Free Me (Caged Hearts Book 1)

by West, Heather

  “This might sting a little,” she warned.

  “I’ll do my best not to scream,” Jasper smiled teasingly at her.

  Kait pressed the wipe against his strong chest and saw his jaw clench and his eyes glisten. But he didn’t cry out. Carefully, she wiped away the blood and cleaned the cut. Then she went back to the first aid box and sourced a sterile bandage large enough to adequately cover it.

  “Here,” she pressed the bandage across the wound. He was so irresistibly warm beneath her touch.

  “This should do you for a day or two, but then you’ll need to change the dressing.”

  Kait lingered beside him a moment too long. He smelt amazing like cinnamon and strawberries. She wanted to stay beside him, soaking in his scent. But she remembered herself and went to lean back, but Jasper’s hand was suddenly above hers, holding it in place.

  “I - ” Kait looked up in to his dark eyes which still glistened, but the tension in his jaw was gone. She felt like she could easily get lost in his gaze. Jasper moved towards her, and Kait let her instincts take over. He kissed her, and an explosion of fireworks was released in Kait’s body, causing her to tremble with desire.

  As the kiss intensified, he expertly parted his lips and pressed his tongue against hers. Kait forgot all about her sore ribs and his wound as she let him guide her on to his lap where she straddled him. They kissed as Jasper’s strong hands ran up and down her body. Kait pressed herself against him, desperate to take things further. Jasper understood and responded. He scooped her up in his powerful arms and walked her towards the door which led to Kait’s bedroom. Her heart was pounding madly as they continued to passionately kiss.

  With a sexy flourish, Jasper threw her down on the bed. Kait hurriedly removed her stockings and pulled down the zipper on her dress. She’d never felt this sexy or alive. Her whole body felt heated with desire, every nerve alert and on fire.

  With her dress removed and in just her underwear, Jasper pressed his body against hers, letting her legs tangle around him as they kissed. The voice of reason in Kait’s mind which would scream that they were taking things too fast couldn’t compete with the heated intensity of the moment. Her concerns were drowned out by her own passion.

  Jasper’s lips landed upon her neck, and Kait groaned and writhed beneath him. She could feel how hard he was through his jeans. Leaning back, Jasper stepped out of his jeans and came back to her. They kissed some more before she gasped in delicious delight as he entered her.

  They made love three times that night. Kait had never experienced anything like it. Jasper was so strong that they were able to create any position imaginable. He easily held her in his strong arms making Kait feel wonderfully light and graceful. He was a powerful yet considerate lover. As the clock eased past midnight and they eventually untangled from one another, Kait did something she rarely did. She fell straight asleep. She didn’t lie awake worrying about the previous day and the day still to come. Her mind was contentedly free from anxiety, so she just rolled up against Jasper’s broad chest, closed her eyes, and drifted away.

  Chapter 3

  The sharp shrill of her alarm clock jolted Kait awake. Bleary eyed, she groaned and sat up in bed, waiting for the world to come in to focus. Her chest ached from the kick she’d received the previous evening. When she’d been attacked.

  Kait’s eyes flew open as the memories of the night before came flooding back. She’d been assaulted in the parking lot and then saved by Jasper. Jasper! He was here in her apartment, in her bed. Kait hastily ran her fingers through her hair to make herself presentable before glancing across to the other side of her double bed. But there was no one lying there beside her; the bed was empty. The sheets were crinkled and disturbed, but were without an inhabitant. Perhaps he was already up and showering.

  Pulling on a nearby robe, Kait stepped lightly from her bed and opened the door to the rest of her apartment. Dense silence greeted her. Flicking on lights, she looked for some sign of Jasper. The bathroom was empty, as was the main living area. Kait felt her heart plummet from her chest down to her feet. He was gone. The man she had so willingly given herself to, the man who had saved her, had disappeared from her apartment before dawn. Was he ashamed about what had happened between them? Or worse, did he have a girlfriend, or heaven forbid a wife he needed to slink back to?

  Kait suddenly felt overcome with shame. She rushed towards the shower, needing to wash the feeling away. She furiously scrubbed at her hair and her skin which still carried the intoxicating scent of him. The water from the shower blended with the tears she cried as she stood there washing. She’d been a fool to allow herself to get swept up in the moment. Clearly, Jasper just saw her as a one night stand.

  But it had been more than that for Kait. She knew it as she stepped out in to the steam filled bathroom and bundled her hair in a towel. With Jasper she’d had the best sex of her life. She’d climaxed several times which was unheard of for her. Normally she was so uptight she could never relax during sex. But with Jasper, it felt easy and natural.

  Drying herself off, Kait tried to console herself that yes, perhaps it had been a one night stand for Jasper ,but for her it had been something more: an intense connection she was powerless to resist.

