Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm just playing with her characters. Also, I did not come up with Jasper as the God of War or of Peter 'just knowing shit'. Those ideas belongs to IdreamofEddy.
A/N: Thank you to my beta Laurie Whitlock, my pre-readers AlwaysJASPERsLOVE, Shadman, and Shelljayz, my beloved sister who pre-reads and does a million other things for this story that I can't properly name. Thank you to shirleypositive72 for her story The Lists and the Facebook group she created for it. Thank you to hiddenfanggirl16 for making sure I didn't get any details about Louisville wrong, and thank you also to Ellie Wolf for the banner she made for this story.
My heart and prayers go out to all the families who lost loved ones in the tragedy in Connecticut. There are no words that can express the sadness of the events that occurred there and though I know it will be a very long time before any sort of healing begins, I hope that eventually all those affected will find some sort of peace.
Thank you so much to everyone who followed, favorited, and reviewed. I know I say this every time I update, but it means the world to me. I usually do try to respond to everyone's reviews but I just couldn't manage it for many reasons.
Sorry I didn't get this up when I said I would. My finals went well, but I wasn't where I was expecting to be on the Wednesday I hoped to post this. I didn't have access to a computer with internet, and I can't update from my phone, as cool as that would be. After that it was kind of a series of unfortunate events.
I changed my Peter, so the new picture is in my photobucket album if you're interested in looking.
So I recently discovered an error of mine. When I originally posted the chapters, in the doc manager everything was just the way it was supposed to be. However, the cut and paste option sucks so when I actually posted, everything went all screwy and there were things I had to fix. I wasn't very careful when I updated the chapter content and I accidentally posted chapter 4 twice. For those readers who came along after my screw-up, it, along with everything else that needed to be, has now been fixed, and chapter 5 is back up if you would like to go back and read it.
I guess we should join Bella on her break ...
Chapter 15
oOo
September 2080
BPOV
I had been immensely grateful for the break I was granted, particularly for the timing of it. I had needed to get out of that bar and away from Christian, Sharon, Ashley, and especially Jasper. Unfortunately, like the stalker asshole he was, Jasper followed me to the alley in which I had planned to spend my freedom from the eternally drunk. I had pulled out a cigarette I had no intention of smoking, but carried around anyway to aid in the illusion that I was 21 and not only 16. He'd settled across from me against the wall of the alcove that was far enough away from the bar that I could pretend both that it didn't exist and that I was alone, propping himself against that wall like spending my breaks together was something we had done a million times. I'd cursed him in my head with language that would have made a sailor blush, wishing he would just go the fuck away, but simultaneously wanting him not to.
He'd just stared at me, of course, and I had stared right back because that's just what we did. Then, for the first time since I'd met him, he'd opened that beautiful mouth of his and made some smart comment about how most people actually smoked on smoke breaks, and completely ruined the effect the silky, honey-smooth, distinctly Texan tenor his voice had on me. It had glided over my skin, bringing back the echoes of the slightly dirty dreams I'd had of him every time I had slept. Needless to say, the actual words he spoke had fixed that problem.
I'd tried then, in a less than subtle way, to get him to tell me what the hell he'd been doing in Louisville at my bar, but he had continued to pull that smartass evasive bullshit. He had then proceeded to insult me by calling me mediocre-looking. I knew I was pretty and I had never much cared about it, but when Jasper said he didn't think I was, it hurt, but only a little. Yes, I suppose it was only fair since I had insulted him first, but I didn't like how stupid things that had never mattered before seemed to pop out at me whenever he was around. It pissed me the hell off.
