1948, Near Noank, Connecticut

[keptherwaiting]

Following the coastal road extends their time spent driving but Jasper doesn’t mind. He enjoys listening to Alice talking and singing along with the radio, watching out the window as they pass through town after town.

They don’t stop unless absolutely necessary, avoiding human interaction after the almost-slip in the movie theater. It’s stops just for gas and then finally a longer stretch when Alice demands Jasper take the wheel and learn how to drive.

Which he does, with a few stops and starts along the way until he can get the hang of it, and then Alice settles back to read to him aloud from one the new books she’d bought.

Until - “Oh, here!” - and she directs him toward the outskirts of a little coastal town of Connecticut before they reach Rhode Island.

She’s murmuring the directions to him, until he has the car hidden and parked away from any main roads.

“Alice - what - ?” He’s laughing. “Are we about to commit grand larceny?”

Comments

[keptherwaiting]

Jasper nods and he follows her lead in standing. He takes her hand before starting back toward the surface.

Yet, as soon as they break wave, he drags her into a kiss, pausing the flood of words he knows are coming. Her feelings of awe and pleasure are just too much for him to not kiss her in the moment.

[betagainstme]

She makes a soft noise, drowned out by his kiss. Her hands drag through his wet hair, her lips open under his, kissing him back with everything she's got.

"I love you," Alice whispers when they break apart. "God, Jasper, that was--I can't--"

She stops, laughing at herself. "Jasper. That was amazing. I love you, God, I love you."

[keptherwaiting]

Jasper laughs with her. Her exuberance is infectious. Her smile, her laugh. More than any other’s.

He puts his arms around her, pulling her close as he kisses her again.

“God, I want to experience so much with you,” he says, “Even now, here, with the way you see things, it’s like seeing it all for the first time again. Everything is just - better with you.”

[betagainstme]

She would blush if she could—his words fill her with more joy than any thing she saw on the ocean floor.

“I love you,” Alice whispers again, kissing him once more. “You make me so happy.”

[keptherwaiting]

“I love you too, darlin’.”

He picks her up again so he can press his forehead against hers without having to bend down.

“Thanks, for this.”

For everything, truly.

He doesn’t know how he can ever convey how much all of this means to him.

[betagainstme]

Her legs wrap around his waist, clinging to him, her hands still in his wet hair.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Alice whispers, shaking her head, water droplets flying. “Just keep experiencing life with me. I want you to see everything, the way it’s meant to be seen.”

[keptherwaiting]

“You’ve shown me so much already,” he whispers as he carries back closer to the shore, where the waves just meet the sand.

He sinks to his knees with her still wrapped tight around him.

“I don’t have much to offer. Only myself. My feelings for you. My devotion.”

He smiles softly.

“My name too, if you want that. You don’t have a surname, do you? Not that we know of. Just - Alice. My Alice.”

[betagainstme]

“Jasper,” Alice breathes, her hands cupping his face.

Her fingers trace his face as she tries to think of words to say. They tremble against his lips and she knows that if they could, her eyes would well up with tears.

“Yes.” She whispers, ducking close and kissing him again and again. “Yes, I want that. I want you, all of it, I love you—“

She’s kissing him again, pouring every ounce of her love for him into it.

[keptherwaiting]

“Good - Great.”

He’s not sure what he’d have done had she said no. But then he hadn’t been expecting it.

He laughs, so full of happiness and love, as he kisses her back. Soaking up all of her own too, giving back just as much.

“ - God, I love you.”

He lays her back into the sand, kissing her more soundly.

[betagainstme]

She makes a soft noise into his kiss, her hands skating over his shoulders and the expanse of his back.

The feelings she has—words don’t do them justice. Love pales in comparison to how deep and pure and perfect the emotion is.

Her chest hurts with it. She’s so happy.

[keptherwaiting]

The colder weather and the overcast sky would keep most beach goers home, but the seclusion of this one, hidden away on private property, makes it all the more deserted.

Which Jasper is very glad for when he pulls back enough to look down at Alice as the sun peeks out from behind a cloud.
She sparkles in the little light, glowing. As much as her feelings are to him, as though she brought out the sun.

And the privacy is also perfect for -

“I’m just going to make love to you here instead of on the car, okay?”

(Well. They can also do the car thing later.)

[betagainstme]

“Okay,” Alice whispers, stroking his cheek as the sun backlights him, setting his hair aglow.

His skin scattering the light like diamonds. She feels like she’s been punched in the gut when she looks at him, her breath stolen away.

“Okay,” she repeats, hand curling at the back of his neck to bring him back to her, to kiss him again.

