A Brit on the Side (Castle Calder Book 1) (16 page)

Oh my God. A nun could figure out what was going on in here, between Jasper’s unbuttoned shirt, my unzipped trousers, and the state of my hair. “Go. He wants us to get out of the way, so go.”

Jasper’s already turning the key in the ignition and he shifts into drive as I see the guy’s torso through the back window. Considering we’re making a getaway, Jasper drives like an old lady – no squealing tires or spitting gravel – just a gentle easing back onto the country road.

I turn to glance through the back window. “He’s laughing at us.”

“Good thing he came along when he did. Ten more minutes, who knows what he would have interrupted,” Jasper says.

But judging by the grin he flashes my way, he knows damn well.

And so do I. “The point of no return.” I wink as I say it.

Jasper shakes his head and his smile widens. “Oh, hell, Bea, we’re already there.”

I smile in return and try to ignore the little voice in my head whispering, “You passed the point of no return. A while ago.”

T
he day Jasper’s
planned for us is nothing short of spectacular. We drive along a series of ever-narrower country lanes until we arrive at a parking lot – which Jasper insists we call a car park – and then walk a few miles until we get to a shimmering lake, complete with a pebble beach. Despite shoving my swimsuit in the top of Jasper’s rucksack, it only takes me a second to decide I’m never going in the lake, swimsuit or not. It’s too damn cold and the people flirting with the water, running in and out, clutching towels around them like their life depends on it, do nothing to convince me.

We walk along the lake, stopping to skip stones, until we get to a random mile marker on the beach, saying a town called Baldash is a half mile to the left. Sure enough, Jasper steers us left and we end up side by side in a booth at a super crowded pub in the middle of nowhere.

A beer flight appears on the table, as does a basket of thick cut potato chips. Jasper hands me a glass of one of the paler beers and picks a chip from the basket, holding it to my lips. “It’s sad when the best crisps in the world are from a town frequently mislabeled Baldass, but it’s easy to get over once you try them.”

I open my mouth and let him feed me, sucking his fingers a little before letting go. We’ve remained fully clothed and saved our most intense making out for the deserted sections of our walk, but it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say we’ve been all over each other. Aside from getting out of the car and a brief trip to the restroom, we haven’t stopped touching since we drove away from the farmer.

Jasper takes his finger and puts it in his own mouth, sucking a little, before picking up another chip for himself. I’m not the type of person to find eating sexy. Except apparently I am because watching Jasper’s throat work to swallow, I want to put my lips against his Adam’s apple and kiss my way up to his jaw, and…

Gah.

“So, tell me something,” I say, taking a gulp of beer. “Who would you want have dinner with, either living or dead, if you could?”

Jasper doesn’t even hesitate. “Eric Lander. He’s one of the leading geneticists of our time. He was instrumental in the Human Genome Project.”

I nod. Of course he’d pick a scientist. When Theo and I played this game, he’d picked Michael Jordan. “And what would you eat?”

Jasper frowns. “I don’t know. Probably nothing because I’d be having dinner with Eric Lander and I wouldn’t want the distraction.”

“Of course.” I smile a little. “Would you type up questions beforehand? So you wouldn’t forget anything?”

Jasper’s expression remains serious. “Probably. I mean, during the academic year I schedule my runs in my calendar so I don’t forget them, so something that big? Absolutely.”

“Is there anything you don’t plan?” I ask with a small smile.

“You.” His expression doesn’t change.

“What about Plan B?”

“Born of desperation.” Jasper takes another chip. “Before you came, my summer plan was research, writing, a little bartending, and an occasional night at the pub with Scarlett and Claire – in that order.”

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. And I need to hear it, so I ask. “And now?”

“All of the above and you, for as long as you’ll have me.” Now Jasper’s expression does change. I’d miss it if I weren’t looking at him so closely. But his eyes become uncertain and his mouth turns down a little. Enough to make me want to make it go away.

My God, I’m in so much trouble.

“I was going to work, hang out with Scarlett, see the English countryside, and enjoy a friends-with-benefits arrangement with you.” I lean into him. “In retrospect, I’m not sure why I ever thought that could work.”

“Well, you usually don’t have high hopes for a rebound. At least I don’t.”

This is swerving into defining-what-we-are territory and my pulse reacts accordingly. I don’t want to do this. Not yet. So I smile and say, “You don’t talk about your mysterious past, but surely you’ve left someone pining for you in Cambridge?”

“I dated someone briefly last year, but it wasn’t serious enough to warrant a rebound.” Jasper takes another swallow of beer. “You, on the other hand…”

“Please don’t. We talked about this.” I do not want to rehash Theo.

“We did. But that doesn’t mean I’m not your rebound,” Jasper says.

“It doesn’t mean you are.” I smile, but this one feels forced. “In my experience, rebounds are a lot less complicated than you and me.”