Another bout of staring had ensued, and I had tried, rather desperately, to figure out what had been going on in that head of his to no avail. It had been so goddamn frustrating! I had never in my life met anyone I couldn't read. Granted some people were a little harder to figure out than others, but unless he was angry, Jasper Cullen was a mystery to me and I didn't like it. His face had been unreadable ... until it wasn't, at least partially anyway. There had still been an element to his expression that I hadn't understood, but the darkening of his eyes, which I had seen and would have even without the weak alleyway lighting due to my crystal clear night vision, was a clear indication that he had been angry with me. Then he'd smirked at me like he was so fond of doing, but it was a different sort of smirk. It had started out as part of that unreadable expression on his face, and then it had morphed into something entirely different. It was something I was more than familiar with though. It was deadly, menacing. He was hunting me, just not in the way I was used to being hunted. There had been an element there I was not familiar with, a look in his eyes that reminded me of the way he'd looked at me in the sexy dreams I'd had in which he had starred. My eyes had widened at this realization, and that time there had been no stopping my heartbeat from speeding up or the adrenaline from flooding my system, even though the change had been slight. Those reactions had been more out of shock than fear, but there had been a part of me that was afraid. I didn't cave to fear though. I had been conditioned until I no longer let it very early on in my life, so if he had been hoping I would cower like a little bitch he was sadly mistaken.
As Jasper stalked closer to me, he had studied me even more intently than he ever had until finally he had forced me back against the brick wall of the alcove. It hadn't taken a genius to figure out that it had been his intention and I was a genius, so I'd known it when he'd gotten within a foot of me. I would have stopped him, I swear I would have. I hadn't wanted him to touch me after all; I never wanted anyone to touch me, but I hadn't stopped him because there had been a little part of me that maybe, kind of, might have, sort of wanted him to ... just a little. I still did not understand that, but I had comforted myself at the time with the knowledge that, while a little part of me may have wanted it, the majority of me had been highly looking forward to kneeing the jackass in the balls for having the gall to think he could touch me.
But then my back was against that wall, and his chest was pressed against mine, and I didn't fight him, I didn't flinch, and my skin wasn't crawling. I had let him touch me. I'd still been tense as I waited for that last feeling to overtake me but then he'd leaned in close to my ear and purred, literally fucking purred, "And for the record, if I was stalkin' you, you wouldn't know it until I moved in for the kill."
In accompaniment to those words, he'd run his nose from the skin behind my ear and down my neck until he'd reached my pulse point. His tongue had darted out to lick the skin there, his teeth nipping just hard enough for me to feel it and then his lips, which had been strangely cool, soothed where they'd grazed. At the same time, he'd placed his hands at the sides of my breasts, then stopped. It had taken a moment for me to realize that he had been waiting to see what I would do, and maybe I was wrong, but I thought perhaps he might have noticed the way I reacted to being touched and wanted to make sure I was okay with what he was doing. That thought had made my chest feel tight again, but in a different way. Even so, it was still in a way I didn't comprehend. Then again, maybe all that was wishful thinking.
I should have pushed him away, told him to stop. I knew it then, and I know it now, but I had been both physically and emotionally incapable of it at the time. If I had known the enormous pile of shit that decision would land me in not forty-eight hours later I might have found the strength to do it, but I doubt it. The thing of it was feeling him pressed up against me like that had been like a brutal punch to the stomach because it was only then that I realized just how starved for any sort of affection I was, particularly physical since it was something I had gone without my whole life. It felt so damn nice, so good, so fucking right that I nearly cried, and I had only ever cried once in all the time since I'd escaped. The only reason I hadn't was because I knew that if I did, he would stop and I needed for him not to. The personal revelation I'd had when I had been a guest in his parents' home five weeks ago that I didn't want to be alone had gotten me thinking over the time since. I had realized through much reflection that I had pretty much always felt that way and the sad reality was that it was the absolute truth. There wasn't anyone else out there like me, but with Jasper pressed up against me, his body covering mine and hiding it from the world ... for the first time, I didn't feel so alone and all the tension I'd felt left my body in a rush.
