Page 62 of Born in the Spring

“At his lodge?”

“The main lodge.”

“Oh, well, no wonder nothing else happened,” she says with a snort around her next crunch of pear, like if he and I were anywhere else, I wouldn’t have been able to control myself.

I can’t say she’s wrong.

“You might’ve been alone, but those couches are toopublicfor you,” she adds with a flick of her brows, and I keep my face flat, used to her teasings and reminders of how different we are. I try to act my age and she doesn’t.

Yet, she’s always seemed happier. She’salwayshad the most fun.

She tears off another chunk of pear. “He must’ve been fighting himself really hard.” The suggestive lilt in her voice spreads a flush through my skin at rememberinghowhard and ready Jasper was between my thighs. My breasts still tingle where his mouth met the swells. “And how did it feel?”

How did it feel? My toes curled fromjust kissing. It was…hot, I think at that returning heat every one of his touches left on me.

It was also romantic. Tender. A sunrise.

My body was both sated and starved, my heart so full.

The tie has slipped to the middle of my head and I let my hair down, shaking out and running my fingers through the strands as I blow a breath from my lips.

“That good?” Vanessa deduces with a snicker in the wordsand a raised brow in her observing stare.

I chuckle. “Good sums it up.”

She points the last of her pear at me. “But you both need more. And you’ll have more, because you’re done talking about how he’s too young for you. He showed you last night that he’s not. And I can say this now too, you can’t tell. You don’t look your age. Yeah, you do look more matured, but it’s not a big difference, and yeah, right now, he looks more youthful, but remember, he’ll grow out of it too.”

I shake my head at her speech, if you can call it one. “Was that supposed to help?”

She finishes her pear, then drops her arm, stressing through the mouthful, “You lookyoung.”

“It’s the principle,” I sigh out, twirling the last bite of my meal that I can stomach now.

The core of the pear thuds into the trash can. “Who cares what the principal says? We’re not in school anymore,” she jokes. “He’s a man who’s old enough and gorgeous enough to have nasty things done to him, and hewantsnasty things done to him. By you. A woman who has lived and knows a thing or two. Show him what you got.”

“Not helpful.” I carry and scrape the little left of my spaghetti into the trash can. “And you make it sound like I’ve been through a buffet of men,” I add on a chuckle.

“You haven’t?”

“He could probably show me some things,” I mumble as a half tease on my way to the sink to her teasing, putting it that way.

“Well, I never said he couldn’t do nasty things to you too.”

I turn on the faucet, spewing the water over my silent argument as I wash the dishes. None of that changes the factson paper. I’m twelve years older than Jasper. We’re on two different waves of living.

My armor is gone, but the battle still wars inside me.

“No one else knows something happened between you two, right?” Vanessa asks once the only loud thing is the television again.

I face her as I’m drying my hands. “Not yet.”

She nods, a promise there to let me—and him—walk through this at my own pace. No spotlight. No privacy invasions. She might have a big, opinionated mouth, but she knows when to keep it closed.

What comes of this has to be on my terms, and Jasper showed me this morning with Amie that he understands that.

It’sourterms, but if it werehisterms alone, everyone would already know about last night. And maybe I should be that way too, but I’m not. I’m not trying tohideus, but my end of things is more complicated. Complications outside of Shepherd. Ones we would have anyway.

And we, ourselves, have barely had the time to even talk about last night.

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