Noelle smiled in return, but when the door closed behind him, she collapsed onto the bed, cradling the painting in both hands as his words echoed through her mind in an endless refrain.
I’m finished with limits.
Oh, she’d have dreams all right, but sweet wouldn’t begin to describe them, and he knew it.
She’d wanted him to fight for her. What she should have realized was that Jasper would fight dirty. I want to mark you. Not a fling. Not an affair, or even a collar. She’d wanted commitment, and he’d upped the ante. Everything, forever, if she could trust him.
If she could let herself trust him.
Two days of thinking brought no clarity, though Noelle had endured what felt like a month’s worth of restless nights, drifting in and out of heated dreams in between long hours watching candlelight flicker across the ceiling. More than once, she’d almost rolled from the bed in search of Lex, but Lex...
God, it was disloyal to even think it, but Lex couldn’t help her. Not with this.
One person could, which was why Noelle waited until Flash left to run an errand before knocking on the door of the suite he shared with Amira.
The petite brunette opened the door while stifling a yawn, and she waved Noelle inside. “I was wondering if you’d come around to see me.”
“Does everyone know?” Not long ago, the thought would have made Noelle self-conscious, but now it only seemed...inevitable.
Amira shook her head as she waddled over to the couch, the curve of her belly more pronounced now than it had been just a few weeks earlier. “Secrets in a place like this? Never happen.”
Noelle hovered until Amira was settled comfortably, then dropped beside her with a sigh. “I tried thinking on my own, but there’s so much I still don’t understand. And usually I’d just ask Lex, but...”
“But if she had it all figured out, she and Dallas wouldn’t be at each other’s throats half the time?”
“Lex has a lot of things figured out,” Noelle replied, fighting the twinge of guilt. “I don’t think surrender is one of them.”
Amira waved that away. “Eh, goes both ways. It can’t be on one person’s shoulders. Give and take—that’s what it’s all about.”
Noelle gestured to the ink swirling across Amira’s throat. “Is that how you knew? The give and take worked?”
She seemed to consider that for a moment. “No, not really. I barely knew Flash was interested in me and suddenly, there he was, asking me to be his. All I really knew was that he’d do everything he could to make it work. I figured if I did the same, we’d be all right.”
No clarity to be found there. Noelle sighed and slumped lower on the couch. “I’ve always wanted to give Jasper everything. The only thing that’s changed is the reason why I’m afraid.”
“So why are you afraid?”
Even admitting it made her chest ache. “He hurt me.”
“Oh, Noelle.” Amira’s voice was filled with sympathy but tinged with wry humor. “He was a jerk, and he made a mistake. That’s going to happen.”
Her gut clenched as she thought of Dallas, pushing Lex until she lashed out and hurt herself. “All the time?”
“Of course not,” Amira assured her. “But no one can hurt you more than someone you love. So I guess you have to ask yourself if it’s worth the risk.”
Noelle rubbed the heel of her hand over her breastbone, as if that would soothe the pain that lingered in her chest. “Does it make us weak to forgive them?”
“No. Real forgiveness is damn hard, and you have to be strong to do it.” Squinting, Amira tilted her head. “It’s different from bowing down and taking shit from someone who treats you like crap.”
“I was good at that. It’s all I’ve ever been good at.” She studied Amira for a moment, but her gaze was drawn inexorably to the ink, the mark around her throat that said she belonged to Flash, and Flash belonged to her. “He wants to mark me,” she whispered. “He brought me this painting... Something Ace would want, I guess. He said he’d wait for me to decide.”
“Okay. What do you want?”
“I want him. But I want to be sure that...” Trailing off, she reached for Amira’s hand. “There’s a middle ground, right? Between taking shit and turning into Lex and Dallas?”
Amira hesitated and then shook her head. “You lost me. I can’t put those two things on a spectrum because I don’t see the connection.”
“The way they argue—” Noelle dug her teeth into her lip and tried to give voice to the uncertainty inside her. “Sometimes, watching Lex... She never stops pushing back against him. It makes me wonder if I’m weak for not wanting to fight all the time.”
