Page 80 of Born in the Spring

And I show her I don’t by leaning in and trailing kisses along her neck.

“Because I’ve made mine and I won’t change my mind,” she continues, weaker now as she arches into me, all staggered air.

“I’ve never changed my mind about you, and I never will,” I say, rough at her ear, the promise as yearning as my touch as I dip my hands under her shirt, feeling her skin pebble against my fingertips and her racing pulse against my mouth.

“I won’t, either,” she promises me back, on a moan that moves my lips to hers before she even moves me there herself, her yearning in feverish harmony with mine.

I lift her in my arms and spin her toward my bedroom, the moan she releases now louder and muffled on my tongue. I carry her halfway before setting her on her feet, walking her backward as I husk between kisses, “I think”—one to her neck—“it’s about time”—a nibble along her jaw—“you come”—one back on her mouth—“in my bed,” ending with a teasing drag of my tongue along the shell of her ear.

“Is it?” she says as a tease back as she takes the final step into the room, then yanks me against her through the threshold.

Thirty-Three

Elara

I’d never been inside Jasper’s room. But I don’t bother looking around. It’s not theroomI’m aching to explore.

The only thing my brain registers is that we don’t need a light; the space is brightened by the snow and distant lights out the window.

With my fists in his shirt, and the sway in his steps from my strong-arming, from my needing a complete reprieve, the pangs now unbearable, I veer him toward the bed, and shove him down. He bounces to a sitting position on the side and pulls me by my hips between his spread legs, gazing up at me in all his devastation and intoxication I wouldn’t be able to handle if we weren’t finally here.

If he didn’t know how to handle me. How to love me.

But he’s been doing that for years.

And now I’m going to be better at loving him.

“You okay?” he checks in with a whisper, with only worry, every worry, as I’m blinking through wet lashes.

“Yes,” I voice this time, resting my hands on his shoulders, my smile genuine and pulling out his again.

And like the stillness of the snow on the ground and the softened energy of the night, we slow down, taking each other in within the glow.

Jasper’s never closed his bedroom curtains. If anyone were to walk up this hill, at this perfect moment, they’d see us like this. Together.

I toe off my shoes, getting them out of the way, and move in closer to him. When I bite at my lip, stroking trails down his chest, over the wrinkled mess I’ve made of his shirt, he lets out a long breath, his strokes resuming higher along my hips until they reach the hem of my top. But it’shisI want off first.

I give the cloth a nudging lift and he yanks the shirt over his head from the back, flinging it off to land pooled on the floor. I lose control of my breathing seeing him in this way, and he’s only half-naked, only his chest that’s bare. Only his beautifully sculpted chest, heating my skin as my body begs to see more, to feel more, to release every ounce of control I have left.

Which is none.

But it seems he still has some.

I have my top lifted halfway up my stomach when his hands clamp down on mine, his eyes dropping down next, soaking in this glimpse of my exposed skin with uneven breaths of his own before those heady eyes flash back up.

“Don’t deny me the privilege of stripping you down the first time.”

My hands fall to my sides as his fall to the waistband of my leggings, starting there, that current between his skin and mine humming in every place he touches. He tugs them so slowly, a noise ofprotest escapes me.

“Jasper,” I half complain and half moan as his mouth meets my bare thigh, a beg for this and a beg for more. “You don’t have to do this this time,” I say, as I arch into his kisses like I can’t get enough, which Ican’tever get enough, and which makes him press a teasing kiss on my clit, right through my panties. His groan only stimulates my need for more as I dig my fingers into his shoulders. “I need to feel you inside me.”

“Fuck,” he growls against me, moving faster to tug my leggings to my ankles, and I step out of them—but he then grips the back of my thighs, holding me steady there, and with his stare.

“Don’t beg me,” he pleads to me now, his heavier on his lips. “For six too damn long years, I believed this would never happen. IknewI would never have you. But I have you,” he breathes, the amazement in his voice and shaping every feature of his face flaring that same feeling in my heart. “And I’ll give you every fucking thing you want, so don’t beg me yet.”

I sigh into him, cupping his face, my thumb grazing the corner of his forming smirk as he adds, “Let me marvel in you a bit longer.”

“I want that too,” I say as a promise to him, and as a scolding to my impatience. We’re both wanting, but there’s no hurry now, when all we have are the long hours ahead and each other. “But you have toat leasttake these off,” I add with a playful gleam and a snapping of my panties.

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