Page 62 of Jasper

Her head tilted. “John.”

“My name is Jasper. You think my mother would name me something as ordinary as John?”

“It’s a perfectly good name.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Lincoln.”

“Better, but no.”

“Come on, don’t make me guess. Please?” She batted those eyes at him, and he sighed. She was damn well going to use her feminine wiles against him. Without even realizing she was doing it. Sloane was innocent in a lot of ways. He loved that about her.

“Matthew. My middle name is Matthew, after my grandfather.”

“All right, then, Jasper Matthew Watkins, or whoever the hell you are, you need to man up and tell me what’s going on, because it’s really starting to piss me off.”

She was mad. He expected her to be mad. He’d take that emotion over the fear that had paralyzed her any day. Anger and fear working together would keep her alive. She didn’t remember a damn thing, and that was a blessing as far as he was concerned, but he couldn’t treat her like a glass house. As much as it scared him, she needed to understand so she wouldn’t do something that could endanger her life.

“I got a phone call from my contact in Miami. Your apartment was broken into.”

She went quiet, and he berated himself. He shouldn’t have told her.

“Are you sure?” she asked after long moments.

“Yes. I had him sitting on your place.”

“Was it…was it…” She broke off and wrapped her arms around herself. He could see the panic starting to crowd her expression.

Hell no.

He set his plate aside and pulled her into his lap. She stiffened, but he didn’t let her go. He wrapped himself around her. “No, you don’t, pretty girl. No more slipping away into a state of shock and scaring me the fuck to death. You are not allowed to do that to me again. You got it?”

Her fingernails dug into his arms. “I…this is why I was out for two days?”

“You got so scared your body went into shock. You scared me, pretty girl.”

“It was them, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” His arms tightened around her when she tensed. “I called one of the men I work with who knew the city and the crime there. He told me to get out, and we did. I packed what I could and drove us straight through the night until I couldn’t drive anymore. We’re headed to New York, to my team. We can protect you better there.”

“Do you think they would have found us at the farm?”

“They did. Two hours after we left, they showed up.”

Sloane fought back the darkness at the edges of her vision. Fear threatened to tear her apart. If this was anything like she’d felt before, she understood how she passed out. If it weren’t for Jasper holding her tight, she would have splintered apart.

When she imagined them coming after her, it was bad, but knowing they were actively seeking her was so much worse. Why did she get lost at that stupid wedding? She should have just stayed in the tent. Then she wouldn’t have seen them dumping body parts, and she’d not be running for her life right now.

And they showed up at the farm. If Jasper hadn’t been there, if Jarrod hadn’t forced her hand and told him about what she’d seen…a full-body shudder rolled through her.

She would have been all alone on the farm with no one standing between her and them.

She’d be dead right now.

She started to shake and plastered herself to Jasper. She’d be dead. They’d have cut up her up and started tossing her body parts in dumpsters between Watford City and Miami.

Images started to flash in her memory, and she whimpered.

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