Jasper
She kissed me in the doorway of my bedroom with her hands flat on my chest and the stack of books on the dresser behind her.
Her mouth was warm and certain. On the landing outside her apartment, she had been brave but tentative, feeling her way toward something.
Here, in this room, she was sure. Her fingers curled slowly into my flannel shirt, and she kissed me as if she had already decided I was hers, and something in me that had been wound tight for a very long time came undone.
I rested my hands on her waist and felt the warmth of her through her sweater, and tried to stay present in the moment and not in the secret I still hadn’t told her.
It was there. It had been there all day—through the tea and the conversation on the couch and her standing in my doorway looking at those book spines with her voice going uneven—sitting in my chest like something with edges, waiting.
I had told myself I would tell her soon.
I had told myself the right moment was coming, and then the right moment would arrive, and I would find another reason to let it pass, because every time I opened my mouth to say it, she would do something like stand in my doorway with her voice going soft over a stack of books, and the words would dissolve before I could get them out.
I wanted one more hour. That was the honest truth of it. One more hour of her looking at me the way she was looking at me right now, before I handed her something that might change the look entirely.
It made me a coward. I knew that.
Her fingers curled further into my shirt, and she sighed softly against my lips, and I drew back just enough to meet her eyes.
They were soft and dark and entirely steady, looking up at me with a trust so unguarded it made my chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with wanting her and everything to do with knowing I hadn’t yet earned that look.
She deserved to know. She deserved the full picture. The thought was there, clear and insistent, and I looked at her in the low light of the bedroom with the river outside and her hands in my shirt and everything I felt for her pressing outward from every direction at once.
And then something else moved through me, quieter than the guilt but steadier than it, too.
The thought that what I felt for her—standing here, right now, in this room—was larger than the job.
Larger than the fear of what came after I told her.
Larger than any version of the future I’d been trying to protect by keeping it to myself.
I had spent a long time building a life I could carry alone, and she had walked into it and made alone feel like the wrong size, and maybe that was the thing I should have been paying attention to all along.
Maybe what was between us was not something that would break under the weight of the truth.
Maybe it was the kind of thing that was strong enough to hold it.
But not tonight. I would tell her tomorrow, in the daylight, with enough time to say it properly and answer everything she needed to ask.
I looked at her for a long moment in the low light of the bedroom, and something shifted in me that had been restless for weeks.
I had been treating the job and Cara as two things on a collision course, two forces I was going to have to navigate between eventually.
Emmett had told me twice now to just tell her.
She’s going to find out, he’d said, with the patient certainty of a man who had known me long enough to watch me make things harder than they needed to be.
Tell her before it becomes something she has to forgive.
He wasn’t wrong. I knew he wasn’t wrong.
But standing here right now, I made myself a promise instead.
If I told her about the job and couldn’t live with it, I would walk away from it.
Simple as that. Emmett would argue, and I would let him argue, and then I would walk away.
Thinking about the job had given me purpose when I needed it badly.
Cara gave me something the job never had and never would, and if it came down to a choice, I already knew which way I fell.
There would be no problem. I would tell her soon. And if the worst happened, I would choose her.
I pulled her closer and let myself stop thinking about it entirely.
Then I hesitated, rethinking, yet again, my choices. “Cara, we should talk—”
“Don’t ask me if I’m sure,” she whispered.
“I was thinking about it. But there’s more—”
“Don’t. I’m here because I want this. I want you.” She kissed me again, harder this time, her hands fisting my collar and pulling me closer. “I don’t want to talk anymore,” she breathed against my mouth. “I just want you.”
The words sent heat rushing through me. “Then let’s get in bed,” I murmured, voice low as I removed her glasses and set them by the books on my dresser.
I walked her slowly backward, our mouths never parting. When the backs of her knees met the bed, she sat and gazed up at me in the soft gray light.
I knelt before her on the mattress. Cupping her face in both hands, I kissed her forehead first—the gesture that had always belonged to us—then her temple, the corner of her mouth, and finally her lips, slow and deep.
