Page 58 of Born in the Spring

We’re carrying this together. We need each other.

I need him.

The click of the door ricochets off the lot, too loud in thequiet, and pushes me to retrace my steps, without a glance back.

My body hums the closer I get to Jasper and where I know he’s waiting for me.

Twenty-Three

Elara

When I walk into the main lodge, the rug concealing my steps, I see Jasper lying back on the farthest couch, the one with a perfect view of the door if he were to look over.

I don’t move off the rug; I don’t make a sound, my own battle pulsing through its last aches as I stand here, watching him, in the glow of the fireplace, and the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree. As I really take him in, my breathing staggered as I allow myself tofeelmy attraction to him. To finally soak up how good his pecs and abdomen fill out that tank top—like with every tank top I’ve had to see him wearing over the years, but not stare at.

And his faceshouldbe illegal. His eyes are the most beautiful I’ve seen, and the ones that lay me bare with a single look. His smile is intoxicating, and now, he could ask anything of me with that smile attached and I’d give it to him.

My love for him comes next, as I let the feeling all the way in, filling up every hollow place left in my heart and soothingevery racing beat.

It’s all a floating in my head. A giddiness in my chest. A nervousness in my limbs. A desire pooling deep in my belly.

I make the first move to the floor, the first click of my boot shooting him up to a sitting position. My teeth sink into my sprung smile and he sighs back against the cushions as I approach him, one unhurried step at a time.

He now takes me in, his gaze trailing over me as mine did with him, having the nerve to appear shocked that I stayed.

I shake my head in a playfully refuted way, and he breathes a laugh as he moves to the edge of the couch, closer to me as I stop at the table, his eyes still roaming over me and his lips parted in a way like he still can’t believe I’m here.

“I disappointed a kid for you,” I say on a tease. “We’re off to a bad start.”

His eyes lock on mine, shining with the meaning in my words, and a plea for me to actually say it. So I do. I don’t make him wait anymore.

Without breaking eye contact, I drop my purse on the table. “I’mreallytelling you I don’t want to lose you.” His throat bobs as I remove my jacket, then drop it on the table too. “I’m saying no.” A furrow forms between his brows as I kick off my boots, lines I smooth out as I go on with a shake in my voice. “You asked me once if you weren’t a teenager when we met, would it have still been your brother. . .” There’s another bob in his throat and a pause in his breathing, his eyes widening the littlest bit as I repeat my answer. “No.”

Still holding my gaze, he reaches for my hand, his warm, caressing fingers giving me another shiver as they twine through mine. His eyes fall to the touch, then close a moment with a sigh and a squeeze, before blinking open, bright andwanting.

“I’ve been falling for you a long time,” I tell him now, with a sigh of my own, tears in my voice, but they’re from the release.

Jasper gives me a small tug on low, imploring words. “Let me catch you.”

I look down at where my fingers have loosened enough to stroke his, taking in how right they feel between my own.

We areright, he said.

“Elara.” His voice is rough around my name, another squeeze in his hand, that draws my gaze back to his. “Get in my lap.”

He shifts back as I let him catch me, steadying me with a grip on my waist as I straddle him, my hands landing on the back of the couch, my thighs flush with his hips. His accelerated breathing fans my face as my hands explore planes of his body I never could, along his strong shoulders and down his arms, his biceps that flex beneath my grazes.

“I think I’m having a heart attack,” he gasps out with a low laugh.

I glide my touch to his chest, pressing into the light heaves there. “Breathe,” I whisper, close to his lips. “I need this heart.”

His next inhale is sharp as his fingers sweep through my hair in a tug to bring my mouth to his. Our lips mold together in a kiss that ignites a new burn in my chest, the flare hot and heady as it spreads like a fever throughout my body. His skin warms on mine, telling me he feels it too.

He moans on my tongue and I tremble in his hands, both gripping my jaw as I angle my head to give him access to kiss me deeper.

Where we started off slow and seeking, we’re nowclutching to each other with ragged breaths, giving and taking more, needing closer.

His arms tighten around me and I’m lifted, his mouth not parting from mine as he shifts me to my back, my legs fully around his waist as he settles between them. I gasp in his mouth as he presses into me, feeling the full length and thickness of his erection through the thin cloth of his pants and my leggings. My nails dig into his back before scratching through his hair, and he releases another moan as he works one of his hands between the cushion and my ass, cupping and pulling me more into him.

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