Chapter 19

Jasper thinks he's so smart, but the shocked expression on his face says even someone as smart as him did not see my announcement coming. I sit back on my heels to give him some space as he processes what I've said.

"The Legendary Flame," he says.

"Yes."

"Was your mother?"

"Yes."

He frowns. "Like... she gave birth to you?"

"I didn't hatch, Jasper." I cross my arms defensively over my body. There are some things I want to talk about with regards to my mother and some things that don't need to be discussed ever. Gory birthday details fall into the second category.

"No," he says quickly, holding out an apologetic hand. "I didn't mean it like that. But aren't superheroes supposed to, like, adopt orphans who have no idea who their parents are and mold them into the superheroes of the future?"

I tug on my earlobe. "You've got half of that right. But we look too much alike for me to have not been biological."

Jasper's gaze drifts up to the ceiling. "The Legendary Flame was your mother," he says, with something like wonder. "So, what does that make you? The Abominable Snow?—"

"Don't say it." I jab a finger at him.

His grin turns playful. "But I was only?—"

"Jasper. There's every chance we won't get out of the loop. If you want any hope in hell of getting laid during our time here, especially if you want it to be a repeat occurrence, you would do best to keep that name to yourself." I poke his chest and he grabs hold of my wrist, tugging me forward until I fall against him. He holds me close, and I don't fight him, letting the warmth of his body seep under my skin. It's nice here. I could learn to like it here.

"The Legendary Flame," he says again. "That's wild. So, you're a superhero?"

I shrug. "Subpar hero. I failed super puberty or something. Until now." I'm trailing my fingers up and down his arm and as I inhale, the heat of his skin leaches into my fingertips, making the hairs on his forearm stand on end. He shivers, and I pull my hand away.

"Like right now?"

I roll my eyes. "Yes, Jasper. This very moment. I was so wowed by your magic sex powers that suddenly I can suck the heat out of the room."

His laughter makes me shake against him, but I don't sit up. The vibration is soothing. Fucking would be better, but this is pretty good too.

"Magic sex powers? You know what I mean," he says, voice a rumble beneath my ear. He runs a hand over my back and I want to purr like a cat, though animal noises are still Clarissa's field of expertise, not mine. "When did you learn to do that?"

"When you died." The words are hard to get out. Slowly, I tell him about the scene in the penthouse. He remembers parts of it, but what with the bullet in his chest, he missed out on some of the important things, like me turning the whole place into a freezer.

"Entropy versus enthalpy," he says, nodding like it makes perfect sense.

"What?"

"You said you focused on the man holding you down. Basically sucked the life out of him."

"I'm a superhero, not a vampire." I squirm, trying to sit up, but he holds me tight. We don't fight anymore. That's what we said. Also, the term superhero on my tongue feels weird. I've never felt like my abilities—or inabilities, really—were something to be proud of, but Jasper's heart pumps an excited rhythm in his chest and mine beats in time.

"Flame, like your mom, is energy outward. It creates heat. Entropy. What you're describing is enthalpy. You don't release energy, you take it in. Consume it to power something else."

My instinct is to snap that I understand the difference between entropy and enthalpy. That it's the foundation of the Ziro Machine's technology. I know the terms, but I'd never thought about superpowers in that way. Flame, frost, speed, strength. They are their own discrete things. The tie to physics suddenly seems so obvious. It's what I've studied for years. But I never saw it like that before. Maybe because I was too busy thinking about my lack of power. I swallow my reflexive words down and take a moment to consider what he's saying in the context of myself and what it means. Maybe I'm not broken. Maybe I haven't been a failure all this time. We never understood how my powers were supposed to work.

The mood thoroughly deflated, Jasper and I lie like that for a while. Legs tangled together. My cheek on his chest. His fingers trace small circles on my skin. It would be easy to let the heat fade completely. We might even fall asleep and I'd probably enjoy that too, but I still want him.

I brush a thumb over one of his nipples. With each pass, I leave a trail of condensation on his skin. He watches me with a heavy gaze, and when I blow over the area, his nostrils flare.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Playing." I circle the nipple again, making it stand up from his chest. The skin around is cold.

"Jesus, it's like an ice cube."

I drag my tongue over the chilled nipple, then cover it with my mouth.

Jasper groans. "God. Your mouth. So hot."

We play like that for a while. Hot and cold. Energy back and forth. He's so responsive, and the sounds he makes are amazing. We have nothing but time. No gangsters coming for us. No one at work waiting for me. No one even knows we're here. Jasper said I had to give up control, but I don't think I would get tired of toying with him like this. After a lifetime of hiding pieces of myself and being a disappointment in other facets, when I look at Jasper, there's nothing left hiding between us. No lies, no omissions, no misunderstandings. The vulnerability of it is terrifying, but along with it is a sense of security I don't think I've ever felt before.

