Strong Enough

by M. Leighton

  I know by the way she glances down again that she knows what I’m referring to.

  “I’d say taking someone’s life is pretty much the ultimate profound effect.”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

  “I know,” she concedes.

  “I know that I’m powerful. I know what I do is definite, irreversible. I know the difference between being powerful and feeling powerful. In my line of work, being powerful is necessary. Like a job requirement. Feeling powerful is a hazard. If I began to think about it as having the power to take a life, or to dispense death, that would make me a psychopath, don’t you think?”

  She shrugs. “I guess. I didn’t really think of it that way. But obviously you’ve thought about it quite a bit.”

  I lift my shoulder this time. “I have to think of it that way. It keeps it all in perspective. To some degree anyway.”

  “Well, at least you found a kind of power that you can enjoy,” she offers with a titillating peek of her tongue at the corner of her mouth.

  “Oh, I like that kind of power very much. I’m so tempted to abuse it that I’ll have to watch that it doesn’t go to my head. Become a problem for me.”

  “And how could that become a problem for you?”

  “I’m not sure the power could, but I think there’s another component that could be quite problematic.”

  She raises one smoothly arched brow, one of the sexiest things I’ve seen her do. Or maybe it’s just that everything she does is starting to seem sexy now. “Are you saying that I have some power, too?”

  Her smile is bright and pleased. No doubt she likes knowing that she holds some sway over me as well. “I’m just saying that a woman like you could make a man start thinking that things could be different, that life could be different. He could find himself in trouble if he’s not careful.”

  “And are you always careful?”

  I pause. “Always.”

  Not the answer she wanted, but it’s the truth nonetheless. I’ll give her as much of the truth as I can.

  “What makes you think things couldn’t be different, Jasper?”

  When I glance back, Muse’s eyes are on me, her fingers dancing over some lacy spikes of tall fern undergrowth.

  Her question pricks my anger, probably because it serves only to remind me that things can never be different. Not for a guy like me. “You mean why couldn’t I have a family, have a normal life? Grow old and live happily ever after?” She nods. “Wake up, Muse!” I bark. “What kind of life could I offer a woman? A child? Fear? Stigma? Danger? I would never do that to an innocent. Never!”

  I regret my vehemence. Muse looks taken aback.

  “Is that how you really feel? Like you’ve got nothing more to offer than that?”

  “It’s not how I feel. It’s what I know.”

  She starts to say something else, but my expression stops her. I turn and walk on ahead, annoyed with this conversation and the things it’s making me feel.

  We walk in silence for another half hour or so, until the trail turns to go up a fairly steep incline. I start up it, pausing to reach back and offer Muse my hand, thinking she might need the help. She looks at it with disdain, waves me off and then climbs up and around me, turning only to give me a sassy wink before she continues following the path up the hill. Now I’m stuck watching the muscles in her legs and ass clench and shift as she picks her way upward.

  She’s only slightly out of breath when we reach the top.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” she says quietly, reverently as we stand on the small peak overlooking the lake. She holds her hand over her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun as she glances off into the distance. “Looks like there are more houses down that way, but this end . . . it’s practically deserted.”

  I nod. “That’s the way I like it.”

  She turns to me and smiles. “I guess I should’ve been more concerned about that this morning when somebody was stripping me out of my clothes in broad daylight.”

  “Why? You have a beautiful body.” Pink stains appear on either of her cheeks. It charms me this morning just like it has every other time it’s happened. I reach out and touch one satin-covered cheekbone. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Thank you, but I . . . I don’t know, I’d just be embarrassed for anyone to see us . . .”

  Suddenly shy, she glances quickly away and then down at her feet as she shrugs, trailing off. When I hook a finger under her chin and lift her face back up to mine, I find her more breathtaking than the view.

  “For anyone to see me sucking your perfect nipples?” Her pupils dilate, black nearly eclipsing green. Blood rushes to my cock. My pulse speeds up. My chest feels tight, like I’ve been running rather than walking. My reaction to her is that immediate, that profound.

  “That and . . .”

  “And me putting my hands on you?” I ask, easing her tank top strap off one shoulder and down beneath one plump breast. I tug the lacy cup of her bra until one pink, pebbled nipple is exposed. “My lips on you?”

  I bend to draw the button into my mouth, running my tongue around it and then sucking it gently between my teeth.

  “Or was it the rest you were worried about?” I ask around her flesh as I ease my hand down the back of her pants to squeeze her firm ass. “Like when I put my fingers inside you?” From behind, I spread her until I can feel the warm wetness of her core. It’s like a siren calling to my fingers, to my tongue, to my dick. Every part of me wants to taste her, to be inside her, to feel her and consume her.

  She arches her back, pressing her breast into my mouth and her ass into my hand, giving me deeper penetration into her. She takes a fistful of my hair and holds me to her, her shallow breathing a ragged rasp in the stillness.

  I lean back, releasing her nipple to look into her face, the sensual expression nearly my undoing. Her eyes are at half-mast and her lips are parted on a silent moan as I probe her with my finger.

  “I think that’s the first selfish thing I’ve heard you say.”

