keptherwaiting | 1948, Philadelphia

1948, Philadelphia

Waiting for Alice to finish getting ready, Jasper is far more excited and confident than nervous for their date this time.

She’d made him shower first, not wanting him to put on his fancy clothes without one, and then she’d disappeared into the bathroom with more than one bag in her arms after he’d finished. His suit had been left on the bed, which he’d changed into quickly - a perfect fit, because she knows him so perfectly and so finely crafted too - and then he’d been left to more or less think about their upcoming night.

He feels good, more sure of himself than he has been in awhile, and vows to make up for the little stumbles earlier by making sure Alice has a great time tonight.

He’s sure Alice will look beautiful, she always does, and he knows he looks great, because Alice picked out the suit especially for him. He wonders where they’ll go to dance; Alice has said she knew of a place. And it’s still early enough, a Friday, and even the quietest of weeknights in Philly have seen plenty of activity.

He’s just thinking of fetching another bouquet of flowers for her - the other already artfully displayed on a table - when the door to the bathroom finally creaks open.

He turns and sucks in an appropriately sharp breath at the sight of her.

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His lips to hers, meeting her in a desperate kiss, and he’s pouring all of his feelings into her again. He’s pretty sure the whole floor is affected by now but he doesn’t care. Only cares about Alice.

He knows what she wants to say, can feel it, but he knows she won’t. That she keeps biting her tongue, holding back the words. She’s waiting for him, he knows.

And he keeps holding back.

He growls softly, a flash of frustration at himself that he can’t find the words. He just - turns his attention to the act once more instead. Focuses on the lust and desire like an electrical current between them.

He lies back again, his hands tightening on her hips. “Go on, darlin’,” he murmurs, wetting his lips as he looks her over again. It really is a great view. “Just - Go on and ride me.”

“Fuck,” Alice hisses, a gasp as she rolls forward again, the sensations he brings forth from her center, radiating outward.

She has to kiss again, it’s a desperate need, she needs his lips against hers as she rises and falls above him.

“You’re so—“ her voice breaks as she pulls back from the kiss. “Amazing—wonderful—“

Her words break off again, another moan as she pushes herself up, then back down onto him.

His hands are wherever he can reach, unable to keep them off of her. Her hair when she kisses him again. Her hips when she moves achingly slow and too fast all at once. Her breasts when he thrusts up to meet her.

He’s not going to last very long. He feels dizzy from the current of emotions between them, every nerve on fire like the burn in his throat when he’s hungry.

And he is. Just for her and not anything else at the moment.

“God, Alice.”

He grips her hips, his snapping to hers faster as he meets her move for move.

He’s so close - so very, very close - and the movements between them turn frantic, urgent, and then he’s there, a little groan, a tight grip on her hips.

“ - God. Alice. I - You are - Jesus.”

His sharper, faster thrusts make stars appear behind her eyelids, her eyes squeezing shut tightly, her fingers scrabbling at his chest, sliding over his skin as she leans over him, to bury them in the sheets.

Goddammit, he makes her feel so good.

With lips pressed together, Alice whimpers out another moan, the sound muffled and swallowed by the sounds of their bodies meeting. She’s flying, floating, and—

It breaks, all at once. Waves radiating through her as she clenches around him, drops her head to his shoulder and muffles her sob against his skin. Her fingers twist in the sheets at his shoulders, her legs shaking, arms shaking, desperately gasping for breath as she falls apart above, around, with him.

He’s not sure who is shaking more in the moment and after, her or him.

Maybe they’re just matched, equal, perfectly in sync.

Jasper pulls her to him almost immediately after, wrapping his arms tight around her as he kisses at her mouth, her cheeks, her forehead, whatever he can reach.

His hand rubs down her shaky arm, her back, his own limbs just as shaky, his breath just as stolen.

“You are - incredible,” he manages eventually, mouthing at her jaw. “We’re incredible.”

It’s never been like this for him, before her.

Alice pants against his skin, body feeling like every nerve is still firing. Every shift of her hips makes her hyperaware of him still seated inside of her, not wanting to lose that absolute closeness yet.

She kisses him back, weakly at first, then stronger as she comes back to herself. Her hands frame his face, holding him in place so she can taste him, breathe him in.

Then, his words, and her heart blooms in warmth. They are incredible. He is. She is. Together.

The words fall from her lips before she can stop them, just a sigh of: “I love you,” and she stills, pressing her forehead against his shoulder and wincing. It wasn’t the time to say it—she doesn’t want him to feel pressured. She doesn’t regret the words, she means them, wholeheartedly, but it wasn’t time. “Oh,” Alice huffs against his skin. “That was supposed to be said later.”