  Her heart still ached as she sat on her bed, blow drying her long hair. She wondered if he’d lingered beside her bed before leaving, contemplating waking her. Did he have any intention of reaching out to her again, or would he now just be gone from her life for good? The thought of never seeing Jasper again made Kait’s hands shake as they held up the blow dryer. She had to see him again, if only to get closure. She’d spent an amazing, life-affirming night with this man. Maybe it meant nothing to him, but it did to her, and she felt she deserved to at least get a goodbye from him. But all she knew was his name, Jasper Duboix. He’d mentioned that he was coming back from the gym, but that didn’t give her much to go on.

  By the time Kait’s hair was dry, she’d resolved to do her best to put Jasper out of her mind. She needed to focus on work, on getting the promotion she’d so desperately worked for. Her feelings over Jasper would have to wait. And why dwell on those feelings when they clearly weren’t reciprocated?

  Chapter 4

  Kait struggled to focus at work. Her mind kept drifting away from her desk, back to the heat of her apartment and the night she’d shared with Jasper. That was several days ago, and he had simply vanished. Each time she walked over to the parking lot after work, her heart raced, not from fear of being attacked, but from the possibility that she might find Jasper waiting for her, his arms extended with an apology. She’d crash against him like a wave, and they’d resume where they left off. But he never showed up. Had he managed to move on from her so easily?

  Angrily tapping her pen against her desk, Kait ignored the mounting emails in her inbox on her computer screen. Each time she tried to focus, she thought of him. Thought of his strong chest, of his tender yet passionate kisses.

  The sound of her office phone ringing made Kait jump. She took a few moments to collect herself before picking up.

  “Good afternoon. Kait Stewart speaking.” Her voice was formal and polite.

  “Good afternoon, this is Kait’s BFF looking for her MIA drinking buddy,” came the caller’s response, mimicking her tone.

  “Anna!” Kait’s tense expression bled out in to a warm smile.

  “Hey, so you are still alive!” Anna scolded lovingly. “It’s been literally weeks since I last saw you. I was worried you’d fallen down a hole or something.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kait said as she played with the pen in her free hand. “Work has just been…intense lately.”

  Work and the man she now couldn’t get out of her mind.

  “Sounds like you need a night of liver abuse to clear your head!”

  Kait bit her lip. Whenever Anna suggested going out for drinks, she always made an excuse not to go. She’d say she had to work late or had an important meeting the next day, but A
nna remained a loyal and determined friend, constantly trying to pull Kait out of her relentless routine.

  “Okay,” Kait nodded, her mouth accepting the offer before her brain had chance to catch up. She reasoned that a night out with her friend and some cocktails could be just what she needed to help her get over Jasper.

  “Okay?” Anna was clearly shocked by her response. “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” Kait laughed. “I could actually use a night out.”

  “Man troubles?” Anna asked mischievously. Kait could just imagine her blue eyed friend pressing herself tightly against her phone, her mouth held in a cheeky line.

  “No, no man troubles.” Kait lied convincingly.

  “Course not, you’re all career career career. There’s no men in your life; you’re basically celibate. I honestly don’t know how you do it.”

  Kait smiled knowingly to herself. For once, she hadn’t pushed a man aside in favour of her career. She’d let a man into her apartment, into her bed, and it had been wonderful. The smile faltered. And then he’d gone. They’d spent a fantastic night together, but before the sun could even rise he’d gone, slinking away beneath the cover of darkness as if ashamed about what had happened between them.

  “So I’ll pick you up at eight?” Anna asked brightly.

  “Yep, sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

  Chapter 5

  “Wait, sorry, what?” Anna gestured wildly with her cocktail though none of the bright red liquid managed to escape the sleek glass.

  Kait drew her shoulders together and looked down at her own drink which she’d been nursing for the past half hour. It was her third cocktail, and she’d yet to get that warm, pleasant buzz that normally accompanied an intake of alcohol.

  “I was… attacked,” Kait admitted sadly. As she said the words, she realised that she hadn’t told anyone about what had happened that night in the parking lot. No one except Jasper. Just thinking about him made her mouth go dry. She raised her glass and drank deeply from it.

  “Oh my God!” Anna’s eyes widened, and she pulled herself closer to her friend across the table.

  “That’s…that’s terrifying! What happened?”

  “There were three guys,” Kait recalled grimly. “They followed me up to my car and jumped me.”

  “Did they want money?”

  “I don’t know,” Kait swallowed stiffly. “They threatened to do…things to me.”

  “Urgh, what bastards!” Anna seethed. “How did you get away from them?”

  “This…this guy showed up,” Kait felt her cheeks beginning to burn as she mentioned Jasper.

  “Oh?” Anna waited expectantly for more information.

  “He was really well built, and he basically…beat them up I guess. He sort of saved me.”

  “Wow!” Anna knocked back the remainder of her drink. “That’s like something out of a movie, Kait. That guy was like your knight in shining armour.”

  Kait lowered her gaze to the table. She had thought Jasper was her knight in shining armour too, but now she didn’t know what he was.

  “Another round?” Anna eyed their now empty glasses.

