Jasper watched her entering the house with a smirk playing over his lips. The fear she'd initially felt every time she'd seen him had faded into something entirely different a few weeks ago and Jasper had to admit, it amused him to see Bella trying to avoid any eye contact with him when she knew full well that he would find out all about her feelings anyway in a flash of a second.

He let the wave of desire radiating from the frail brunette wash over him, indulging in the feeling for a fraction of a moment. It would have been so easy for him to intensify her feelings, making the crimson blush tingeing her cheeks darken even more, letting her know that he could feel her but he refrained.

As much as the fragile human girl appealed to his senses and as much as he would have liked to manipulate her, there was something making him hold back. He guessed it was just like they said: Every rose had its thorn.

Bella's thorn, for Jasper, was Edward. If the other vampire only caught one stray thought about the girl in his carefully-guarded mind, it was hard stares and whispered threats, inaudible to human ears for Bella's sake. Edward was making him the bad guy because for all the mind-reading he could do, he didn't know about Bella's little thing for his brother.

It was a few hours later when he encountered her alone in the kitchen that he couldn't help a bit of teasing. "Hey... Bella." He used his southern drawl for all it was worth and immediately he was awarded with a fresh wave of desire pumping into the girl's veins, mingling with the oh-so-enticing blood pulsing so close beneath the surface of her breakable skin.

"Jas... Jasper." Yet another smirk pulled up the corner of Jasper's mouth and he couldn't help but let his own desire for the delicate flower that was Bella wash over her, purposefully intensifying her emotions. Bella stilled for a moment, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, before she turned to face Jasper, vivid brown eyes meeting honey-golden orbs.

"You want me." Jasper stated matter-of-factly, enjoying the blush that instantly crept up her cheeks. He stepped closer to her, effectively crowding her, leaving her no way to escape with him plastered to her front and the kitchen counter pressing into her back.

"Jasper, I really can't... you really should... we..." He took a deep breath, letting her scent rush through him like a drug, the burning ache in his throat making the arousal shaking his body all the more intense.

In a matter of seconds he'd crashed their lips together, warm blood-filled skin moulding perfectly against cold lifeless marble, a mix of emotions spilling out of his every pore, filling the entire room with a thick fog of desire and arousal.

The scent, the feel, the fragility, the delicacy, a perfect rose in every respect until Jasper caught the thorn, a hissing Edward hauling him off the fragile human. Yes, this rose indeed had its thorn...