The fact that when he touched me electricity went crackling over the whole of my skin had done nothing to make me want to push him away either - it had actually only made me want to pull him closer, and when his hands gripped my hips, all of it: his lips, tongue, and teeth on my neck, his hands so close to my breasts, and then on my hips, it was driving me fucking crazy. I had been half out of my mind, dizzy, gasping, shivering, back arching. Next thing I knew, there was a wetness between my legs. It took me a second in the daze that I'd been in to figure out what that was and it made me angry as hell. What I had been feeling was desire. I wanted Jasper fucking Cullen. I wasn't unfamiliar with desire, but it had never been anything but the artificial kind. For all I knew, what I had been feeling for him wasn't any different, but even so, I had never let myself get carried away by it. When you didn't like being touched, it killed the mood every time, but there I had been, pressed between a goddamned wall and a guy I couldn't stand acting like a total whore instead of the virgin I was. If I'd been angry before I was thoroughly incensed after that, so I'd called him a cocky son of a bitch, to which he had insisted he wasn't. The thing about that had been he wasn't lying which was yet another thing that screamed that he was dangerous. Maybe I should have been afraid or turned off, but all his honesty had done was make me want him more. My breathing had sped up, I'd gotten wetter and then he'd growled ... fucking growled. It wasn't right, it wasn't normal but hot damn! When he bucked his hips into mine, and I felt just how much he wanted me too, I couldn't hold back the moan it caused.
I had wanted to kiss Jasper then. I had wanted all the things I had never had before, but he had seemed to have a fascination with my neck. I hadn't minded though because the things he'd been doing with that tongue of his made me whimper. Then he had been touching my bare skin with hands that even I registered as abnormally cold, and my skin still hadn't felt like it was crawling. The electricity between us got more intense, heat searing my veins, and another moan left my lips. I didn't know if it was my moan that had done it, but he'd cursed and bucked, and his hardness had hit a spot between my legs I'd never dared to touch for many, many reasons and, Oh. My. God.
I'd gripped his shoulders after that, so hard I should have hurt him, but there had been no blood. He hadn't even grimaced and it had almost been like digging my fingernails into granite, though there was some give, but I was too far gone to give a shit. When he'd pulled away from me, I'd been confused, wondering if I had hurt him and just misjudged it or if my inexperience had led me to do something wrong. I had covered all those insecurities with anger, of course, which had turned genuine once I'd determined he wasn't hurt. Of all the times it would have been useful to be able to read him, that would have been it or so I'd thought at the time. In retrospect, I realize that a better time to be able to get inside his head was right before I left him in the alley. Knowing what was inside his head then would have saved me a shitload of trouble.
I'd been about to smack the shit out of him when he pushed me back against that wall, which I had pulled away from when he'd pissed me off. Then he'd smirked before he grabbed my ass, slid his hand down the back of my leg, hooked it behind my knee and hitched it around his hip.
I am so in over my head, I'd thought. I usually knew how to anticipate what would happen next in any given situation, but Jasper was unpredictable, a loose cannon, a wild card. I should have been trying my damnedest to neutralize the threat he'd posed, but the way he had been making me feel - I hadn't wanted to give it up yet.
I didn't have any experience with sex, and the desire I'd been feeling was driving me fucking crazy. I was convinced he was doing that on purpose. I needed something, but I hadn't been sure what it was. All I had known was that I'd wanted him to be the one to give it to me. I'd bitten my lip and shifted my hips as I tried figure out what that thing I needed was, and then he'd growled that fucking sexy growl of his and all of a sudden his finger was inside me, his thumb pressed to my clit.
It had happened so damn fast, and I hadn't been expecting it. It had been stupid of me not to though. That's the kind of thing that happens when you let a boy pin you to a wall, wasn't it? My eyes had gone wide with shock and just a little fear, which had pissed me off. There were very few things that scared me. It didn't really make sense that it would be one of them, but it had felt so damn good, and I hadn't wanted that feeling to stop; so I let go and went with it ... until the bastard decided he wanted to stop. He'd seemed kind of conflicted about something in that moment, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what he would've been conflicted about. Do teenage boys even get conflicted about sex when they've got a perfectly willing girl pinned to a wall?
I hadn't been able to stand being so close to Jasper, having his hands on me, in me, without doing something. I hadn't really known what to do, but my hips seemed to develop a mind of their own, bucking against his hand, and, Fuck!
I knew enough about anatomy to figure out he'd hit my g-spot and that the pleasure of that, in conjunction with the added pressure to my clit, had made me cry out. I don't know what I cried out, but it did the trick because whatever had been holding Jasper back disappeared. He started to move that beautiful, scarred hand of his, and my God did he ever know how to use it.