She leaned back onto the quilt, and I followed, her hair spilling across my pillow.
Her sweater felt impossibly soft under my palms as I traced the curve of her waist and hips. When my thumbs brushed the bare skin just above her jeans, her breath hitched. I paused, giving her space.
“May I?” I asked quietly.
She nodded, eyes never leaving mine. “Yes.”
She sat up enough to pull the sweater over her head herself and let it fall to the floor.
I kissed her collarbone, the hollow of her throat where her pulse raced, the warm slope of her shoulder.
My lips trailed lower, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the gentle swell of her breasts just above the edge of her pink cotton bra.
She shivered beneath me, her fingers threading gently into my hair as her body arched toward my mouth.
I reached behind her and unclasped her bra with careful hands.
She let it slide down her arms, watching me with quiet courage.
I lowered my head again, tasting the soft skin of her breast, circling her nipple with my tongue until it tightened under my touch.
A soft, breathy sound escaped her, and her grip in my hair tightened.
“Jasper…”
I moved to the other breast, giving it the same slow, reverent attention while my hand skimmed down her side, over the curve of her hip. When I reached the waistband of her jeans, I looked up at her.
“Are you sure?” I asked, voice low.
“I’m sure,” she said, steady and certain. “I want this. I want you.”
She lifted her hips so I could slide her jeans down her legs. As the fabric fell away, I kissed the inside of her knee, then higher along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. She trembled under my mouth.
I shed my flannel shirt under her watchful gaze, then stood briefly to remove the rest of my clothes. When I returned to the bed, she reached up and placed both hands on my bare chest, her palms warm against my skin.
“You’re so warm,” she whispered.
I hooked my fingers into the waistband of her panties and looked up at her for permission. She gave a small nod, cheeks flushed. I drew them slowly down her legs and settled between her thighs, pressing soft kisses along the inside of each one before parting her gently.
The first slow lick drew a startled, breathless sound from her.
I took my time, exploring her with my tongue—long, deliberate strokes over her folds, circling her clit with soft pressure, then sucking gently until her hips lifted off the bed.
Her fingers tightened in my hair as her breathing grew ragged.
“Jasper… oh…”
I slid one finger inside her, then two, curling them slowly while my mouth continued its worship.
She was slick and warm and perfect, her soft moans filling the room as her thighs began to tremble around my shoulders.
I stayed there until her body tensed and she came apart on my tongue with a quiet, shuddering cry, her hand pressed over her mouth as if trying to contain the sound.
Only when her tremors eased did I kiss my way back up her body, tasting the salt on her skin. I reached for the nightstand drawer, took out a condom, and rolled it on under her shy, heavy-lidded gaze.
I settled between her thighs again, braced on my forearms, and looked down at her—hair wild across my pillow, skin flushed, lips parted. The sight of her beneath me, open and vulnerable and mine, cracked something wide open in my chest.
I leaned down until my forehead rested against hers, our breaths mingling, and whispered the truth that burned through every part of me. “I’ve waited forever to be inside of you. You know that, don’t you?”
Her breath caught. Her fingers tightened on my shoulders as I pressed forward slowly, entering her inch by inch, savoring the tight, velvet heat of her body enveloping me. When I was fully seated, she let out a low, trembling moan. Her eyes met mine, wide with wonder and pleasure.
“Don’t move yet,” she breathed. “It’s been a while—”
“For me too.” I stayed perfectly still, letting her adjust, my heart thundering with love and restraint. “Take all the time you need, sweetheart.”
After a few deep breaths, her body softened around me. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’m ready.”
I began to move, slow and deep, rocking into her with deliberate care. She met every thrust, our bodies finding a natural rhythm. Her hand slid into my hair, her back arched, and she whispered my name against my jaw.
“Jasper… Jasper…”
“I’m here. I’ve got you.”
“Don’t stop.”
“I won’t. God, I never want to stop. How can this be so perfect?”