Jasper hadn’t realized what it would be like to hear her say the words, even with having known how she’s felt since he’d met her.

His emotions are far too big for him to contain, feeling like his heart could burst at any moment with the way she feels.

The way he feels, too.

And then she huffs about the timing of it all and he’s grinning, chuckling.

“We on a specific timeline for all this that I don’t know about?”

“Well,” Alice groans, her eyelashes fluttering against his skin. She forces herself to sit up, look him in the eye when she speaks, even if she just wants to hide under the sheets. “I didn’t...I don’t want...”

Her fingers press at her eyes and she mutters incoherently at herself. She lifts off of him, breath hitching at the loss of him, moving to curl at his side.

Her fingertip traces a scar at his ribs; if she were human she’d be as red as a tomato, she thinks.

“I didn’t want to say it until you did. I didn’t want to make you feel pressured or...weird about it all.” Alice frowns, her lips pushing into a pout, her voice small. “Did I? Is it weird now? I’m sorry.”

“ - Alice, please don’t apologize. You haven’t made it weird, and I don’t feel pressured. I - “

He looks away from her, not wanting to see a look of disappointment when he can’t summon the words just yet. Even though he’d surely feel her disappointment regardless.

He feels his own disappointment and frustration at keeping her waiting even this long.

His mouth twists in a frown, and he catches her fingers in his, bringing them to his mouth to kiss, even as he still can’t meet her eye.

“ - Do you remember when I was asking about your visions, before? And I asked how much you’ve seen of us? I was just curious, but - You were turned twenty-eight years ago, and the first thing you saw was me.”

He kisses her fingers again, the words are a struggle and he finds a strength in her that helps.

“I’d have still been with Maria then. Did you see her? Us? I thought I loved her,” he says, the words coming more quickly now, his lips a blur against her palm as he holds her hand to his mouth. “I didn’t know. But this - ? God, Alice, you are so much more to me. You and I were meant for each other.”

He’s never believed in something as much as he believes in Alice and him.

“I love you. I’ve been stupid about acknowledging it. But the feelings are there. Have been since I’d met you. Nothing has ever felt more right to me than our love.”

She’s hesitant, as he talks, her eyes focusing on her hand in his, his lips against her skin.

Yeah, she’d seen him and Maria, but there’d been little love left between the two of them toward the end. Anger, snarling fights and hateful words spat at each other. Touches that were more violent than anything else.

It hurt, thinking about those visions long passed. Not because of her (though they had stabbed through her, making her hate a woman she’d never met), but because of the pain and sorrow Jasper had felt, been caused, during and after those moments.

Alice opens her mouth to say something, not sure what will fall off her tongue this time, when he says the words: you and I are meant for each other.

I love you.

Her eyes close, lips pressing tightly together as relief, gratitude, love, they all wash over her. She hadn’t realized how important hearing the words would be, not when she’s felt the sentiment so clearly when he presses his emotions into her.

Disentangling her hand from his, she presses her fingers under his chin, to make him look at her as she hovers over him. “Good,” Alice whispers, her voice thick. “Good. I love you, too. You’re the most important part of my life, Jasper. I love you.”

His smile is as wobbly as her voice is thick as he sits up and kisses her.

Hearing the words from her again, even with knowing and always having known, is not something he will ever tire of hearing he thinks.

She makes him feel whole, right, happy.

“I love you,” he says again when he parts from the kiss and rests his forehead against hers. He’s grinning now, unrestrained. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting again.”

At least it wasn’t another twenty-eight years?

“It wasn’t long,” Alice laughs softly, carding her hand through his hair, kissing him again and again.

She can’t get enough of him. He makes her feel dizzy, needy, desperate. He makes her so happy, the happiest she’s ever felt.

“It was worth the wait,” she whispers, her hands cupping his face as she looks at him. “You absolutely are worth waiting for.”

She certainly makes him feel like he’d been worth it.

He bumps his nose with hers, and kisses her again and again.

“Technically, I had to wait a - hundred an’ five years for you,” he teases, his lips barely leaving hers.

“I’d say it was easier for you, not knowing I was coming,” Alice murmurs, her expression falling a little. Sadder. “But I know it wasn’t.”

She traces the lines of his face, his nose, lips. “I wanted so badly to find you sooner. But you weren’t ready for me. Any time I tried to alter it, make the decision, it was just...”

Bad. He wouldn’t come; he wouldn’t believe her; worse still—he might have done things to please Maria. It was never clear, because those visions hadn’t been right.

