Beyond Shame

edged with honest pain. “I must want you so much more than you want me. I’m like one of Ace’s groupies, needy and pathetic.”

He wanted to shake her. “Because I don’t get to lose control. If I lose control, people die. Things go wrong.” Her hair brushed the back of his hand, and he couldn’t resist running his fingers through it. “You’d get hurt.”

He saw the moment the words penetrated, the moment she not only understood but believed. Her eyes widened, and she pressed both hands to his bare chest, fingers splayed wide. “Don’t you get tired of it? Having to be in control, having to protect me?”

“Yes and no.” He tugged at her hair, then indulged himself by stroking his fingers over her cheek. “In the long run, it’s worth it.”

She absorbed that in silence as she turned her face into his palm. Her lips tickled the heel of his thumb in a ghost of a kiss. “Don’t make me sleep alone. I won’t try to do anything, just…hold me? Please?”

“Noelle…”

Something wet brushed his palm. Tears. “I don’t understand the rules here. I’m trying. I swear I’m trying.”

She was crying. Fuck. Jasper folded her in his arms. “Stay. I want you to. I can keep my hands to myself.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” She swiped at her cheeks angrily, dashing away tears. “I should go. I don’t want to stay like this.”

“This is why you should stay,” he argued. “Not sex, not like this. But being here is okay.”

She shivered and leaned closer, rested her forehead against his shoulder. “When I was ten, one of my tutors gave me a kitten. I only had her for a few hours before my father came home, but I fell in love with her. She would nuzzle my cheek and climb all over me… I had something to cuddle.”

Jasper hooked his arm under her legs and picked her up. “Your dad made you get rid of her?”

“My father got rid of her, and then he got rid of the tutor, too. They told me at dinner, and when I cried, my mother slapped me so hard she split my lip. She said decent ladies don’t cry, because tears are how wicked women make righteous men doubt their convictions.”

A heartbreaking moment, and the saddest part was that it had to have been one of many, a string of confusion and shame. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

She rubbed her cheek against his chest with a sigh. “I don’t want to manipulate you. I just don’t want to be alone, and I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

“Shh. Right now, it’s time to sleep it off.” He eased his bedroom door open with his foot.

Noelle huffed. “I wish you were drunk. Then you’d tell me things about you.”

Oh, if only she realized. “I am a little drunk.” He eased her onto his bed and tumbled after her. “What do you want to know?”

She seemed to consider the question with adorable gravity as she wiggled into a comfortable position with her cheek resting on his arm and her hand over his heart. “Where are you from?” she asked finally. “Eden, or the sectors?”

“Neither. I grew up on a farm east of here.”

“In the communes?”

Nothing so sterile or acceptable. “A private operation. We grew corn for the distilleries, along with some other things.”

“Oh, one of the illegal farms,” she murmured sleepily. “We’re not supposed to know about those. In Eden they tell us that nothing can live outside the communes, that the land can’t support people. But I heard my father arguing with a partner once about whether or not to send the military police to shut one down. I think some of the councilmen pay to support private farms so they won’t have to worry about rationing during the lean harvest years.”

If they did, they relied on outfits more reputable than the one Jasper had worked. “My parents dropped me off when I was ten,” he told her. “An apprenticeship, they all called it, but the only thing I learned was how to survive. I guess that’s a trade all by itself these days, though.”

Noelle lifted up onto her elbow and peered down at him. “They left you when you were ten?”

He couldn’t meet her gaze. “Had to get to work.”

She laid her palm over his cheek, her skin soft and warm above his beard. “That must have been so hard. And terrifying.”

The farm had housed kids even younger, children who couldn’t handle the backbreaking work. “I’d still be there if Robbins—the man who ran the place—hadn’t traded me to Dallas to settle a debt.”

“How old were you then?”

“Twenty-two.” And Dallas had been in the beginning stages of building an empire.

The curling ends of Noelle’s hair tickled his throat as she kissed his temple. “I’m glad he took you. You’re worth more than any debt.”

“That’s what he thought, I guess. He still made me work it off, though—one year.” After that, he’d been free to go, but where? Sector Four was as good a place as any, even before he’d proven himself loyal to the O’Kanes.

She settled close to his side but kept her fingers pressed to his cheek, absently stroking his beard. “You’re all so strong. You’ve been through terrible things and you still live. I don’t think I ever realized how numb I was until they threw me away. Like I was a shadow of a person.”

She felt good cuddled against him, so good it dulled the razor’s edge of the lust. “Sometimes…you have to hit bottom before you can figure out where to go.”

“I’ve been slipping for a while. Ever since—” She broke off, tensing. When she continued, her words were lower. More intense. “My father had started negotiations for me to marry. After that, nothing mattered. I didn’t care if I was ruined. I thought my father would cover it up to save face but all of the important men would know, and no one would have me after that.”

“There are worse things than being alone on your own terms.” Though maybe not in the city.

“I thought so, too. I knew my father would restrict me to the house for a few years to keep me from harming the family’s reputation, but I didn’t mind that. I’d have had access to a desk and the city’s library. But then something else happened.”

Jasper’s stomach clenched. “What?”

As if she felt his tension, she made a soothing noise and stroked his chest. “Somewhere between deciding to let that boy touch me and getting arrested for fornication, I woke up. Even if my father had kept me in the city, I wouldn’t have been happy locked up alone with my books anymore. I know I’m all tangled up inside, and I know it bothers you…but I’m sure about one thing. I’m not made to be untouched and alone.”

Nobody was, least of all a woman as filled with life and curiosity and desire as Noelle. “I know what you mean.” He kissed the top of her head. “Sleep. You’re gonna feel like shit in the morning.”

“Don’t care.” With a sigh of satisfaction, she squirmed closer. “At least I’ll feel.”

He waited until her breathing began to slow to whisper, “Me too.”

Chapter Twelve

Noelle woke up dying.

Her skull pounded. Her mouth tasted like she’d swallowed cotton, and the roiling in her stomach reminded her she’d swallowed something far, far worse. Even shifting to her side made the room tilt and the churning increase until she whimpered.

“Don’t move. It makes it worse.”

“Lex?” The pillow smelled like Jasper, and the bed didn’t feel like the pull-out couch. It couldn’t be Lex’s bed, either—the sheets weren’t nice enough. “Where am I?”

“Jasper’s place. He had to go.” Lex rattled a small bottle. “Head hurt?”