Page 7

Eden

Remote crannies of the woods are excellent places to be murdered.

Also for other things.

We’re holding hands. I don’t know how it happened. At some point over the last few minutes, Jasper’s grip shifted from polite assistance to . . . this.

I count to five and glance down again, just to make sure I have it right.

That his fingers truly are tangled between mine.

Messily. Like legs. Sheets. Silk, like the ones on his bed.

The bed I slept in the night of the bond-fire, beside Lucky, when we were both too drunk and ill to make it far from the bathroom.

The bed with the cage under it, which, as a concept is downright appalling , and?—

“A pretty night.”

My eyes snap up from our entwined fingers, and I feel myself flush.

“I—” I glance around. Starlight dapples over mossy rocks and a soft gurgling sounds from the wide cave, telling me there’s an underground water source nearby.

There’s bear scat by the entrance, but even from here I can see it’s chalky and flaking.

Too old to be a concern. Bright flowers are pocketed between tree roots, and the balmy breeze is fragrant with their earthy sweetness. “Yes. It’s.. . it’s lovely.”

He’s drawn to a halt, and I’m not quite sure what he’s waiting for.

He still has my hand.

His thumb starts coasting along the inside of my wrist, and I tear myself free before he notices the full-body shudder the simple touch erupts in me. It’s embarrassing, and it doesn’t help me brace for my inquisition.

He’s studying me, waiting, and sweat springs up under my arms. I can feel his attention tingling the back of my neck.

Words and excuses and reasons and anxieties are bubbling up in me.

I’m going to projectile vomit every thought I’ve ever had all over him, and he won’t need to say a word.

He already has me primed and prepped. We both know I’ll spill every secret.

The bastard.

I stiffen my shoulders. I should just get this over with. If I slice myself open first, then he can get back to stitching me together again all the sooner.

I spin back to face him, and quickly adjust my gaze away from his face to fixate on the incongruously bright yellow flower pin he always wears these days. It’s safer than his face. Because his face has a way of soaking in moonlight like a pearl, and his eyes . . .

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry . I should have told you what A and M meant.

I just . . . I knew, I knew it was unforgivable—letting them go, I mean.

Dom was so clear. You all were. I went behind your back.

I lied. I kept lying. By omission, maybe, but I know it’s still a lie.

Dom is right to hate me. And Beau. Oh, God. ” My voice catches.

The night is too beautiful for how much these confessions hurt.

I shake my head. “The way they look at me now. I could have cost us everything. Maybe I did. Alastair wants to rule , and I don’t think he’ll be shy in taking it.

He certainly wasn’t with us. And I did cost Heather everything.

She’s at the mercy of the man she hates more than anything, and I did that, Jasper.

Me. And we just left her. Her and Bentley.

Oh, those teenagers needed him, and you saw how worried Red Zone is.

Do they have enough food? They’re going to ask for our help and.

. . and Jasper, I don’t know what help we can give them.

What are we going to do when Alastair comes knocking? We have nothing left.”

Jasper is so still, and I can’t bear it. I look up, and his eyes are doing that thing. If his skin is lustrous with light, his eyes gather darkness. They’re nebulous, unfathomable... and kinder than I deserve.

My words grow wobbly and hot. “I was just so afraid those women and children would be forgotten. That Heather would murder Alastair, and that we’d never have another way in.

And then I was afraid that I was wrong anyway.

That they truly were with Sam, and I’d doomed us all—and even if I hadn’t, it wouldn’t matter, because I was lying, and you would be in your rights never to forgive me.

I was terrified I might be exiled for putting everyone at risk, the way Sam was exiled.

That I would be alone. That I’d never . . .”

Jasper’s hair eddies over his forehead, and I stutter to a halt, watching the perfect swirl with wet, stinging eyes.

“That I would never see you again,” I finish in a damp whisper.

Jasper gives a small, pensive nod. When I don’t say anything else, he walks over to me, and when he steps into my space, I tilt my chin up to watch him warily.

He touches my cheekbone with the pad of his thumb, then traces the single track of my tear down to my jaw with the reverence of a Renaissance painter.

“Anything else, darling girl?”

I swallow, confused. “I don’t . . .”

He nods again, and his gaze travels my face. His thumb rubs my tears like he needs them on his skin.