“Anyway,” she sighs, leaning in to kiss the corner of his lips. “You weren’t ready for me. And even though it wasn’t perfect, I think you needed that time with Peter and Charlotte too.”

He doesn’t want her sad and he kisses away the frown that appears.

“Everything I went through eventually brought me to you. Maybe it’s why I fought so hard.”

He’d liked to think there was a purpose to it all. How, even in the darkest of moments, he’d never given up.

“And what’s happened, that’s all behind us now, okay?”

He smiles at her.

“I love you.”

And he’ll keep saying it until she smiles again, if he has to.

“I love you.”

She covers his lips with her own, unhurried but deep; teeth grazing his bottom lip, tongue sliding against his in tiny sips of him.

The love she feels for him is so bright, so blinding, radiating through her like the sun.

“I love you,” Alice whispers against his mouth, fiercely. She curls herself against him, pressing herself so close, as close as she can. “God, Jasper, I love you.”

Jasper gathers her into his arms, into his lap, as he trades kisses and whispers with her: “I love you too.”

His love for her courses through him to her with each kiss and accompanies each word he whispers.

He can tell it’s affecting the rooms around them now, and he still doesn’t care. It’s a profound thing, irrepressible. It may be the only time the poor souls ever feel anything so pure and genuine.

He’s dizzy with it himself.

She feels a strange whirl of vertigo, though she’s safe in his arms. The emotion is like a heavy cloud, yet light as a feather, so pure and bottomless.

It makes her grin against his mouth, makes her giggle softly into his kisses, the slow press and slide of lips as they bask in the truth of it all.

He loves her. It’s such a giddy thing. Three words that make her dead heart soar. She aches with the knowledge of it, the precious thing he’s given her.

“I thought I’d wait longer,” she whispers, “to hear you say it. The possibility was always there—but I thought it would be longer. Me and my big mouth changed that.”

Alice huffs another laugh against his mouth, not wanting to move a millimeter from his lips. “A rare time I can be thankful for that.”

Jasper grins. Her giddiness is infectious, even without his powers to feel it.

She’s a true force of nature, and it’s only one the many things he loves about her.

“Well now you’ll never stop hearing it. I’ll tell you every hour of every day. More.”

He squeezes her in a hug, his strong arms tight around her tiny waist, and yet not even a fraction of his true strength, always vowing to be gentle with her. She’ll never feel unsafe in his arms.

She’ll never feel unsafe, regardless, or go unprotected so long as he’s about.

(She may even find it a little annoying at times how protective he’ll be of her.)

Her arms wrap around his shoulders, pressing them skin to skin, as close as she can possibly get.

Alice strokes his cheeks, pressing kisses into his hairline, dragging her nose against his cheek.

Then, kissing him again, softly: “You should make love to me now, now that we’ve said the words.”

Jasper laughs, an eyebrow quirked. “Oh, I should?”

But he’s already lifting her up and gently placing her on the bed.

“Having a younger vampire for a mate is exhausting,” he teases, just before kissing her softly.

Alice pulls back, her hands stilling on his face, her smile flustered and surprised, happy and bashful all at once.

“Mate,” she breathes, her voice soft, small, but only because she’s turning the word over and over in her head.

“It’s funny,” Alice whispers, a laugh escaping her. “I never...the word rarely crossed my mind before. Silly, because what else would we be but mates?”

Bumping his nose with hers, her grin is blinding. “Say it again.”

Her utter delight at his use of the word has him laughing again.

“Of course we’re mates.”

Which he says with such certainty as he kisses the corner of her smile.

“My love,” he whispers, kissing the tip of her nose next. “My mate.”

He settles atop of her, blanketing her body with his, and just starts pressing sweet kisses tiny all over her smile.

“You do know what that means, right?”

“What?” Alice smiles at the kisses, her hands skating over his hair, neck, shoulders.

She ducks the next kiss so she can catch his cheek, then his chin.

“Mm, well, there’s my eternal love for you,” he murmurs, chasing her lips when she catches him on the chin. “My undying devotion and loyalty.”

He captures her in a kiss which he draws out for a long moment, the slide of his lips against hers, the slip of his tongue against hers.

And then he’s ducking his head to mouth at her jaw, pausing to whisper - “A pledge to always provide for you as I can.” - before he trails his teeth along her neck and lower still.

“My unwavering promise to protect this perfect, gorgeous body of yours,” which emphasizes with a nip at her collarbone.

“And,” he shifts upward again to kiss her once more, “countless days and nights of making love.”

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