Page 64 of Born in the Spring

But Elara still has a bit of that worry in her gaze. Sheisquestioning, but they’re all questions I have the answers for.

I chuck my clipboard to the bar, then take one of her hands. “Come here.” I guide her past the couches as she starts in on where I’ve already known this was going.

“You’ll still be in your twenties by the time I turn forty. . .”

“So,” I say lightly. My age isn’t playing me again.

“So,” she echoes, a drone, as if I was going to respond any other way. “I’m not—” She sighs. “You should be with someone who—”

“I want to be with,” I finish, stopping us at the back of the second couch as I face her. “And who wants to be with me.”

“Jasper. . .” She pauses her push around my name, glancingdown at where I’m undoing the buttons on her jacket.

“Fuck my age. Fuck your age.” My tone is serious now, but low and thick in my throat as I strip her of this layer. “You’re the only one fixated on our ages, Elara.”

“I wouldn’t be the only one,” she argues through a laugh, soft and shuddering as she presses into my touch.

“Our opinion is the only one that matters,” I tell her, being her strength for this again, and I catch the smallest nod of her head as I flick apart the last button. “I love unbuttoning things,” I add with a smirk. “Just to let you know.”

She hums through her own smile, her teeth grazing her bottom lip as she watches me slide the jacket from her shoulders, then down her arms, to toss the bulky barrier to the couch.

“Come here,” I repeat, guiding her to face the mirror on the wall. She holds her own gaze a moment before blinking up to meet mine when my hands meet her hips. I dip my mouth to her ear without breaking any connection. “You want to lie and say we don’t look great together?”

Her eyes scan over us as she sighs against me in answer. Her hands come up for mine and I take them, lacing our fingers.

“You want to lie and say this doesn’t feel right?”

She pulls my arms around her for this answer, her eyes reconnecting with mine in the glass.

“We work, Elara. And you should already know that since I’m your bestie.” It’s half a tease again, and her stare is a playful brush off as she turns in my arms, her hands now fisted in my shirt at my abdomen and mine back on her hips. “And it would’ve been me,” I add, those words the thickest in my throat, still trying to tease while also reminding her that it would’ve always been this way.

“And I still would’ve thought you were too young,” she says back, low. “And I still would’ve put up some fight.” She shakes her head with a soft curve in her mouth, her fists tightening. “But who am I kidding?”

I breathe a laugh. “I would’ve pursued you like hell.”

“I know,” she says with a laugh back.

“And I still will,” I whisper before continuing, “I’m not a kid. I’m a man who loves you. I’m a man who wants you. And I’m a man who can take care of you in every way you need.”

“You take care of so much.” Elara’s fists tug with the stress. “You carry so much. You do so much. Youare…so much.” Her emphasis is three paused, gasped breaths that expands my own, a release of so much weight on my chest. “You have a strength I wish I had sometimes.”

I swallow hard as I pull her flush against me. “You have always been one of the strongest people I know.”

One of her hands crawls up my chest to give me a light poke over the heart, a shake in her voice as she says, “And you know how to handle me when I’m not.” She looks at me with the sharpest recognition, like I’m the one person who’s always gotten her. I just had to stop questioningmyself.

When her hand crawls the rest of the way up to the nape of my neck in a cling, her fingers digging in, I lift her chin and take her mouth with mine. The way she moans, the sound vibrating through me, as my tongue parts her lips, the way my skin flames as she clutches to me and presses her body more into mine, the way her nails scrape through my hair, are all sensations I’ll never tire of feeling from her.

She wants control, shoving me toward the couch, and I move with her, securing my hold behind her elbows. We stumble a bit as we round the couch, and she pushes me down.I was already growing hard, but with that motion and me now on my back and Elara standing over me with the bluest flames in her eyes, my cock is a full on tent in my jeans.

“I think I like you on top,” I say to that immediate picture as she drops down and straddles me, my tone playful as I return my grip to her hips, but my groan that follows is heavy with desire.

“It is my favorite,” she murmurs against my lips, fisting the collar of my shirt, her little smirk drawing out mine.

“I will remember that,” I say as a half warning before sweeping back her hair in a kiss as deep as our need.

We don’t stay curled into each other all night, unfortunately—I still have duties to finish up, that she wants to help with, but tonight is another win for both of us.

Twenty-Seven

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