“You will always be welcome in my home, Eden.”

I tense, trying to stop the bitter waver of my lip. “Well, thank you for saying that, but?—”

“ Always .” The word is a whipcrack. Fierce and painful in its implications.

I fall silent, trying to battle the confusing glare I want to give him. He can’t promise me that. There are a thousand variables. In our relationship. In all my relationships. The other men are his closest friends. Lucky is the love of his life. He can’t say things like always to me.

His grip tightens on my face, almost painful, and he pins me with his pitiless gaze.

“ Always , Eden. With the men or without. Lie, kill, steal my every heirloom. Shatter my heart into a thousand pieces if you must, but you will always have a place at Bristlebrook. You will always have a safe place to land, no matter how bad things get. You’ll never be alone again.

Not if I have anything to say about it.”

His face says that he has many, many things to say about it.

My lips part, and I mean to speak, I do, but all that comes out is a hitching, pained gasp. A few tears squeeze treacherously from the corner of my eyes, and they pool in the curve of his hand.

“Jasper, I...” I can’t get any more words out. My mouth is shaking too much.

It’s the kind of promise I used to dream of as a child. Something rare and precious that seemed reserved for lucky children from doting parents. Something unconditional . It’s not something reasonable people offer. There are always limits.

But Jasper’s gaze refuses reason.

He means it.

He holds my eyes until my disbelief melts into confusion and relief, and I sob again, because I can’t help it. Because we haven’t kissed, that I know of. Because we’ve been in each other’s orbit, and in each other’s heads, but somehow, I haven’t told him that I?—

He makes a lost sound, then his mouth is hot on my cheek and his tongue is dragging over my skin.

Over my tears . He groans helplessly as he tastes me, and I shudder, everything zeroing in on the unexpected contact.

He kisses my cheek, the corner of my eye, taking every tear as if they belong to him.

Scorching. Open-mouthed. He nips my cheekbone, and I fall into him.

His arm catches around my waist, and he breaks contact to bury his face in my hair. “Eden, Eden, Eden,” he murmurs.

My breath catches again, but I don’t think I’m crying anymore.

It takes a moment, but I find a place against him.

He’s taller than Lucky by a few inches. He’s more slender than Jayk.

Not as broad-shouldered as Beau, or as rock-solid as Dom.

But I find the perfect spot to rest my head, just below his collarbone.

My hands settle along the lines of his back.

His find their home with less caution. In the curve of my hip, around the nape of my neck.

It’s funny, how I feel made for him, too.

Jasper sighs. “Eden, you have spent most of your life alone, making decisions for yourself. From what I’ve gathered, you worked around your grandmother and your husband’s rules more than you ever worked with them... because they couldn’t be trusted with that control.”

I stiffen in his arms, but he just squeezes my nape, like he knows. He knows how unsettling it is to be summarized in just a few pitiful sentences.

Gently, he continues, “A few weeks of submission with anyone, no matter how you feel for them, is not going to overcome a lifetime of learned behaviors and distrust. Particularly not when you’re spiraling.

” His voice becomes acerbic. “No matter how much Beaumont would like to believe in the healing power of his phallus, his overwhelming white-knight complex won’t quite do the job on childhood trauma. ”

I strangle on a scandalized laugh, pulling back far enough to give Jasper an appalled look. “That’s— No, Jasper. Beau has been wonderful. He’s right about the position I’ve put us in. I shouldn’t have lied. He was nothing but kind and understanding and?—”

His nose wrinkles in mild disgust. “Right up until you showed a hint of fallibility? Of humanity? I am fond of Beaumont, Eden, don’t misunderstand me, but I’m about ready to ask Jaykob how exactly one performs a swirly .

” My mouth drops open, and Jasper’s eyes catch a twinkle of silvery light.

“Perhaps spending time with his head in a toilet will familiarize him with the nature of his opinions.”

This time I do laugh, though I can’t help a twinge of guilt.

Beau did deserve my honesty, my past notwithstanding.

But this side of Jasper is entrancing. A little wicked.

It reminds me of his curling paperback annotations, declaring that Dracula seems ‘sorely in need of a period-appropriate interior decorator.’

Seeing me study him, Jasper’s expression softens, becoming something gentle and full of secret nooks. Something intimate. His lashes shadow us together.