“In my experience, most things are a lot less complicated than you and me.” Jasper smiles as he says it, but I feel my smile slipping.

And when I speak, my voice is brittle. “Things didn’t seem complicated this morning when you had your hands up my shirt.”

Jasper backs away faster than if I’d spilled hot coffee in his lap. “Whoa. Shit. I’ve made you angry and that’s not what I intended at all. I’m sorry.”

“What did you intend?” I ask.

“To try to subtly gauge your opinion on what this is between us.” Jasper gives a small smile. “I obviously excel at the subtle part.”

“Obviously.” I bite my lip because dammit, I’m going there. Against my better judgment, I’m going there. “You have to give to get. What’s your opinion?”

“On what this is between us?” Jasper asks and I nod. “Early indications make me think there’s potential of this evolving into a Nicholas Sparks love story or a Shakespearean tragedy, with not much give on either side.”

“Wow. That’s um...” Intense. Accurate. Terrifying.

Thank God the waitress chooses this minute to bring our food. She smiles and chats as she places our plates on the table – a burger for Jasper and bangers and mash for me. Jasper spends a good five minutes talking with her about the other beer flights available. I can’t tell if he’s doing it to buy time or if he genuinely wants to know. Either way, when the waitress heads back to the bar with our order, I still don’t know what to say, so I take a large forkful of mashed potatoes so I won’t have to speak.

My mouth is full when Jasper puts his hand on my thigh and says, “If it were up to me alone, I’d go the Nicholas Sparks route. Just so you know.”

The mashed potatoes turn to glue in my mouth and I make myself meet Jasper’s gaze. There’s nothing but truth there and any doubts I had about the depth of Jasper’s feelings for me are impossible to sustain. What he’s been telling me all along? Finally, I see.

I swallow the lump of mashed potatoes, but I have to take a swallow of beer before I can speak. Even then, my throat feels full with the weight of my words. Because once I speak them aloud, there’s no going back. “If it were up to me, I’d go that route, too.”

Jasper takes this as exactly the admission it is and his fingers grip my thigh. “I’m going to need to kiss you right now.”

He does, but it’s a public kiss – quick, chaste, unsatisfying. When he leans back, I stick my bottom lip out and say, “I’m going to need a lot more than that.”

“Don’t worry, I have every intention of giving you what you need.” Jasper’s smile starts in his eyes and finds his mouth, and it’s provocative as hell, leaving me no doubt he’ll do exactly what he says he will.

A bottle rocket of anticipation explodes in my stomach.

Sleeping with Jasper will cement a relationship between us. I’m not so blinded by want to not remember it’s a relationship his sister, my best friend, has no inkling of. A relationship is the last thing I wanted. Scarlett knows this. But wanting Jasper means no halfway measures and, for better or for worse, there are no halfway measures with Scarlett either.

One thing’s for sure. Telling her is going to suck.

J
asper
and I make it back to Castle Calder without taking our clothes off at any point, which feels like a major feat, especially considering the amount of kissing and touching we do along the way. As he pulls into the gravel drive as the sun sinks, his hand is high on my thigh as he asks, “Are you joining me tonight?”

“Where?” The closer we’ve gotten to the castle, the more I’ve worried about Scarlett. I need to tell her about Jasper and me before she somehow finds out, and if she sees us together she’ll know. Even if Jasper and I stand ten feet apart, the spark between us is obvious enough to be seen from space.

“There’s a door around the side leading to the back stairwell that goes up to the attic. We used to sneak in that way when we were drunk and underage, but it still has its uses.”

“Such as sneaking in your trysts for the evening?” I ask.

“I think we’ve established you’re not at all a tryst for the evening.” Jasper parks at the far end of the car park. “If you’d prefer we can walk in the front door, but it’s decidedly less private, and there’s an excellent chance we’d run into a member of my family.”

“Scarlett.” It’s a relief to say her name out loud.

Jasper nods. “Selfishly, I’m not ready to share this with her yet.”

“She’s going to be pissed.”

Jasper gives a hollow laugh. “I believe her exact words to me were, ‘I’ll castrate you if you fuck with Bea.’”

“And yet.” My words hang in the air between us, heavy and edged with guilt.

“I’m not fucking with you.” Jasper gives a small grin. “At least not in the way she means it.”

I have two choices. One: I can insist we talk to Scarlett. Be truthful before anything even really happens. Or I can say, “How are you going to fuck with me then?”

Jasper leans across the center console, his hand inching higher on my thigh as he says, “Fast and hard, soft and slow. However makes you scream.”

Oh.

My.

Although when we’re naked up in the attic room where we had our disastrous “date” on the Fourth of July, I feel like the only screaming either one of us are going to do is from frustration. Because after a day filled with groping, soul-searing kisses, and suggestive banter, I’m so not feeling it now. From a misplaced knee to a too-firm caress, we’re so awkward together, it’s painful.

