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"In this or at all?" she fired back. The moment she said it, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. Worse, she didn't mean it. "Shit. Jasper, I—"
"I shouldn't have dragged you into this, Anarchy. My entire existence has been a clusterfuck from day one. I've spent the last twenty-three years alone, trying not to involve anyone in the mess. And then you came along and became something vital." His tone wasn't affectionate, but frustrated. "If you insist on it being all or nothing...I can't let you go. Not again."
It was a bitter victory. Archie understood the position she was putting him in, making him choose between protecting her and exposing her to untold horrors, but she needed him to comprehend what being excluded meant to her. "If you do this with Atticus, there's going to be a wedge between us, Jasper. You'll go through something I won't be able to imagine. If we do this together, as a unit, we can heal each other. Do you get what I'm saying?"
"It's all good in theory," he muttered.
"No, it's the truth." She grabbed his biceps, holding onto Famine and Death. "You turned yourself away from that life. You turned your back on killing people for sport, for money, on someone else's orders. Embracing that side of yourself to deal with Dominic isn't going to be easy on you. Is it so hard for you to believe I want to be there to anchor you?"
Jasper sighed. "I've never had anyone."
"Then don't push me away." She caressed the figure of Death lightly. "You see yourself as Death, Jasper. Not as the Reaper, the symbol of releasing souls and collecting them, taking them to a better place. The Reaper isn't the enemy everyone believes him to be, is he? But the Four Horsemen...the apocalypse...that's what the world fears. It's who you're afraid of becoming, raining war and famine and pestilence down on the world if you give yourself freedom. Four elements, four horsemen, rolled into one man."
He blinked at her, eyes wide. "You've spent far too much time with Connie, kitten. That's deep shit."
"Don't make light of it," she admonished quietly. She'd hit the nail on the head, and they both knew it. "I'm right."
"I was eighteen when I got these done," he murmured, looking down at his forearms. "I'd been on my own for two years, trying to learn about the world outside the mansion and how to be an upstanding citizen rather than a plague on those around me. I'd gotten into a fight, beaten the hell out of three men who thought I was easy pickings. Taken one to the brink of death, hurt the other two badly enough the tide could swing either way. Self-defense," he told her ruefully. "Self-defense, but it struck home how deadly I was. The carnage I could wreak. One man. One boy," he corrected himself. "A boy who could have killed all three in an instant."
It wasn't hard to imagine him out on the streets, fending for his life. But didn't it just go to show that all Dominic's training, his influence, hadn't hooked into him deep enough to override his conscience. If it had, those men would be dead. Jasper wouldn't have been able to stop himself. She traced the outlines of the tattoo, skimming over the details.
Beautiful, meticulous work.
"This must have taken hours," she said absently, smoothing a fingertip over the black horse of famine, appreciating the deep purple highlights used to lift it from his skin. "Hours and hours of pain."
"Yeah, well, it didn't look this good when I first had it done, trust me. It took a fucking genius to design this and cover up the amateurish attempt of the original tattooist I hired." Jasper's lips quirked into a wry smile. "Almost sixty hours in the chair to get this done right." He trailed a finger over the white horse. "Pestilence was a bitch to do. The white wasn't playing ball."
"It doesn't look like it's twenty years old," she murmured, more to herself. Now her attention was completely on the tattoos, she couldn't stop studying them. Picking out little details like the mane of fire on the red horse of war, how the scales of famine were balanced on the hilt of a sword. When Jasper's arm moved, the tattooed horses shifted on his skin, leaping from the muscles.
"The ink beneath is twenty years old," he corrected her. "This is about fifteen. I had to save up enough money to correct the mistakes. Since then, I have it freshened up every so often. Some of the colors fade, the outlines don't pop as much, so I get it touched up."
"You don't want anymore?"
He rolled his shoulder. "To be honest, I haven't given it any real thought. A few ideas have come to mind, but I've either not had the time or the inclination to follow through. One day, maybe. How about you?" A fingertip hooked her beneath the chin, lifted her gaze to his. "There's no ink on you, kitten, but you seem to have a keen eye for art. You've never thought about taking the plunge?"
Could she tell him? Fantasy Anarchy was much braver than reality Anarchy. She bit her lip, worrying it, then thought about Jasper's courage in divulging his secrets to her. If he could tell her the darkest parts of his history, she could certainly spill the beans on her wishes.
"I'd have one," she admitted quietly. "I figure something has to be really important to someone to have it etched permanently in their skin. Some kind of significance. I've never had anything be important enough to scribe it into mine. I thought about getting my nipples pierced, maybe my clit, but it seemed pointless without a lover to share them with."
Jasper's gaze took a slow journey down her body to her breasts, where her nipples perked up instantly as though he'd commanded them to do so. He lifted his hand and cupped her left breast, skimming his thumb right over where the nipple hid behind fabric. "These would look pretty damn amazing with some gold hoops. A matching one for your clit." He hummed under his breath, and his cock was no longer flaccid. "Consider me on board with the piercing, kitten. Loki would do them for you."
She jerked. "What?"
His eyebrow arched as he met her eyes again. "Nobody told you? Loki is a licensed body piercer—he can poke a hole in whatever body part you require and put a shiny bauble in it. Braun pulled some strings and got a license for Loki to do his thing in barn three if anyone wants their sub—or themselves—pierced."
Oh God, now she'd put her foot in it, hadn't she? "It was only a thought."
Growling, Jasper plucked one fluffy sock off her foot, tossing it over his shoulder. "I like it when you have dirty thoughts." The other sock flew after the first. "Especially when it benefits me as well."He pushed to his feet, his erection standing stiffly from the neatly trimmed hair at his groin. Shoving her back onto the bed, he popped the button of her jeans free, drew the zipper down. "I'm enjoying the idea of you taking pain of your own volition...oh, kitten," he purred as he pulled her jeans down her legs. "No panties?"
Archie wet her lips. Master Jasper had made an astounding recovery, bouncing back from the hellish morning they'd already had. Apparently, he was inclined to improve the rest of the day with a bang. "Oh, my apologies, Sir. I'll correct that immediately—"
He pinned her down with a hand between her breasts. "Too late now. A swollen, needy cunt like this needs attending to, Archie." He pushed two fingers inside her without hesitation, darkness flashing in his eyes as she took him in with a faint whimper. "I think after yesterday and this morning, it needs a firm reminder of who's in charge here." Fingers withdrew, leaving her aching, then slapped down on her pussy sharply. "Who's the Dominant here." Another slap, this time catching her clit directly. "Who won't be topped from the bottom."
The third slap pitched her into orbit.
Hands clutching the spread, Archie bowed into the pleasure. Before the first hard clench of her internal muscles relaxed, Jasper was thrusting into her, hooking his arms under her knees and pushing them back, tilting her hips up to take the entirety of him. Fuck, he was so damn big this way, stretching her even as she clamped down on the hot length of his shaft.
Impossibly big. She clawed at the spread, then at his back, dragging her nails over his flesh in a frenzy. She felt his groan vibrate through him, sensed his enjoyment of her muscles rippling around his cock with the tail end of the orgasm, and his pride in her as his balls slapped against her ass.
