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, did I miss?” I kick at him again. “I think I got you this time.”
“You’re in trouble now.” He splashes back.
A huge wave of cold water hits me square in the shins.
I shriek in delight and kick water in the direction of his voice.
It devolves instantly into a ridiculous water fight, rain pounding like handfuls of gravel from the sky, our feet slipping all over the soaked trail.
Another splash of water hits me, this time square in the face.
“You asshole!” I gasp.
“Oh, I’m the asshole?” he says, the grin unmistakable in his voice. “I’m not the one who started this.”
I bend to scoop up more water, but I come up with a handful of mud instead. Grinning, I smear it all over his face.
He lets out a scandalized choke. “That was an ambush.”
“War is war,” I declare.
The rain only gets heavier, drumming onto our heads, soaking through my clothes until everything clings to me like a second skin.
My hair is plastered to my face. My shoes are making horrifying squelchy noises.
I’m sure my blouse is see-through at this point, but for the first time in a long, long time… I feel invincible.
I slip, and Jason catches me under the arms again, but this time he doesn’t just steady me. He grabs my waist and lifts me clean off the ground.
I yelp and laugh, clinging to his shoulders as he spins me in a circle, the world tilting and sliding beneath us.
Rain continues to pelt my cheeks, and I tip my head back, letting the drops hit my lips, my jaw, my throat.
Joy explodes through every inch of me, fizzing bright and wild, a feeling I thought I’d lost forever.
Jason’s chest shakes with laughter as he turns, still holding me like I weigh nothing. His hands are secure and strong on my waist, fingers warm even through the freezing rain.
“Jason!” I gasp, breathless and delighted. “Put me down!”
“No,” he says through a laugh. “Never.”
I’m giggling so hard I can’t breathe. My legs dangle in the air, rainwater running down my calves. He lowers me to the ground, and the moment I’m steady, he splashes water at me again.
“You menace!” I sputter.
“Like I said, you started it.”
“I did not.”
“How can you lie right to my face like that?”
“Joke’s on you, I don’t know where your face is.”
I hear him lunge and dodge poorly, and he catches me around the waist again, pulling me against him as we both slide through a patch of wet grass. My hands find his shoulders. His breath huffs against my cheek, warm in contrast to the cold rain pelting us.
We’re both dripping, soaked to the bone, laughing like idiots in a downpour that should’ve ended the night but somehow made it better.
For a heartbeat, we just stand there, our chests pressed together, breaths mingling in the rain. The world feels electrified around us, storming, roaring, drenched, and inside it all, I feel… light and alive and free.
“Jason…” I whisper, breath hitching.
“Violet…”
I find his mouth by instinct alone, his warm lips rain-slick, hungry, and laughing into mine. His hands tighten on my back, pulling me closer until every part of us is touching, soaked clothes be damned.
We stumble the whole way to my porch, slipping, gasping, kissing between breaths. He fumbles with the key, gets the door open, and we tumble inside, dripping all over the entryway floor.
The moment the door clicks shut, he pulls in a breath.
“Violet,” he says softly, “you smell like rain and mud and…”
“And you smell like wet dog.”
He laughs loudly, and the sound is impossibly perfect. “Shower. Now. Before you freeze.”
I hear his shirt peel off, wet fabric slapping lightly as it hits the floor. He steps closer, his fingers brushing my hip.
“Come with me,” I whisper.
He goes still. Then…
“Yeah,” he says, voice low. “Okay.”
We peel off soaked clothing, sticky fabric sliding down skin, droplets hitting the tile, our laughter echoing as we bump into each other in the dim hallway. He takes my hand, guiding me into the bathroom.
The moment the warm water hits us, steam blooms everywhere, thick and soft. Jason pulls me under the spray, his hands finding my waist, then sliding up my sides in slow, gentle paths.
“You feel incredible,” he murmurs into my neck as he reaches behind me. The floral scent of my shampoo unfurls into the steam.
“May I?” he asks quietly.
I nod.
His fingers glide into my hair, massaging shampoo into my scalp with a tenderness that destroys me. Slow circles. Careful pressure. His thumbs working along the base of my skull, down to the nape of my neck, until my knees nearly give out. He steadies me, chuckling softly against my cheek.
He rinses my hair under the stream, his hands guiding me back, then forward, fingertips tracing my jaw, brushing over my scars with a gentleness that makes my chest ache.
“Turn around,” he murmurs.
I do.
Body wash squelches, then his hands return, smoothing the soap over my shoulders, down my arms, turning them gently to run along the inside of my wrists.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he says.
I gasp. “Don’t stop.”
His hands trail down my sides, shaping me with slow, sure strokes, like he’s learning me through touch the way I’ve had to learn everything since the accident.
