He rolled me so that I was bent over the bed. His lips and teeth nibbled and nipped their way up my back. I moaned as his hands found my breasts.
With no warning he thrust into me, making me gasp. He pulled back until he was almost completely out and thrust in again.
Everything in me was screaming. Every move he made caused me to gasp and groan. As he pushed in I found myself pushing back against him, wanting every little bit of him that I could get. Every thrust brought me closer and closer to a point where I was sure I was going to explode. My entire body was on fire and I screamed as every nerve in my body seemed to spontaneously combust.
Jasper wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me back harder and faster, my explosion carrying on until I thought I wouldn’t be able to bear it.
He bent over my back and bit my neck as he jerked inside of me. I felt him relax and he gentled his hold on me before getting up.
I rolled onto my back and looked at him, wondering which Jasper I would see. The battle raging in his eyes was frightening to watch.
I was about to get up when I felt the heat start deep inside of me once more.
Jasper’s head snapped back as the tiger won and he climbed on top of me, spread my legs with his knees and filled me again.
Where my body was screaming yes, a part of me was also wondering what I had got myself into. Jasper had never been overly rough. He had teased and held me down, even nipped, but had never simply gone ahead with no regard to me like he was now.
He thrust deep into me and I tensed, more than a bit uncomfortable. He stopped and I looked up at him. He stared at me, a frown on his face. He shook his head and groaned, hid his face in my chest and continued a bit more softly.
When he was done he stood and looked at me. His eyes focused on mine, and I wanted to cry at how pained they looked. He took a deep breath, shook his head again and started to walk toward the door. He had his hand on the doorknob when my body betrayed me again and filled with heat.
Jasper growled in frustration and punched the door, shaking it in its frame. I simply lay where I was and waited for him to come back.
“It’s ok, Jasper,” I whispered to him as he climbed on me again. “I love you.” I hoped that wherever he was in there, he had heard me.
The night and day flew by. Every time we would get done my hormones would call him back to me. When I thought I could take no more, he kept on coming and proved me wrong.
It was starting to get dark again and we lay in bed, side by side, both of us trying to catch our breath.
I jumped when his hand touched mine, not wanting to go again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I looked over at him. It was the first thing he had said to me since letting me know he wouldn’t be able to stop this. There was nothing wild left in his eyes.
“Why are you sorry,” I whispered back.
He looked at the ceiling and swallowed hard. “I scared you.” He swallowed again. “And I hurt you.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he hadn’t but closed it again, not trusting my voice to not give my lie away and knowing that he had felt it anyway.
“That.” He took a deep breath. “That wasn’t me. What I mean is, the entire time it was happening, I was trying to keep gentle. The look on your face when I lost control, when I simply took you. And then to do that to you again and again. The entire time I was screaming at myself to stop, but I couldn’t.”
I rolled so that my head was on his arm and I was facing him. “Don’t be sorry. I had an idea of what it might be like. Mel gave me a few details about it.”
He still stared at the ceiling and a lump formed in my throat at the sight of a tear slipping down the side of his face and soaking into a beautiful curl. He swallowed again and his voice shook as he continued.
“When you told me you wanted to have a family with me, you made me the happiest man in any world. I wanted to tell you that. To tell you how the thought of you carrying our children made me feel overwhelmingly blessed.”
His voice got thicker and he swallowed a few more times.
“I wanted to show you how much you meant to me. To show you how much I loved you. And all I could manage was to turn into a stupid beast with one thing on his mind.”
He wiped his free arm across his eyes.
“Jasper, look at me,” I whispered. I put a hand on his face and turned his head when he didn’t. He closed his eyes at the touch then opened them again.
“I knew that wasn’t you, Jasper. I also knew you were fighting it. I could tell when you would almost win because the way you touched me would change.”
His eyes widened a little. He finally turned so that he was facing me and I snuggled into him. His arms tightened around me as he kissed my hair. “I feel horrible. After a declaration like yours, I should have been making you feel like the most loved woman alive. I should have been showing you how you had made me feel.”
I turned my face up and kissed him softly. “Show me now,” I whispered.
He looked shocked. “There is no way I am doing anything of the sort! Hayden, you have to be...uncomfortable. You can’t possibly want any more of that!”
“No. You’re right. I don’t want any more of that. What I want now is you.”
He still looked unsure.
“Jasper.” My voice caught in my throat and it was my turn to swallow hard. I realized exactly how much he had scared me and that I didn’t want this night to end that way. “After all of that, I need you. The Jasper I love. The one who loves me.”
Understanding flooded his eyes. He took over again, but this time he was so gentle, so loving and when we were done he kissed me tenderly.
“I love you,” he whispered. “And after everything I just put you through, I do believe you love me more.”
I smiled against his chest and hugged him tighter. “How about we call it a tie this time.”
He gave me a squeeze in return and we fell asleep, exhausted.
*****
When I woke up the next day I could barely move. Everything was sore. Jasper’s arms were still around me and I pulled the blankets over us.
