Page 49 of Hymns of the Broken

His forehead drops to mine. His breath is hot and uneven, like restraint is a chain biting into his skin. “You want the truth?” His voice roughens. “I almost dragged you into the alley last night. In front of Riot. In front of all of them. I wanted to show them who you belong to. I wanted you screaming my name with his voice still in your ears.”

The image slams into me—shame, heat, hunger—all tangled. Blake has never made me feel exposed and seen at the same time. Jasper does it without touching more than a sliver of skin.

“I’m losing control,” he admits, a confession he shouldn’t give me but does anyway. “And I don’t even care. I’ll burn everything down. I’ll ruin us both, Sawyer, just to feel you break for me.”

A fingertip hooks under my jaw, tipping my face until there’s nothing but breath, want, and the throb of my pulse trying to climb out of my throat. His other hand hovers at the edge of my shorts, daring me to stop him, daring me to admit I won’t. I’m terrified to say yes, because yes has always meant goodbye. But saying nothing is its own kind of surrender.

“Tell me to stop,” he says.

I don’t. I can’t. The truth is a blade.

I don’t want him to stop.

I want to know what it feels like to be wanted like this and not punished for it later.

His knee grinds up getting my attention, and lightning skates down my spine. A broken sound slips out of me before I can stop it.

He fists my shirt, knuckles grazing skin as he hauls me closer. Fabric bites across my chest; his breath fans my mouth. “You won’t,” he answers for me. “Because you don’t fucking want me to. You want this. You want me. Just like I want every broken piece of you.”

My heartbeat is a war drum. Fear and need braid together until I can’t tell them apart. Blake has been safety that hurts. Jasper is danger that feels like home. Wanting him feels like stepping into traffic—and still, I lean.

He brushes my lips again, barely-there contact that feels like a brand. He waits, forcing me to decide, to choose my own ruin.

“Fuck,” he growls, low and feral. “If you don’t say the word, Little Sin… I swear to fucking hell, I’m going to make you mine. Right. Fucking. Now.”

The tiniest whimper betrays me. It’s not consent; it’s confession, but it’s all he needs.

He kisses me. Hard.

And the worst part—the best part—is how easily my body answers, how fast the world falls away, how the old fear that everything I want gets taken loosens its teeth when his mouth claims mine like he’s never letting go.

It’s not a kiss—it’s an ambush. Jasper’s mouth crashes into mine like we’re both trying to set each other on fire. Tongue hot and claiming. Every stroke against mine rips the air out of my lungs and knocks every rational thought out of my skull.

His hands are everywhere, feeling and testing. One grips my ass with a bruising hold, like he’s been waiting to grab me since the second he laid eyes on me. The other cups my breast through my shirt, thumb brushing over the stiff peak of my nipple through the thin fabric of my bralette.

I grind into him before I can stop myself. Instinct. Pure need. My body betrays me, chasing his heat like I’ve been starving.

He groans, a wrecked sound that vibrates against my mouth.

His thigh is still between mine, holding me open for him, forcing me to feel every inch of how hard he is against my leg. He’s everywhere.

And then his hand slides down, slipping between us. His fingers press against me over my shorts, rough enough to make sparks shoot down my spine.

A breathy, broken moan tumbles out of me before I can stop it, and he loses it.

The button of my shorts pops open in one rough move, and his hand is inside over my underwear before I can blink. Heat surges through me as his fingers rub slowly, firm, perfectly wicked—just enough to make my eyes roll back, just enough to unravel me.

“Jasper—” I whimper, my hips twitching against his hand. “We can’t—someone could—”

His other hand wraps around my throat, and he squeezes. Like he’s staking his claim in every way that matters.

He leans into my ear; his breath is hot, sliding down my neck. “I can feel how wet you are for me, baby.”

Then he presses right over my clit, and the moan that rips out of me is raw. Shame and heat hit me but I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.

He groans as if I just shattered him. “Fuck it,” he mutters, voice wrecked with hunger. His fingers slide out halfway, only to shove inside my underwear next—skin on skin, where I’m already hot, slick, and dripping for him.

One slow stroke along my center and I feel my whole body tense. My breath catches like a live wire just hit my lungs. His forehead presses to mine, his breath is ragged. And I see it—the second of hesitation, the moment where his control frays at the edges. He’s about to ruin me. And God, I’m about to let him.