“You were with other women?”
“I tried to be, but damn you, I couldn’t do it. They weren’t you. They didn’t smell like you, didn’t taste like you, didn’t feel like you. I couldn’t get past a kiss, a simple touch. But God, I tried.” I’m out of breath. Bitterly angry. Frustrated. “So I’m here now. To overdose. You’ll either kill me or heal me. Either way, I can’t live like this anymore. Without you.”
Muse gets up and walks to where I stand in front of the other window. “But I don’t want you to. I don’t care about the danger or what might happen. My life isn’t worth living without you, so I’ll take the risk. That’s what you saw in the painting. You saw how miserable I was without you. You saw that there was no sun even on a sunny day. You saw that the beauty around me wasn’t beautiful anymore. But now it is. You’re here. With me. And I don’t want to spend another minute of another day in that kind of misery again. I knew if we’d ever have a chance, you’d have to come to me on your own. You’d have to be as ready for me in your life as I am for you in mine.”
“I’m ready. I’d give up everything I am to be with you. Staying away didn’t help my mother. It didn’t save her. It only hurt her. And me. If you’ll have me, I’m yours. I think I have been from the day I met you, when the man I’ve always hated started to die. You showed me love, real love. The kind that changes you from the inside out. I just didn’t know if you could still love me, after all that’s happened.”
“Like I said, love doesn’t let you go. And neither will I. I’ll hang on until I draw my last breath, whether you do or not.”
Hearing that brings me an odd sense of relief. It’s almost an assurance that when Muse loves, she loves forever. No matter what happens, no matter who you turn out to be. She just loves. Even the monsters.
“So you aren’t upset that I was watching you?”
“Now I’m not,” she says with a grin.
“I felt like a creep.”
“Doesn’t look like that stopped you,” she teases, dragging her fingernails up and down my biceps. They tense in response to her touch. That’s all she has to do—touch me, smile at me, walk too close, the smallest thing and it’s all over with. I’m done. Or maybe undone.
“I needed it. I needed you. A little bit of your heart, your soul. Even a glimpse of it—through your paintings, through your window, through the crowd on the street—just to keep me going. To keep me putting one foot in front of the other.”
Her expression takes on one of sadness. “It didn’t have to be that way.”
I smile. “I had to try and let you go. For your sake. So I did. I tried like hell, but God! Every time I tried, I didn’t get more than a hundred miles. Before I knew it, I was on my way back. Back here. Back to you. I didn’t want to be anywhere that you weren’t.”
“Please don’t leave me again, Jasper,” Muse pleads, her eyes glistening, her chin trembling. “I don’t think I can survive it again.”
“I won’t. I can’t. I’m strong enough to kill, to maim, to survive things that would destroy other men. I’m strong enough to do whatever it takes to keep you safe, to protect you. As long as it’s not from me. The one thing I’m not strong enough to do is live without you. Sarò sempre pensare a te.”
“You don’t have to think of me anymore. I’m right here. And I always will be. Wherever you are.”
“I want you to know that I will do anything to make you happy as long as you never ask me to leave.”
“Then you’re already making me the happiest girl in the world.”
She rises up on her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine, her lush breasts dragging over my chest. My cock stirs to life, nudging her soft belly.
“There’s nothing ‘girl’ about you,” I say, reaching between us to palm the firm mounds.
“Mmmm,” she moans against my lips. “Nope. All woman. And all yours.”
I wrap my arms around her waist and pick her up to carry her back to bed. “I like the sound of that.”
EPILOGUE
Muse
Four months later
“Are you sure I look okay?” I ask for the twentieth time at least.
“You look edible. Maybe you should change.”
I tilt my head to give Jasper a withering look, but my lips are still curved in a smile. “Not a chance, buster, because after this, you get to take this home and eat it up.”
A laugh bubbles up in my throat when I see his eyes darken to the color of light molasses. “You do want me to go in with you, right? Because if you keep saying things like that, what I’m thinking will be very apparent to everyone in the restaurant when I walk in with this.”