When he reaches my hips, he hesitates, giving me space.
I step closer, and his breath shudders out of him.
He washes my lower back, my ribs, the dip of my waist. No rush. No assumption. Just care. Just admiration. Just Jason, touching me like I’m something he never wants to mishandle.
He leans in, forehead resting against mine, water running between us. “Violet…”
I slide my hands up his chest, feeling his heartbeat thrum under my palms.
“I don’t want slow,” I whisper. “I want you.”
His groan is soft and devastating.
He kisses me deeper this time, molten, hungry, the kind of heat that steals breath and sense and every coherent thought I ever had. Like he’s memorizing me. Claiming nothing, but wanting everything.
The steam wraps around us in slow, ghostly curls, softening the world until it’s just the silky slide of water down skin. The shower becomes a cocoon, the outside world dissolving until all that remains is fog and heartbeats and the press of his mouth against mine.
My fingers slip over the wet planes of his shoulders, and my core tightens with desire.
I feel unsteady in the best way. Like my body has known this long before my mind caught up.
Like I’ve been waiting to be touched like this, seen like this, wanted like this…
and hadn’t realized how empty I’d been until he filled the space.
His hands bracket my waist, guiding me without crowding me, like he already knows how to speak to my body before I even form a thought. Every small shift of his fingers sends a new pulse of heat through me, and I lean into him because being upright suddenly feels impossible.
My breath stutters against his lips.
God. I didn’t know I could feel like this.
Didn’t know I’d ever let myself.
The water pours over us in a hot, steady rush, and the sound seems to disappear under the thrum of my pulse. The whole world narrows to sensation, taste, heat, pressure until I’m not sure where I end and he begins.
For the first time in a year, maybe longer, I don’t feel broken or careful or fragile.
I just feel alive.
I try to press closer and slip on the wet tile.
“Oof—”
We collide, foreheads bumping with a wet smack.
“Ow, sorry,” I hiss, laughing through the sting. “Romance is alive and well.”
Jason snorts, rubbing my forehead gently. “We’re a danger to ourselves.”
“We? You dropped me earlier.”
“Technicality.”
Then he kisses me again, and everything goes liquid.
His hands skim down my sides, slick with water, steady even when I wobble again and accidentally knee his thigh.
“Are you trying to kill me?” he breathes, laughing into my mouth.
“Only a little.”
He presses closer, guiding me carefully now, until my back meets the warm shower tiles. His hands slide around my waist, anchoring me, worshipping me without words.
Those wondrous hands of his move to the front of me, where he finds my slick heat.
He slides his index finger up and down over my clit, and I nearly crumble.
He steadies me with an arm around my chest as he rolls that sensitive flesh between his forefinger and thumb.
If I thought I was going to collapse before, then I knew nothing.
“Jason—” My voice breaks. I nearly slide down the wall, but he holds me up.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
“Do you?” I gasp, half-laughing, half-melting. “Because I’m pretty sure my legs have resigned.”
He laughs, and then we slip together, our feet scrambling in the slick water until he braces us both against the tiles.
“Well, that was graceful,” I say breathlessly.
“We’re redefining grace,” he says solemnly, then grins.
Before I can reply, he lifts me, pinning me against the warm wall like I weigh nothing. Water rivulets down his shoulders, across my stomach, between us.
“Violet…” His voice drops, turning rough and reverent. “I want you so badly. But I don’t have a condom. I didn’t want to assume anything just because of the other night.”
“We don’t need a condom. I’m on the pill,” I whisper.
He groans, a sound that vibrates through my bones. “I’m clean. I’d never put you at risk.”
“I know,” I breathe. “I know.”
I kiss him hungrily, wildly, laughing when our noses bump together.
“Are you sure?” he whispers against my lips. “Are you ready for me?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
He thrusts inside me in one powerful stroke.
I gasp, throwing my head back, and immediately hit the tiles again.
“Ow, okay, maybe I am a danger.”
Jason freezes. “Fuck, Violet, are you okay?”
“I’ll be better if you keep going.”
He lets out a strangled laugh. “Fu—okay. Yes. Absolutely.”
He starts moving, hitting just the right spot, and I immediately feel the build. “Jason, please don’t stop. I’m going to come.”
“Violet, fuck, you feel so good.”
The pleasure sparks like a lightning strike, sharp, bright, and overwhelming. I cry out, gripping his shoulders as my orgasm explodes through me. He shudders, holding me tight as he follows me over the edge.
When it’s over, I sag against him, forehead to his neck, the water washing heat from our skin.
He cradles me carefully, like I’m something fragile and fierce all at once.
And I laugh softly into his shoulder, because we are bruised, slippery, and an absolute hazard together.
And somehow it’s perfect.