“It’s freezing in here!”
Jasper chuckled and kissed the back of my neck. I winced as his lips touched one of the places he had bit me. He tensed, slightly pulling away from me. He softly put his hand on my hip, touching a sore spot, making me flinch again. He jumped out of bed with a growl.
I turned to look at him, my eyes wide.
He stood stiff as a board, staring at me. He looked like he was being tortured.
“Jasper. What’s wrong?”
He seemed to jerk out of his trance. He dressed quickly, only bothering to pull on his pants. I watched him stride over to the door and open it. He turned and looked at me again. He looked about to say something then changed his mind, hung his head, and shifted as he bolted out the door.
I stared after him, shivering in my blanket, expecting him to come back. When I couldn’t keep my teeth from rattling together I got up, closed the door, and made a fire.
I lay on the floor by the fireplace in my blanket and cried. What had just happened?
The fact that I had barely slept in four days caught up to me and I cried myself to sleep.
I woke up to the sound of someone adding wood to the fire.
“Jasper?” I was scared to open my eyes and see him like he had been that morning.
“Sorry, honey. It’s just me.” Mel sat beside me. “Are you alright?” she asked.
“I don’t know!” I started to cry again.
She put an arm around me and I tensed at the weight on some bruised areas. Her arm slipped off. “Sorry.” She waited until I had got some sort of control on myself. “Can I see?”
I nodded and stood up, leaving my blanket on the floor. Her eyes widened. I looked down at myself and had the same reaction. I had bruises everywhere. The inside of my thighs were completely blue. Where there wasn’t a bruise I had bite marks and scra
tches. Some of these had bled a little.
“How in the world did I not feel that?” I turned so she could look at my back. “It’s worse, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She handed me my blanket. “Is this paste ready?”
I nodded.
“You know,” she stated, “this isn’t so bad. The way Jasper was acting, I was sure I would get here and find you dead.”
“How is he?”
“He’s a mess; he’s not even talking. When he came barging into the cave we thought for sure someone had taken you. He seemed to try to explain, but he just broke down.” She paused as she put some of the mush on the bite mark on my neck. “That’s when I thought the worst had happened; that when he had gotten home he hadn’t been able to stop himself and shifted. It’s the only thing I could think of where he would act like that. If he had been the one to hurt you.”
Mel moved the blanket lower so she could get at some of the other bites.
“He did shift. I mean, he stayed human. His body did anyway. But he wasn’t Jasper,” I whispered.
“I can see that.”
I flinched as she covered either a bite or a scratch on the back of my hip.
“He hated himself afterwards.” Fresh tears started to fall.
“So he just stopped this morning?”
“No. Last night. But it was dark and I don’t think he realized exactly what had happened until he saw me this morning.” I explained to her what had happened when we had woken up.
Her mouth pursed into a little o shape. “I think I know what happened.”
“What?”
“He kissed you and you flinched?”
I nodded.
“And when he touched you a second time, you flinched.”
“Yeah.” It was barely a whisper as I realized what she had said. “He thinks it was because he touched me that I flinched! He thinks I’m scared of him now.”
“I think that’s right.”
“But it’s not! He kissed that bite on my neck! And then he touched a really sore spot.”
She finished covering my wounds. “There. Just let it dry before you get dressed.” We sat by the fire in silence.
“Do you think you could go get him for me?”
She nodded.
“Mel?”
She paused by the door.
“Thank you.”
Mel smiled. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”
I watched her close the door and took a deep breath, went to our room and got some clean clothes. I washed my face and tied my hair up. I checked myself in the mirror and let my hair down again. The worst bite was the one on my neck and I didn’t want Jasper to see it as soon as he walked in. I checked myself again and nodded. It was as good as it was going to get.
I decided to get some lunch ready. Maybe doing something normal would ease some of the tension as opposed to simply sitting across from each other and staring.
I set everything on the table and sat down, looking out the window.
“Please come back,” I whispered.
An hour passed, and then two. I moved to the bedroom and looked at the door.
I finally cried myself to sleep.
*****
Jasper paced back and forth a short distance from his brother’s den. He had left almost as quickly as he had gotten there. The scared look on the twins’ faces made him wonder what in the world he had looked like. If it was anything like how he felt, he imagined it wasn’t a nice sight.
There had to be something he could do. He couldn’t lose her. There had to be a way to show her how much he needed her. He was willing to promise never to touch her again. He had to be with her; had to be there to protect her.
“But what good are you if you can’t even protect her from yourself,” he muttered. He sat down heavily and put his head in his arms. “By the moons, Hayden. How do I fix this?”
*****
When I awoke, the only light in the room was from the dying fire. I got up and put some more logs on. I stared into the flames and tried to fight off another wave of tears. I sat down facing the fire, wishing Jasper was sitting behind me like he usually did; wishing his arms were wrapped around me. I put my head in my hands and cried.
