Page 79 of Born in the Spring

I feel her relief in her sigh. But then she says her next words, and my brother’s voice comes back to me.

“Shepherd wasn’t.”

She’ll be a great mom. I can’t wait to make her one.

I know where this is going, what’s trying to come between us now, and it’s such an easy choice for me. I made mine a long time ago too. And I won’t letanythingtake her from me again.

“I don’t want my own kids, Jasper.” Her voice is low, but sure, and so is mine as I close this distance.

“And all I want is you.”

“No,” she argues, a soft blurt, her hands raised and waving like a buffer. “I need you to think about this.Reallythink.”

“I think, Elara,” I argue back, mustering a tease as I lower her hands and keep them in mine. “I don’t need to think about that.”

“You’re so young—”

I’m shaking my head as I cut offthatargument, my fingers lacing tight through hers, that stay loose in my hold. “Don’t—”

“You deserve—”

“Did you ever think toaskme? Instead of justtellingme?”

“This is what you’re supposed to want.” She pushes each word, like wanting otherwise is something alien, meaning that’s how she sees herself. “Shepherd wanted—”

“I’m not my brother,” I push back, releasing a small gusted exhale at not feeling that as a burden anymore. I’ve never been more content not to be. Happier to just beme.

Elara’s fingers bend to the back of mine, her lashes wet on her next blink, before they fall away again. “You can’t tell me you don’t want a family someday,” she says like she’s asking me to agree with what she’s been told before.I can’tbecause she’d have no more reasons for why we shouldn’t be together.

“I already have a family,” I tell her, a soft pointing ather, my chest burning up over everyone who’s made her believeshe’s not enough, those similar wounds inside me wrapping around hers.

Her sigh slumps her shoulders, a tiredness back in her tone as she gives me her, “You know what I mean.”

“No,” I say now, my tone the opposite of tired as I feel her hands, and this fight, slipping from mine. “I’m not going to let us be miserable without each other because you think you know what’s best for me.”

“I can’t beenough.” It’s a snapped cry as she yanks out of my hold, one that both shocks me straight and makes me want to yank her back into my arms. “Just me. For you. For your mom. You’re the only kid she has left, Jasper. And if you’re with me—”

“ThenI’llbe withyou,” I stress, keeping this about us, because it’s only about us, as I erase the steps she put between us and pull her in by the hips. I rest my forehead against hers and she clings to the sleeves of my shirt. “Youareenough,” I breathe out, another fire in my chest that I have to say that to this woman, who iseverything. “You are so much.” I give her the release of weight she gave to me, feeling that release in her slow exhale against my lips. “For me, and for my mom.”

I know how important my mom is to her, and I love her for that too, but this isherandme, so I only remind her once.

I lean back to take her face in my hands, lifting her teary eyes to mine. “You’re not taking anything from me, Elara. You’re giving me exactly what I’ve wanted since the moment I saw you. You can’t take anything from me unless it’s you.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” she whispers on closed eyes, half to herself, and I thumb away the two tears that fall. “But of course it does.” She scoffs out a laugh, opening and reconnecting her gaze with mine, saying low, “I knew you’dbe this way.”

“What way?” I say low back, a smile behind the question.

“So. . .” She almost bites out the word, licking tears off her lips, drawing my eyes, and my thumbs, right there. “Unbelievable.”

I smirk at the smallest tease I catch in that word, distracted by the way her tongue rests on her teeth at the end. Until I trail my focus back up to her blues, and new life sparks in my chest at seeing her love for me shining through the wonder, the shift in every curve of her face, down to the crease now in her cheek.

“Elara.” Her name is half a groan, finally feeling like forever from my mouth, my heart the wholest it’s ever been as that last waiting piece she owns slips back into place.

Her nails scratch at my arms as my fingers press into the nape of her neck, my palms a light push on the sides of her throat. Her pulse spikes with her raspy gasp—one of my favorite sounds to pull from her, that pulls a full groan from me.

“Take off my jacket,” she tells me, the simplest, yet sexiest command I’ve ever heard, and in two seconds, that jacket is on the floor, my grip shapes to the curves of her waist, and she’s flush against me.

But then her hands splay on my abdomen in a pausing gesture. “I don’t want you to regret your choices,” she blurts out, a beg for me not to in one last attempt at a fight our hearts have already won.

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