A Nature of Conflict (The Redemption Saga Book 3) Page 3

  As the movie started, he pulled up the arm rest between them and pulled her into him a little more. She shifted, getting comfortable, his arm casually over her shoulder.

  Halfway through the movie, she wasn’t paying attention to it. Jasper was thoughtlessly creating trails of goosebumps on her arm and that was driving her mad, in a good way. She turned to him during the movie’s sex scene and kissed him again.

  The movie forgotten, she grabbed onto his shirt and nearly climbed on top of him. He pressed a hand to her lower back and held her as they made out. His other hand rubbed her thigh slowly, long strokes up and down the outside.

  “We should watch the movie,” he whispered huskily. “We’ll get thrown out if we keep this up.”

  “Fuck the movie.” She went back to kissing him, nibbling on his bottom lip as he groaned. She could feel how hard he was and rubbed him through his jeans, which prompted him to grab her wrist.

  “We definitely can’t do that here.” His voice was gruff, undone, and heated. It sent a shiver down her spine, realizing there was a passionate man underneath her golden boy.

  “You’re right,” she agreed softly. “I just…”

  “Sawyer,” Jasper moaned and kissed her again. She noted that he kept her wrist tight in his hand, refusing to let go. “We still have to go get lunch after the movie.”

  “You are committed to this date thing,” she teased.

  “I really am.” He chuckled. “Does it bother you?”

  “No, I find myself quite liking it,” she admitted, whispering the words against his lips.

  They kept their hands to themselves for the rest of the movie. Not their mouths, though. Jasper kissed her temple and nibbled on her ear at one point, making her nearly whimper. Something about a hot breath over her sensitive ear sent her wild. She didn’t tell him that, though. It was a weakness she didn’t want him to exploit. Zander already knew and used it to his advantage every time he had the chance.

  “There’s a Mexican place I think you might really enjoy,” Jasper told her as the credits started to roll. “Want to try it out?”

  “Would love to,” she answered, untangling herself from his arms. Even their legs had gotten wrapped up in each other. She stood up and he followed. She was feeling a little hot and bothered by the dark encounter of going to the movies. She had realized why other people her age would do it. That was a place where anything could go, it seemed.

  At the Mexican restaurant, they were seated in a booth and ordered before any conversation got restarted.

  “Congrats on testing out of the GED,” Jasper began. “I’m proud of you.”

  “I knew most of it,” Sawyer replied, shrugging. “It wasn’t hard for me. Sure, I missed a couple years of school back in the day, but none of it was overly complicated.”

  “Thinking about college?”

  “What would I go into?” She frowned, taking a sip of her water.

  “Criminal justice?” he offered. “Our job. There’s a few colleges in the country that offer programs specifically for IMPO hopefuls.”

  “How popular are those programs?” Sawyer was disbelieving. Not many Magi wanted to be an imp. She’d never planned for it, that was for sure, even before she’d become a thief, then assassin.

  “Not very,” Jasper admitted. “I think last count there were only fifty Magi in the US who graduated with the major.”

  “No shit,” Sawyer snorted. “The WMC isn’t exactly popular.”

  “No, they aren’t,” Jasper conceded. “They are our ruling body, though. We do vote for them.”

  “From a few very specific pools of Magi deemed worthy to hold a seat on the Council,” Sawyer reminded him. It was a corrupted system. Over time, the fifteen seats of the WMC were a revolving door for maybe twenty or thirty Magi families, all the richest and most powerful of the Magi community. Families who could trace their roots back to Rome, to Alexandria, and further. A normal Magi didn’t grow up thinking they were going to become a Council member. They were born and bred for it, the next line of the dynasty for that family.

  “True,” Jasper agreed. “You aren’t wrong. There’s problems with the system, certainly, but it’s been our system for millennia, since before the Roman Empire, though that’s when it really gained most of its power.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong.” She chuckled. “There used to be several councils, all over the world. Not one singular world council but regional.”

