Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3)(55)

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.

But I fail.

Miserably.

I let my eyes wander over his broad, toned shoulders, the way his muscles ripple in his back as he walks. The indent down the column of his spine. The grayscale tattoos that wrap around his arms and a lone one that peeks out on his ribs. I can only see it because he lifts one arm and runs a hand through his hair, but it looks an awful lot like . . .

No.

I shake my head and turn back to my bag. When I hear the click of the bathroom door closing, I drop my towel and quickly slide into a pair of black Calvin Klein sleep shorts and a tight black tank top. No bra. My breasts aren’t big enough for it to matter. This stretchy material presses them into place without issue.

I sit on the cot, and a spring pokes my ass through the flimsy mattress. It’s fine. I didn’t torture myself in pointe shoes for years to be put off by a minor discomfort.

As I lie back on the squeaky cot, the glimpse of Jasper’s tattoo keeps popping up in my head. I’ve always known Jasper has a lot of tattoos. What started out as one grew into many. They cover his biceps, twist over his shoulders, and crawl down his forearms. They’re all black, the older ones more faded than the newer ones.

For me, they just add to his appeal. Men like Sterling don’t get tattoos. They get facials. Jasper isn’t “one of us” as my dad would say—a comment that rings a lot more offensive now that I’ve removed my blinders.

Jasper is nothing like the men I grew up around. He’s raw and dirty and loves so hard he hurts himself in the process.

And I want to know what that fucking tattoo is.

I stand, storm across the room, and toss the bathroom door open, stepping into the space.

One strong hand props Jasper’s hulking form up against the shower wall while the other grips his cock, pumping up and down slowly.

His head turns to me.

Wet caramel hair frames his face, and the spray from the shower lashes his spine before streaming down in rivulets over his tightly muscled back and perfectly round ass.

I always knew Jasper’s body was great, that he spent long hours training and working and taking care of himself, but he’s . . . magazine worthy. His body looks cut from stone.