He'd gone slow at first; which for the first time I was experiencing something like that had been a good thing I suppose. My body disagreed, but then, my mind and my body sometimes did. I didn't like slow at all. It had been the evilest kind of torture, making me writhe and moan against him in the most embarrassing way and yet it wasn't embarrassing at all because I had been so lost in the lust that it hadn't truly mattered. I'd been tempted to make him speed up but considering how out of control I surely was at the time, I probably would have broken his hand - with my head so clouded with want there had been no telling if I could have controlled my strength, and the last thing I had wanted to do was damage those talented fingers; so I'd had to find another way to convince him to do what I wanted. Unfortunately, what he'd been doing to me hadn't allowed for much rational thought. Thankfully, instinct had made up for that on that particular occasion.
When I'd mindlessly swung my other leg around his hip to get him to go faster, and he had tucked his free arm under the backs of my thighs, pressing me harder back into that wall, changing the angle of penetration and forcing his hand deeper inside me he hit a new spot that had made me gasp and suck my bottom lip between my teeth, my breathing so heavy it felt like I was barely pulling in any air. Jasper's breathing had been just as bad as mine, so I had felt like I had done something right even though I hadn't really done anything but let him touch me though that, in and of itself, was a pretty big deal.
When he'd hidden his face in my neck and breathed deep, I hadn't known what to make of it, but then he'd slipped another finger in with the first and finally picked up the pace, working my clit like a maestro does his instrument of choice. All ability to form coherent thought had vanished after that. Then he'd said he wanted me, pressing kisses across my collarbone that'd had a tender quality to them that all the other kisses he'd pressed to my skin had lacked, and there had been something in the honey-sweet tone of his voice. The cockiness was gone, and it was soft and sort of lost, like he had been just as unsure of what to do with himself as I had even though he clearly had experience.
When Jasper had started stroking me faster and harder, but still gently like he cared if he hurt me, the heat that had been coiling low in my belly tightened in an almost painful sort of pleasure and I made a decision. He was touching me and it felt natural, better than anything I had ever felt before. The likelihood of me finding that in someone again was slim, and after that night Jasper and I would never see each other again. I was always careful, always safe, always vigilant ... always alone, but for some reason I hadn't understood, and still didn't, as much as the guy bugged me, he made that loneliness disappear. I'd wanted that, even if it would only be for a few minutes - to feel as though I belonged somewhere. I had wanted to be held for just a little while, to shut off my mind that was constantly whirring with survival strategies and escape scenarios, and just feel. I wanted to feel him and I was so close to losing control. He was making me lose control. As much I wanted what he was doing to me, I couldn't help but hate him some for taking control away from me.
I'd expected him to be happy when I had told him he could have what he wanted, that he could have me. It had been a big and difficult decision for me to make and, badass soldier that I was, it had taken a lot of courage for me to say those words to him, and even more to touch him. I wasn't a shy kind of girl, but I most certainly had been shy about that, and when I had run my fingers over his stiff cock and gotten a better idea of just what I'd been getting myself into ... holy hell, shy had not even begun to cover what I had felt then.
Is anything about him not perfect? I'd wondered, but he wasn't perfect. No one was, and he was too big of an asshole to be even if there was such a thing. He'd still had me doubting for a second though.
But he hadn't been happy at all. He'd been frustrated and downright fucking furious with me. The look in his eyes had said it all, and if that hadn't been proof enough, he'd stolen his fingers away right as I'd been about to come, or that's what I imagined had been about to happen before he outright refused to give me what I had needed. What had been worse was that I had known he'd meant to end things between us once and for all, but I hadn't been ready to lose that yet; not so much the sexual part, though I had to admit I was a big fan of that, but the touching and the comfort and sense of safety it had brought with it. Why did he want to take that away from me?
When he'd pried my legs off his hips and stepped back, putting half a foot of distance between us, I had never been so angry in my life; still, the weird sense of grief I had felt at that loss of contact had taken me by surprise and that only made me madder.
