by Nashoda Rose
“Well, you’re getting your wish.”
“Let me go, Jasper.”
His jaw clenched and he ran his hand through his hair. His gaze trailed up my arms stretched above my head then back to my face.
“Max . . .” He pursed his lips together and I saw the conflict in his expression, the turbulence in his grey eyes like a thunderstorm. “And for the record, I don’t trust you either.”
“You don’t trust anyone,” I replied.
He nodded. “True.” He turned and walked to the door. “You need to realize when I say something, I mean it.”
My fingers curled around the rope. “Xamien hears of this, he’ll kill you.”
He had his hand on the doorknob. “Good. He’s the only one who’s earned it.”
Shit. I couldn’t let him leave. He couldn’t leave me here like this. “I’ll go after him.” I shouted the only thing that might get his attention. “And you can’t stop me.”
He slowly turned. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Yeah, but it was so stupid I thought I’d misheard.”
I pulled on the ropes, trying to slip my hands through. “It’s not stupid. It makes sense. Instead of us—”
“You aren’t going near him.”
“Instead of waiting for him to hunt me, it would be more productive to—”
“More productive?”
“Jasper, just untie me.”
“No.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the door. “But please, continue. I’d like to hear your plan to go after a Scar-slash-vampire who is an ancient and can Trace. But no matter what you say, it won’t make me untie you.”
Our gazes clashed and heat rose inside me. I didn’t have a plan; all I had was frustration and . . . desire. He’d tied me up and was going to leave me here, yet instead of being royally pissed off, a sweet ache throbbed between my legs.
Screw it.
“Kiss me,” I said. His arrogant expression faltered with a subtle flicker of uncertainty and then it was steady again. “Kiss me.”
He scowled and I thought he was going to walk out the door, but suddenly, it was as if all the caged emotions broke free and he came at me.
My fingers curled around the rough rope as he hovered over me for a second, and then he was on top of me. His hand came around my neck, fingers bruising as he squeezed. “You want my cock inside you, Max? Because a kiss isn’t going to do it.”
I tried to nod, but he was preventing me from doing anything. “Yes,” I managed.
Jasper’s grip tightened and air trapped in my lungs, but I didn’t fight him, which was a test. His own test to see if I’d trust him to let me go.
Just when I thought I’d pass out, he let me go. As I sucked in air, he stole it with his mouth slamming into mine. I moaned beneath his harsh assault. It was like he wanted to punish me, yet it was filled with need and unrestrained passion.
“Sunshine.” His voice vibrated across my lips. It was a soft whisper, and yet there was nothing soft or gentle about him at the moment. It was angry and fierce as his mouth tore into mine, tongue violating, hands tearing at my clothes at the same time. He pulled my shirt up over my arms and left it there then undid my jeans and dragged them down my legs.
He swore when they got caught on my shoes and had to yank them off first.
He took off his shirt and my breath caught as I stared up at his perfectly muscled chest and carved abdomen.
He kicked off his boots and they went flying across the room, hitting the dresser. Something crashed to floor, but Jasper didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care. He was a wild animal trying to get at his prey, frantic that if he didn’t soon, it would disappear on him.
“Jasper. Untie me.”
“Fuck, no.” He growled and then disappeared into the bathroom where I heard drawers being opened and shut. When he emerged, I saw the condom package in his hand. He ripped it open with his teeth and then finally looked at me, shirt torn open, chest heaving, hands tied above my head.
He froze. Time stood still as we let our desire simmer over us. For those few seconds, we connected on a level neither of us expected.
I knew what he was feeling. I could see it in his smoldering grey eyes; it mirrored my own. It had been trickling from me since the day we met—there was no hiding or running from this.
The cockiness was gone and the anger had dissipated. And I saw the fear of what was between us. It also looked like he was about to run when he glanced at the door.
His brows lowered and there was a twitch in his jaw. I was losing him and despite knowing this was a bad idea, I wanted him. “I’m not going anywhere.” I gave him a playful smile as I tugged on the rope. “Kiss me, Jasper. I want you to kiss me and then I want your cock inside me.”
