Page 352 of Romeo

I still thought of the word more often than I probably needed to. We had only been married a few days, and almost nothing about the way it happened had gone according to whatever vague picture of a wedding I might once have had. I hadn’t expected to stand in the Bourbon Bar in front of Father Benoit. I definitely hadn’t expected Granny, my brothers, and half of Rosewood to burst through the door at the exact moment he asked if anyone objected. Somehow, in the middle of all that chaos, Jasper and I had still managed to become husband and wife.

Now we were hidden away in the bayou, and for the first time since he put that ring on my finger, nobody else was here. No family. No club. No crisis demanding our attention.

Just us.

My gaze drifted from his face to the sheet tangled low around his waist, and warmth moved through me before I could pretend otherwise.

The last few days had taught me there were apparently limits to how much time Jasper and I could spend alone before clothing became optional.

I smiled into the pillow.

Before him, I would have said I knew what sex was. I wasn’t a virgin when I married Jasper. That fact had never embarrassed me, even if the circumstances surrounding it were complicated enough that I didn’t particularly enjoy thinking about them. I had been with Billy, gotten pregnant, carried Charlie for nine months and given birth to him. There was no version of my history where I could pretend I had reached Jasper untouched by another man.

Jasper had never wanted me to.

That mattered more than I realized it could.

He had never treated my past as something he was competing with, and he had never acted as though being my husband gave him some kind of victory over the boy I had once believed cared about me. Billy was simply part of what had happened before Jasper. Nothing more.

What unsettled me was realizing how little that past had actually taught me.

With Billy, sex had been something I participated in because I thought that was what people did when they loved each other. I had wanted him to want me, and at fifteen, I had mistaken being wanted for being valued. I remembered worrying about whether I looked stupid, whether I was doing something wrong, whether he would still like me afterward. Even pleasure had seemed like something happening around me instead of something I was allowed to claim for myself.

Jasper had ruined every one of those assumptions.

He paid attention.

That was the difference I kept coming back to.

He noticed when my breathing changed. He noticed when I became uncertain even when I didn’t say anything. He noticed what made me lean toward him and what made me hesitate. Sometimes it embarrassed the hell out of me how quickly he could read my body, especially when he wore that infuriating smile afterward, but beneath the teasing was something I hadn’t understood before him.

He wanted me to know myself.

Not just him.

The realization had surprised me the first time I understood it. Jasper wasn’t teaching me how to please him. He was teaching me that I was allowed to know what pleased me.

That had changed everything.

Beside me, he shifted slightly and settled deeper into the pillow without waking. I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing because he would have been deeply offended to know I had caught him sleeping so peacefully. The man acted as though he had been born alert, sarcastic, and prepared to fight somebody before breakfast.

I rolled onto my side and watched him for another moment.

Then a thought occurred to me.

A very good thought.

Possibly a terrible thought.

Definitely the kind Jasper would encourage.

I slipped closer beneath the sheet, careful not to wake him too soon. The opportunity to surprise him was rare enough that I intended to enjoy it. Jasper usually seemed to sense me moving before I had decided what I was doing, but this time exhaustion and several days without anything requiring him to sleep with one eye open worked in my favor.

I moved slowly, sliding down beneath the covers until the warm darkness enclosed me completely. The space smelled like him—leather and smoke and something darker I couldn’t name but recognized immediately. My heart beat faster as I settled into position, anticipation making my skin feel too warm.

He was already partially hard, and I felt a surge of satisfaction knowing that even in sleep his body responded to my proximity. I had done that. My presence alone was enough to affect him.

I reached out tentatively and wrapped my hand around him, feeling the heat and weight of him in my palm. His body reacted immediately, and I watched, fascinated as he grew harder beneath my touch. I had never initiated this before. Billy had expected it, demanded it even, but with Jasper everything felt different. This wasn’t something I owed him.