Finally, though, he rolls me over onto my back, covering my body with his once more. I spread my legs open so he falls between them, trapping our cocks between us as they lengthen all over again.

"Morgan," he says.

"Want you," I say.

"I've wanted you for months." He lifts long enough to grasp our shafts, stroking gently. The velvet hardness of him against me makes my eyes roll back in my head and my hips rock all on their own. Months. He's known me for months. I've known him for what? A week? Sort of. And he thinks it's only been two months when I know it's longer. But these are thoughts for later. Another day. Another loop. One where we have our clothes on.

He lets go and slides down, and his soft eyes lock on mine as he runs his tongue over his lower lip, then licks the head of my dick. It's a beautiful sight, and it gets better when he takes me into his mouth. The suction is bliss and he works fast. I lie still, focusing on controlling the power that keeps trying to break free. But when he tugs on my balls, the heat at the base of my spine goes cold as something entirely different tries to burst forth.

"Jasper," I say. "Fuck me."

He pops off me like he's been waiting. The spit on my dick dries in the warm air of the bedroom, and I'm so sensitive all it would take is a couple fast strokes and I'd be done. So close. I was so close. But I didn't want to. Not yet. We're only getting started.

Jasper pulls lube and some condoms from his bedside drawer. He holds the condom between two fingers, looking at me with an arched eyebrow.

"I haven't had an STI test in a while," he says, "but it was negative the last time I did."

My laugh is bleak. "Not like it's an issue anyway. Hard to share STIs if I'm going to die before infection becomes a problem."

As soon as I say it, I realize I'm doing it again. Killing the mood. Jasper's smile droops and his fingers tighten on the condom.

"Fuck. Sorry. Forget I said anything. But we can skip the condom." I rise up, pulling his head down to mine and kissing him hard. He resists for a moment, but when I pull his bottom lip between my teeth, Jasper cups the back of my head in his strong hand, holding me close so he can devour my mouth and I let him, going soft and liquid against him.

Well... mostly soft. My dick aches and leaks in my hand. I might still come if he doesn't get inside me soon. I let go of myself and take him instead, stroking my thumb over the flared head and pressing against the slit, rubbing the bead of liquid that forms there in slow circles.

"Morgan," he says. One more circle is all I get before he lets go of me, flipping me over so I'm face down on the mattress. I only have a second to adjust so my dick is flat against my belly before the cold shock of lube on my ass has me jerking. It's followed immediately by the hot sting of Jasper's palm on one cheek, and the cry that leaps from my throat is unexpected and raw.

"Hold still," Jasper says as he soothes what is undoubtedly going to be a bright palm print on my ass. The thought makes me flush, and I'm so caught up in the idea of Jasper marking me as his, even temporarily, that I'm not prepared when the first lube-slick finger presses against my anus, making me yelp.

"Sorry," he says, his voice hoarse.

"Keep going." I wiggle my ass, letting him know how much I want him. The tip of my cock drags over his sheets, leaving a smear of wet precome. The nice thing about living the same day over and over is you don't have to do laundry, so I rut shamelessly against the bed while he works me open. The room fills with the sound of my needy moans.

"You're good. Doing so good," Jasper says, and the praise makes me harder.

"Soon. Please. Jasper. I'm ready." I'm already basically fucking his fingers. Please tell me his dick isn't far behind.

Finally, he pulls his hand free. He wraps an arm around my chest and lifts me to my knees. The blunt head of his cock is ready at my entrance, and all it takes is a long breath as I lean back and take him in. When my ass collides with his hips, we both groan, and his arm across my torso holds me tight to him so I can't move. All I can do is feel. The pressure of him as he stretches me open the last fraction of an inch. The wet heat of his breath on my neck. The steady thump of his heart where he's pressed against my back.

"Jasper." I reach behind me, threading my fingers in his hair while he mouths against my throat. He bites and sucks and I can't help the way I imagine the marks he's leaving. So blatant. So temporary. I don't want temporary, but unless we escape it's all we have.

When he finally thrusts up, he bumps against my prostate. It's a good thing he lives out here in the garage apartment because there's no way his mom and sisters wouldn't hear me scream otherwise.

"Jasper."

He's still holding me so tightly I can barely move, and I grope desperately for my dick. It's rock hard and leaking a steady trickle down the shaft, but when I go to stroke, Jasper finds me and stills my hand while he rocks inside me.

"Wait," he says.

"I don't think I can."

"I waited for you for sixty days. Just give me a few more minutes."

