Page 79 of Wild Thorns

"Callum doesn't tell anyone anything." A small smile. "Lila told Mel, Mel told Dex, Dex told me. Small town."

"Great."

"You handled it well."

"I froze. Callum handled it."

"You didn't freeze." He turned to look at me. In the dim light, his eyes were serious, the teasing charm stripped away. "You held your ground. You didn't let him see how scared you were. That's not nothing, Serena."

I looked back at him. At this man who saw past my defenses, who knew what I was running from, who was still here anyway.

"I'm tired," I said. It came out smaller than I intended. "Of being afraid all the time. Of being on edge, constantly waiting for the next thing. Never knowing when it's going to end."

"I know."

"You don't have to be okay," he whispered. "Not with me."

Something hummed in my chest when he said that—a warmth I couldn’t explain, like a thread being pulled taut between us. I’d felt it before, in quiet moments with each of them. A resonance, like my body recognized something my mind hadn’t caught up to yet.

Something cracked open. Something I'd been holding together for so long that I'd forgotten I was holding it.

I kissed him.

Or he kissed me, I wasn't sure who moved first. One moment we were looking at each other, and the next his mouth was on mine, warm and certain, and I was letting it happen.

No, not letting it happen. Wanting it to happen.

Jasper was playful; teasing, light, making me laugh even as he made me feel things I hadn't felt in years. His hands were everywhere and nowhere, fingertips ghosting along my collarbone, my jaw, the curve of my hip. Every touch a question. Every answer a yes.

"You're thinking too hard," he murmured against my throat, and I felt his smile there.

"I'm not—"

"You are." His teeth grazed my pulse point. "I can practically hear it." Another kiss, lower. "Let me help you stop."

He was good at this, too good, maybe. Confident without being presumptuous, attentive in a way that made me feel seen rather than observed. When he pulled back to look at me, his eyes were warm with something that went beyond wanting.

And then I stopped letting things happen.

I pulled him back down to me, my fingers tangling in his hair, those dark curls that I'd been wanting to touch since the first time I saw him, and the sounds he made; surprised, pleased, undone, went straight through me. He responded instantly, the teasing lightness giving way to something hungrier. His weight pressed me into the stairs, and I arched into it, wanting more of him, all of him.

But somewhere in the middle of it, something shifted.

The playfulness cracked open and became something raw, something real, something that caught us both off guard. His hands slowed. His breathing changed. He lifted his head and looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time.

"Serena," he said, and the way he said my name made me forget everything else.

It wasn't a question. It was a confession.

And then I felt it, that hum in my chest, stronger than ever before. Something warm and ancient and inevitable, like a lock clicking into place.

"Do you feel that?" Jasper whispered, his forehead pressed to mine.

"Yes."

Something vast and vulnerable moved across Jasper's face.

He kissed me again, softer this time, reverently.