Page 11 of Jasper (Guardians of the North #5)

VANESSA

“Tell me the truth,” I say to Jasper as he pulls into the driveway of a ranch style home. Though he mentioned stopping at his house before we hit the road for a late-night sunset viewing, I’ve been secretly hoping this is our last stop tonight.

“About what?” Jasper asks, putting his truck into park.

“Were you really jilted at the altar?”

Red dusts his cheeks, and dammit if it doesn’t make him adorable and sexy all rolled into one. “Not quite.”

“What happened?”

He seems thrown by my easy acceptance.

Fuck, I’m thrown too. Though it would be so easy to hold another lie against him, I know better now.

All of his lies have been rooted in half truths.

This time, there is no fantasy to uphold.

I’m experiencing his life in real time. It’s…

oddly comforting. It hurts my brain to sort all of this out, so I don’t try.

“I was dumped,” he says, reiterating the importance of that element of truth as I follow him to the front door.

I realize now I have yet to see the inside of his house. I’m both excited and nervous at what I’ll find. Will it be a cold shell of a place or a total dump? I don’t think I could handle it if Jasper turned out to be a slob.

“Dumped?”

“Yeah. She broke up with me on the dance floor at a friend’s wedding. But she wasn’t my fiancé. Just by a girlfriend who was never going to stick.”

“Why not?”

He pushes open the door and waves a hand for me to step inside first. His words follow me across the threshold. “I know now it was because she wasn’t you.”

My heart stutters and skips.

It’s too much.

And yet, it’s not enough.

I know if I’m not careful, I could fall really hard and fast for Jasper Steele.

I could fall all the way in love with him.

And where would that leave me? I might be giving up my event planning company, but I have no intention of sacrificing the very comfortable life I’ve established in Houston.

Not to mention the promise I made Mom on her deathbed to steer clear of military men. There is no future here.

But there is right now.

“It’s tacky, isn’t it?” he asks.

“What?” My vision goes from blurred to focused.

It’s not the cold, uninviting space I expected of a single man.

It’s a cozy cottage feel that reminds me a whole lot of Cape Cod.

It has a very distinct rustic seaside cottage vibe.

It’s exactly the way I planned to decorate the house that’ll soon be mine. “This is…”

“Embarrassing.”

I turn to him then, reaching for his arm. “It’s perfect, Jasper.”

“Really?”

“I’m just surprised is all.”

“You thought I’d be a total slob, didn’t you?”

“What? No.”

“You did.”

“You could be hiding the mess in your bedroom,” I say on a flirty shrug.

“I’m not.”

“Or more stuffed animals.”

“Definitely not.”

God, I’ve missed the easy, fun banter between us. Banter that always led to one or both of us missing clothes.

“If you don’t believe me, I can show you,” Jasper adds.

“You just want to get me in your bedroom,” I fire back with a half smile.

“And what if I do?”

My nipples tighten at the thought of tangling in the sheets of Jasper’s bed, our naked bodies intertwined once again after so long apart. Maybe this time, we won’t be interrupted before we can get all of our clothes off.

An urgent whisper in the back of my mind warns me this is a bad fucking idea. That if I’m not careful, one or both of us will end up hurt by the time the festival weekend is over. But that whisper isn’t nearly as loud as the thundering beat of my heart that begs for him to make good on his offer.

I reach a hand to his hip, stepping closer as my fingers dig in. “Then do it.”

His lips descend on mine, the hunger nearly unbearable.

It doesn’t matter that we made out on the beach or in his childhood bedroom yesterday.

It feels as though lifetimes have passed since our lips last met.

The kisses are brutally urgent. He pulls me tightly against him, and I can feel the hard length of him against my belly.

I moan, sliding my hand between us and cupping him.

“Fuck, Vanessa,” he growls between kisses.

“I’ve missed you.”

“Who?” Jasper asks. “Me, or my cock?”

I lock my gaze with his, so fucking turned on by the intense heat in those dark eyes. “Both.”