How can I say no to that? I lean back, tilting my head against his shoulder. He croons, telling me how good I am while he pumps inside me. Since I've gone pliant against him, he lets go of me, letting my weight keep me where he wants me while he grips my hips, lifting me up and down on his cock while my own dick bobs mindlessly in front of us. Every thrust feels so damn good. We're warm, even unclothed, and sweat slides against our skin where his front and my back are pressed together.

I'm trying to wait. I really am. But every time he hits my prostate, my insides coil tighter and tighter. The sensation is overwhelming and I'm not going to last.

"Jasper," I gasp. "Hurry. I'm going to come."

In one motion he bends forward, pushing me down so my ass is in the air and my face is squished into a pillow. I have to turn to the side to breathe, but all the air seems to have gone out of the room. I gasp as he slaps against my ass. His fingers on my hips are so tight he'll probably bruise me and I don't care. His. If it's like this every time, I'm so his.

With one last thrust, he sends me over the edge. The orgasm shoots out of me in a rush. The strangled cry scrapes against my throat, and my hands go cold. It's all I can do not to let the feeling wash over me completely, but I'm not sure I'd be able to stop it right now once I let go. Behind me, Jasper groans and has a chance for one final thrust before he loses the rhythm, and the hot splash inside me says he's coming too. I've never had sex without a condom before, and the pulse of his dick in my ass sends off little aftershocks from my own dick, leaving me to drip helplessly onto his sheets.

When he pulls out of me, I collapse like a broken doll. The wet spot on my belly is ick, but not so much that I want to do anything about it. I may never move again, actually. The best way to escape the time loop is to stay here in Jasper's bed and let him fuck me senseless whenever he wants.

He falls beside me, flopping onto his back with a contented sigh. His lips curl up in a sleepy, happy smile. I could stay here forever.

"That was nice," he says.

"Just nice?" Immediately, the drowsy feeling evaporates. I roll toward him. "It was nice?"

But he laughs and pulls me until I'm on top of him again. He wraps his arms around me, holding me still.

"No more fighting," he says. His voice is already thick with sleep. I squirm a little more, mostly to prove the point, but he only hums and kisses the top of my head. "You're cute when you're mad."

"I am not cute." I stab a finger at his sternum and I expect him to laugh, but he grimaces, tensing with pain. "What is it?"

"I don't know. I—" He pushes me up so I'm braced over him. A bruise the size of a palm print has settled in the middle of his chest.

"How long has that been there?" I ask.

"What?" Jasper also rises up on his elbows. His brows crease in concern as he looks down at his chest, then he rolls out of bed, rushing toward the bathroom. I follow after him. We're both naked, but no one's worried about that. Jasper stares at his reflection in the mirror, fingers tracing the outline of the angry mark on his skin.

"This wasn't here before," he says.

"Definitely not." I was pretty focused on getting laid as we stumbled into the apartment, but I'd have noticed if he'd been banged up like this while I showed off my spiffy chilly nipple trick. "Does it hurt?"

"Like a son of a bitch. Do you think this is from getting shot?"

My blood goes cold in my veins. I wrap my arms around him, careful not to press too hard on his bruise. The position is eerily familiar, like the way I held him while he died. My palm on his chest is in the same place it was as I tried to hold his blood inside him.

"Does it usually hurt for you?" Jasper asks as he turns in my arms.

A sick feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. I can practically see it spreading beneath his skin.

"I can't remember ever being shot. But that wasn't there before, and usually my aches and pains get better, not worse when the day starts over."

We stay there for a few minutes, quiet as our thoughts whirl around us. I'm almost afraid to touch him, like any contact will damage him further. Finally, he takes my hand in his and leads me back to the main room and the bed.

"Sleep," he says. "Everything is better with sleep."

He's right, but that doesn't mean relaxing is easy. My postcoital stupor is long gone, and I toss restlessly in bed. Jasper stays still so long I think he's managed to drift off, but after a few minutes he says, "We had a few dates that went really great, you know."

I stop rolling. "We did?"

"Yeah." Jasper takes my hand in the dark. "Once, I showed up and told you who I was—or who I should have been, I guess. A med student. I was about to start my residency and was specializing in pediatrics. I told you all about Lexi. We talked about saving the world." Even in the dark, I can see the glint of his teeth as he smiles. "It was a really fun time."

"Sounds like it." I snuggle deeper into my pillow, ignoring the pang of annoyance that Jasper gets to remember that date and I don't.

"But it wasn't real, regardless of what story I told you and whether you liked me or not. And we went our separate ways at the end of the night, and sometime later, you died and we started all over again. So even if we had fun, it didn't mean anything." He lets out a heavy sigh, and I can't help myself when I squeeze him tighter. How frustrating it must have been to be stuck with me over and over without me ever remembering who he was. "I got angry. I avoided you for a few days after. And the next time, I showed up and told you who I really was, and you didn't give me the time of day."

