Ensnared (Brutes of Bristlebrook, #1)(13)

“Easy.”

His voice is soft and controlled. I try to step back, but his grip, though gentle, is uncompromising.

After a moment, he murmurs, “Look at me. I want to see your face.”

With a shiver, I look. In the flickering light of the fireplace, I make out a sulky, almost femininely curved mouth. The second thing I realize is that this man is starkly, utterly beautiful. His angular face has an underlying masculine strength to it that belies the thick eyelashes and sweet softness of his lips.

His eyes are darkly shadowed and fiercely intelligent as they study me. Small lines fan from the corners. Older than the other three, in his early forties perhaps, his steady maturity is both unnerving and comforting.

This is not a man to be trifled with—but his quiet authority is all the more vital and interesting to me because he doesn’t radiate raw strength. It’s in his obvious self-assurance. In how he radiates this inexplicable dual sense of threat and safety.

What I can’t explain is why that sends slow, heavy tendrils of heat licking through me.

His eyes gleam in the firelight as he takes in the damp, clinging shirt, lingering on my breasts. He’s clad in an elegant pair of trousers and a similar silk button-down, and I wonder if the one I’m now wearing belongs to him. Suddenly, the fact that I’m wearing someone else’s clothes doesn’t feel odd. I like it.

I like it a lot.

After a long moment, he nods, seeming to decide something. A hand trails from my upper arm to my chin, and he brushes a thumb over my lips, tracing the sharp indent at the top. The movement shivers through me, and I jerk my head back, feeling abruptly vulnerable and overwarm. He lets me retreat, though something predatory moves in his gaze as I do. A faint smile curves his lips, as though I did something interesting. It isn’t like Lucky’s delighted grin, or Beau’s slow warmth. It’s restrained. Bitingly amused.

Uncomfortably flushed and unsure of what that gaze means, I look away.

“I am Jasper Douglas. A pleasure to meet you, Eden,” he says, soft and cultured. “Please come with me. We have drinks ready in the gaming room, and I understand you are yet to meet Jaykob. I’d be pleased to introduce you.”

My stomach jolts. Just what I need, more men.

Jasper escorts me through the house, built entirely in rich dark wood and stone, with warm golden lighting. I would have called it a log cabin had it not been so massive. It drips luxury, decorated with artifacts and carpets and paintings so clearly expensive that the owner might as well have glued money up on the walls and have done with it. I wonder if the Asian influences are Jasper’s doing. Something about it calls to me. There’s a care and a warmth infused into the design that softens the obscene wealth.

Jasper leads me to an interior balcony at the end of the hall, which overlooks the sprawling lower level. Glowing lights dangle through the middle of the house from the high ceiling. An imperial staircase curls its grand, matching flights down to the first floor.

As we descend the left flight of stairs, I pause by an exquisite artwork. It features three silhouettes under a vibrant cherry blossom tree, with some artful calligraphic characters in the corner that I think might be hangul. I’m caught by the way the female silhouette is reaching for the young boy playing just out of her grasp. The way the man has his hand tangled in the strands of her hair as he watches them both. There’s something deeply warm and cozy in the silhouettes that makes my chest ache.

Jasper steps in behind me, and his breath stirs the small hairs on the back of my neck. “It says ‘family is always in reach.’

Or near enough.”

A tiny chill accompanies the ache in my chest, and I turn away from the artwork.

“A pretty thought,” I say with forced levity.

“My mother was a sentimental woman.”

There’s a fondness in his tone that makes me glance up—and that may have been a mistake. Jasper is drinking me in, absorbing me with his gaze until I’m dizzy and floating inside it. I’m not sure there’s air, here in the ether of his eyes. If there is, I can’t find it right this moment.

His expression grows soft. “Family is who you choose to make it, Eden.”

My lips part, and there’s a small lump in my throat. He’s trapped me inside of him, unraveling me in moments. I don’t know how he managed to figure me out so fast, but I’m sure he did. I’m sure he just drank down all my secrets. All my fears. I’m almost afraid of the implication in his words.

Family. It is a pretty thought.

I take a delicate step out from under him and down the stairs, sucking in a needed breath and rubbing my hand over the raised hairs on my arms. He lets me escape, but his clever, curious interest follows me.

Casting about for a distraction, I eye the wide, clear windows that line the entire front wall of the sitting room, inviting me out into the sunshine. A large, solitary apple tree stretches its laden limbs toward the house.

“How could this possibly be hidden from the drones?” I ask as we pass the windows, changing the topic.

Jasper allows the shift, directing me with a firm hand on the back of my shirt, just lower than is proper. I shiver under the proprietary touch, so warm through the thin fabric.

“The lodge is built into the side of a cliff, which overhangs our valley. It’s protected on three sides by the mountain and the fourth is concealed by the forest. It’s impossible to see from above from any angle, and you would have to know where you were going—or be incredibly lucky—to find it from the ground.”