Page 130 of Under the Waves
He nudged my side. “I know you do, Wellsy. But no one has bothered you since finding out you’re with me, have they?”
“N-no,” I shook my head. “Apart…apart from the people on the beach that day…”
“I dealt with them.”
My heart skipped a beat, eyes widening. “You did?”
“Of courseI did. I told you, I’d protect you, Wellsy. Contract or not, I’ve got your back. Fuckingalways.”
I didn’t know how to react tothat.
Knowing that he’d—
Forme?
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“If being with me is causing you more trouble at home, if it’s more pain than it’s worth—”
“It’s not,” I hurried to say. To stop his thought trail. Jasper wasn’t too much for me. Hewasworth it. “My mom—she’s juststrict. She loves me, shedoes,” I rushed out in one breath. “She just…she’s just protective over me. That’s all. She can’teverknow about us, Jasper. She can’t or else—”
“I’ll make sure no one says anything to her,” he promised.
I nodded, letting out a weighted breath. “Okay.”
His eyes shone with uncertainty. “Friends?”
“Friends,” I repeated confidently.
Standing there, under the hot spray of the water, I studied every inch of his face like a poet starved of their muse because Iknewthat when that sun rose, I wouldn’t be able to see him likethis. We’d go back to how we were and let this night be forgotten.
In the time I’d managed to fall down a rabbit hole into my own mind, Jasper had finished my entire hair care routine. He refused to let me step out of the shower on my own, insisting that I should be carried out.
“If this is the only night I get to have you as my girlfriend, for reals, then you better believe I’m going to treat you like a fucking goddamnedqueen, Wellsy.”
I swore a blush coated my cheeks as soon as he said those words, gazing at me with fierce determination in his eyes, letting me know there was no point fighting him on this because nothing I could say would change his mind. Even as he carried me out of the shower, wrapping me up tightly in a light gray towel, he still managed to make my heart skip a beat like it had never done before.
“Tonight…tonight you’re mine,” I whispered slowly as his gaze burned into mine. “And I…I am yours.”
He gulped, nodding barely, as if somehow those words just made it ten times morereal. Without thinking, I stepped one step closer to him, bridging the distance between us. Neither of us looked away as his hands cupped my cheeks, one hand dropping down, grazing the back of my neck and stroking it gently. Ileaned into his touch, letting my body bathe in the essence of him. His eyes dropped to my lips, and for a fraction of a second, I thought he might’ve kissed me. Worse than that,I washopingthat he’d kiss me.
My fingers grazed the underside of his jaw as he groaned, eyes briefly fluttering closed. Any space between us was erased. We were wholly within each other’s orbit. Nothing else existed in time other than us and this moment we shared.
Nothing would be able to take this away.
It wasours.
Neither of us dared speak. Words somehow made everything seemreal, and right now, we both needed this escape. Every part of my soul couldfeelhim—he had woven his way through every inch of me, leaving nothing unscathed. Never before in my life had I experienced what it would be like to have someone own every part of you, but now—now I think I did.
Delicately, his thumb caressed my cheek and my heartbeat seized completely.
I was completely and utterlyhis.
“I love your eyes,” he hummed. “I could get lost in them for eternity and not once wish to be saved.”
I froze at his words, my entire body going numb.
You have his eyes.