“Oh, sweetie. That’s just Dallas and Lex. Maybe they’ll get better when they figure out their shit, and maybe they’ll always be that way.” Amira shrugged. “Maybe they love it, who knows? You and Jasper aren’t them.”
No, they weren’t. Lex had helped drag Noelle out of the numbness of her old self, but that didn’t mean Noelle had to walk the same path. Even Lex might not want her to—that was what this newly acquired freedom was, after all. A chance for Noelle to decide who she wanted to be.
Which stripped away one set of worries, but left the same nagging hurt, the one she could bury in words and excuses and rationalizations and never drown.
Jasper had hurt her. Whether through good intentions or carelessness, it didn’t matter. He’d crushed something fragile, and while doing it had damaged her trust. She couldn’t close her eyes and believe that he’d always know what she needed, that he’d always be there, giving it to her, no questions asked.
But maybe it had been the wrong sort of trust. Open, passive trust, the kind that was reckless to give and easy to shatter. The girl who’d been thrown through the gates of Eden had trusted blindly because she hadn’t had any other choice. That kind of trust meant as little as one more yes from someone who never said no.
This time would be harder. She’d have to trust Jasper, knowing he was human. Knowing he could hurt her, even when he didn’t mean to. She’d have to trust that he’d do his best, and make amends when his best wasn’t enough.
She’d have to trust herself to tell him when she needed something he couldn’t possibly know to give.
“You’re right,” she whispered, squeezing Amira’s hand. “Forgiveness is hard. And scary.”
“Hell yeah, it is. But what’s the alternative?”
“Being without them, I guess.”
“Yeah.” Amira dropped her head to the back of the couch and grinned. “And that’s definitely not worth it.”
Noelle laughed. “No, they have their appeal. Even when they’re grumpy. Maybe especially when they’re grumpy.”
“Mmm, that they are.”
“So. Speaking of worth it...” She flashed Amira a smile. “The fighting is awful. How’s the making-up part?”
Amira shifted onto her side and wrapped one hand around her belly. “I’m three miles wide and look like I’m smuggling basketballs, and you’re asking me this question?”
“You look beautiful. You look happy.” Noelle pressed a hand to Amira’s. “That’s why you’re the one to ask.”
It made the other woman blush. “I haven’t figured out any grand, cosmic secrets, Noelle. I love Flash. This is where I want to be, that’s all.”
It might not sound profound to her, but to Noelle it was a simple, beautiful truth. All that mattered was where she wanted to be—in the sectors, with the O’Kanes.
With Jasper.
He wasn’t the only one who had to be willing to fight for it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
This time, she’d had an afternoon’s leisure to plan her seduction, and in the end she discarded seduction altogether. Drowning their pain in sex might be the least awkward way to smooth the tensions between them, but this was too important. This would be the foundation, the way they learned to deal with inevitable fights. Words needed to come first. If they were the right ones, sex would ha
ppen on its own, whether she was dressed in lacy panties or a burlap sack.
Not that she went that far. But she felt just as sexy in a tight tank top and vintage, pre-Flare jeans as she ever had in the skimpy little dress she’d borrowed from Lex for that first party. It was the ink, she thought as she paused outside of Jasper’s door, her hand raised to knock. Staring at the O’Kane logo and the intricate framing was a reminder of what she could be. Sexual. Powerful.
Brave enough to forgive. Dragging in a breath, she knocked.
“Ow, shit.” Jasper’s voice drifted through the door. “Come in.”
Frowning, Noelle pushed open the door only to stop dead at the sight of Jasper with a kitten perched on his shoulder, its tiny claws latched into his beard. Judging by the scratches on his cheek, it wasn’t the first time.
He winced as he detached the mewling kitten from his face. “I called in a favor from the farm. It got here yesterday, and I think it hates me.”