Didn't he understand what I had been willing to give him? My body and my virginity, but more importantly, for those few minutes that he would have possessed me, I would have given him my trust. I didn't give people my trust ... ever. It wasn't something I could give if I wanted to remain safe and free, which meant I had been putting those things in his hands too. Didn't he understand what a big deal that was? Didn't he get how fucking hard that had been for me to do? Of course, he hadn't. He couldn't, but that hadn't mattered to me at the time. The only thing that had was that he had thrown it all back in my face. I hated him, and I had wanted him to pay for hurting me. I'd remembered my initial desire to pin him to the wall of the bar and threaten to crush his trachea until he answered every single one of the questions I'd had to my satisfaction. After the shit he'd just pulled, I no longer had any qualms about crushing his trachea only without giving him a chance to explain or redeem himself. He hadn't deserved that chance; so I'd used a simple maneuver to spin him around and pin him to the wall, finding the satisfaction I'd known I would when I pressed my forearm into his throat. Unfortunately, he hadn't seemed nearly as affected by it as I'd wanted him to be. The asshole never was.
When he had tried to insist that he hadn't been playing games with me, I'd called bullshit. For a moment, when we had locked eyes I could have sworn there was a pleading in them, but I couldn't understand what he might have been pleading for, so I had dismissed it, pressing my forearm harder into his throat in my anger and disbelief at his blatant, absolutely bullshit denial. He'd had a lot of fucking nerve to say that with a straight face. If he had thought I was stupid enough to buy that, he was horribly mistaken.
Once again, even though he'd swallowed uncomfortably, he hadn't been nearly uncomfortable enough for my taste.
Then he'd gained the upper hand again by flipping us so that I had been pinned underneath him, again, only that time I hadn't let him do it and fuck if that hadn't pissed me off even more. I hadn't thought it was possible to get that angry before I had met Jasper fucking Cullen, but he had certainly proven me wrong, especially since he'd stretched my wrists above my head in a grip I hadn't been able to pull away from. I didn't know how that was possible. Maybe in my fury I hadn't been thinking straight enough to escape his grasp. One would think it would be the opposite, but my body had reacted in a way that I had not been okay with. Being pinned between him and that wall again had reminded me of how much I wanted him despite how much I hated him, pulling that desire to the forefront of my mind when I had only just managed to shove it to the back; and when he'd cupped my breast, rolling my nipple between his thumb and forefinger I'd damn near begged him not to stop that time, not to pull away from me ... never to pull away, and I did not fucking beg. I had been trained not to. It showed weakness and weakness was un-fucking-acceptable. It was one of the things I actually agreed with my drill sergeants on. Vulnerability got you killed, and I had worked too damn hard to live a life that was mine and mine alone to die so easily. Jasper fucking Cullen could kiss my damn ass, yet I had still found myself wanting to beg him not to stop. I hated him. If that fucker got me killed I was going to haunt his ass until the day he died.
Of course, he'd felt the need to taunt me after that because he was nothing if not a jackass, rolling my nipple again like an asshole, making me want him more; and always, always managing to piss me off even more just when I had thought it wasn't possible. When he called me 'sugar' for the umpteenth time, I wanted to wring his neck or knee him in the balls or punch him in that pretty, pretty face of his or, better yet, all of the above because hearing that word rolling off his tongue in that fuckhot accent sent a flash of heat straight to my center. That was still a feeling I didn't quite understand, all the feelings he evoked in me I didn't understand, and I knew he'd had every intention of pulling away from me again. I hadn't been quite sure that would have been something I could take with all the confusing revelations I'd had in the past several weeks. My heart was still raw from them all, and I had sworn I would kill him if he fucked with me again; but then he'd licked my neck and I hadn't been able to think straight anymore even though my fury had still been boiling beneath the surface.
It hadn't been until his gaze met mine again that I had finally gotten it.
The pleading I had seen before had still been there in his eyes but a desperation had joined it, and I'd realized I hadn't been the only one begging for something. I wasn't sure exactly how I knew, especially since I had always had such a difficult time reading him, but somehow he had known. Not about my trust issues or their origins, obviously, but the fact that I was a virgin. He had been trying to give me a way out of the situation, even though I had made it pretty fucking clear I hadn't wanted one. I still haven't been able to figure out how he knew or how he could have gone from wanting me so much to suddenly thinking he wasn't good enough to actually have me - conceited thought, I realize, but there had been hints of that in his eyes as he'd looked at me, silently begging me to tell him to stop.
