Page 43 of Take

I GRIPPED THE EDGE OF the sink, head down, breathing hard and my body still throbbing. What had I done? What was I doing? He took everything I hid away and blew it apart. He’d broken through.

Jesus, he’d found me.

I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose. In and out. In and out.

He spanked me.

And I wanted it. It turned me on. God, what was wrong with me?

I was scrambling to find the peace again. The steady control I lived with. Jasper just fucked it right out of me and I had no idea how to get it back. I needed it back.

If Drake found me . . . I needed the numbness.

God, his hands roamed over me like . . . it was like he didn’t even notice my scars. No pity. No questions. Just the raw need for one another.

Then he spanked me.

A tweak of desire hit me as I thought of his hand coming down on me, then the instant pain then . . . then pleasure. A wild release of beauty. I shouldn’t like it. But I did. Because I knew exactly what he’d done . . . he was getting me to feel. To scream. To free me from the shell.

I rubbed my hand over my butt, closing my eyes as the tenderness raised the desire in me again. I pictured him behind me, his hard thighs against mine, hands on my hips and then running down me.

“No!” I shouted and pounded the edge of the sink and turned away from the mirror so I didn’t look at myself. See the blush in my cheeks, the satisfied look in my eyes.

He’d find me. Drake would find me and break me this time. I couldn’t let that happen.

“Max?” Jasper knocked on the door.

I slid to the floor, leaning against the bathtub and pulled my legs up, resting my cheek on my knees. I didn’t like what was happening to me. It was as if Jasper was spinning the lock to my emotions and each number he got right set free another emotion in me.

“Open the fuckin’ door.” It sounded like his palm slapped the flimsy wood of the door.

“There are washrooms in the lobby.”

I heard a rough snort and then—

The door frame gave as his foot kicked it open, but it did more than that; he left a huge hole in the middle of the door. I refused to be provoked by him and kept my spot as he stood in the doorway, staring down at me.

He stepped closer and then crouched in front of me. I kept my eyes averted because . . . because I was still trying to put my pieces together and they were getting further and further away with Jasper so close.

He didn’t say anything as he stared at me, and it was the way he did it, as if he held the fragile pieces of me in his grasp. At his mercy to be crushed or gently cradled.

He dropped down beside me, knees bent, arms casually hanging over them.

It was what he did. Just like when I had a nightmare.

Every muscle in my body was strained as I waited for his smartass remark, but he sat beside me and said nothing. After a while, I relaxed and closed my eyes as I listened to his rhythmic breathing beside me.

I don’t know when it happened, but I ended up with my head on his shoulder, his arm around me, fingers slowly stroking my shoulder. At some point, I fell asleep with Jasper cradling me in his arms.

I woke in the morning, in bed, legs tangled with his and his tatted arm over top of me, my lips nestled next to a smooth, hard naked chest. And no matter how good it felt, it was wrong for more reasons than just Drake. I didn’t regret having sex. I wanted him, but Jasper was wrong. I had to remember why we were here, why he was here.

I tried to push him off me, but he merely groaned and tightened his arm around me, locking me down. “Jasper, get off me.”

“Relax, baby.” His tone was playful and casual as if we were . . . more.

“I want to get up.” Because I was already feeling moisture between my legs and what happened last night couldn’t happen again.

“Are you trying to get another spanking, because all you have to do is ask.”