“I don’t know, it seems to like you.” Belatedly, she entered the room and closed the door behind her. The kitten proved her point by trying to claw its way back up to the crook of Jasper’s neck. “Maybe it likes your beard.”
“Fuck.” He pulled its tiny claws free again and curled the kitten up in both hands. “That means it likes me? What the hell would it do if it didn’t?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe pee on you?” She crossed to where he stood and stroked her finger over the kitten’s head. “Is it a boy or a girl? Do you know?”
Jasper’s ears turned red. “I told them to send you a good mouser.”
That constant ache in her chest bloomed, expanding until she had to swallow around a lump in her throat. “It’s for me?”
“Yeah.” His glower softened. “I was going to give it to you with the painting, but there was a delay, and I couldn’t wait on the other thing.”
The kitten was an adorable bundle of orange fur with a squished little face and tiny teeth that closed on the tip of Noelle’s finger in a playful bite. Her heart lurched again, and she pretended it was because she’d fallen in love with a little fuzzy ball of fluff. “Can I hold it?”
“Let’s say it’s a he.” He gently shifted the kitten over to her hands. “I haven’t done the best job of this, have I?”
Delicate claws scraped her palms as the kitten meowed and twisted. Noelle lifted him higher, nuzzled the soft little head with a cooing noise. “You got me a kitten.”
“An apology,” he whispered, watching her. “I’m sorry I tried to make you go back to the city.”
Swallowing, she cuddled the kitten closer. “Explain it to me. Tell me why.”
“You got shot, sweetheart. I wasn’t thinking about anything else. I wanted to put you someplace where it wouldn’t happen again.” He rubbed his hands over his face and dropped to the sofa. “The whole damn thing made me a little nuts.”
The wrong thing for the right reasons, then, and in her gut she’d known it all along. Jasper wanted to protect her, he just didn’t know what scared her more than death.
So she told him. “I’d rather be shot. I’d rather be shot a dozen times. Maybe for someone else, someone with a less important family, Eden isn’t all bad. My body would be safe there, but my soul would die. And I’m still learning what it’s like to be alive.”
“I know.” He gestured helplessly to the cat. “I thought about all the things you’d told me about your life there, and I realized how idiotic I’d been.”
The kitten bumped his head against her chin, and Noelle gave in to the smile fighting to form. “I should have told you. I guess I...wanted you to know. I wanted you to know what I needed, but maybe you couldn’t understand that what I needed was you.”
Jasper held her gaze, his eyes blazing. Intense. “Do you need me?”
She wet her lips. “I can survive without you, but it’s only that. Surviving. I want to live.”
He released a breath, sudden and relieved, and held out one hand. “Get over here.”
“So demanding.” Noelle cradled the kitten to her chest as she slid into Jasper’s lap. “I think this little guy likes me. Or he’s worn out from doing battle with you.”
Jasper wrapped his arms around her. “You’re a better person than I am. Animals are supposed to be able to sense shit like that, right?”
“I think you’re pretty okay.” With a final nuzzle, she set the kitten down on the couch. He spent a brief, adorable moment being distracted by his own tail before burrowing half under a battered pillow. Laughing, Noelle pressed her lips to Jasper’s scratched cheek. “Talk to me next time. If things get intense, promise you’ll talk, and I promise I’ll listen.”
He stroked his thumb over her cheek, the corner of her mouth. “Is this you, saying yes?”
“If you promise.” She kissed his thumb. “I’ll trust you with everything, Jasper. But if I’m going to be that vulnerable, you have to promise you’ll always be there. No walking away and leaving me naked. Literally or metaphorically.”
His voice was raw. “I promise.”
“Okay.” The word floated from her lips, and she felt light. “Okay. Yes.”
She barely heard his low growl as he dragged her mouth to his. She felt it, felt his chest vibrating when he edged her lips apart with his tongue. No mercy, no hesitation, just him, inside her in not nearly enough ways. Groaning, she tangled her fingers into his hair and bit the tip of his tongue.