His eyes roamed the length of my body and there was anger and tension in him again. I knew what he was seeing—my scars. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see his disgust; afraid he’d walk away and leave me.
The bed sagged and then I gasped as his lips caressed one of the scars on my stomach near my belly button. Then another kiss on the one just under my right breast. His tongue slid over the raised surface and goose bumps scattered as I arched my back into him.
His hands settled on my hips to keep me still as the velvet heat of his tongue kissed every scar across my chest and abdomen and then . . . then he unsnapped my bra and drew my nipple into his mouth and suckled.
“Jasper,” I breathed.
His teeth grazed the sensitive peak as if in warning and then he bit down just enough to make me tense and moan. His mouth eased the throbbing pain with the tantalizing sweetness of his tongue before he repeated it on my other nipple.
Desperate to touch him, I pulled hard on the ropes, but his one hand came up and held my wrists down on the pillow. “Don’t fight, baby. Not this time.” His mouth claimed mine again and it was slow and hinted a teasing playfulness before it became forceful and claiming again.
It was then that I let him have everything—all of me. My need to escape, to have some control over this was washed away by his kiss, his touch and I let him devour me. And it was devouring as he took his time exploring my body, never once hesitating at my damaged skin.
“I’m not good for you.” His voice was ragged as he kissed my neck. “But I can’t stop.”
“I’m sure you say that to all the girls.” I tried to make light of it, but Jasper pulled back and his brows knit together.
“No, because I don’t care what they think. Just you, Max. Only you.” He sat up, his cock pressing against me, so I pushed up, needing him inside me.
“Did you really watch me for months?”
“Yeah.” Then he made a strangled groan. “Fuck, angel, I want to hand you the world, yet I can’t promise you anything.”
What he didn’t realize was he had already let me in by telling me that. “I don’t want promises.” I wanted truth and that was what he gave me by admitting he couldn’t promise me anything. “I want you. I’ve wanted you from the beginning.”
Silence. I waited, heart pumping madly, blood raging through my veins and desire throbbing between my legs.
“Jasper?” I was overflowing with anticipation of having him inside me again. And all this talk, listening to his low graveled voice, feeling his hands holding me . . . Jesus, I was sizzling.
The heat in his eyes blazed an inferno ready to assault, to wreak havoc with my body and set each piece of me on fire.
“Max,” he murmured, kissing me again.
The denial was over.
But there were no promises.
Just here and now.
His hand reached under my naked thigh and hoisted it up to his shoulder. My muscles stretched and ached, but the pain felt good as he used the bed for leverage and pressed hard into me with his weight.
It didn’t matter. I knew pain. I grew up with it and it was part of me. And for a second, I thought of Jasper spanking me and how it turned me on. W
as it just him or was it the fight? Both. The shocking pain released a new kind of pleasure and suddenly I wanted that again. That harsh pain and pleasure that awakened me. Made me feel alive.
“Fuck, Max,” Jasper moaned against my mouth. “I need inside you. Now.”
“Yes,” I breathed. He bit my lip hard and I tasted the sweet iron of my blood. I licked my lip just as he slid his hand between my legs and cupped me. I swiftly inhaled as the clench intensified.
“Jesus, baby. You’re fuckin’ wet.” His fingers began to play with me and the urgency to feel his harsh thrusts, his cock filling me had me pressing my hips up, my wrists pulling on the rope that kept me locked in place.
“Do it. Now.”
I thought for a second he was going to deny me as his smoldering gaze ran over my swollen lips and then up to my half-lidded eyes. “I don’t like being told what to do.”
I kept my smile to myself, because I damn well knew that. Jasper hated anyone controlling him. He lived free from everyone, everything including his emotions. “Neither do I.”
“Then we’re going to have a problem here.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “But you won this time.”
