Page 153 of Entangled

“I’m not afraid. I’m not a coward,” I whisper.

Beau’s gaze digs in like a grave. “This doesn’t have anything to do with cowardice, darlin’. I think you need to have a talk with Jasper. He can help. You don’t need to be feeling like this.”

Jasper. God. Iknowwhat he can help with. With drawing me in, talking me down, with making me feel like we’re the only two people in the world.

Only to crush me in his fist.

Jasper breaks my heart every time I talk to him. And I don’t have enough glue right now to keep putting it back together.

“No. No. I need to go.” I step away from all of them. The grass is a blur under me. “Just give me some space. All of you, just leave mealone.”

Chapter36

Eden

Survival tip #300

Listen to the people who love you.

Their truths hit the hardest.

Istorm back into Bristlebrook, only to find half a dozen people in the living room. Breathing hard, I look around at them, catching more than a few frowns.

Jennifer pushes past me, and I grab her arm. This isn’t in my head.

“Why is everyone mad at me?” I ask, my voice catching.

“Why?” She tongues her lip piercing with a disbelieving scoff. “You trade Jayk in the second you get back here? That boy is sick over you. God knows why. Maybe the next person he chooses will know something about loyalty.”

“What?”

Jennifer pulls out of my grip, stalking off, and when I look around, the women avoid my eyes. The frantic battering in my chest increases. Of course. What else are they going to think? They like Jayk. They saw us fight.

They know I’m the villain.

My eyes burn, and I push into the kitchen, hoping for some peace. Some silence.Something.

Of course, I’m not that fortunate.

I freeze, wide-eyed, as I take in Jasper and Lucky atop the breakfast bar, and the sharp stop makes the ball clatter inside me heavily enough to make me pant out a silent gasp.

Jasper has him pinned by the throat, shirtless and stretched out like a carnal banquet. Over him, Jasper’s silk shirt is unbuttoned to the waist, displaying his chest to full advantage.

I... I have never seen Jasper with so few clothes.

He isn’t heavily muscled or crisply defined, not like the others, but there’s an understated strength and grace to his body, like it was put together as art as well as for function. He’s ivory and onyx. Coiled intensity and elegant confidence. It feels decadent to see him like this—like a rare and unexpected treasure that renders me speechless.

Underneath him, Lucky is lean and cut, lightly tanned and shivering with lust. He’s decorated with new scars—on his chest, in the crest of muscle between his neck and shoulder, on his arm. They’re shiny and still pink.

They’re too lost, too caught up in one another to have spotted me yet. Lucky arches up, squirming, and Jasper gives Lucky a look so heated and intense that Lucky stills entirely under him. His hair is messily falling out of its loose ties, like he hasn’t bothered to put it up properly.

There are bright yellow flowers knotted through his tiny braids. Flowers. There’s something so dizzily romantic about it that my heart throbs painfully, fluttering for a different reason. Or maybe it is the same panic, just in a different flavor.

He hasflowersin his hair.

In seconds, the sight of them has reshaped my brain. My burning, unbearable jealousy wars with crippling, painful desire. And I don’t understand it. I don’t know why seeing them together, these two thatIwant, should make me hurt so gorgeously.

Jasper moves his hand from Lucky’s throat to grasp his wrists, and he presses them down on either side of Lucky’s head. He lowers himself until their chests are pressed together, hard and slick, and Jasper’s wicked mouth begins its hedonic descent.

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