I couldn't be angry with Jasper after that; all of it melting out of me like ice cream on a hot day. It was just so fucking sweet and considerate, and he had seemed almost ashamed of himself, his eyes filled with a self-loathing that I hadn't been able to stand.
I had again felt that urge to comfort him as I had so many times before, to let him know that it had been okay, that he hadn't done anything wrong, and he didn't need to hate himself. That ever-present sadness in his eyes, that haunted quality, had spoken to me and torn at my heart. It hadn't been about me in that moment. Maybe it had been stupid to think that a girl he barely knew could make things better for him even if just for a little while, and it hadn't been as though I'd known how to go about doing it, but then I had found my mouth running away with me, demanding that he kiss me, and hoping that a connection so intimate might ground him. My voice had been authoritative - Jasper hadn't stricken me as the kind of boy who responded well to softness, like he wouldn't really know what to do with it, so I had played on that.
He hadn't obeyed the order, which was essentially what it had been, but I had succeeded partially in my goal. The self-loathing in his eyes had been erased by unadulterated fury, and he'd scowled at me.
I had just stared into those still dark eyes of his, forever challenging him, trying to see him, to understand what had made him the way he was, and, for a moment, I did see. I had seen a soul that had witnessed an unbearable amount of pain and suffering, who was having trouble trying to define who he was in the aftermath, and whose shoulders were bowed under the weight of it. He was aching and raw and fragile, and I didn't think anyone had really bothered to see it or even to look for it; not even the family who clearly loved him so much. Maybe they just didn't know what to look for or didn't know what to do with it, and I couldn't say I had much of a clue about the latter, but when it came to the former ... well, I had been living that my whole life. I understood, and I had wanted him to know it. I'd just wanted him, and I had wanted him to know that too.
I hadn't been sure if I would be able to convey all of that with my eyes. I surely couldn't explain it with words, but he had seemed to understand, and it had left him speechless ... I think. At any rate, he'd kept that smart mouth of his closed; so I had used his silence as another opportunity to convince him to kiss me, but he was stubborn just like I was and refused to cave.
My tone had still been hard and demanding that second time. I still hadn't thought anything else would work, and I had noticed just a flicker of hesitation but he'd still refused. He was so goddamn frustrating but he had seemed just as frustrated with me and, despite the situation, I hadn't been able to help feeling a bit smug about it. I had refused to give up though, no matter how frustrated I had gotten, so I'd kept pushing; knowing I was winning on my third attempt when he'd inched closer to me and kept moving his eyes from my own brown ones to my lips. When he had licked that beautiful, full bottom one of his, I had known it had been time to move in for the kill. It sounds callous to use that phrase to describe that moment but I had finally broken through to him and would finally have been able to show him that I understood his pain at least in part; that though he irritated the shit out of me at times, I still thought he was beautiful and strong and worth it.
When I had asked him to kiss me that time, my voice had been soft and naked in a way because it was only then that I had realized just how much I'd wanted him to. I had needed to feel his lips on mine, to feel the comfort of knowing that there was someone else out there that felt like me even if we had come from very different places.
I saw it when Jasper's resolve shattered, had seen it in his eyes that he had needed me just as much as I had needed him in that moment. When he'd released my wrists from his grasp and brushed his thumb almost tenderly across my cheek before tangling his hand in my hair, I'd felt happy, dangerously happy, but hadn't been able to muster the strength to be upset or angry about it. I'd known I would hate myself, and him, for it later and I had ... I did. My God had I ever gone from simply hating someone to loathing them with every fiber of my being within a matter of only hours? I had, oh had I ever. If I ever saw Jasper fucking Cullen again I was going to make him wish he had never been born.
At the time though, dragging my hands up his chest and around his neck, burying them in his hair that had been so much softer than I had expected it to be, and playing with the curls at the nape of his neck had felt like heaven. So much so I'd wanted to cry again but was too looking forward to his lips on mine for those tears to gather and fall.
My eyes fluttered shut ...
oOo
A/N: As always, I would love to know what you think.
Next chapter - the conclusion of Bella's thoughts on her encounter with Jasper, and, now that the groundwork has been laid, the beginning of the series of events that landed her in the morgue! I'm evil for dragging that part of the plot out for so long, aren't I?
