Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You #1)(38)
Author: A.L. Jackson

But she was gazing at me, touching me like maybe she really did understand, like she wasn’t humoring me with some kind of bullshit pity party. She leaned down and kissed the dying rose at the center of my chest.

A tremor coursed through my body.

I knew it wasn’t feigned. I could feel it. Aly understood me.

And again I was thinking that maybe she and I did fit because she was f**king perfect and good and every kind of beautiful, and I was corrupted and impure and vile, and just maybe piecing two people together so contrary meant we could somehow create a whole.

That kind of thinking, though, was all just a painful delusion. But right then, I didn’t f**king care. I’d be happy to die in this deception.

“You are so beautiful,” Aly murmured as she reached out to touch my face with nothing but sincerity in her words, and I knew she would be happy to live in this illusion, too.

I folded my arms around her waist and lifted her up as I stood from the chair. She hooked her legs over my hips, locking herself to me, and I was kissing her as I walked her to the bed. She cupped my face in her hands, smiling against my lips, kissing me hard and soft and everything in between, and then she was pressing these little kisses to my chin and my cheeks and my nose.

Something that almost felt like joy rose up from the inside and pushed against my ribs.

Another delusion, but I’d take it.

Because right then, taking felt right.

One of my knees hit the bed, and I crawled up with her still clinging to me. I untangled her from my neck and waist and gently set her on her twisted sheets. I edged back to standing, looking down on this girl who I should be running from instead of running toward.

She lay there wearing nothing but her sleep shorts, her feet flat on the mattress with her knees parted and bent. Her bare chest heaved as she stared up at me staring down at her. A faint smile curved her lips while her eyes continued to explore every inch of my skin.

For the first time in years, I didn’t mind.

“Jared,” she said, her hand fluttering up to beckon me forward. “Please.”

I leaned down to unlace my boots, watching her while she watched me. I stood and kicked them off. Slowly I began to work through the buttons on my fly.

Part of me was praying she’d stop me, that she’d finally grasp reality and see me for exactly what I was. But the rest of me screamed for her. It was like I could feel her spirit sinking under my skin, slipping through my veins, taking hold.

A blink of fear shot through my heart.

No. I don’t get to have this.

I shoved the feeling off.

Pushing my jeans down to the floor, I shrugged them aside and stood at the edge of her bed in my underwear while I took in every inch of the girl who had some kind of insane hold over me.

Light filtered in from the window above her. Her stomach was flat and her br**sts were full, her legs so f**king long and slender and strong. She lay there with her arms draped out to the side, rocking a little side to side as if she were just as impatient for me as I was for her. The muscles in my chest and arms twitched and flexed as I slowly climbed onto her bed. I nudged her knees farther apart. With one hand I supported my weight and hovered a foot over her while I touched her face and ran my fingers through her hair.

“Look at you,” I said as I cupped her cheek. My gaze rushed all over her face, along her chin and her delicate neck, down the curves and the lines that I was dying to touch. “Aly, you are so incredibly beautiful. Do you know that? Do you have any idea how perfect you are?”

Redness flushed along her skin. She drew her shoulders up and crushed her chest to mine as she splayed her hands across my back, like an embrace that greeted me body and soul, and I couldn’t imagine feeling closer to anyone until the second she covered my mouth with hers. This kiss was slow, just a gentle caress of her lips on mine, a soft breath of air from her nose.

She pulled back. Meaningfully, she gazed up at me. “I’m not perfect, Jared. No one is.”

A pensive smile formed on my mouth as she wrapped me in undeserved kindness. I wanted to dispute her claim because to me, that’s what she was. This girl who’d shaken me. I wanted to tell her she was wrong because I knew inside that pure heart of hers she believed the two of us were just the same.

Maybe her soul burned so bright she couldn’t see the blackness in mine.

Fingertips trailed along my jaw and wound in the hairs at the nape of my neck.

With a harsh shake of my head, I asked her the same question I’d been asking myself for the last month. “What are we doing, Aly?”

She tightened her hold and whispered along my jaw, “Whatever feels right.”

I released the air from my lungs and gave in. Devoured her mouth. I sucked her bottom lip between both of mine. Her jaw slackened as she fully succumbed to my kiss. Colors flashed behind my eyes as I let my weight cover her, chest to chest, breath to breath. I caged her, her tiny body pinned below mine as our mouths collided, reckless, hard, and demanding.

Heat blanketed us, flames and fire and need. I’d never wanted anyone like this, had never ached to bury myself in someone this way. I wanted to lose myself there, disappearing forever in this blissful delusion.

Aly was panting when I pulled away. She gasped and clutched my head when I dipped down and took the rosy bud of her breast in my mouth. “Oh my God… Jared,” she breathed, her words shooting straight through me.

Writhing, she moaned, and I lifted my weight to my knees so I could drag my flattened palms down her sides. Her muscles jumped and ticked, and she arched as I sucked at her. Almost frantic, her hands tugged at my hair.

I eased, gently kissed along the underside of her breast, then ran my nose back up over the sensitive skin. Her hands loosened and she sighed as she massaged her fingers at the back of my scalp. My kiss traveled the valley of her chest, and I took the opposite breast in my mouth.

Her hands fisted in my hair again. This time, Aly begged, “Please.”

Shit.

And again I was asking, “What are we doing?” because I was hard and straining and so was Aly and all of this seemed so f**king crazy. Because I wanted her. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life, this consuming need that made my head spin and heart pound.

Slipping my hands under her back, I ran them all the way down to cup her perfect round ass and pressed her a little harder into me.

Aly whimpered, a frenzy alight in the depths of her green eyes. She rocked against me, purposed and strong. “Please.”

That was all the confirmation I needed, and I was pushing those little shorts and the black panties hidden underneath over her hips, revealing every inch of this beautiful girl. My chest felt too full, and my stomach tightened as I lowered them down her thighs.