  “You are correct.”

  “Why don’t we still do that?”

  “Because those councils used to go to war with each other constantly.” He took a deep breath. “And install themselves in regions as gods.”

  “Ah, you’re talking about the Greeks,” Sawyer realized. “I know we have a hefty amount of evidence that the Greek Pantheon was either based on Magi or founded by Magi, but what if they were already around and Magi just pretended to be them?”

  “Sawyer the scholar?” Jasper laughed. “Really?”

  “Look, I just had to write a paper on this for my damn GED,” she huffed. “It’s been on my brain.”

  “You should go to college. You’re intelligent enough and you have a thirst to know more,” he pressed.

  “After all of this, then,” she negotiated. “If I can get through the next five years, get my pardon and have a clean slate, I’ll go to college and do it right. Third time’s the charm?”

  “Third time?” Jasper frowned at her and she grinned.

  “Yeah, third time trying to be a functioning adult and member of society. The first was…him. The second was with Charlie in New York, the third time is this.”

  “Well, damn. Eventually you’ll get it right, I hope,” he teased.

  Their food arrived, and they tasted what each other got. Sawyer was in love with her fajitas, but she had to admit that Jasper had chosen well with the shrimp tacos.

  “Anything you want to talk about?” he inquired when they were finishing up with their food. “I’ll admit I’m not ready to go back to the house yet.”

  Sawyer opened her mouth and closed it again, thinking about what she could possibly ask Jasper about. His life after they left her at the orphanage? She’d gotten the gist of that. They didn’t like the IMAS; Vincent recruited them to the IMPO for his team. They chased down serial killers, crime lords, and presumed dead assassins, though the last one had been an accident they had stumbled on. It was a mistake she’d made that she didn’t get pissed off thinking about anymore. He would party with the guys when they finished a case, have some fun with a random person.

  “You guys seem very…solitary,” she mentioned carefully. “It’s just you five. You don’t really talk about other friends. Sure, James, your…our handler is brought up, but he hasn’t visited to hang out since I’ve been here. Estella, the cleaning lady I haven’t met yet. No one else.”

  “We are,” Jasper admitted. “We are. It’s the curse of the job, really. You were right on the plane to Texas. We show up in an area, we cause hell, turn everything upside down, then disappear - and that’s important. Imagine if we had a bunch of friends in our community. Imagine then that someone like Axel found out. Or god forbid we didn’t catch a killer before the case went cold or we became targets. Teams like ours, we’re expected to lay low and keep our shit under wraps when we’re off the job.” Jasper sighed, shaking his head. “It gets lonely, but you end up best friends with your teammates, or it all falls apart and the team is dissolved by the IMPO. We live in a bubble and we’re let out when they need us, basically.”

  “How are other teams?” Sawyer continued casually.

  “There’s a general consensus that we don’t really see each other unless something big is happening or we run into each other at different IMPO headquarters around the world on accident. There aren’t many of us, though, so it’s rare. You’re most likely to see other Special Agents in New York. There’s always a few teams moving through the main headquarters for some reason or another.” Jasper frowned, lo
oking thoughtful. “You aren’t the only reformed criminal in the organization. There’s a few others. You are the most infamous. You should know that while you aren’t outed publicly, every single Special Agent definitely knows your name, who you are, and who you have been. They also know you’re on this team. So, if we run into another team and they’re rude, stand-offish or anything, that’s why.”

  “That didn’t answer the question,” she pointed out. She did tuck all the information away, though. It was good stuff to know, and she should have asked earlier. “Do they settle down and have kids? Do they live just like we do here in Georgia? Like, what is the ‘normal?’”

  “We’re normal, for the most part,” he explained. “Our formation wasn’t. The members of the team aren’t, but our lifestyle is. Special Agents normally retire or step down to a lower position if they want to settle and have kids. Normally.”

  “Any other women in the community?” Sawyer used a fork to poke around her food.

