Page 73 of Powerless
And somehow I’m harder to forgive. I think deep down I expected better of myself.
I wonder if this is how Jasper feels too. Fuck, that must be a heavy burden to bear.
His broad hand slides over my cheek, his thumb and forefinger gripping my chin to turn my head his way. “Sunny, look at me.”
The authority in his voice sends a shiver down my spine even though I’m sitting in perfectly hot water. My eyes open and immediately latch onto his.
I’m transported to that first day I saw him, all tall, lanky, and boyish. Even then he moved like an athlete. His gait, his mannerisms. Everything about him screamed strength and agility. It still does but it’s tenfold.
Looking at him is almost unbearable right now.
His irises are dark sapphires under the night sky as they trace my face. Eyes. Mouth. Throat. Then lower.
A cold snowflake lands on the tip of my nose right as he asks, “Tell me how to make you feel better.”
My heart accelerates in my chest, like a car going from zero to sixty. It’s his voice. It’s his hands. His nearness. It’s the open-ended question he just asked.
I could tell him to carry me up to our room and fuck me, ruin me so thoroughly that all I can think about is him and where he’s touching me, and he’d do it.
I open my mouth to say it, but then I rein it back in, feeling so far out of my depth. Like I have whiplash. Like I need to gather my thoughts before I say or do something stupid.
Like completely ruin this friendship.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” I rasp, holding his gaze and watching his chin dip in a subtle nod.
And then I move across the pool, the water caressing my body like silk running over my skin. The sensation of his eyes roaming my back and my ass as I take the shallow steps up onto the pool is heady.
My body screams at me to go back to him. But I don’t want to be that ballerina in a jewelry box with him. I don’t want him to feel like he needs to save me.
I want to save myself.
I emerge from the bathroom in a puff of warm steam. My skin is pink and raw from how hot I had the water, from how hard I scrubbed my skin.
I feel like I scalded an entire layer of myself away in there. Found a little kernel of strength hiding underneath and latched on to it. Decided I won’t be the girl who goes along with what everyone else around her wants.
I’m going to speak up.
I’m going to get comfortable disappointing other people to avoid disappointing myself.
I won’t apologize for doing things the way I want to do them.
I’m ready to be unapologetically me and let go of the people in my life who don’t approve of the person I am now.
Jasper’s head snaps up, eyes dragging down my body and the small white towel I have wrapped around my torso. He doesn’t bother dropping my gaze or hiding the intense look of want that paints his features.
And I decide to revel in that. The petty part of me hopes it hurts. I hope he feels a fraction of the longing I’ve felt for him while he sat around, not telling me why he’s stayed so close and so far away all at once.
“Shower’s all yours. Bathroom lock doesn’t work.” I hike a thumb over my shoulder and walk straight toward my duffel bag that’s beside the atrocious little cot I’ve told myself I’m going to sleep on.
I’m not sure what point I was trying to prove. The new me would make Jasper sleep on it, but one look at him and his hulking frame tells me that isn’t an option.
I love him too much to do that to him. And he likes me too much to say no.
God. We’re so fucked.
“Thanks.” I hear him move across the room, the floorboards beneath the tightly woven carpet creaking as he lumbers past.
I try to force myself not to turn and check him out as he goes.
