I stop myself from saying “me” at the last moment, and Jasper catches my gaze like he heard it anyway.
With my pawn, I wipe Jasper’s knight off the board with a tad too much aggression. “I think he decided to join the Army because he wanted so badly to play the hero again. That was always how he saw himself.”
Jasper shakes his head, and I know what he must be thinking. It’s no reason to join the military. Instead of replying to that, though, he takes my pawn with his bishop.
“Check,” he says calmly, and I blink, redirecting my attention to the game.
His bishop is in line to take my king—the jerk. How did he manage that?
Ignoring the game, Jasper waits until he has my attention. “Soomin was both my wife and my submissive, but it was years before the cracks started to show. She wasn’t a masochist, Eden, and I was starting to understand I needed that. I wanted more than her submission. I wanted her tears and her trust.” He pauses and sighs. “But I wanted her to want that, mostly. And that wasn’t who she was.”
This isn’t a session. It isn’t work. He’s meeting me halfway. Actually talking to me, the way I’ve wanted all of them to.
Giving me his secrets.
I wonder if he’ll tell me what’s going on with the others. Why everyone is so tense.
I take my knight to D7, blocking his bishop and taking me out of check.
“Is that why you divorced?” I ask.
Jasper bends over the board, and I see the tension in him in the corded tendons of his lovely, careful hands. “In part. It . . .
destroyed me . . . that Soomin felt she wasn’t enough. I loved her, very dearly. I insisted she was all I needed, tried to make it true, but she didn’t believe me.” He adjusts the wrists of his sweater, his sharp misery coated in its inviting softness. “I’m not sure I believed myself by the end.”
My teeth tug at my lip, chest aching for him. And, if I’m honest, for myself, too.
“The way you talk about it—the sadism, I mean—it sounds like a need. A . . . compulsion, maybe? Can you really just switch it off like that?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
He couldn’t be with Soomin because she wasn’t masochistic . . . if I want Jasper, it means I’ll have to try. I mull over what he said before, about all the different possibilities. About how determined he’s been to make me comfortable.
With Jasper . . . maybe I could try.
He looks at me then. His eyes are shadows and sadness. “No. I can’t. That drive is part of me.”
In one hand, Jasper collects his A1 castle and his king and moves them to D1 and C1, respectively. It tucks his king behind his pawns and brings his castle out from where it was trapped. My jaw drops open.
I stare up at him, outraged. “That’s cheating!”
Despite his somber expression, the corner of his mouth lifts. “No. That’s castling.”
“You didn’t explain that rule,” I grit out in as even a tone as I can muster, fuming. This changes the whole board!
“Didn’t I?” he says dismissively. “My mistake.”
“Sadist.”
Jasper inclines his head again. “As I was explaining.”
I groan a little laugh and look at the board, my chin in my hands. I move my castle to D8, beside my king, with a pout.
Jasper’s small smile softens, then he continues, “It’s not enough to want to be right for someone. You can’t carve away important parts of yourself to make your pieces fit. No matter how much you might want to.”
There is so much pain in him as he says it, so much aching loneliness that I suck in a breath from the second-hand hurt.
He must have loved his wife deeply.
Jasper picks up his castle, and I can’t help but stay his hand. He raises a stern brow, but for once . . . I don’t feel like crumpling.
“I’m so sorry, Jasper. That must have hurt.”
With his other hand, he captures mine and tugs it free. He squeezes it once, gently. “Yes. It did.”
Jasper takes my knight with his castle at D7. “Tell me the rest.”
I shift my gaze back to the board, finding it easier to talk while my hands are occupied, and take his castle with my knight, feeling like I’m falling into his plot. But even so, it doesn’t even occur to me to hesitate now. “Henry was in the Army for a few years, and I had just finished my degree when he was dishonorably discharged—found criminally negligent in his basic duties.”
Dead silence. Jasper sits back in his chair, and I can tell I’ve surprised him.
“It was sloppiness, really. I genuinely don’t believe he would have done anything malicious, but he was always careless when things didn’t interest or benefit him. Two men died because of his actions, and he was serving his time in a military prison when the strikes happened.”
“You left him while he was in prison?” Sitting forward again smoothly, he moves his other castle to D1.
That was a hard time. I’d buried myself in work and tried to ignore the whispers of my coworkers. People took dishonorable discharges seriously.
They were a serious matter.
I smile ruefully. “I tried. Turns out, dishonorable discharges are expensive. His lawyers were expensive. Divorce is expensive. It took time. I was trying to get that sorted when everything happened.”
His elbows on his knees, Jasper regards me with unnerving intensity. Needing to escape the attention, I shift my queen to E6
to put pressure on his queen. I think I’ve lost this game. Playing against Jasper, I’m not sure I had a chance to begin with.
“Do I remind you of him?” he asks seriously. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”
His bishop takes my knight at D7 in a severe, clipped motion. He’s right next to my king.
“Check.”
I suck in a breath, but I’m not looking at the board. “No. No, Jasper, you don’t. Not— Not really. It’s just the wealth and I — I just feel like I’m saying the wrong thing all the time.”
Rather than looking hurt or offended, as I feared, he seems to consider that. “Because you don’t know the rules?”
I take my knight to D7, taking his bishop, for all the good it would do. This game is hopeless. I was lost before I began.
“Because I hate the rules.” The words burst from me like a geyser.
Oh.
My hand flies to my mouth, mortified. “I’m sorr—”
“We’ve spoken already today about that word, Eden,” Jasper says calmly. He moves his queen to B8, and I’m in check again. He examines my face. “The rules . . . ”
I wrap my arms around my stomach, sitting back . . . but as I do, Jasper leans forward in his chair, chasing me.
“What is it you want from us, Eden?” he asks, so so gently.
I move to stand. “I need some water, I—”
“Come here.”
My pulse thunders . . . but I can’t escape the gravity of his gaze.
“Here?” I breathe, even as I step into him. Did I think he was darkness before? In the soft lights of the room, he shines like a star.
When I stand before him, he takes my damp palms in his, and dizziness swirls my brains. He doesn’t say anything, but I sink to my knees. I couldn’t say why, exactly. I’m sure there are thoughts floating somewhere in the mists of my mind. But curling up between his legs feels like breathing, like nature, like the home he tempted me with so sweetly when I first arrived.