Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
I rubbed at it like I could rub away Jasper’s existence. I turned back to Elliot, who was staring at my wrist, jaw hard.
“Everything is fine,” I lied. The world I’d built was hastily falling apart around my ears.
Never in my worst nightmares had I wanted Elliot to be anywhere near Jasper. To know what he was, to know what I’d become in order to be involved with him.
Elliot’s eyes ping-ponged between Jasper and me, his gaze calculating. I knew he was clocking the distance between me and Jasper—much too close to be mere acquaintances. Elliot took in Jasper. He might not have run in the circles that Jasper did, he might not have been trained to spot killers, but Elliot was smart. He knew how to read people. He could see what Jasper was, sense the danger. Anyone in his presence did.
Elliot was strong, not someone to be trifled with, but he wasn’t aggressive. Wasn’t a fighter. Yet he could perceive the intimacy between me and Jasper, recognizing what kind of man Jasper was as he stepped pointedly forward, grabbing me by the hip and pulling me into his body.
“Everything is fine. Now.” He pressed a kiss to the side of my neck.
The blatant show of ownership should’ve had me rolling my eyes, uttering some sharp retort, but I didn’t have the energy. I was too terrified.
Jasper was a loose cannon. He already knew Elliot and I were together, but that didn’t mean he accepted it. His reaction to Elliot touching me could be nothing or it could be shooting him between the eyes.
I forced myself in front of Elliot, knowing Jasper would never shoot me.
Elliot communicated his confusion at my doing that by looking at me with knotted brows. Thankfully, he didn’t try to reassert dominance by putting himself back in front of me.
“I’m Elliot,” he greeted Jasper. “Calliope’s man.”
His words were warm on the surface but not true to Elliot’s nature. There was skepticism between each syllable. And unspoken questions. Who the fuck are you? What are you doing touching my woman?
Jasper didn’t reply, he just stared at Elliot, the glimmer in his eyes telling me he was a tad amused, like a cat might be with a mouse.
“This is Jasper,” I told Elliot, hating that I even had to introduce them. “An old friend.”
Jasper’s head tilted at my description, but he remained silent.
“Well, any friend of Calliope’s is a friend of mine.” Elliot’s entire posture conveyed that he considered Jasper to be his worst enemy.
“Jasper was just leaving.” I kept my eyes locked on Jasper’s.
“Oh, what a shame.” Again, Elliot’s tone and body language proclaimed that he felt the exact opposite.
“Was I?” Jasper was taunting me. I knew he was asserting his own dominance, torturing me with the prospect of him staying, hurting Elliot. Or deciding to get chatty. Jasper was a man of few words, but he knew how to make words cut like a knife.
I gritted my teeth, willing to go toe-to-toe with him, willing to rip his fucking face off with my bare hands. “You were.”
His lips tipped upward in a slow, haunting smile, his eyes plastered on Elliot. “Nice to meet you,” he said pleasantly. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.” My lungs constricted at the threat that was but kept my stare even.
“Calliope.” He leaned in to kiss me on the cheek, despite Elliot’s proximity and my body language screaming aggression.
I resisted the urge to reach into his suit jacket, take his gun from the holster and unload the clip into his torso. Barely.
Too many witnesses.
His lips were ice cold against my skin, sending icy pulses of disgust through me.
Elliot’s hand flexed against my hip. I could feel the aggression rolling off him, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything. He was letting me take the lead.
“I’ll see you back at work,” Jasper promised in my ear.
He lingered too close for too long, enjoying my discomfort, my anger, all of it.
Then he stepped back, buttoned his jacket, nodded to Elliot and walked out of my vision.
My chest was heaving with my fury and fear, so it took me a handful of seconds to get my blood pressure under control. Elliot stood silently behind me.
I expected him to ask a slew of questions the second Jasper’s loafer left the deck of the restaurant. Elliot was more than entitled to them. And the entire interaction was much too bizarre and surreal to not acknowledge.
I struggled to process how I would explain it. How I’d explain Jasper. There was no way to do it. And now that Elliot was in his crosshairs, I couldn’t endanger him anymore. What I had been doing was stupid, selfish. Arrogant of me to have stayed with Elliot so long.
He’d ask. I’d tell him everything and force him to end things with me. That I could do. Even if it broke me.