Page 24

Chapter 24

Caleb

C aleb woke to the smell of sausage, and no Jasper.

As he’d learned over the months they’d been living together, the lack of Jasper’s scent wasn’t an indication that he’d left. It meant Jasper had gone off and eaten one of those damned poison flowers.

He didn’t think Jasper was trying to hurt himself. No, he thought Jasper was already hurt, and this was him trying his best to figure out how to heal. Jasper needed to know that his incubus nature had nothing to do with Caleb wanting him. He’d been wanted, demanded, so often in his life, simply because he was the child of an incubus, that he struggled to imagine why anyone would want him for a different reason.

All Caleb could do was be there and love him just the same as always. Maybe Jasper’s capacity to absorb it was a bucket with a hole in the bottom that Caleb could never fill up. Maybe in the end Jasper had to figure things out for himself, but in the meantime, all Caleb could do was keep showing up.

He rolled out of bed and headed for the kitchen, where Jasper was plating an impressive number of breakfast sausages on one plate, and two on another. Slipping in behind him, he wrapped both arms around Jasper’s waist and buried his face in his neck, nibbling his way up to his ear.

“Have I told you today that I love you?”

Jasper giggled, and the sound was surprisingly lighthearted for a day he’d eaten one of those damn flowers. “You just woke up, of course not.”

“Then I’m slipping.” He took the pan out of Jasper’s hands and set it back on the stove, then spun him around by the hips. “You are so beautiful, sweetheart. And smart, and loving, and you make the best breakfasts.”

“I fried some sausage,” Jasper denied. “I haven’t even started the eggs.”

“Screw the eggs. I’d rather have you.”

Jasper pulled a kitchen towel off his shoulder and whacked Caleb’s chest with it. “Absolutely not. You have the rest of the wood to chop this afternoon if we’re going to be ready for hibernation. The weather report says we could start getting snow this weekend.”

“What if I want to spend the winter with you instead of hibernating?” Caleb couldn’t lie, he was kind of starved, and the thought of a day of labor made him even hungrier. He snatched a sausage off his plate and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth.

Jasper watched him eat, always amused and somehow, beyond all reason, loving, as he watched Caleb scarf down enormous quantities of meat. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going to spend the winter hibernating and with me. It’s not a choice.”

Caleb reared back, staring at him in faked astonishment. “You mean you live here?” Jasper whacked him with the towel again, but Caleb leaned in to plant a kiss on his beautiful lips. “Sounds like I’m a pretty lucky bastard.”

That made Jasper smile at him and then lean over to rest his head on Caleb’s shoulder. “I don’t know about lucky, but you’re my favorite bastard.”

Caleb left one arm wrapped around Jasper’s waist and grabbed another sausage with the other, swaying their hips back and forth together. “You hungry?” he asked, and they had been together long enough that Jasper knew he wasn’t offering breakfast sausage.

“This afternoon,” Jasper said with a tiny shake of his head. “You have too much to do right now.”

Caleb wiped his greasy fingers on the kitchen towel as he pulled it away from Jasper and set it on the counter. Then he grabbed Jasper’s ass in both hands and hefted him up, pausing for a moment to let Jasper wrap his long legs around his hips.

Finally, he lifted one hand back up to caress his incubus’s cheek. “Sweetheart, I never, ever have so much to do that I don’t have time for you. You’re what my time is for. It’s everything else that’s the distraction.”

Jasper’s eyes were wide and a little glassy. “The flowers aren’t growing anymore. I grabbed the last whole one this morning.”

“Good,” Caleb whispered back, lips ghosting back and forth across Jasper’s. “Maybe by the time they start growing again, I’ll have you convinced you don’t need them. I don’t give a damn if you’re using your sneaky incubus powers on me. I want you this way, that way, and every other way. Every day, every way. Always.”

Jasper buried his face in Caleb’s neck, but Caleb didn’t miss the pleased smile the words had evoked. His lips tickled Caleb’s skin when he whispered, “I think maybe you could.”

He kissed a line across Jasper’s shoulder as he walked them over to the bed, to their little den.

“I’ve got days to chop wood,” he told Jasper as he lay him across the bed, and pressed in immediately after him with a soft, sweet kiss. “I’ve only got a lifetime to spend with you. Can’t waste that.”