I tear my mouth away from Jasper’s and put my hand over his, which is currently kneading my breast like it’s a loaf of bread. “I think we need to slow down.”

Jasper’s voice wobbles like the kid who aimed for a home run and barely got a base hit. “Bea, I’m --”

“I need a minute.” I’ll take ten if it means getting back on the right track. I move Jasper’s hand from my breast to my waist and prop myself up on my elbow. “Tell me something. What do you think is the sexiest part of a woman’s body?”

“Any woman? Or you specifically?”

“Is there a difference?” I ask.

Jasper gives me a “duh” look and says, “The better you know someone, the sexier they are. Like you have a mole on your neck right by your ear that’s very sexy because I know when I kiss you there, your breathing changes and if I continue kissing your neck down to the hollow in your throat, you’ll moan.”

My body responds like he’s done exactly that, but I stay still. “Interesting.”

Jasper’s finger flutters over my collarbone and stops by my left shoulder. “And I know if I kiss you right here, your nipples get hard.” He smiles. “Like now.”

His hand cups my breast and he pinches my nipple gently between his thumb and forefinger. I let my pelvis inch closer to his and put my hand on his chest. He has a smattering of hair there and I tug at a few strands, saying, “As I recall, you like it rough.”

“As I recall, so do you.” He pinches my nipple harder and I cry out.

Then we’re kissing.

All of our earlier awkwardness is gone and so is our restraint. Jasper touches me and I buck against his hand. “I need you in me,” I whisper as I bite softly on his earlobe.

He answers by pushing his fingers inside of me, which makes me cry out. “Christ, you’re wet.”

“I told you. I need you inside me.” I gasp as he slides his hand away, but when he pulls the drawer open on the bedside table, I take the condom out of his hand and tear the packet open with my teeth.

He takes it back and, as I widen my eyes in a silent question, says, “Let me. If you touch me, this won’t last longer than six seconds.”

I watch him roll the condom on and catch my breath as he moves between my legs. For a second he pauses and just as I’m about to ask why, he lifts my leg up onto his shoulder and enters me in one smooth motion.

I hope to God these rooms really are far enough away from the other bedrooms in the castle because I’m not quiet. I can’t be. Not with him thrusting into me like that and the look on his face as he does – like it’s the most exquisite pain imaginable.

If I thought sex with Jasper in Atlanta was hot, this is ten times hotter. From the way we switch positions so he’s behind me, his hand wrapped around my hips stroking my clit, to the way he growls in my ear, “I’m going to make you scream. Are you ready?”

I can hardly get the words out, that’s how ready I am. I nod and he ups the tempo, thrusting into me as his hand moves in circles on my clit. I reach through my legs to cup his balls, but he sucks on my neck and I have to drop my hand to brace myself because I feel myself start to fall over the edge and, judging by Jasper’s thrusts, he’s coming over with me.

I don’t even know how the world is still upright on its axis as I roll away from Jasper. He flops back on his pillow and says, “God, that was fucking amazing.”

I press my lips to his shoulder. “Don’t you mean that was amazing fucking?”

“No.” Jasper turns on his side to face me. My knee slips between his legs. It feels like we’ve done this a hundred times before. Which only proves his point as he says, “If that’s all it was, it would have worked from the minute we were both naked. But it didn’t. In fact, I very nearly thought you were going to abandon ship, which, frankly, I still find mortifying.”

“Don’t be silly. The minute we both stopped trying so hard and started talking I was done for. You have a way with words I find hard to resist.”

“So, wait, you’re not only using me for my body?” Jasper kisses me gently. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or disappointed.”

“I’m totally using you for your body. Better?”

Jasper kisses me again. “Alas, if that were true we wouldn’t be here now.”

“Alas?” I kiss his shoulder and nestle in the crook of his arm. “Why alas?”

“Think of it like this. You walk down a hallway and go through the same door every time. It’s a nice door, mahogany, solid, brass fittings. Behind the door is the best Sunday roast you’ve ever had.”

Jasper pauses and I say, “If you’re about to compare me to a roast chicken, I might kill you.”

He grins. “Patience, Beatrice. Patience. Anyway, one day you’re walking down the hallway and there’s a new door. It gleams in a way that begs you to open it. You’re powerless against its attraction, try as you might to resist. So you go through and at first it looks like it might be the same Sunday roast you’ve had before. But it’s not. You start with the finest champagne and when you move on to the meal, you realize this, this is perfection. This is what you’ve been missing this whole time and you didn’t even know it. And because you realize how bloody lucky you are to have found it, you can’t help worrying about a day the door will disappear.”

“Are you worried I’ll disappear?” I ask softly.

“Every day,” Jasper says.

Jasper doesn’t say anything else and I don’t either. I wrap my arm around his waist and hold tight until we fall asleep.