  Her gaze is cloudy, foggy with the haze of what I’m doing to her, making her mind slow to grasp.

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “I think the world would be a better place if everyone in it could see your face when you come. If they could watch your beautiful body move against my hand, against my mouth, against my cock like the graceful motions of a ballerina. I think they would all love me and hate me at the same time if they could see it.” Her breaths are growing louder, her hips working rhythmically with thrust of my fingers, trying to ride them to her orgasm. With our eyes locked, I slide my other hand down the front of her pants, slipping a single finger between her slick folds until I feel the tight little muscle that I want. I press in and rub, matching the cadence of my fingers, and I watch the few seconds that it takes her to come apart in my hands. “But they’d never forget it,” I tell her when her mouth drops open and her knees buckle, when her face flushes and her eyes nearly close. “Just like I won’t. Sarò sempre pensare a te.”

  Watching Muse’s face is fascinating. It’s so expressive, so open. So soft and real. Each time she comes is slightly different, like the location and intensity plays out on her features. This slow, unexpected build took her by surprise and it shows. But her genuine pleasure and awe are also there, as plain as the trees at her back.

  I capture, catalog and file away a thousand minute details every day. I already know that these are some that I will pull out and examine often. And when I do, I’ll be able to conjure the warmth of the sun on my face, the scent of the fresh air mixed with her lilac skin, the way she melts in my hands. And her face. Her beautiful, angelic face.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Muse

  The sun seems brighter, warmer. So do Jasper’s eyes. Maybe it’s just my imagination, which is admittedly overactive, or maybe we’ve reached some sort of milestone where he silently agrees to let me in, to let me see him. It could be that, or it could
be that I’m seeing what’s not there simply because I so desperately want it to be.

  “What was that?” I ask, even my lips languorously relaxed.

  In one of the few actual grins I’ve seen from him, Jasper’s perfectly masculine mouth curves up at the corners, his face easing into a less intense version of its normal state. “You need me to explain that to you?”

  I would probably be blushing if all the blood in my body weren’t still pounding between my legs. Instead, I laugh, a soft breathless sound. “Not that. I know precisely what that was. You’ve made sure I’m quite familiar with it.” A dimple appears right below his left cheekbone. I’ve never seen a man as sexy as this one. Not once. Not ever. “I meant the last words you said. What language were they in?”

  “Italian,” he responds, helping my fumbling fingers to straighten my clothes. I feel like I could fall over at a moment’s notice. And not care at all. I might just lie on the ground, smiling.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means ‘I will always think of you.’”

  “Not just like this, I hope.”

  He reaches up to pull a stray strand of hair from my cheek and tuck it behind my ear. “Not just like this. In every way.”

  Little by little, his barely-there grin dies. He looks unbelievably bothered, which in turn bothers me.

  “You don’t have to make it seem like such a bad thing,” I half tease.

  “For the most part it won’t be.”

  I don’t really know what to say to that. I only know that my chest feels uncomfortably tight, like he just told me that we are doomed never to be anything more than what we are right now. And while, going into this, I had no such expectation, I’d be lying if I said that now I wouldn’t love to have something more with Jasper. More time, more days, more emotion. Just more. More, more, more.

  I try to gloss over it the best I can. “So why Italian? You know so many languages, why does that one come out unexpectedly?”

  “One of my first assignments was in Italy. I stayed in a little town east of Rome. I met a woman there. She taught me quite a bit about the culture, some of the subtleties of the language. It was hard not to see the beauty that she found in it. I guess it just rubbed off.”

  A spike of jealousy stabs me right through the sternum. This was obviously a long time ago, but that makes no difference to my wild emotions. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to scratch out the eyes of the woman I picture to be a dark, voluptuous, exotic Italian.

  “You were happy then?”

  “I suppose I was. Happier than I’d been in a long time.”

  It’s hard for me to ask questions without letting some of my resentment seep into the words, but I try. “Why didn’t you stay?”

  “I told you. It’s just not practical in my line of work. I pose more of a danger to people I’m close to.”

  “But you’re a big, strong, capable guy. You can surely protect those you love.”

  Jasper’s eyes settle on mine. They’re fierce once more, fierce and intense. “I’m not unique, Muse. There are others like me. Not many, but there are some who are as good at what they do as I am. If I wanted to get to someone, I could. Nothing could stop me. I would never take that chance with someone else’s life.”

  “Not even if they chose it? I mean, what if she loved you enough to risk it?”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. I wouldn’t have risked it. But that wasn’t the case anyway. She knew exactly what we had. And what we didn’t.”

  As though that ends the conversation, Jasper turns and starts back down the path, the way we came.

  “So you haven’t seen her since you left?”

  “No.”

  “D-do you still think of her?”

  “Not until today.” My heart sinks. I should be glad he hasn’t thought of that woman again, but for some reason the fact that he hasn’t dashes a few unrealistic hopes I was beginning to harbor. When Jasper stops suddenly, I run right into his back. With a muffled yelp, I take a step back and stare up into his dark gold eyes. “Would you like to know one of my favorite Italian sayings?”

  I gulp, thinking to myself that I probably really don’t. But curiosity (and pride) gets the better of me. “Sure.”

