Page 8 of Jasper (Guardians of the North #5)

VANESSA

Meeting Jasper’s mom tonight has been both wonderful and overwhelming.

She’s exactly the way I pictured her. The way Jasper described her that weekend in Cape Cod.

She welcomed me like I was an old friend, no questions asked.

One minute there were hugs, the next we were put to work. She reminded me so much of my own mom.

I clamp my hand around the heart pendant hanging from my neck, forcing down the emotion trying to rise.

I can lose my shit later, when I’m alone.

“This shouldn’t take long,” Jasper says as he pulls into the driveway of a ranch style log home with a covered front porch.

Buckets of bright yellow flowers hang between poles, and two rocking chairs are stationed off to one side.

It’s exactly the way he described it that night we lounged naked in the hot tub. Maybe he didn’t lie about everything .

I look over at Jasper as he pulls the keys from the ignition but can’t quite bring myself to make eye contact. I focus on the bay a short two blocks from the house instead.

“You had this view growing up?” I ask, nodding toward the water.

Noting that in Houston, the sun would be long gone by now.

But here in North Haven, despite it being nearly ten o’clock at night, the sun is still hanging above the horizon, giving the water and the surrounding mountains an iridescent glow.

“Yeah. Pretty great, huh?” He reaches his hand across the center console, placing it on my thigh. The warmth soaks through the denim, igniting something within me. As though his touch is thawing the last of the icy layer of protection I’ve kept around my heart.

Don’t fall for him, Vanessa.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yep.”

Jasper lifts one eyebrow, challenging my answer.

“Just tired.”

“I doubt that.” He gives my thigh one good squeeze before he lets go, and I feel the absence of his heat instantly. “C’mon. The bowls are in the kitchen.”

Helena nearly had a panic attack when she realized she’d forgotten all the serving bowls.

Though the festival doesn’t start until tomorrow morning, she insisted they had to be in the truck tonight.

Jasper put his arm around his frazzled mother and offered to retrieve them.

It was so damn sweet I practically got a stomachache watching it.

My hand still tingles from the easy way he threaded his fingers through mine and led me to his truck to help him with this easy errand.

Only now that I’m standing on the front porch of his childhood home, nothing feels easy about this.

What was once a whimsical, romantic memory is slowly starting to become a very real reality.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jasper asks, unlocking the front door.

I nod, unable to meet those dark eyes head on.

He reaches a hand to my cheek, cupping it ever so gently. As though it’s the most natural thing to do. He tilts my chin and waits until I finally give in and meet his gaze. My eyes are no doubt shiny with unshed tears.

Dammit, this is not the time to fall apart.

“You miss your mom?” he guesses, glancing down at the necklace I’m still clamping in my palm.

“Yeah.”

His gaze flickers to my lips, and my pulse trips.

I crave his kiss, if only for the distraction I desperately need.

He lowers his head, pressing his lips against my forehead.

My entire body responds to the sweet caress of his gentle kiss.

Electricity zings from my head to my toes and back again, settling right in my core.

I’ve spent plenty of time wanting this man, but this? This is next level.

It takes all my restraint not to fling my arms around his neck and drag his mouth to mine.

“C’mon,” he says, threading his fingers through mine once more and pushing open the front door.

I spot framed photographs on the wall, but the hazy light makes it hard to make them out as Jasper leads me to the kitchen.

Several stacks of paper bowls sit piled on the counter.

It’s obvious that Helena plans to sell a lot of clam chowder this weekend, and I hope she does. That chowder is damn good.

“What’s down that way?” I ask of a hall leading away from the kitchen.

“Guest rooms,” Jasper says.

“And?”

“My old bedroom,” he admits.

I’m on the move before he can catch my wrist.

“It looks like a time capsule,” I say, standing in the doorway of a blue room. The walls are blue, the comforter, the rug beside the bed. Coast guard posters cover the wall opposite his bed, all with pictures of helicopters. He’s always known this was his calling .

“I’ve tried to tell Mom to pack it up, but?—”

“Is that—a stuffed animal?” I lunge for the bed, reaching for a stuffed orange tabby cat leaned up against the pillows. Jasper tackles me onto the bed, his long arm grabbing over the top of me, securing the cat.

“This is Barney,” he says, his body still hovered above mine.

“ This is Barney?” He talked about a cat he loved as a kid. Named Barney. But he never once mentioned the cat was a stuffed animal.

“Mom’s allergic to cats,” he says, rolling to the side and taking his delicious weight and warmth with him. I turn, facing him on the bed. He’s blushing a deep shade of red, and fuck if it doesn’t turn me on even more. “I really wanted a cat. So, I got Barney instead.”

“You’re embarrassed?” I ask.

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“I don’t know if anyone told you,” I say, snaking a hand up the side of his neck, “but vulnerability is the new sexy.”

His lips are on mine in seconds. It happens so quickly I can’t decipher who initiated it. But now that our mouths are moving together as one, I don’t care. I’ve been craving his kiss since we made out on the beach earlier. Hell, I’ve been craving his kiss since we parted ways in Cape Cod.

I roll onto top of him, shackling my knees on either side of his hips.

I whimper at the feel of his hard length through his uniform pants, grinding myself against him as the kisses deepen and things get handsy.

Suddenly, it’s not enough that his hands are cupping my breasts through my shirt, so I sit up, still mounted on him, and pull it off.

“Fuck, Vanessa,” he says, his eyes darkening with desire. As though he wants to devour me.

I forgot how fucking good it felt to be desired by this man.

I reach behind my back and undo the clasp to my bra.

His hands slide beneath the lace before it’s all the way off, the skin-on-skin contact making me so damn wet. He kneads my tits and teases my nipples as I shamelessly grind myself against his hardening cock.

Just as I bend forward and Jasper takes a nipple into his eager mouth, a shrill ring echoes.

“Fuck,” he grumbles, pulling the phone from his pocket.

“Your mom?” I guess.

“She’s freaking out.” He cups my cheek and kisses me so deeply I can almost feel our souls touch. What the fuck? “We better get those bowls to her before she sends Annie.”

I reluctantly put my bra back on and search for my discarded shirt.

“Vanessa?”

“Hmm?”

Jasper locks his heated gaze with mine as he lowers his mouth against the shell of my ear. “Just know that I’m not finished with you. Not by a long shot, sweetheart.”