  “Sure, I’ll get it.” Kait slid out from their booth, eager to move away from any further questions about Jasper.

  She weaved through the crowded venue and approached the bar, squeezing herself between two burly men. As she waited to order more drinks, she noticed that the crowd consisted mainly of muscular men. All of them were craning their thick necks up towards the huge flat screen television positioned behind the bar. They clutched their drinks and jeered at the screen. Kait lifted her gaze casually, expecting to see the bright green backdrop of a football field and tiny men sprinting madly around it. Instead she saw the foreboding setting of a giant cage, a blue mat at its base. Two men in head guards with their knuckles wrapped in protective layers of bandages hopped around each other, occasionally taking a brutal kick at the other’s chest. Each time a kick landed successfully, the gathered crowd in the bar whooped in appreciation.

  One man wore blue, the other red. The man in red was pale with arms laced with fierce some tattoos. He was taking quite a beating from the man in blue whose back was currently to the camera as he delivered several more critical kicks. The crowd in the bar were getting whipped into a frenzy.

  For some reason, Kait couldn’t take her eyes off the screen. Normally she’d have no interest in such a brutal sport, but something was holding her attention, compelling her to watch. The round concluded, and as the men retreated to their respective corners of the cage, the camera panned and showed the face of the man in blue.

  Kait froze.

  He was covered in sweat and blood, breathing hard as he sat down on a small stool and was handed a bottle of water from someone just beyond the cage. He drank from it hungrily as text appeared on the screen stating his name and current stats for the fight. The stats meant nothing to Kait, but the name certainly did.

  Jasper Duboix.

  She’d known it was him just from looking at it, but the name confirmed what she was feeling. Jasper was on the television, currently partaking in a live cage fight. It explained his impressive physique and ability to take out the men who had attacked her. Kait blinked repeatedly at Jasper’s image. Though his face was bloodied, he was still impossibly handsome. His dark eyes were locked on the mat of the cage as he contemplated the next round.

  “What can I get you?” A barman called out for Kait’s attention, pulling her gaze away from the television.

  “Oh, um,” she suddenly struggled to remember why she was even standing there. All she wanted to do was keep watching the fight, to keep watching Jasper.

  “Two cosmopolitans,” she found her voice and remembered her order. The barman nodded and briefly disappeared.

  Kait looked back up at the screen as the next round was about to commence. Jasper was standing up now, bouncing on the spot, his eyes narrowed like a predator.

  Chapter 6

  “You took your sweet time,” Anna exclaimed as Kait returned brandishing fresh drinks. “Did you get chatting to some hot guy at the bar?” she asked with a cheeky grin.

  “No,” Kait placed the drinks down and slid back inside the booth. “It is crazy packed down there though. Lots of muscly men watching some cage fight on television.”

  “Ooh, cage fighting.” Anna’s eyes widened in appreciation.

  “You know much about it?” Kait tried to remain casual about the topic.

  “A bit,” Anna shrugged. “I dated a guy in college who was in to it. It’s a proper brutal sport, definitely separates the men from the boys. Hence why the guy I was seeing couldn’t hack it.”

  “What makes it so brutal?” Kait thought of the blood she’d seen on Jasper’s face. He’d taken a beating, but he was apparently ahead in the fight, getting more crucial kicks in. If he was in a bad way, how did the other guy look?

  “It’s sort of like a more feral form of boxing,” Anna explained as she took a delicate sip of her drink. “You can kick and throw more aggressive punches. Guys can seriously injure themselves cage fighting; it really isn’t for the faint hearted.”

  Kait tightly clutched the stem of her glass. Jasper was already wounded thanks to her. He had a deep cut across his chest, and now he risked someone kicking him and making it worse. Why would he put himself through that? Why would he even attack those guys in the parking lot when he knew he had a fight coming up? A fight that must be pretty important if it was being televised.

  “You okay?” Anna asked with concern. “Oh no, did seeing the guys fighting on the television bring back memories of what happened in the parking lot?”

  Kait shook her head. It had stirred up memories of that night, but not what happened in the parking lot; it was what had come after.

  “Stick to your cricketers,” Anna smiled at her friend. “Guys who play cricket are a far safer choice than any cage fighters.”

  Kait grimaced at the fact that her past three boyfriend
s had all played cricket and had all enjoyed a private education. They were the sort of men her mother would have considered perfect husband material. And they were. They were courteous, polite with decent, stable jobs. But they didn’t make Kait’s heart race or her blood boil. With them, everything was plain sailing, and that was great, but it was also so unbearably dull.

  “Why did you and the cage fighter break up in college?” Kait asked.

  “Don’t you remember?” Anna arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow at her friend. Kait looked blankly at her. Her friend had dated so many guys over the years that it was hard to recall them all.

  “It was Ashton, remember him? Scrawny with too much hair.”

  “Oh yes!” A memory of Ashton flickered in Kait’s mind. She remembered that Anna had once been crazy about him.