Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You #1)(20)
Author: A.L. Jackson

“Really?” I said with all the offended disbelief I could project into my voice. “You were listening at my door?”

He slipped inside and silently shut the door behind him. “What? I’m f**king bored,” he said just over his breath, completely shameless. “Sue me.”

I shook my head. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Jared Holt,” I whispered so he could barely hear. My brow lifted as I sucked in my bottom lip, raking my teeth on it before I set it free, feigned disappointment in the tsk of my tongue. “In some circles, that admission might earn you a reputation.”

He laughed as he started across my room. I didn’t miss the hardness in the sound. “I already have a reputation, Aly.”

My gaze locked on him as he moved toward me. I didn’t even attempt to force myself to look away as he crossed the room.

Any attempt would be in vain.

He’d showered, and his blond hair had darkened to a near brown and was pushed back from his face. Sleep pants sat low on his waist, the strength of his chest covered by a tight black V-neck tee. His story peeked above its neckline, the vestige of a distorted rose rising up at the center of his chest. Under his shirt I knew that rose was in full bloom, the red petals beginning to fall like wilted teardrops. Green and blue tendrils of smoke and vines stretched out in a twisted bough around it, crawling along the exposed portion of his collarbones. My gaze traced the ink down his arms to hands that were fisted as he advanced toward me.

My stomach tightened.

God, part of me wished he weren’t so beautiful. Maybe then I’d have a chance to look away, to guard my heart, to save myself from the need he had built up in me. But with every step he took, it only increased.

I still couldn’t make sense of what had happened last night while I was texting Gabe. Jared’s reaction had come at me so quickly it’d left me blindsided and in a bumbling stupor that had taken a few seconds to pass. I couldn’t tell if he was playing the ass**le overprotective brother or the ass**le possessive boyfriend.

Either way, it’d been an ass**le move.

But just as quickly as his outburst had come, he’d softened, and I had felt a sadness saturate him, so strong it was tangible. It had wrapped us tight, thickening the air. Nothing had ever been harder than that moment when I’d forced myself to lie still and pretend I was interested in the movie when all I wanted to do was roll over so I could see his face, to find something written there that might help me understand what he was feeling. My palms had burned with the need to be pressed to his chest or maybe to his face, and my body had itched to see if maybe he’d hold me the way I longed for him to.

Most of all, I had wanted to tell him. So bad it hurt.

But instead I’d forced myself to pretend to be asleep.

Now I scooted farther back against the headboard to make room for him.

He sat down on the edge of my bed.

“So you couldn’t sleep?” I asked.

Those bare feet were flat on my carpet, his forearms resting on his knees. He cocked his head up, this pensive twist to his full lips as he drew his eyes into tight slits, studying me. I got the distinct feeling a decision was being made. Finally he spoke, honesty laced in his words. “No, I can sleep, Aly. I’d just rather not.”

As simple as it was, somehow I knew he was sharing a sliver of the secrets he kept. This was Jared’s way of opening up to me.

I brought my sketch pad back to my lap as some sort of security blanket, and tucked my knees up higher to my chest so I could open it to my last drawing and still keep it hidden. Keeping my eyes on the page, I took a chance. “Why?”

My attention flicked to his face, shot back to the pad just as fast. Instinctively my hands went to work, and the sound of my soft strokes covered the mild discomfort between us.

Jared sighed, shifted, threaded his fingers together between his knees. He stared at the floor. “Because when I close my eyes, I see things I don’t want to see.” Low, humorless laughter escaped his mouth. “They are always there, Aly, but when I close my eyes” – he released a ragged breath – “the images I see are, like… vivid.” He frowned deeply, as if shielding himself from them now. “Real. So f**king real… like it’s happening right then and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

My spirit thrashed as if I was somehow sharing in his pain. I swallowed, refusing to allow myself to speak because I knew right then what Jared really needed was someone to listen.

Lifting his chin in my direction, Jared seemed to contemplate my pencil, his head gently bobbing as if absorbing the movement of the strokes of my hand. I licked my lips and carried on as if I weren’t nailed to the bed by his penetrating gaze.

“I bet what I see is just as real to me as whatever the pictures you keep hidden in the pages of those books are to you.”

Shock stilled my hand, and my eyes snapped up to him.

Pain wrapped around his features and deepened the lines that seemed to be permanently etched between his eyebrows. I was caught in it, and couldn’t look away.

My voice was soft. “I draw and you wish you could erase.”

His lids dropped closed, stayed that way for a moment, his jaw clenching and unclenching, before he opened them to me. “You create and I destroy.”

I slowly shook my head, my words hoarse. “That’s not what I meant.”

Sighing, he turned his attention back to his feet. “It doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.”

Silence settled over us for a few minutes, and I could feel the shift, the way he’d tucked our words somewhere inside himself, as if maybe I’d earned a token of his trust.

Then he looked at me with an amused smile, gesturing to my sketch pad with his chin. “Can I see?”

Shaking my head, I buried a smile by biting my lip. “You should know better than that, Jared.”

A throaty chuckle filled my room, and he lay back on my bed. My toes were pressed into the covers just at his side. And I loved it, loved that he wanted to be here with me, loved that what I saw in him was kind.

Even if he couldn’t see it himself.

He wove his fingers together and rested them on his chest, the incongruous numbers tattooed across his knuckles meshed. He sat very still, and seemed to drift away in his thoughts.

I kept my attention on my page, until I felt the gravity of his stare burning into my forehead, like I could sense a pull. Drawn to him. I always had been.

When I turned to him, the grin on his face was something I almost didn’t recognize because it’d been so long since I’d seen it. But I had, so many times before. I’d witnessed it in the carefree boy who had meant everything to me.