  “A few. A lot of cases like you, one tough-ass woman who works on an otherwise all-male team. Some teams are more even, but there’s just less women in the IMPO and even the IMAS.”

  “Obviously,” she mumbled. “Not many women like me.”

  “There are no women like you Sawyer, only close,” Jasper retorted. “I’ve run into other agents with the IMPO. Sure, we have tough people, but I’ve never met someone who has lived as much as you.”

  “Most people don’t want to live as much as I have,” she reminded him. “Hell, I don’t want to have lived as much as I have.” Before he could respond, she changed the subject. “What were you and Zander bickering about this morning? Before the run?”

  “He wanted me to talk to him about your nightmares,” Jasper explained. “I told him that if you weren’t, then I wasn’t going to. He didn’t appreciate that.”

  She had been hoping it was nearly anything else. “I’m going to stab him,” she blandly commented.

  “Please don’t. There’s no hospital close by.”

  “He can heal himself,” Sawyer reminded him. “It wouldn’t be fatal. It might become fatal, if I have to repeatedly stab him.”

  “You two are the worst,” Jasper said while chuckling. “Is this how it’s always going to be? I won’t be surprised, honestly, since it’s how you’ve always been, but I thought age and time would calm you both down.”

  “No, I think it’s gotten worse. I’m pretty sure it’s worse, really,” she said, nodding. She was pretty aggravated by it. “He’s pushy, and if he keeps pushing, it’s going to land him in an early grave, I swear.”

  “And you?”

  “He’ll aggravate me to death. Mutually assured destruction, this relationship.”

  “Vincent’s easier, I’m assuming?” Jasper smiled, leaning back in his seat.

  “No, Vincent’s not easier, he’s different. You, you’re easy. Ignore my old occupations and your rigid sense of rightness and we’re fine.”

  “We don’t need to ignore them. I meant what I said in Texas,” Jasper whispered. “How is Vincent different?”

  “He just is,” Sawyer sighed. She wasn’t sure how to explain what was going on with her and Vincent. “Why do all of you keep asking about the others?”

  “Because we’re all friends and we’re with you?” Jasper answered, shrugging. “It’s natural for us to want everything to go smoothly with this? To be concerned about how you are and each other. Zander and I used to talk about you, when we were teens. When a boy was mean to you, we would talk about it and promise not to do or say what he did. When you argued with Zander and cried on my shoulder over it, I would tell him to stop doing it later. When you ignored my…attempts at flirting, I asked him for advice.”

  Sawyer blinked several times. That was much more than she’d been expecting. For her, it had been ignored, all of it. Her awkward, conflicted teenage feelings and their…well, there had been something going on with them, but that hadn’t been what she’d expected.

  “We planned all those years ago to both date you,” Jasper murmured. “This is just…what we always wanted. I’ll admit, though, that seeing you again in New York, it was the last thing I wanted to think about. Then there were the nightmares and I didn’t know what the fuck to do about those. I didn’t know what they meant at the time.” Jasper pushed his plate away. “So yeah, I worry about you and Zander. I worry about you and Vincent, because if one of them hurts you, I’ll probably lose you too. If Zander had broken our friendship with his antics as a teenager, we would have lost you in a different way than we did.”

  “Jasper,” she breathed out. “Do you really see this as tied together like that? Each of you?”

  “Yeah,” Jasper confirmed. “I do.”

  She considered that. They wanted it to work with all of them and that was…looking difficult. It was still new, though, so Sawyer didn’t want to get fatalistic over it yet. No reason to freak out because everything was new and strange and they hadn’t found their footing yet.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said quickly. She blinked and looked back at him, having stared at her food while she thought about it all. “It’s…Sawyer, I want to be with you and we’ll do this at our pace. And you’ll do your thing with Zander at the pace you two decide. Same for Vincent.”