Jasper bit her back as the kitten wiggled between them. He broke the kiss and swept up the tiny animal. “Put him in the bathroom. I have something else for you.”
It took her a few tries to detach the kitten from her shirt, but his yowling protests cut off abruptly when she set him down in front of the small bowl of food in the bathroom.
She eased the door shut to avoid distracting him, and turned to find Jasper holding two strips of leather padded with velvet.
Her heart damn near kicked its way out of her chest. Anticipation tickled up her spine, and she took two steps toward him. “Those are for me?”
“Mmm.” He shook them, rattling the buckles. “Know what they are?”
“I think I can guess.” She stroked the soft velvet and smiled, imagining how it would feel against her wrists...or ankles. “Cuffs?”
Jasper trailed each section of leather between his finger and thumb as he explained. “This longer one buckles around your upper thighs. The shorter one around your wrists.”
“Oh...” Even imagining it tightened her body. Bound, helpless. Open to him. Trust, again, and she offered it by smiling as she toyed with her shirt, edging it up just far enough to flash skin at him. “Are you going to teach me about make-up sex?”
He shook his head. “I’m going to show you what it means to be mine, with nothing held back.”
His. No shame, just anticipation and a thrilling tremor of something almost like nerves. Not fear, just the understanding that Jasper would push her beyond herself, beyond anything she’d known.
And she’d love it.
Noelle closed the distance between them and rose on her toes to kiss him. “Do I get to be bad?”
He licked her lip and wove a hand in her hair. “If you’re willing to pay the price for it.”
Even that was sweet heat, the softness of his mouth and the roughness of his hand a beautiful contrast. “What’s the price?”
Velvet and leather brushed the back of her hand, and he drew the open cuffs up her arm. “Say yes and find out.”
“Yes.” She pressed closer, rubbed her tight nipples against his chest, and groaned her assent. “Yes.”
Jasper dropped the cuffs on the bed and kissed her, already moving his hands over her clothes. Pushing up her shirt to meet her waiting hands, and then moving on to the button on her jeans. They had to pull apart to get her tank top over her head, but her lips found his again as she twisted her arms behind her back to open her bra.
He shoved her jeans and panties down, and for a giddy moment Noelle imagined hard, fast sex,
Jasper slamming her into the wall and plowing into her, but she should have known better.
Jasper always took his time.
Her back hit the bed, and he leaned over to strip off her shoes. “Second thoughts?”
“Maybe I’m wishing I’d brought my new jewelry...”
He yanked off her jeans and panties and dropped them on the floor. “You don’t need it. I want you just like this. Ink and leather.”
She inched up the bed, squirming when he loomed over her. He blocked out the room when he did, his broad shoulders filling her vision. “So is that what you want me to wear to Dallas’s next party? Cuffs and ink?”
“We’ll see.” He buckled a band of leather around one thigh, then the other, and waited for her to hold out her wrists.
So serious. Biting her lower lip to hide her smile, Noelle moved her arms into place, savoring the soft slide of velvet as he buckled the cuffs.
“Now you’re stuck.” Jasper teased the tip of one finger over her hipbone before twining his fingers with hers and lifting her arms up and out. With those cuffs tethered to the ones on her thighs, the movement drew her legs apart. Wide open.
She drew in a ragged breath, tensing in spite of herself as his gaze drifted over her. That first thrill still hit her, the vulnerability of being bared to him, the illicitness and the pleasure. “I don’t mind.”
Her thighs trembled under his touch, even more when he bent his head, his beard tickling as he dropped openmouthed kisses to her skin. Slow, hot, the heat of his tongue and the scratch of his beard. She tried to press her thighs together and growled when the short chains snapped tight. “Jas...”
He ignored the plea as he licked his way to the top of her thigh. “You’re wet.”
“Of course I am.” His breath ghosted over her, and she choked on another moan. Maybe if she begged with all the dirty words, he’d forget whatever torment he had planned and touch her already. “I’m so wet. Please, can I have your—your tongue in my pussy?”
A Ride or Die Kind of Love Page 126
