Strong Enough(88)

He’s still for a few seconds before he slowly approaches me and stops within an inch. He smells like the night—cold and dark. But his scent, his face, his very presence warms me like nothing else can.

With purposeful, measured movements, he bends and sweeps me up into his arms. Gazes still locked, I wrap my hands around his neck as he turns to mount the stairs. He carries me through the bedroom and back into the bathroom, where he sets me on my feet. I watch as he pulls the plug from the tub and turns to exit the room.

I stand and wait, listening to the muffled sounds of material shifting from the other room. When he returns, the last of the water is circling the drain.

Jasper turns on the faucet and resets the plug, reaching into the corner for the bubble bath. He pours a capful under the stream of hot water and then recaps and replaces it.

When he straightens, he faces me. His eyes click to a stop on mine and we stare at each other. Still neither of us speaks. I don’t know what’s going through his mind, but I’m too afraid of ruining this moment to utter a single word. I’m too afraid that I might be dreaming and I’ll wake up. Or that he’s an apparition and he might disappear. That’s what’s going through mine.

The moment stretches on, tight as a drum, until the tub fills. Jasper reaches down to turn it off and then lifts me off my feet again, setting me in the gloriously hot water. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until the heat hits my skin. I did, however, know how lonely I was, how desperate I was for Jasper. Now that’s all the more apparent.

Eyes locked together, Jasper pushes up the sleeves of his black shirt and takes the washcloth I’d set on the edge of the tub earlier. He wets it, lathers it with my soap and then with a gentleness that melts my heart, he starts to wash me. He drags his hand under my chin, down my chest, circling my breasts several times before he applies more soap and starts again. He follows the same path, only this time takes his cleaning down my stomach where he circles and circles and circles.

I study him the whole time. I watch his face, a face that has always been hard to read, but is now showing me a sea of distress.

“Jasper, what’s wrong?”

His eyes are intent, focused on his hands, but I don’t think he’s seeing them. He seems to be looking somewhere else. Inward maybe.

When he repeats the same steps again, making his way to below my navel this time, I finally understand what this is about.

He’s washing away what just happened. He’s doing the only thing he can to take away the trauma of what I almost experienced, the horror of being that close to rape. And to death.

“If I’d been here, he’d never have gotten that close,” he finally says in a softly haunted voice. It slides over my skin like velvet and moves over my heart like silk.

I catch his wrist and bring his hand up to my chest, where he can feel the thud of my heart beneath the bone. “Do you feel that, Jasper? That beats for you. I feel like it hasn’t beat since the day you left. I’d risk losing my life all over again if it meant you coming back to me.”

Jasper drops his head and rests it along the edge of the tub. Slowly, I sit up, reaching forward to cup his face and raise his eyes to mine. Now is not the time for second thoughts or stubborn pride. I may never get a chance like this again. I have to make the most of it.

“Jasper, I love you. I’ve loved you from the second you walked into my life. And I never stopped. Not for one minute. Nothing else matters. Nothing. And no one. All I want, all I need is you. Just you. And you’re here. Finally,” I tell him, happy tears blurring his face in front of me. “You’re finally here. You came for me.”

I watch as Jasper’s eyes turn to dark gold. I hear his shaky breath as he exhales. I feel the tremor in his hand where it rests against my skin. We stare at each other, something more powerful than words, more powerful than the electricity swirling in the air around us. It triggers a shiver that skitters through my muscles, my body responding to the unspoken, to the undefined.

My stomach twists into a knot and my chest swells with emotion. I gasp. I can’t help it. I want this man. I want everything he can give me, however much for however long.

“Don’t do that,” Jasper whispers.

“Don’t do what?” I breathe, my insides jittering.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“Make what harder?”

“Me keeping my hands off you.”

“I never asked you to keep your hands off me.”

“But after what just happened . . .”

“It didn’t happen. And I can’t think of anything I want more right now than to have your hands on me, erasing the touch of anyone else.”