Chapter 13
I leftmy phone off during those two weeks.
Jasper did too.
We let ourselves be consumed by heat, and it was glorious.
But of course, the end of it eventually arrived.
I collapsedon my back on the mattress, panting as my pleasure faded. The fire in my veins was disappearing with it, finally.
Jasper’s fingers were still tangled in my hair, one of his hands gripping my thigh loosely.
He rarely let go of me for more than the amount of time it took to use the facilities. Or make pancakes.
Even with the pancakes, we usually made them together.
Neither of us had brought up anything serious since that day in the bathtub. There was so much to say… but we hadn’t said any of it.
Slowly, my body relaxed and cooled as heat came to an end.
Fear started to clench in my middle anyway.
Jasper had made it clear that he wasn’t himself while the magic consumed us, and I had no idea what that meant for me.
“Your scent changed.” He didn’t sound worried about it, just curious.
“Heat ended.”
“That doesn’t change the way you smell. What are you feeling?”
“Tired.” I closed my eyes.
It wasn’t a lie.
I was tired. It had been a long two weeks.
“You don’t smell tired, Miranda.” Suspicion was creeping into his voice.
Crap.
“I’m feeling unsure,” I finally admitted. “I don’t know what we do from here. There’s no plan. And I’m not really a plan person, but with something as important as where and how I’m going to live, a plan would be ideal.”
“You’re living here, with me.” His voice lowered. I didn’t know if he’d realized I was even considering leaving.
But it was an option.
I could make him take me back to Scale Ridge.
I could make his life hell.
I wasn’t going to, but it wasn’t something entirely out of the realm of possibilities.
“That didn’t sound like a request, Jasper.”
“It wasn’t a request.” He rolled onto his side, so he was facing me. His eyes were narrow, his body tense. “You’re my mate. You stay with me. I can’t fly without you anymore.”
“Now you’re sounding like a caveman.”
“I’ll be a fucking caveman if I have to.”
“I didn’t say I was thinking about leaving you. I said I was thinking about where we were going to live, and how we were going to live. We’re stuck together, so that should be a decision we make together.”
His nostrils flared. “You knew we’d be staying here when we fucked.”
“I knew you wanted me to stay here, and that there was no way we were making it through heat without sealing the bond,” I corrected. “I never said I wanted to. There aren’t even any women here. My twin sister, who I’ve spent my entire life with, isn’t here and isn’t allowed here. Don’t you think asking me to leave her behind is a little unfair?”
Jasper closed his eyes.
His body shuddered.
“I’m sorry, but if you want to have a rational conversation, I have to shift.” His voice was strained. “It’s been far too long.”
My chest tightened.
I didn’t want to fly again.
Not yet.
“I’m hungry. I’ll make—” I started.
“I’ll handle it.”
Okay, then.
“I’m going to shower.”
He rolled out of bed, and I forced myself not to stare at his ass while he crossed the room and grabbed clothes.
Instead, I followed him off the mattress and headed to the bathroom.
It felt strange to be alone as I turned on the water and scrubbed the remnants of heat off my skin. Spending two entire weeks with Jasper had been sort of intimate.
Maybe not sort of intimate.
Maybe a lot intimate.
But only physically. Because we hadn’t talked about anything serious or important, looking back on the time just made me feel vulnerable.
And I didn’t like feeling vulnerable.
But I’d pretend I was fine until I actually started to believe it.
When I was clean, I still didn’t want to get out and face the music. So, I closed my eyes and tipped my head back, letting the water run down my skin. My thoughts continued to flow, and I didn’t try to stop them.
The future was overwhelming.
Jasper wanted me to give up everything for the mate bond.
My home. My sister. My family. My friends.
Not my job, but?—
“I don’t want that.”His voice rolled through my mind, and I literally jumped. It scared the shit out of me.
“Stay out of my head, Jas.”
“The bond sends me your strongest thoughts. It always will.”
Lovely.
I could add that to the list of problems. Somehow, it just kept growing.
“I haven’t asked you to give up your family, your friends, or your sister. Yes, I brought you to Mate Mountain, and I want us to live here. But not because of what it costs you; because you can work from here, and I can’t do my job from Scale Ridge.”
“You already said you don’t care if my family likes you,”I protested. “And living here, I can’t see them. I’m trapped.”
“I have wings,” he growled. “You’re never going to be trapped anywhere again. If you want to see your family, we’ll go see your family. And for the record, I didn’t mean that I don’t want them to like me. Of course I want my mate’s family to like me. I just won’t walk away from you if they don’t.”
Shaking my head, I ran my hand down my face.
I was frustrated, overwhelmed, and scared.
Really, really scared.
But there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Jasper was right—I wasn’t trapped. He couldn’t fly without me, so I effectively had my own wings. And had stolen his in the process.
I’d had to give up some of my freedom, but so did he.
I wasn’t the only one being forced to sacrifice for the mate bond.
Maybe that shouldn’t have satisfied me a little, but it did.
And maybe I was being a pain in the ass, and needed a break from everything mate related so I could look at my life from a more reasonable point of view afterward.
A break like… drawing something.
Anything.
The itch hit me hard, so I finally turned the water off. Stepping out, I wrapped myself in a towel and twisted my hair up with a second one.
I got fully dressed for the first time in ages, then squeezed the water out of my hair and tugged a comb through it. The pancakes were done when I made it to the kitchen table, and Jasper was cutting into his stiffly.
“I’m out of my element with this mate stuff,” I told him, wrapping an arm around my middle with my free hand while I stabbed a bit of pancake with the other. “I’ve never even been in a relationship before. The closest I’ve ever been was going out with some guy three times in a row.”
Jasper grumbled, “Don’t tell me about him. I’ll want to track him down and kill him.”
“It was three dates. You and I spent fourteen days in bed together,” I pointed out. “And shared an incredible number of pancakes.”
Jasper cut his food violently. “You’re mine.”
“I think we’ve been over that.”
We ate in tense silence.
He’d claimed he would be back to his normal self after heat was over, but he still seemed just as possessive.
I’d start a conversation about that later. After I’d had a few hours to get away from everything and focus on my art. I’d have to turn my phone back on then, too.
But all of it could wait.
I let Jasper take my plate when I was finished, and silently crossed the living space. Shutting the door to my library, I leaned up against the wood.
My chest kind of hurt.
Breathing was a little difficult.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and waited for the anxiety to fade.
It didn’t.
So I finally crossed the room and picked up my tablet.
Drawing would be a distraction from my panic, at the very least.
I didn’t botherwith attempting the art I was supposed to work on for my job after I folded myself into my chair. It would have to come later, when I’d settled down.
I usually sketched whatever was in my line of sight when I needed a distraction, so I lifted my gaze to the horizon and began. The mountains were breathtaking, so it wasn’t painful at all to focus on them.
My anxiety faded slightly as I tried to get lost in the art, but it wasn’t working the way it usually did. I supposed a lot had changed for me, and I hadn’t really faced any of it.
That didn’t make me want to face it, though.
It just made me want to disappear deeper into my artwork.
An image came to my mind—one of Jasper sleeping peacefully, a sheet draped over his lower half while his gorgeous, bare chest was on display. The same image that had lingered in my mind ever since that first night together.
Though I bit my lip, and my cheeks flushed, it was what I wanted to draw.
So, I erased the mountains and began.
Sure enough, I managed to forget all of my problems for a few minutes, and focus on properly portraying the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen.