by Nicole Thorn
“Are you okay?” Jasmine asked, and I had to assume my face showed something I didn’t want her to see.
I smiled, and it made me feel disgusting. “Yeah, just a little chilly from the rain. Don’t worry about it.”
I gripped my shirt from the back of my neck, and I pulled it off. I was hanging it up to dry when I caught her looking. I ignored it, because I didn’t want to know what she was thinking. Lust had never been my thing, and honestly, if my siblings felt the same way. Sure, some of them leaned toward lust, but our mother was the goddess of love. I just wanted love.
I changed my pants in front of Jasmine too, because I didn’t want to ask her to leave. It would have done more harm than good, and it didn’t feel like a big deal for her to see me in my boxer briefs. I put on my pajama bottoms because Hades himself couldn’t get me to go anywhere else today. Then I pulled on an old shirt, so stretched out that it didn’t even hug my torso.
Jasmine sat on my bed, twiddling her thumbs at her knees. I knelt in front of her, because I couldn’t sit beside her right then. I took her hands in mine, and stopped her from picking at her nails.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been terrible to you for months. You’re an adult, and you should be able to do what you want.”
“Yes,” she agreed, and I hid my frustration from her. “It’s fine if I want to drink once in a while, or if I want to spend my time with other people.”
My chest stung, but I kept my face even. “Yes, you can. So, from now on, just do what you want to do, and I’ll let you. I can’t make your choices for you, and I’d rather you like me and take risks, than hate me, and be miserable in a bubble.”
It wasn’t true. Not even a little bit. I would take her alive and hating me over dead and loving me any fucking day of the week. But Jasmine wanted to hear this, and I couldn’t take it anymore. She wouldn’t listen either way.
“Really?” she said.
I nodded.
Her eyes darted around to everything in this room but me. She clearly felt dubious. “You won’t follow me?”
“No.”
Then Jasmine looked at her hands on her lap, the hands I let go of. “I’m sorry too then. I don’t do things to put myself in danger. The thing with the gorgon just happened, and I couldn’t have stopped it. She would have probably come into the house if I wasn’t outside.”
I nodded again. “That’s fair.”
Jasmine took her victory with grace. “I know I’m human, and breakable. But you’re breakable too. That gorgon could have killed you just as quick as it could’ve killed me, and I had to watch the furies tear you apart.” Her voice grew more frantic and worried as she spoke. I watched her eyes starting to get glassy. “I saw you die, Zander. I didn’t know you very well, but I had to watch you die. And I think about that fury stuff all the time. You’re strong and you heal, but I still had to watch you dying there. Fighting, when I couldn’t do anything to help you. It was awful, and I hated it. You’re not the only one that wants to lock someone up in a room. And you let yourself get hit by a car! You didn’t even think about it!”
I couldn’t deny that. “No, I didn’t think about it. I didn’t want Callie to get hurt, so I took the hit.”
Jasmine dropped her gaze to her lap. “You do that a lot, huh?”
“What?”
“Take the hits. You take any hit you can, blame yourself for things that aren’t your fault, like Kizzy . . . and me. Why do you think it’s up to you to keep me safe?”
How is that even a question? “Because I care about you, Jasmine. I care what happens to you. And yeah, I go overboard. I would have murdered those guys last night if they touched you, and I probably wouldn’t have cared.”
She sighed and took my face in her little hands. “But you really should care. You should care about yourself a little bit. Stop living to protect other people, and just take something for yourself once in a while. Come on.” She smiled. “Isn’t there anything you want? Even if it’s a little selfish. I won’t judge.”
I felt antsy, on bended knee in front of her. I looked right at her face, because she wouldn’t allow me to look anywhere else. I was half god, so breaking her hold would’ve taken nothing. I just didn’t want to. Not now. Not ever.
Selfish. What would I take if I wanted to be selfish?
I didn’t even give Jasmine a second to realize what happened, or to protest. I knew she wouldn’t, and I knew it was wrong. I just didn’t care right then. Not when she felt so soft, and seemed so willing . . .
I took Jasmine’s mouth with mine and she fell back without even a hint of fighting. I crawled over her, covering her entire body. A body I’d thought about doing everything under the sun to. Her eager tongue met mine, and we made variants of the same sound: Relief and pleasure.
Her hands slipped all over my body before they got under my shirt. I plastered myself to her front, so that her hands had to touch my back. She felt like pure heat on skin that had been so cold before. What the hell did cold even feel like? I couldn’t remember. Nothing existed but Jasmine and me, and that felt like enough.
So, willing to let me have her, Jasmine opened her legs under me, and I fell right into place. I tortured and rewarded the both of us with a strong thrust forward, colliding my hips with hers. Jasmine dug into my skin with her fingernails, crying out against me. I needed more of that.
I left one hand on the bed to hold myself up while the other worked on getting her out of the dress. Jasmine helped me, breaking her mouth away from mine to pull it off. God, then I stared at her body. She still wore some clothing, but she laid out before me. She wasn’t human. She couldn’t be. Not looking like this. Not while being heaven incarnate.
My mouth found her neck, and I tasted Jasmine there while her hands traveled my skin, feeling as much as she could find. I moved to the swell of her breast, cursing the fabric that blocked me. I nipped at her skin as she grazed the front of my pants with her hands. Jasmine pulled the drawstrings apart, and slipped her hand inside. My mouth froze on her. When Jasmine grasped me, I bit into her skin. Not enough to hurt, but enough to get her gasping.
We turned into a mess of moans and feeling as we laid there. I managed to pull her bra aside enough to get my mouth on her tip. The sound Jasmine made was nothing short of intoxicating. I literally felt drunk on her. On this. On love. I could hardly breathe, and I hadn’t even gotten inside of her yet.
Jasmine started tugging my pants down as she opened her legs wider. So, eager and willing to let me have what I wanted . . .
No. I couldn’t do this. She was sad, and vulnerable. I could feel it all in her, surrounding me. She got high off our contact like I did. But she couldn’t really want it, and I refused to take advantage of her.
I took her hands off me, and sat up, fixing my pants. I hated looking back at Jasmine and seeing the look on her face. She thought I rejected her? After all of this? I couldn’t let that stand.
I got off the bed, and watched the flush in her cheeks grow while Jasmine reached for her dress. She was pulling it back on when I spoke.
“I want you,” I said, because I wouldn’t lie about that.
She cut me off. “Really? Because I was just lying half naked on your bed . . . ” Jasmine looked away from me.
“Yes,” I sighed. “You were. I don’t think I can explain how hard it was for me to get off you.” I stopped, raking my eyes down her body, remembering what it felt like to have my hands on those curves. “Or how hard it is to not push you back down, and not let you get up for the rest of the day.”
Jasmine’s lips parted, and she watched me blankly, eyes a little wide as her pupils remained dilated.
“I can’t,” I told her. “I can’t take what I want, because I want more than you’re able to give right now, and a million other reasons. You’re not ready for this.”
“Bet me,” Jasmine deadpanned, cocking an eyebrow.
God . . . I swallowed, and reminded myself that it would’ve been selfish to p
ounce on her. “You need to find your own way to happy, Jazzy. I can’t be the thing you lean on when you don’t want to feel the real stuff, or when you need a distraction. I can’t spend more of my life being a crutch. You’ll never heal if I do that to you.”
She stared, eyes narrowed in scrutiny. “What do I have to heal from?”
I closed my eyes, and shook my head. “The fact that you had to ask that tells me that I’m making the right choice.”
“A choice you’re making for me too,” she snapped. “I thought you were going to stop babying me, Zander.”
When I opened my eyes, she looked pissed. I ignored it. “You’ll figure this out,” I promised. “Someday. This isn’t me babying you, or protecting you. You told me to take something for myself, and I am. I’m letting myself not be a protector anymore. I’m sparing myself more pain and realizations that I can’t help you no matter how hard I try. So, this is for me. I want to let myself be more than a life preserver.”
Jasmine went silent, and I didn’t expect anything different from her. Not now, because we had nothing else to say. I left her on the bed and walked to my door, not telling her more than that. She could believe that I made this choice for myself. I could leave out the part that made me feel like a liar for not telling her.
She didn’t need to know that I was in love with her. Not now, and not ever. That, that I’d keep for me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Cannot Hide Anymore
Jasmine
This will be perfect, I thought, making a final touchup on my lipstick. I stepped back, and surveyed myself. All right, there is no way that he’d be able to keep his hands off me all day. I mean . . . C’mon. I wore my best dress—a flouncy rainbow colored thing that just barely passed the bending over test—and had put on my most cheerful makeup. And I hadn’t put on stockings, so that my long legs stayed bare, and would be almost impossible to look away from.
I also had my hair finger combed, because I knew that Zander secretly loved that. Messy, and cute. I prepared to win this battle. I stepped out of the bathroom, and into my bedroom. The key to Zander’s love sat on my desk.
After what happened yesterday, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. It had been easy to pretend that I wasn’t in love with him when he acted like a jerk, or when we carefully danced around actually touching each other. Not so much now. So, I had spent most of the night freaking out all over Juniper, who took it like a champ, and when I got up this morning, I knew what I had to do. I had to get my man.
Since my man happened to be a stubborn one, this would require some wooing. I wasn’t good at wooing. I’d never wooed before. What did one do when they wooed?
In my case, it meant finding an elaborate, disgustingly expensive chocolate bouquet. I wouldn’t tell Zander how much it cost me to get this thing, because I didn’t think he’d approve, but when he woke up, he’d find himself in chocolate heaven. Anything he could possibly want had been woven into this bouquet, and it would be I, Jasmine Ellen Nelson, who had provided it. If chocolate isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.
I didn’t knock on his door, because that would announce my presence, and defeat my whole purpose. Instead, I cracked it open, and peeked into the room. Since the sun hadn’t even come out, Zander still slept. It was then that I realized I was a crazy person. I had spent the last two or three hours running around town, hunting down this bouquet, and wanted to slip into his room, whilst he slept, to give it to him.
Hoped he loved crazy people, because here I come. I tiptoed into the room, careful to avoid any Zander droppings that might be around. If I tripped over a shoe, and ruined this, I’d never be able to look myself in the mirror again. I stopped by the nightstand, and smiled at him, because I could be a complete goon. He looked so cute though.
I’m pathetic. Shaking off the pathetic, I set the bouquet down so that it would be the first thing he saw upon waking. Then I leaned down, and pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving a perfect lipstick mark on his face. Grinning to myself, I scampered on out of the room, and closed the door behind me.
Mission accomplished.
So distracted, that I didn’t even see my brother until I ran into him, literally. He raised an eyebrow at me. “What are you doing in Zander’s room this early in the morning?” he asked.
“Wooing,” I said.
“Wooing?” he asked.
“Yes.” I nodded. “That’s what I’m doing.”
He rubbed his eyes. “I should go back to bed. I’m too tired for this. If you succeed in wooing him, tell him that he has to stop glaring at me whenever I’m around Kezia.” With that, Jasper walked to his bedroom, and I grinned even wider. That was as good as permission for the wooing, right? Yeah, absolutely. My brother approved, and that meant that I could go absolutely nutso with all of this.
Before he got into his room, Jasper paused, and said, “Oh, I did the vision with Callie’s shoe.”
“Oh?” I asked.
He nodded. “Kezia was sitting right next to me the entire time.”
I frowned over that. I understood that the demigods freaked out over the idea us getting hurt, but Jasper’s visions had never been dangerous. His reactions to them sometimes were. He could get lost. Maybe that was why Kizzy decided to sit with him while he did the vision. “What’d you see?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “The driver was there, but I couldn’t see them. It was like they were blurred out the way you see on TV sometimes.”
“So, someone or something is definitely blocking us?” I asked, frowning. If you knew the right people, it wouldn’t have been hard to block us seers. Like Zander pointed out constantly, we were human, and easy to screw with. “Thanks, Jasper. Go back to sleep.” I shooed him until he closed the door. Ever since he found Kizzy, Jasper had been sleeping better. She had been good for him.
Which made the fact that someone definitely had us in their crosshairs all the more alarming. I didn’t know how other people viewed us, but I didn’t feel dangerous most of the time. Certainly not something worth taking out. My visions only helped certain people.
Humming happily to myself, I skipped downstairs. Nearly fell and broke my neck, but that was neither here nor there. I paused by Nemo’s tank so that I could feed him. The flakes sat at the top of the tank, and I could swear that he stared right at me, judgmentally.
“What?” I asked. “They all tell me that I’m not supposed to give you Cheetos anymore. Everyone but Jasper. Don’t think that you can intimidate me just because you’re big, getting kinda scaly, and spit fire now, with both your heads.”
He still looked at me. Shoulders slumping, I went and grabbed the Cheeto bag. I looked around, and then leaned in, whispering. “All right, I’ll give you some, but you can’t tell anyone about it. They think that I’m going to poison you, and I’d rather not poison you, okay?”
He darted to the top of the tank. It looked oddly like he wagged his back fin, the way that a dog would when they got excited about something. Interesting. I dropped the Cheeto in, and it disappeared almost before my fingers moved out of the way. I didn’t want to get my fingers eaten. Zander would never love me if I got my fingers eaten because I wouldn’t listen to him.
“No more,” I told the fish, pointing sternly. “No. More.”
Nemo swam around happily, eating his Cheeto. Frowning, I put the bag away, and then wandered around the house. There wasn’t much for me to do until everyone else woke up. I smiled to myself when I pictured Zander waking up to the bouquet. It had a nice little card attached and everything. I didn’t even get dirty in the card, which had been harder than I thought it’d be.
How did normal people send cards without getting filthy?
Juniper came downstairs before everyone else did. The two of us made some breakfast, just for each other. She didn’t eat anything fun, and had cereal. The boring kind with no fruity or chocolatey goodness, or sugar. How she managed to choke that down, I’d never know. But Juniper made me cinnamon rolls
, and that proved that she loved me, since they were the messiest thing she could have given me to eat.
“Did you figure out what you wanted to do about Zander?” Juniper asked, glancing up at me. She wore pants and t-shirt today. The classic khaki and white combo that she’d been wearing for years.
I smiled. “I did. I’m gonna win him over,” I told her.
She smiled at me, but it looked like a dim thing. “You okay?” I asked my sister, shoving half a cinnamon roll into my mouth, because I liked to live dangerously.
“Sure,” she said, but still frowned. I was about to ask her again when Jasper came into the room. He went past the cinnamon rolls before stopping, and reconsidering them. I smiled to myself when he took one, like he should have. When he did stuff without Kizzy prompting, it felt like a minor victory.
“What’re you two talking about?” he asked.
“Juni is upset about something, and she won’t tell me,” I said.
“I’m not upset,” Juniper immediately said, glaring at me. “Jazz is trying to figure out how to get into Zander’s pants, and we were talking about that.”
Jasper sighed, and stared sadly at his breakfast, taking a small bite. “I like it better when you call it wooing,” he informed us. “Why are you upset, Juni?” he asked, taking another bite.
“I’m not upset,” she repeated. She looked at both of us, and then sighed. Realizing that she wouldn’t get away with it. She was about to tell us what was wrong, I knew it. If the freaking doorbell hadn’t rung . . . Juniper bustled off to answer it while Jasper and I stayed in the kitchen.
“She’ll never tell us now,” I said. “We’ve lost her, Jasp.”
He shrugged. “We can corner her later. Or sic Zander on her. He’s usually pretty good at figuring those things out.”
I frowned over that after I agreed. He could usually guess anyone’s emotional problems, but he’d been wrong a lot lately. With everything that he’d been saying about me, and how lonely he’d been since Kizzy basically moved into Jasper’s room, anyway. I looked down at my shoes, my stomach feeling hollow all of the sudden because . . . Because Zander seemed right so much of the time, but—