And that was when he grinned and a piece of me fell—hard. I knew it was wrong. I knew there was nothing good about what I felt for him. Yet he’d chipped away at my resistance and made me want to live again. Made me want to fight for something. For those I cared about. For myself.
He shifted upward and then came back down on me. I screamed at the sudden intrusion of his cock filling me. It was tight and painful. It was like he was tearing me apart and then the pleasure of being pieced back together. “Jesus.”
His lips came close to my ear as he said, “My sunshine.” And then he thrust and it was him showing me who had the control as he took me.
I didn’t care. Nothing mattered except this moment of pure, unrestrained pleasure.
Our bodies met again and again with a harsh, raw passion as he slid in and out of me. His back arched, hips driving forward with a hard rhythm that pushed against my clit.
I opened my eyes just when the orgasm hit me. There was no warning as I screamed out, my hands gripping the coarse rope as my entire body tensed. He pounded harder. Faster. Then he groaned long and deep.
He throbbed inside me as I lay completely still. Trailing small kisses down my neck, I slowly moved my aching legs off Jasper’s shoulders, and his cock slid out of me.
He lifted his head and the second our eyes met, it was something more. There was no mistaking this was a primal need, but it was a primal need undeniable by either of us. There was swirling confusion in the depths of his eyes, I had no doubt, matched my own. And maybe this wasn’t something we could deny. We’d both fought enough in our lives; maybe it was time to stop fighting.
“You good?” He tucked a strand of hair on my cheek behind my ear.
“Yeah,” I replied.
He nodded and then I saw his mouth open as if to say something else, but then he closed it and his brows lowered. He slid off me and headed to the bathroom. I watched as he rolled off the condom and threw it in the garbage.
He came back and leaned over me and his fingers slid up my arms to my wrists and then he undid the rope. The gentle caress of his hands massaging where the ropes had rubbed my skin had me moaning.
He cupped my chin, his thumb stroking back and forth. “He doesn’t get you.” He leaned closer and kissed me long and slow before he slipped in bed behind me, arms coming around my waist, tugging me in close to his naked, heated body. His breath whispered across my neck as he trickled kisses across my skin. “Just so you know, sunshine, my cock is in you. No other cock, tongue or fingers go anywhere near you.”
I stiffened. He knew. He knew Drake had sex with me.
“I hate to think about him touching you.” He tightened his hold on me. “I need you to know I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you from him. Can you trust that, Max?”
I didn’t know if I was wrong for trusting him, but without the risk, there was nothing, and I didn’t want nothing anymore.
His hand slid up my abdomen to my ribs and I stopped breathing when his finger lightly flicked my nipple; instantly becoming erect. I held my breath as my body reacted to him. He caressed back and forth over my throbbing nipple, his knuckles barely touching.
I half-moaned as I arched closer, desperate for more.
His hand stopped, knuckles resting on the cusp of my nipple. He put his leg over mine and his hard cock pressed against my ass.
“Jasper?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“We need another condom.”
It ended up being two more. When we finally fell asleep, Jasper cradled me in his arms; our hands linked, resting on my abdomen.
I WOKE ON MY BACK with her cheek on my chest and her palm resting on my abdomen. The sheet was down at my waist and just covered her breasts. Her hair was tucked behind her ear except for a few strands that escaped and curtained across her nose and mouth.
I’d fucked her hard, soft and lazy, and then . . . then she fucked me. I never wanted it that way. I liked control, but her straddling me, the slow grind of her hips and the ecstasy on her face . . . it was worth giving her that control.
I was royally fucked. Should’ve known that from the beginning. Christ, I had known but I played it off as lust, tried to act as if it was nothing. Convince myself she was just another chick.
But she never was.
How the fuck did I get here? To wanting her more than I should. To craving every inch of her, needing to hear her voice or watch her move. I couldn’t fuckin’ breathe without her.
It was suffocating and was fucking everything up because not only would we have Drake to worry about, but Waleron and Adrian. I didn’t even want to consider Xamien’s reaction to everything. He was going to kill all of us.
