Strong Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous #1)(79)

Jasper

I have to make myself pull out of Muse, regret setting in once my mind returns. I roll away and sit up, running my hands through my hair as I think of the best way forward.

I feel the bed shift as Muse sits, too. She presses her front to my back, draping her arms around my neck. I can feel the delicious points of her nipples pressing into my shoulder blades and my mouth waters reflexively.

I stand, breaking free of her hold as I pace to the other side of the room.

“I’m sorry,” I confess, unable to look back at her. I can picture perfectly what she must look like, sitting on her haunches, legs spread to reveal that beautiful *, lush nipples now a darker pink from the assault of my mouth.

“Why?” Her voice is small. Hurt.

I turn to find her head downcast. “I let you go so that you wouldn’t get hurt, so that I would never hurt you, and yet here I am . . .”

“You didn’t hurt me, Jasper,” she says, raising her liquid green eyes to mine. I can see the glitter of them in the moonlight streaming through the window behind her.

“I came inside you, Muse. What if you get pregnant? Do you think you’ll ever be able to get rid of me then? I took your choice away from you tonight.”

“No you didn’t. I let this happen. I was here, too, you know. And I don’t want to get rid of you. I want you here. With me. Always. And I thought that’s where you wanted to be.”

I say nothing. She’s right. I knew what I was doing. And I knew I didn’t want her to have a choice. I want to be bound to her forever. And her to me.

“Your last painting,” I begin. “I saw the hurt in it. I saw the pain and the anger. I did that.”

“You’ve been watching me.” Not a question. A statement.

“Yes.”

“I hoped you were.”

“You did?” That surprises me.

She nods. “I also hoped that one day you’d let me see you.”

“I had no intentions of that ever happening, but when I saw him on you . . .”

My blood boils instantly. I curl my fingers into fists so tight my joints ache.

“If you had no intention of ever being with me or letting me see you then why did you come? Why do that to me?”

“I wasn’t doing it to you, Muse,” I snap a little more harshly than I mean to. “Don’t you get it? I’ve never loved someone before. Not the way I love you. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. I hardly eat. For months, I prayed to go back to the way I was, when I didn’t feel. Didn’t want. Didn’t love. But it wouldn’t go away. The more I tried to run from it, the worse it got. Nothing could make me forget you. Not drinking, not drugs, not other women, not—”

“You were with other women?”

“I tried to be, but damn you, I couldn’t do it. They weren’t you. They didn’t smell like you, didn’t taste like you, didn’t feel like you. I couldn’t get past a kiss, a simple touch. But God, I tried.” I’m out of breath. Bitterly angry. Frustrated. “So I’m here now. To overdose. You’ll either kill me or heal me. Either way, I can’t live like this anymore. Without you.”

Muse gets up and walks to where I stand in front of the other window. “But I don’t want you to. I don’t care about the danger or what might happen. My life isn’t worth living without you, so I’ll take the risk. That’s what you saw in the painting. You saw how miserable I was without you. You saw that there was no sun even on a sunny day. You saw that the beauty around me wasn’t beautiful anymore. But now it is. You’re here. With me. And I don’t want to spend another minute of another day in that kind of misery again. I knew if we’d ever have a chance, you’d have to come to me on your own. You’d have to be as ready for me in your life as I am for you in mine.”

“I’m ready. I’d give up everything I am to be with you. Staying away didn’t help my mother. It didn’t save her. It only hurt her. And me. If you’ll have me, I’m yours. I think I have been from the day I met you, when the man I’ve always hated started to die. You showed me love, real love. The kind that changes you from the inside out. I just didn’t know if you could still love me, after all that’s happened.”

“Like I said, love doesn’t let you go. And neither will I. I’ll hang on until I draw my last breath, whether you do or not.”

Hearing that brings me an odd sense of relief. It’s almost an assurance that when Muse loves, she loves forever. No matter what happens, no matter who you turn out to be. She just loves. Even the monsters.

“So you aren’t upset that I was watching you?”

“Now I’m not,” she says with a grin.

“I felt like a creep.”

“Doesn’t look like that stopped you,” she teases, dragging her fingernails up and down my biceps. They tense in response to her touch. That’s all she has to do—touch me, smile at me, walk too close, the smallest thing and it’s all over with. I’m done. Or maybe undone.

“I needed it. I needed you. A little bit of your heart, your soul. Even a glimpse of it—through your paintings, through your window, through the crowd on the street—just to keep me going. To keep me putting one foot in front of the other.”

Her expression takes on one of sadness. “It didn’t have to be that way.”