Love Bite

Chapter 29

I DO NOT OWN CHARACTERS OR TWILIGHT

Bella didn't respond to Jasper's greeting, at least not verbally. She took a deep breath and looked him right in the eyes. She licked her lips, clenched her fists. Jasper shifted all his weight onto his right foot, held his arms loosely at his sides. Their body posture screamed the words neither of them were speaking.

Something inside Bella stirred at the direct meeting of their eyes. It begged for physical violence, but she shook it off and took a deep breath.

Oh for God's sake, she thought as they continued to watch each other in dead silence. This is ridiculous.

"We need to talk," Bella finally spoke up, her heart skipping a beat.

Jasper quirked an eyebrow at her. He seemed unperturbed, but Bella's newborn eyes caught the slight twitching of the muscle in his jaw. He hid it better than Alice ever did when she was angry or upset.

"Okay. Let's talk," Jasper responded lightly.

Bella watched the way he shifted more than heard the way he spoke. Her eyes watched every movement, every flicker of his body like a hawk.

The silence descended once more. Primal instincts began to rise up the longer she remained tongue tied fighting them, fighting the rise of emotion in her.

Anger. Betrayal. Guilt and shame. Utter frustration.

She tried to contain it.

She failed.

"Why'd you do it, Jasper?" Bella blurted, her shoulders bunching together when he tilted his chin up in a subtle display of defiance.

"Do what?" he said softly, in a tone as if she'd just asked him what he'd done for his summer vacation.

"Don't," Bella bit out, eyes flashing. "Don't do that. Do you really want to play games right now? Is that how you want this to go? Pretending like nothing's happened, like you didn't-"

"Didn't what?" Jasper barked, cutting her off. Bella watched his amber eyes darken to burnt chestnut. His voice finally matched with what it should. All it did was make the hair on the back of Bella's neck rise, her breathing pick up.

Part of her wondered if she should be doing this. Part of her wondered if maybe it would be better to just walk away. Jasper wasn't exactly known for his control, and though Bella had proven to be exceptional at controlling herself, she also knew the feeling of when it was going to leap from her hands. She could already feel that rubber band stretching back warningly as they stared each other down.

But god, she was so tired of just walking away. So tired of everything wrong in her life weighing on her like a million tons of rock, crushing her.

So she didn't. She gritted her teeth and listened as Jasper suddenly tore into her.

"You're right, Bella. Let's not play games here. Let's not pretend like we don't know what happened, like we don't know that all I did was exactly what you did to me," Jasper snapped, and then abruptly looked away, his jaw clenching.

The wind blew lightly, ruffling Bella's hair lightly as she clenched her teeth so hard it felt like they would break.

"So if you want to come down here, get onto me, get mad at me-If you think you've got any right after what you did..." Jasper said, trailing away as their eyes met again.

The worst part was that he was right. That's what made Bella want to scream at him in frustration. She had to close her eyes and breathe in hard through her nose to keep from losing it. She veered sharply, desperate not to go down the path of the fury ringing in her ears.