It was too late now. The dice had been thrown and I had to deal with the consequences.
I slipped from the bed, careful not to wake her, pulled on my jeans and walked out into the living room. My brother was sipping his coffee, leaning against the mantel. I’d heard him arrive back last night when I was getting up to snag a third condom from the washroom.
Grabbing a mug, I reached for the carafe of coffee and poured the steaming liquid into it. I heard him approach, but didn’t bother looking as I set my mug down at the kitchen table and pulled out a chair.
“You plan on sticking around or fucking off before she wakes up?”
I sat, curling my hands around the mug. “Fuck you, Holden. I’m not that much of an ass.” Yeah, I was. I fucked plenty of women and did just that. She deserved better than that. She deserved a hell of a lot better than me. Didn’t mean I was letting her go.
Holden pulled out the chair beside me, sat, and then stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankle. “You weren’t at one time. You are now.”
Yeah. And I never gave a fuck. Until now. Until her.
Now, I’d told off Adrian which rolled over into Waleron and neither were Scars to fuck with. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I always had a plan . . . now I didn’t. All I knew was that the job was never a job. It was a way to get close to her. To make sure she was protected and no one else got near her. That was more crucial than ever.
I put my hand on the hilt of my knife when Holden reached into his side pocket. Max was right; I didn’t trust anyone, not even family. Holden and I were inseparable as kids until the night I fucked up and Beth paid the price. Holden hated me ever since and I didn’t blame him. Last time we saw one another, he called me a self-destructing fucked-up, cold bastard. I’d agree with the cold bastard part, but I called it self-survival.
“Easy, Wasp,” he said, pulling out a cigarette which he didn’t light; instead, he just rolled it back and forth between his thumb and finger.
My brother started calling me Wasp when I was a kid and tried to take a nest down by hitting it with a stick. Nest fallen, the swarm of pissed-off wa
sps came right for me. I ran right into the pigs’ pen and dove head first into their swill. Escaped without a single sting, which, as a ten-year-old, was something to be proud of. “Fuck, man, you’re worse than the last time I saw you.”
I snorted. No, I was just feeling emotions I shouldn’t and had to get my shit together. My edges were peeling away and she was under my skin so tight I couldn’t breathe without her.
I’d thought after fucking her the first time, the obsession would ease, but it fuckin’ heightened. I couldn’t even look at her walking up the mountain or I would’ve thrown her against a tree and fucked her over and over again like some teenage boy instead of an immortal assassin. Not a place I should’ve even been thinking about fucking a woman when this mountain had all kinds of memories attached to it.
Then when I saw her cold and shivering . . . all I wanted to do was hold her in my arms and make it better, make everything fuckin’ better. And that type of thinking was what made her dangerous to me. It scared the fuck out of me because I was acting irrationally and irrational got you killed and worse; it would land her right back where she started—in Drake’s hands.
But that was never supposed to happen. I was chosen because I’d make certain that wouldn’t happen. I’d said I’d do whatever it took to keep Drake from ever using her to get his Ink back.
An Ink that would stop at nothing to destroy every living being. I knew the penalties if I didn’t do my job. It was catastrophic and yet . . . there was no fuckin’ way in hell I’d do it.
“So, is this the girl Drake’s after?”
I stiffened and my head snapped up to look at him. “You heard?”
“Xamien and Waleron have every Scar out hunting him. Yeah, I heard, but what I can’t figure out is why you brought her here. You hate this place. You hate me. You hate our Talde. Fuck, you hate everyone.”
I didn’t. I tried to hate Holden, but the truth was I stayed away from him because I did care about him. My tainted shit would never touch him and yet here I was.
“You want us to leave?”
“Fuck, bro. I have no right to tell you to leave. But I haven’t heard from you in ten years, then all of a sudden you show up here with the pretense that you need a place to hang for a bit. That’s bullshit. If you don’t want to be found, you won’t be. So, what’s the deal? Why are you here?”