I laugh. My body is relaxing as he talks.

"If you need henching," I say.

"Yeah. That one."

I'm so close to sleep that it takes me a minute to realize what he's saying.

"You mean . . ."

"I only told you what I really did once. And that was the day you started remembering."

Ugh. Would it have been better if we'd gone through this with me believing his lie? If I'd remembered earlier and thought he was a doctor on a mission to help people like I was?

I wake up enough to make my muscles work, squeezing his hand.

"I'm sorry it took so long for me to see who you really are."

"You know now." He dips his head down to kiss my lip and I snuggle into him. I fall asleep in his arms and think about how many more nights I could be this lucky.

A crash wakes me. My heart pounds as I wait for the hands to grab me and yank me out of bed again, but they don't come. I lie still, waiting for my nerves to settle. I don't know how long I've been asleep, but it feels like a while. Light pours out of the bathroom, making me squint. The rest of the bed is empty.

Another crash comes, followed by a groan.

"Jasper?" But I'm already moving before he can reply.

He's on the floor in the bathroom, crumpled on the tile.

"Jasper!" I drop to my knees. He groans again, then lets out a choking cough that makes my heart squeeze. "Jasper." I roll him over, and bright red blood glistens on the tile floor. His skin is the colour of the ceramic beneath him, and his forehead shines with sweat.

The bruise on his chest has gone from being the size of my palm to the size of a plate. I can practically see where the blood is dripping inside of him.

"What's going on?" I ask.

He puts his hand to his chest. "Hurts to breathe." He coughs again, and the blood on his lips is crimson.

"Was someone here?"

He winces. "No. I woke up and it was hurting. You said it hurt."

"Not like this." I pull a towel off the rack and wipe his mouth before I grab a second towel and place it under his head. "Stay here. I'm calling an ambulance."

He's dying. Again. I can't watch him go all over again.

"Morgan," he wheezes. "It's okay. You know what to do. If I stay dead this time, I?—"

"No." I put my fingers over his lips. "No, don't say it. I'll get you back."

"Morgan."

But I'm not having this conversation. Not watching him die again. Partners. That's what we agreed.

I lie down next to him. He groans when I roll him to face me.

"What are you doing?"

"I'll see you soon," I say.

"What?" But he coughs, cutting off the rest of his question. I put my hand to his chest, over the wound that has opened up and started bleeding inside him again. I'm so afraid this won't work I almost can't find my powers, but once I find the thread, it's easy enough to bring it to the surface.

Jasper jerks as the cold moves over the bruise. "Morgan."

"It's okay," I say. "It's going to be okay. It's energy. Enthalpy. Freezing is like going to sleep. And when you wake up, I'll be there with you."

"Morgan." But the cold is seeping over him and his muscles spasm and twitch, trying to keep him warm, even though he's lost too much blood for his body to function properly, even on reflex.

"It's okay." I kiss his forehead. His shivering stops, and his lips are slowly turning blue.

I'm not doing this without him again.

Last time, I protected us. Built a force field so that the bad guys around us froze into hench statues while Jasper and I stayed safe. This time, I don't. I imagine the whole little bathroom being consumed with ice. It's like a wave, creeping down one wall to the floor. It covers the tile until they glisten with frost. I open my eyes, and my breath is coming in soft condensed puffs between my lips. Beside me, Jasper's eyelashes have little snowflakes on them. His breathing is shallow, and he doesn't protest when I pull him close. I squeeze my eyes shut.

"Just like falling asleep," I say. Or like falling in love. I didn't have to do anything. One look at Jasper's scruffy face and artless grin and I was done for.

My teeth chatter, and still I let the power run free. No more need for control. No need to hold on. The cold envelops me. My joints are stiff, and I'm not sure I can actually feel Jasper against me so much as I know he's there.

"It's okay," I say, though Jasper can't hear me anymore. "It's okay."

When the shivering stops, a heavy warmth settles around me, until it's all I can feel. I hold on to the mental image of the two of us slowly being covered in ice. Maybe in a few thousand years someone will excavate us and wonder what our story was.

Or in a second I'll open my eyes and find myself staring up at my mother's judgement from the ceiling at Wench. Oh boy do I hope it's that option. I don't want the two of us to be some archaeological myth. Two men found embracing on the bathroom floor of an early twenty-first century residence. What happened? Were they lovers? Friends? No, wait! Brothers! They were definitely brothers. That's the only possible explanation. No one would ever be able to guess.

Tomorrow. Please let it be tomorrow.

"I'll see you soon."