  “And Elijah,” she reminded him softly. She knew he was part of this little deal, this idea that she could be with whoever she wanted whenever she wanted. “I don’t think that will ever happen, by the way. He’s a great friend, though.”

  “Elijah is a great guy,” he agreed. “Ready to head out?”

  “Yeah,” Sawyer decided. “Yeah, let’s get home.”

  Jasper took her hand when they left the booth. He paid before they left and once again opened her door for her to get in the car. She was going to light a cigarette before getting in the car, but Jasper gave her a look as he held her door open.

  “I don’t really like that habit,” he said patiently.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I won’t smoke on our dates,” she told him, sliding the smoke back into the pack. “I can’t imagine kissing me after one is very nice.”

  “I notice, but you don’t smoke often enough to make it really bad. I don’t like it, but I like kissing more, so I’ll survive.”

  She made a mental note to get breath mints, so he didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

  When she hit close for the garage door at home and shut the car off, Jasper leaned over and kissed her again. She leaned into it, meeting him halfway, until a knock came on the car. She growled and looked through the front windshield, seeing Elijah grinning at them, his arms crossed.

  “Now, young people,” Elijah began, putting on the most ‘dad’ voice she’d ever heard. “You know better than to make out in the car when the little lady needs to come home before curfew.”

  “Killing. All. Of. Them.” Sawyer bit out, glaring at Elijah. Jasper just jumped out of the car and ran to open her side. This caused Elijah to laugh. She climbed out of her car and continued to glare at Elijah. “What the hell?”

  “I was passing through. Running out to grab something from town, saw you two pull in, and wanted to fuck with you. Didn’t expect to catch a make out session. Bonus, honestly.” Elijah was still grinning as he explained. She was considering strangling him when Jasper wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her along. “Feel free to stay and continue. No reason to run off now.”

  “Pervert,” Sawyer growled. “Go watch porn.”

  “It’s not as much fun,” Elijah called after them.

  “We’re never going to have any privacy in this house, it seems,” Jasper muttered, yanking her out of the garage and into the area leading to the dining room and kitchen. “Sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she grumbled. “There’s just too many damn men in this house and you’re all horndogs.”

  “I mean…” he leaned in close. “Can you blame us?”

  “Yes,” Sawyer answered, looking into
those heated, stormy blue eyes. She saw a pink blush on his cheeks. He was embarrassed by Elijah as well, she knew it, but damn if it didn’t look good on him. “I’m going to relax for the rest of the day, maybe catch up on my Netflix for the first time in months. Want to join?”

  “No,” Jasper sighed. “I need to get to work. I’m behind in one of my classes.”

  “Classes?” She frowned.

  “I’m still in college.” He chuckled. “Yeah, I know. I do a lot of distance learning. I’ve got more than a few degrees at this point, but it keeps me busy during the slow times, and I love to learn.”

  “Have fun with that,” Sawyer told him. “I’m off to Netflix.”

  “Enjoy your Netflix,” he chuckled. He kissed her cheek before letting her go, and she smiled back at him as she left him there.

  3

  Zander

  Zander knew she was back from her date with Jasper and hadn’t yet come to see him. He sat quietly in his shared office with Jasper, stewing. They hadn’t spoken since she’d thrown him out in the morning. He was frustrated. She refused to let him in, refused to share herself with him when he told her practically everything about himself. His wants and fears. He trusted her and he felt like it wasn’t returned.

  “Jasper-”

  “If you are asking about the date, it went really well. We had fun. Movie was all right, and the food was delicious. If you’re asking about her nightmares, don’t continue.” He looked up from his notes, and Zander glared at him.

  “I’m glad the date went well,” Zander replied. “Seriously. Real glad.”

  “I hope you are, since it gave her a moment out of the house, away from the explosive problems you two are having,” he commented casually, looking back down to his notes. “Stop giving her a hard time, Zander. She’s going at her speed, not yours. You’ve already convinced her and pushed her into this, into getting physical with you. Don’t push her further. She’ll start to shove you back harder.”