A/N: Hedow. Congrats to Spain! :-)

This chapter took forever for some reason. I hope you enjoy what's below.

Beta'd (as always) by the lovely Riri. Pre-read by the boobalicious Chicklette. *loves her girls*


.

.

.

I woke with a start, blinking as my eyes tried to focus on the pillow in front of me.

A pillow covered in plaid.

I didn't own plaid pillows.

The plaid pillow rose and fell with a soft breath, and as my eyesight continued to focus, I saw buttons and pockets and collarbones and jaw. A scruffy jaw, attached to a face I couldn't see since its nose was buried in my hair, preventing me from tilting my head up any further without disturbing the living, breathing plaid pillow in question.

Of course, at that point, I was awake enough to realize that my pillow was, in fact, male, and my brain was keenly aware of who that male was: Jasper.

I'd slept with Jasper.

Closing my eyes, I focused on remembering how I had ended up in this particular situation. Not that I needed to concentrate too hard; last night wouldn't fade from my memories anytime soon. The horrid dream that had left me screaming in a ball on my floor being the main event. I recalled Jasper finding me that way, and rocking me in his lap until I calmed down.

I guess I calmed down a little too much, considering we were both now curled around each other on the couch. Jasper was snoring ever so slightly with his nose still buried in my hair. The feeling of him exhaling tickled, and I smiled into his chest. It was a secret smile, meant only for me to hold onto when I needed a happy thought.

The smile didn't last. Jasper stirred beneath me the next second, and I panicked. His arms held me tighter as I squirmed, and his whiskey voice, roughed from sleep, spoke to me in soothing words tinged with a southern lilt. "Shh...darlin'."

I immediately stilled. Jasper had spoken. Jasper was awake.

Shit.

"No," he whispered next, and my head quirked in an involuntary motion on his chest. "You're tense. Don't want you to be tense." He was mumbling every word into my hair, tickling me, and despite my nerves, I smiled from the feeling.

"You're awake?" Of course he is, Bella. He's conversing with you.

Who the hell uses the word 'conversing'? British much?

You're freaking out. Calm down.

Jasper answered me then, effectively silencing my internal monologue. "Mmhmm."

I didn't know what to do. There wasn't exactly a rulebook I had lying around for this type of situation. Jasper's hands rubbed my back in soft, gentle circles, and my breath left me in a slow exhale.

"That's better," he sighed. After a few moments, his breathing had evened; he'd fallen back asleep. I felt calmer knowing he was asleep, and my mind drifted to thinking of how much of a drastic change this was from yesterday afternoon. I'd been so perturbed over the fact he'd left out the front door, and now he was holding me in his arms on my sofa. I wondered if this was a 'be careful what you wish for' moment, or was it just something sweet that I was trying to over analyze?

I titled my head, looking up at Jasper, so calm and serene next to me. Another involuntary smile crossed my face and I assumed that this predicament was the latter of my ponderings.

"What kinda music du'ya like?" Jasper rumbled out a moment later, with his eyes still closed and a smirk curving at his lips. I jumped in his arms, surprised. He'd been awake?

"Didn't mean to scare ya."

I shook my head in response, as if to say no, despite the fact that his eyes were closed and that my heart was pounding in my chest. My mouth felt dry. I attempted to give him some sort of an answer several times before giving up and turning my head away from him, embarrassed.

A gentle finger tilted my chin up so I was once again staring at Jasper, who was looking expectant but not rushed.

Jasper was never rushed, come to think of it. Slow and almost always smooth, like molasses or caramel, that was Jasper.

"I like slow things, that build gradually," I finally said.

"Do you?" He asked with a quirk of his head, amused.

"Yeah, as it heightens, grows, it becomes anticipatory and kinetic."

"You get a kinda stirring in your gut?"

"Yeah. But a good one."

"I get that."

"You do?"

He nodded. "That build. The feeling; I like it."

"Me too." I hid my face again, but this time in Jasper's shirt.

"You're an acoustic girl, though, right?"

"Mmmhmm," I mumbled into the soft plaid of his shirt.

"Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley...that kinda acoustic?"

"Joni Mitchell, Loretta Lynn...that kind too," I told him, smiling a little. He gave me a squeeze and my stomach tightened. It was not an unpleasant feeling.

What are you doing, Bella? What is this?

I didn't know.

"Coffee?" I asked.

"Mmmmm." His chest vibrated beneath me, sending shivers down my spine.

"Is that a yes?" My voice sounded like that of a scared mouse, squeaking up at the end and cracking on the last vowel.

He nodded. "Mmmhmm." Again with the vibration. My hand tightened its hold on his shirt without me realizing it.

Time to move.

I shot up as fast as I could out of his grasp, and I felt his hands try to hold me in protest. He let go the second I resisted, and I made my way into the kitchen quickly, trying to ignore the sadness on Jasper's face as I left him.

Don't think about it, I told myself. Don't think.

. . .

I'd offered to take our mugs out on the porch. The sun was low in the sky, and there was a soft breeze coming off the water. The humidity had yet to set in for the day, and I wanted to savor the mild temperature before the sweltering noon day sun rose to greet us. I wouldn't admit it to myself, but I also wanted to get as far away from my couch as I could without actually leaving my property. Just looking at it made my stomach do weird things I wasn't yet prepared to ponder.

Jasper seemed happy that I hadn't kicked him out on his ass after waking up and kept his distance as I worked in the kitchen. He smiled at me when I handed him his steaming mug of coffee, and I looked down quickly, feeling a flush come over my skin.