  “Non potrò mai pensare a te. It means ‘I will never think of you.’ Muse, you have to understand what my job is like, what my life is like. I can’t have attachments. I can’t look back. I can’t think of the people I’ve met, the ones I’ve found. If I do, it’ll eat me alive. The things I’ve done, the things I’ve seen . . . I couldn’t live with them any other way.”

  “But you just told me—”

  He takes a step closer. “I know what I just told you. And it’s the truth. I will always think of you. God help me, but I will.”

  After a long, unnerving stare down into my face, Jasper turns on his heel and walks off gracefully down the path, like he didn’t just tell me that he basically hates that he won’t be able to forget me.

  On the walk down, I’m more confused and discouraged and hopeless than I’ve been since I left Treeborn all those months ago.

  —

  Jasper’s mood shifts into a darkly brooding state. When we arrive back at the cabin, he announces that he has a few things to take care of and then closes himself in a room behind the kitchen I hadn’t noticed before. Must be an office.

  Or an armory, I think, picturing the dozen or so spy films I’ve seen over the years and how they all seem to have a hidden armory somewhere.

  I flit aimlessly through the house for the first hour, lounging in the living room and then making my way out onto the porch. When my stomach starts to growl, I go into the kitchen and rummage for something to eat. A peanut butter sandwich is the best thing I can come up with because I refuse, refuse to eat sardines, which is the only other thing in the pantry.

  I take my lunch down to the dock, walking all the way to the end to sit on the edge and let my feet dangle in the water. As I stare into the dingy gray depths, I think of the pain Jasper has seen at the hands of this lake. I ponder the strength of character, the sheer will that it takes for him to come back here time and time again, torturing himself until he can get back into the water. And for what? To prove to himself that he can, that it hasn’t conquered him. The thing is, I have no doubts that he will eventually do it. Jasper isn’t the kind to let anything get the better of him. He’ll overcome it with logic and perseverance.

  Just like he’ll overcome me.

  My lip curls into an outward pout at the inner thought. Why can’t Jasper have just been a regular guy? Why couldn’t he have just been the bounty hunter I thought I was hiring? Things would be so much easier.

  I correct myself. I doubt anything would ever be easy with a man like Jasper, no matter what his profession. It’s his fatal flaw. And I’m becoming more convinced every day that he is mine.

  When my sandwich is nothing but a few white crumbs floating on the placid surface of the lake, I climb to my feet and backtrack a few steps to where a small boat is tied off. I glance back at the house. Still no sign of Jasper. I figure a leisurely row around the cove will be a nice way to pass the time until he’s finished. So, with only the briefest of hesitations, I untie the dock line, hop in the boat and grab the oars in both hands.

  The whole trip probably takes no more than thirty or forty minutes, and only that because I stop several times to just sit in the quiet cove. On the still waters, I find that if I tip my face up to the sun, it feels as though I’m almost drinking in the warmth and serenity, sucking it in through my pores. The brevity of my trip is why I’m surprised when I start back and find Jasper’s tall form standing on the grassy shore, arms crossed over his chest and what looks like a thundercloud on his face.

  My first thought is that something has happened. Has he heard from Dad? Is something wrong?

  My heart speeds up and so do my strokes. I hurriedly propel the boat through the water, anxious to get back to the dock now. When I do, Jasper makes no
move to come closer. He just watches me coast in on the boat, tie it off, leap out and run down the old wooden walkway.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, frantic by the time I get to Jasper.

  Big hands shoot out to grab my upper arms, startling me. “What were you thinking?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, confounded by his reaction.

  “If something were to happen out there, who the hell do you think would save you? I just told you a few hours ago that I can’t get in that water!”

  I frown. “Why would you need to? I was in a boat. And it doesn’t look like there’s another person around for miles. Why would I be in any kind of danger?”

  “What if that boat had a hole in it?”

  “Then it wouldn’t have been floating by the dock.”

  Sparks fly from Jasper’s amber eyes. “What if you’d hit something and knocked a hole in the boat?”

  “Then I’d have swam back to the dock and let it sink.”

  For some reason, my response only seems to further agitate him. His fingers dig into the backs of my arms and I try to shirk away from him. “Jasper, you’re hurting me.”

  “Good! Maybe you’ll think before you do something so stupid next time.”

  “That wasn’t stupid. I didn’t take any unnecessary risks. I don’t know why you’re so angry with me.”

  His teeth are gritted so hard, I’m surprised he can push air through them, much less whole words. “Because I can’t lose another person to this lake. I can’t stand by and watch it swallow up someone else that matters to me.”

  I go completely still. I think even my heart has stopped beating for a second. “I matter to you?”

  “Yes! Is that what you want to hear? Would that make you happy?” He’s nearly yelling now. Bellowing. This calm, cool, unaffected man is showing me another little piece of himself, only this display is very much against his will.

  “As a matter of fact it would, but I’m sure that’s not what you want to hear.”

  “No, that’s not what I want to hear!”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  He growls in frustration and lets me go, turning away from me and running a hand through his hair. When he pivots back to me several seconds later, he’s calmly livid, but livid nonetheless.