Page 272 of Romeo

I stepped nearer and caught the front of his cut. “Please stay.”

His face changed completely. “Ma Belle.”

“Please.”

Jasper lifted his hand to my cheek. The warmth of his palm made my eyes close before I meant them to, and for a few seconds, I leaned into him because standing upright suddenly felt like work again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I opened my eyes. “No.”

“I have to.”

“You don’t,” I pleaded.

I didn’t care what he had to do. Didn’t care about the man from the gas station, the Sons, Georgie, Frank—any of it. Somebody else could handle tonight.

I needed Jasper. “I’m scared.”

The admission slipped out so quietly I almost didn’t hear it myself.

Jasper did.

His eyes closed for a second, and his forehead came down against mine. “I know.”

“Then don’t leave me.”

His hand slid around the back of my neck, holding me there. I felt his breath against my face and the effort in the silence before he answered, “I don’t want to.”

“Then stay.”

For a moment, hope lifted inside me.

Then Jasper pulled back just enough to look at me. “I already told that motherfucker to stay away from you once.”

The words barely made sense through the fog in my head. Something from the parking lot brushed against my memory—his voice asking what part the man hadn’t understood.

I couldn’t follow it.

Not tonight.

Jasper’s thumb moved slowly along my cheek. “He didn’t listen. I can’t leave him out there knowing where you work.”

“Call the club,” I whispered. “Let them deal with it.”

His jaw tightened. “I’ll handle it.”

That was the voice again.

Not the one he used with me.

The one he was keeping behind his teeth because Granny was standing beside us and I was hanging onto him like letting go might make the world tilt again.

I shook my head. “Please.”

Jasper looked wrecked for half a second.

Then he pulled me against him.