“Please, come back. I can’t do this without you. Why aren’t you feeling how much I want you here? Oh God, please. If you can hear me in this world, let him know I need him. Let him know how much I love him.” I turned to grab a blanket off of a chair so I could warm myself up and stopped.
“Jasper!” I ran and threw myself at him, knocking over the chair he was sitting on. We fell in a heap under the dining room table.
I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could. “Thank god you came home!” I managed to choke out between sobs.
He seemed reluctant to put his arms around me.
“I wasn’t sure if I should or not. Mel finally convinced me.”
“Why didn’t you think you should?” His shirt was soaked with my tears. “Couldn’t you feel how much I wanted you here? How much I needed you to come back?”
He finally hugged me back, careful not to squeeze too tightly. “When you woke up this morning...” He cleared his throat. “When I kissed you and you flinched away. I don’t blame you for not wanting me to touch you. What I did was...” His voice caught. “But there has to be a way for you to trust me again. I will do anything. This was the worst day of my life! Even worse than when Luke took you, or when Brice took you, because this time it was me who was hurting you.” He swallowed hard. “I am so sorry, Hayden. I love you so much and I will find a way to make you believe that again, no matter how long it takes.”
I pushed myself up so I could look into his eyes. “Jasper.” I made sure he was really paying attention to me. “I will admit that yesterday you scared me. But I also told you that I understood that it wasn’t really you. I wasn’t lying about that.”
He looked so sad and I put a hand on his cheek to keep him from looking away. “I know that you love me. You don’t have to prove that to me. I didn’t flinch because you touched me. It was just a reflex because of where you touched me.” I pulled my hair away from my neck and his eyes widened. “I flinched because you hit a sore spot. If you had kissed me a little to the left or right of that spot, I probably would have shivered and sighed.”
He looked doubtful. Obviously, his emotions were getting in the way of reading mine.
I leaned down as I brought my other hand up to hold his face. I kissed him softly, waiting for him to respond to me. His hands gently made their way up my back and tangled themselves in my hair. His lips slowly answered mine.
“Don’t you ever run off like that ever again,” I whispered and lay my head against his shoulder. “Because if I have to hunt you down I will, and you won’t like it when I find you.” I looked up and grinned at him.
“I’m so sorry, Hayden.”
I tensed as he wrapped his arms around me.
“Is it bad?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I’m sore. I have some bruises and some bite marks and scratches; nothing that won’t heal.”
He took a deep breath. “We had better hope this worked, because I refuse to do it again. I can’t do that to you again.”
“But Jasper...”
He shook his head. “It’s not worth it. If we were meant to have a family, it will have worked. And if it didn’t, then I am perfectly happy just holding you for the rest of my life.”
“Let’s go to bed. It’s cold on this floor.” I smiled and got up.
I debated whether to keep my clothes on to sleep so he wouldn’t see the damage but decided against it. With the way he was feeling he would probably take it the wrong way.
Jasper’s eyes got big as I took off my shirt. “Oh, Hayden...”
He looked mortified when I took my pants off and he stared at the bruises on the inside of my thighs.
He sat on the bed with his face in his hands. “How can you even want me anywhere near you?” he muttered.
/> I sat down beside him and leaned my head on his shoulder. “Because I love you. Because I know that you love me.”
He pulled me to his chest. “And I do, you know. Love you, I mean.”
I nodded. “I’ve never had a doubt.”
We stayed quiet for a few minutes then lay on the bed. I sighed when he found my hand with his.
“You know that threat about hunting me down...”
I turned so I was facing him and raised an eyebrow in question.
He grinned down at me. “I was just thinking you really should only use that threat on people who don’t know you.”
I started to glare. “And why is that?”
“Because everyone who knows you also knows that the instant you walk off of a trail you manage to get yourself lost!” He burst out laughing.
I turned red and laughed with him. “Alright, I’ll give you that one. Though, you know, I bet I can find a spell or a wave that will do the tracking for me.” I grinned up at him.
He chuckled. “Probably.” He yawned and pulled me closer to him. “Cheater.”
I turned back around. Our fingers laced together and I forgot about the aches and pains of my body.
Chapter Five
I could feel Jasper’s arms still around me, but somehow I knew that what I was seeing was a dream. We were all in different layers of a circle. Tyler and Trent were the center of the circle. Next came Mel, Dawn, Leslie and myself, all with our backs to the twins. Mel and Dawn were shifted and Leslie and I stood with our swords drawn. A few steps ahead of us, surrounding us and facing the same direction, Jasper, Luke, Alex and Zane were also shifted, teeth bared.
The outside of the circle stood a small distance from ours. I made myself look around. There seemed to be about fifteen dogs, all of them facing us and growling.
A step behind them was a grey wolf the size of Dodge.
“Rainen!” I muttered.
I felt Jasper tense behind me but concentrated on the dream.
I looked past Rainen into the woods. A jaguar was laying low on its stomach, watching. That’s when I noticed that the forest surrounding the clearing was full of slowly moving shapes.
Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two' Page 10