The Bostonian humor of NPR's Car Talk filled in the spaces where Jasper and I couldn't seem to find words of our own, not that either of us ever really spoke much when we sat on the porch. I'd laugh into my cup at the banter, and Jasper's face would light up when I did. I was glad that he was in so good a mood, despite the stress of the previous night that I'd caused, but I still found myself wondering why his attentions were so focused on me. It made me anxious. As if I needed more of that emotion in my life.

"What?" I finally asked after I caught him smirking at me again.

"Your laugh."

"What about it?"

"I don't think I've ever heard it before." His grin never left his face as he spoke.

"Oh." Why did that make me feel so self conscious?

"I like your laugh, Bella. It's nice to hear."

I peeked at him through the curtain of my hair that I'd been trying to hide behind.

"I wish I could hear it more."

How does one respond to such a statement? I blinked at him a few times before attempting humor to disperse the sudden tight feeling in the air around us.

"Guess we should listen to more Car Talk, then?"

He snorted and pushed his long legs to rock himself on the swing. He'd offered me a spot next to him when he sat down, but I opted for one of the Adirondack chairs. It felt safer, emotionally, to keep my distance. Mostly because I had wanted to say yes, and that scared me.

We'd been silent for a few minutes, listening to the radio and the surf crashing in the distance. Jasper had been watching the waves break over the sand, content it seemed, just to sit with me when he spoke up, "Bella, what you saw last night..."

I was startled out of my quiet moment observing him, and had to put down my cup on the side table. My hands had started to shake instantly at his words. I sat on them.

Jasper had paused, but then continued, with his eye still focused out on the horizon. "She had a bottle with her. I threw it out of the house the second I saw it. I want you to know that."

I nodded, even though Jasper wasn't looking at me, it was the only reaction I could offer. My throat had gone dry.

To my horror, he continued. "I was scared, Bella. Petrified. It felt like a magnet, drawing me in." A magnet that was being wielded by Rose. My nerves were momentarily replaced by a flare of anger.

"You screamed, though. The sound leveled me faster than any punch and brought with it a whole new level of fear." He turned to me then, his face contorted with the emotion he was trying to express. I could feel it, it was heavy, pressing down on us both.

I started to shake my head back and forth, the movement becoming an involuntary repetition. I didn't like where this was going. I was proud of him for pushing temptation away, but I didn't want to talk about what happened to me last night.

"I won't ask, Bella. Don't worry."

A whimper escaped me, and I closed my eyes, blocking out his image.

"I'm sorry, Jasper." My voice broke when I spoke his name. I realized too late that I was crying. Jasper might be petrified of drinking, but I was terrified of becoming too attached to a man who would forever be fighting an internal struggle to not drink himself to death like my mother had.

"No," he said. I heard him stand up from the swing and come towards me. "No. Shh..." He scooped me up before I knew what was happening and held me to him as if comforting me were something he'd been doing for years. We slumped back into the chair with my legs falling over the arm and my head resting on his shoulder.

"I don't want to be the reason for your bad dreams, Bella."

"You're not."

"That's what you're scared of, though."

I stuttered on my reply, nodded my head, and buried my face in his chest. I didn't want to get used to this, I didn't want to rely on him, to need him, but I felt trapped and protected all the same time and it broke me. I wilted into his arms, like a puppet being cut loose from its strings, and gave up whatever semblance of a fight I had left against keeping myself afloat on my own.

Jasper ran his fingers through my hair and held me close; I let him. I needed the comfort, yes, but I wasn't hysterical like last night, I could have held it together, I could have untangled myself from him, but I didn't. The lines had officially been blurred, and I'd let it happen.

Christ.

A few silent, calming minutes passed us by before thunder rumbled in the sky as my belly simultaneously growled with hunger. Jasper chuckled into my hair, tickling me with his breath for the second time that day. I smiled through my drying tears.

The serendipitous weather mixed with my body's call for food broke the heavy atmosphere that'd been hovering over us on the porch, and I felt then that maybe this situation wouldn't swallow me whole like last time.

I dared to hope.

Jasper kept his arm around me as we walked inside to look for breakfast. I knew there was nothing in my kitchen, I hadn't ordered anything to be delivered in at least two weeks, but Jasper insisted that he feed me. I didn't know how to react to that.

"I've got food. I'll be right back."

"Jasper, that's silly. I'm fine." My stomach growled again in protest. I glared down at it; Jasper smiled.

"I want to cook breakfast for you, Bella. Please."

Jesus, well if he was going to stand there looking like a kicked puppy and say "please" like that, I really didn't know what to do. I found myself nodding before I could even formulate a response and he was out the door a second later.

I stared after him, feeling slightly dazed. It might have been the hunger. It might have been the waking up in his arms, or the sitting in his lap on the porch, or the way he tucked me under his chin whenever he held me; I couldn't be sure. But I watched him as he left, and one little detail managed to break through the haze...

Jasper had used the back door.

.

.

.


A/N: Can't tell you how much I love writing progress between these two. Even if it is like pulling teeth.

Okay, I need to take a moment here and SQUEE because Bourbon and Tea got reviewed/rec'd on Altered Lions and Sacrificial Lambs, and I'm just all kinds of giddy about it! *bounces* Thank you to MissMaj who wrote the review. *foozles and hugs* We love her. Oh yes we dooooo.

It's linked it on my profile. :-)

Next week brings with it a Jasper flashback - smoke, blues, and a dance with the red-lipped devil.

Till then... *foozles*