He grabs me by the ass, lifting both legs off the ground. I wrap them around his waist as he carries me down the hall to his bedroom. I have two seconds to notice it too is decorated in a similar theme as the rest of the house before Jasper drops me onto his bed.

He kneels in front of me, unbuttoning my jeans and tugging them off.

“We don’t have long if we want to catch the late-night sunset from my favorite hidden viewing spot,” he says, his gaze locked on my red silk panties. Did I wear them with him in mind? Maybe I did. “But we should have more time than last night.”

“You mean this isn’t the sightseeing you had planned?” I ask, rolling my hips.

“Oh, it is,” he says, a wicked smile spreading across lips my own have branded. “Red was the color you were wearing the night we met.”

“You remember that?”

“Sweetheart, every man in the bar that night remembers that. You were a fucking knockout in that little red dress. Don’t pretend you didn’t know that. You wanted attention, and you got it.”

“All weekend long,” I say, my words nearly a purr.

“Let me take you back,” he says, spreading my legs wider. I move to lift my knee over his shoulder, but he pushes it back down so it’s bent over the edge of his very cushy mattress. One that reminds me of that luxury hotel. “Just sit back and enjoying the show.”

Jasper kisses a leisurely trail from the inside of my knee up my thigh.

His warm breath hovers a feather’s width from my damp panties, teasing me.

Taking me back to Cape Cop. But also anchoring me here to this very moment in North Haven.

I don’t know how to makes sense of it, so I don’t try.

I simply sink into the delicious sensation that is Jasper Steele.

He presses his lips to the silk, caressing my bud with gentle movement.

I whimper at the touch I’ve craved for four long years.

He drags his tongue along my seam, and my hips jerk right into his face. “Mmm. You smell just as sweet as I remember.” His words vibrate against me, and fuck does it feel good. “I bet you taste even sweeter.”

My legs spread wider, as though his wicked words are a command. I’m desperate for him to remove the barrier between my pussy and his very capable mouth. Instead, he trails those lips along the inside of my thigh, kissing his way to the opposite knee he started with.

My core aches for his mouth to return.

Jasper slides both hands from my knees to my hips, hooking his fingers into the sides of panties. At last, he drags them down my legs. When they reach my ankles, I kick them away. They fly over my head and land somewhere on the floor beside the bed. I’ll worry about finding them later.

“Eager much?” he teases.

“Maybe a little.” Or a lot.

Of Jasper many talents, his ability to take me to another world with his expert mouth is one of my favorite.

I’ve dreamed about him going down on me for longer than I care to admit.

No amount of self-pleasure in the past four years has come close to what Jasper Steele is capable of accomplishing with that delicious tongue.

He pushes apart my thighs, and I watch in rapt interest as he gives my pussy his full attention.

“I’ve missed this pretty pussy,” he says, his gaze flicking up to mine as his tongue lightly drags through my seam. He takes his time exploring every valley and peak between my legs. My eyes want to fall closed, but I resist so I can watch him enjoy me. It’s so fucking hot.

I rock my hips gently against the rhythm of his mouth, spreading my thighs open even wider, as though it’s not possible to open to him as fully as I want to. I want to surrender to his every touch. To surrender completely to him. Then do it .

His tongue circles my swollen bud, slowly at first. But then faster. And faster. And so fucking fast I can feel the rush of pleasure building throughout my entire body. Like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

“Jasper!” I cry out, right on the edge.

“Come for me, sweetheart,” he says, those delicious vibrating words enough to break me.

I explode apart.

My body isn’t my body anymore

It’s confetti shot out of the world’s largest cannon.

I come so hard my toes tingle, and my hips jerk violently against the face that is fused between my legs.

Jasper doesn’t let up.

He suctions his face to me through every intense convulsion, daring my orgasm to never end. I don’t know if it lasts for a minute or a year. I only know that Jasper refuses to break contact until my body has fully stilled.

“That take you back to Cape Cod?” he asks, a sly smile spread on lips shiny with my juices.

“No,” I say.

“No?” he asks, confused.

I might be completely damned now, but I’m too sated in this moment to care. “That takes me right here . To North Haven.”