[keptherwaiting]

Jasper kisses her sweetly in return, pressing his naked self against her bathing suit clad body.

And he takes the moment to enjoy the way their mouths move together, perfectly in sync with one another, and how perfect she feels under him.

He’s not in any particular rush - he did say make love, after all - and he’s going to take his sweet time about it.

Until she gets impatient about it.

He smiles against her lips at the thought before he ducks his head to kiss at her neck, breathing in the salty sea that now mixes with her unique scent.

[betagainstme]

For once, for now at least, she is content with slow paced. She feels hazy and heavy under her peaceful love and happiness.

Alice just wants to explore every inch of him here in the sand, the surf playing at their feet.

Well, his feet. He stretches far beyond her in length.

His mouth at her neck makes her sigh, her hands roaming down his body to memorize dips and ribs and scars once more. She hums a song they’d listened to on the radio as she tilts her head back, giving him more room at her neck, content.

[keptherwaiting]

He loves the feel of her hands on him, the sound of her voice in his ear.

He hums back as he brushes his lips along her skin, as he grazes her pulse-point with his teeth.

“I love you,” he whispers after her presses his lips to her jaw in a kiss, as he kisses the point of her chin.

And he hums again.

[betagainstme]

“No,” Alice gasps with a wide smile, arching herself against him. “I love you.”

Her fingers slip up his back, cataloguing each ridge of his spine, her toes dragging along his calf, squirming under him to try and touch every inch of him at once.

[keptherwaiting]

His laugh is soft, more breath against her skin than noise.

“Mm, nope, I love you.”

He continues to explore her neck and collarbones with his lips, pressing kisses here and there.

“Your fingers, your toes, and all your squirming too.”

[betagainstme]

"I never know what to do," Alice giggles, craning her neck to watch him kiss across her collarbones. "When you're kissin' me all over and I can't reach anything and you're gettin' farther and farther away from me 'cause you're so damn tall."

Her hand grips his shoulder, bracing herself as she rolls them, sending a shower of sand from her hair down onto him as he's now on his back.

"But like this, I can kiss you, and you can reach way more of me than I can you."

She proves this (somehow?) by dipping down to kiss him on the lips--a long, slow and deep kiss.

[keptherwaiting]

Well. Jasper can’t say he minds the sudden switch in position. (Except for maybe the cascade of sand.)

And he definitely can reach.

He smirks into the kiss as his hands disappear under the back of her bathing suit bottom, grabbing her ass.

[betagainstme]

Alice makes an affronted noise into his mouth, all for show. Also for show, she presses back against his hands, wiggling in his grasp.

"See?" She gasps against his lips, grinning. "Corruptin' me."

[keptherwaiting]

Jasper laughs and just squeezes her bottom when she wiggles in his grasp.

“Okay, yes, I’m corruptin’ you,” he says, kissing at her chin, mouthing at her jaw, “and I like it.”

[betagainstme]

"Hah," Alice breathes, pushing herself up to sit in his lap. Her arm twists behind her, unclasping the strapless top and tossing it to the side.

"C'mere," she whispers, tugging him up after her, so he's sitting up too, taking his face in her hands so she can kiss him again. "My Jasper," is whispered against his lips, proclamations of love following: "I love you."

[keptherwaiting]

“I love you too,” he murmurs, pausing in his corrupting ways to look at her fondly.

Though, his hands stay right where they are, pulling her closer as he kisses her swiftly and sweetly again.

He nudges her nose with his.

“You are so beautiful.”

[betagainstme]

She brushes his lips with her fingertips, dropping them only to kiss him again.

"I feel it, truly, the way you look at me. The way you talk," Alice murmurs, wrapping her arms around his neck, her lips sliding to his jaw. "It's not just vampire powers with you.

"And you, you are so beautiful too. Handsome, I should say," she huffs a soft laugh, moving to kiss his lips again, one hand sliding down his chest. "Now, make love to me in the sand, Mr. Whitlock."

[keptherwaiting]

She makes him feel desirable again, in how easily she sees past his scars and his past, and she makes him feel loved, too.

And being loved is the greatest feeling, and the most terrifying. He’s never felt so vulnerable in his vampiric life before. But, he chooses to embrace it rather than shy from it.

“Gotta get these off of you first, darlin’,” he murmurs softly. He urges her to stand and winks at her before he slides the bikini bottoms over her hips and down her legs.

He kisses her exposed hips, her thighs as she stands before him until he’s pulling her down and laying her back against the sand once more in all one smooth, easy movement.