Page 65 of To Crave Darkly
“Fuck you, Jasper. I’ve had enough. I’m done.” I turned on my heel and headed for the door. If he wanted to burn the bridge between us then fine. I’d give him the fucking fuel and the match, and he could have at it.
He moved so fast that I barely felt a disturbance in the air before he pinned me to the door. The wall of his chest pressed against my back and the door was cool against my suddenly fevered cheek.
“I don’t want to care. I don’t want to be tormented by you, but I am.” The words were a harsh whisper against the shell of my ear. “Before you walked into my life, I was so certain of what I wanted. I had a plan. Something to complete my life on this earth. But now… Now I don’t know what I want.”
“That makes two of us,” I snarled as I bucked against his hold. “I’m sick and tired of not knowing where you stand. What is it that you want Jasper?”
“What do I want?” He growled, grinding his hips against my ass. “I want to punish that sassy fucking mouth of yours. I want to spank you for the way you defy me. I want to tie you to my bed so I know exactly where you are, and I want to make you scream my name as I lose myself in you over and over again.”
I couldn’t breathe. I literally couldn’t breathe.
“Then why don’t you?”
Jasper grabbed my waist and turned me round to face him. He pinned my arms by the side of my head and trapped my body with his. His bright blue eyes darkened to the black of the beast and glinted dangerously in the low light. I’d brought the beast to the surface and, while part of me wanted to run, the other part of me wanted to stand my ground and find out what would happen when I prodded the beast.
“Because I won’t be able to control myself.” His lips found the soft column of my neck and I shuddered as his fangs scraped tantalisingly across my skin. “I will want to claim every last drop of you.”
Fuck. Why was that so hot? The lethal promise of his words had my pulse thudding and my heart skipping beats.
“What if I want you to?”
A moan of desperation escaped his lips and it reverberated through me. He was hanging on by a thread and I wanted to pull it and watch him unravel.
“You’re not ready for me. For what this would mean.” His eyes found mine again, desire still aflame in their dark depths, but it was mixed with a strong sense of conflict. Like he was torn between making the right decision and doing what he wanted.
“What would it mean, Jasper?”
“That you would bemine.”
Oh, fuck. There was that word again. Mine. I still feared the implications of that word. Jasper was right. I wasn’t ready for that. I also wasn’t sure that he wanted this. He seemed to be fighting it just as much as I was trying to understand it.
As if sensing my reticence, he took a step back and I felt the fog of desire lift a little. I understood now why he avoided me, why he hadn’t told me what was happening between us. He had wanted me to make the decision without the influence of whatever this was between us hanging over my head. He wanted me to choose him, but not because I had to, but because Iwantedto.
“You should go,” Jasper whispered, pain flashing in his eyes as the obsidian brightened back to electric blue.
I nodded and he stepped back from me completely, my body instantly feeling the loss of his warmth. He wouldn’t even look at me. I gently reached out and cupped his face, his light stubble tickling my fingertips.
“Just give me time, Jasper, but don’t avoid me. I need you and I want you to be around. Please?”
He gave my cheek a careless flick with his finger. “For you, anything.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. “You mean you could be less grumpy?”
“Are you going to be less impertinent?”
“Hey, you like my sassy mouth,” I teased. “You think it’s one of my–”
His mouth crushed mine, bruising my lips and cutting off my words. He kissed me like my every breath belonged to him, and he demanded their return. My heart raced. My blood was on fire and my hands fisted in his hair trying to pull him closer to me. His tongue delved into my mouth and he owned me. I was powerless to resist his claim on me, and instead of pushing him away I kissed him back until I was breathless.
Jasper broke the kiss with a strangled cry of desperation. He looked at me with such hunger in his eyes that my body fizzled and hummed with the need to let him take me right there on the meeting room table.
“You really should go,” he breathed. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold back.”
I could tell. I could see the anguish in his face, and I knew he was right. He was at breaking point and I needed to be one hundred percent sure this was what I really wanted before giving myself to him.
“I have to get ready for training with Cassian.”
He laughed softly at that. “Good luck. I’ve a feeling you’ll need it.”
