Page 42 of Broken Pact

“Oh my god.”

I lift my head at the sound of her voice. My brain takes a second to catch up with my eyes, but when it does, delight surges through me like a goddamn river.

Because she’s here, standing in the middle of my room like my thoughts alone conjured her.

Coraline fucking Carter.

Wearing another white sundress with skinny straps, her black and white checkered Vans, and that trademark scowl she reserves just for me.

Fuck me but do I want to kiss it off that pretty mouth of hers.

My gaze is greedy, eating up every inch of her sun-kissed skin on display, snagging on the little trails of freckles along her collarbone and shoulders.

I grab the ends of the towel hanging around my neck and hit her with my most charming smile. “You lookin’ for me, baby?”

I expect her scowl to sink into a frown and acid to spill from her tongue. But she surprises me when her pouty lips curl into a smirk of her own.

“You thinkin’ about me, Jasper?” she counters, all sass.

My heart stops for a second. Like that fucker actually seizes inside my chest from the sound of my name on her tongue. The breathy laugh and the teasing tone. The back of my neck prickles and my fingers tingle.

I’m across the room in ten seconds flat, the towel somewhere on the floor behind me. I get into her space, my gaze glued to that teasing smirk on her face. For every step I take into her, she takes one backward until her ass hits my door.

My palms press into the wall on either side of her, caging her in. Her soft inhale might as well be a siren call, drawing me in closer until there’s barely any space left between us. I can feel the heat radiating off her body, her cherries and cream scent seeping into my pores.

The air between us crackles with tension, thick and heady like an impending storm.

A better man wouldn’t press her now. He’d give her space. But fuck it, I’ve never claimed to be a better man. Not when it comes to her.

“Say it again.” The hushed plea falls from my mouth and lands on her lips.

Her eyes flash with mischief before she tips her chin up. Her tongue swipes along her bottom lip before her teeth sink into it.

“Jasper,” she breathes out.

My eyes close involuntarily, my forehead resting against hers with a soft exhale. It takes everything inside of me not to steal my name from her mouth with my tongue.

She’s never said my name like this before—no one has. Why the fuck does it feel so intimate?

“Jasper,” she murmurs slowly. It’s a promise and a dare all rolled into one.

My eyes pop open, and I’d be willing to bet my pupils are blown wide. I drag one hand away from the door and curl it around the side of her neck, dragging my thumb over her fluttering pulse.

But just as our lips are about to meet, she blurts out, “Rules! We need rules.”

I draw back a little so I can see her face. As much as I love the angle of being in her space, I can’t see her eyes. And those gorgeous pools of emotion are the key to understanding the woman in front of me.

“Rules?” I echo, a smirk playing on my lips despite the almost desperation pounding against my skin to kiss her.

Her gaze darts from my lips to my eyes and back again. She clears her throat, her tongue dragging across her bottom lip once more. She nods a few too many times to be natural. “Yeah. We need rules if this is going to work.”

The pad of my thumb drags up along the column of her neck, over her jawline, and underneath her bottom lip. I tug it down, and her lips part with a soft exhale.

“If what’s going to work?”

She swallows. “Are you going to make me say it?”

I nod, preoccupied by the way her bottom lip flares in the middle. “I’m a little distracted right now, baby, so help me out, yeah?”

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