Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You #1)(55)
Author: A.L. Jackson

Christopher went to his room to change, and waved over his head as he left.

I bounced a little more. Time had slowed to the most excruciating pace. I kept looking at her door, willing Gabe to emerge.

Thirty minutes later, he did. Her door slowly opened and Dickhead appeared. The good-guy expression I was sure he reserved only for Aly transformed the second he caught my eye. He lifted his chin in a silent insult, tossed me a grin that smacked of arrogance and self-satisfaction as he pulled her door shut.

The intense need to completely take him out engulfed me. I wanted to make him pay for showing up here. For thinking for a second he belonged with her.

For being stupid enough to f**k with me.

I just sat there, leering at the little twit who was obviously so ignorant he believed I’d continue to sit here if he kept looking at me that way.

I was gritting my teeth, itching to loose my aggression on him, when he turned his back and headed out the door. That was all it took before I was at hers.

I didn’t knock, just turned the knob and let myself into the muted light of her room. Tonight, the blinds were shut. Thin lines of moonlight bled through the slats, and a small lamp sent a golden glow crawling up the wall behind her dressing table. It cast the rest of her room in shadows.

With her back to me, Aly stood as a silhouette in front of her bed. Her work clothes had been discarded at her feet, and she’d pulled on those same pink sleep shorts she always wore, giving cover to that glorious ass. She was in the middle of pulling a tank over her head. Waves of chunky hair fell down her back, all mussed and sexy. My fingers twitched, because damn it, I really wanted to touch, but I stayed rooted because I figured I was in no frame of mind to give in to it.

Over her shoulder, she peeked at me as she adjusted the hem of her shirt. Discomfort lined her face, the green of her eyes subdued. “I was just coming to find you,” she whispered.

Swallowing hard, I stared at her from across the room, not sure what to do with the hostility still boiling in my veins. I felt on edge. Unhinged. But this felt completely different than the sickness that would forever darken my soul. It felt a little too much like the night I’d lost it at the bar at the mention of her name.

Motherfucking trigger.

I reached back to lock her door before I turned to look at her, rushing an agitated hand through my hair, trying to quell the f**king insanity she spurred in me. “What are you trying to do to me?” My tongue felt thick as I struggled through the admission. “I don’t… fuck, I don’t even recognize myself around you, Aly. I thought I was going to lose my mind out there, thinking about you in here with him.”

Aly slowly turned around and took one step forward. With her head angled low and tipped to the side, she squinted, like maybe I’d just pissed her off.

That was okay because I was a little bit pissed off, too.

Lines deepened between her eyes, disbelief laced in the words that spilled from her mouth. “Do you think for one second I’d choose him over you, Jared? He came here to tell me he missed me. That he wanted to be with me and he’d do anything to fix whatever had gone wrong between us. But the entire time, the only thing I could think about was you in the other room. How the only thing in this world I want is you. Don’t you understand that?”

All that f**king aggression snapped, like a band that had been stretched too tight, colliding with the need she had so tightly spun up in me. I crossed the room in two long strides. One second later, I had her in my arms, lifting her feet off the floor as my mouth seized hers. I was kissing her, my tongue demanding as I dragged her to her bed.

Her covers were piled in a heaped mess from where we’d slept curled in them last night, where we’d kissed and tempted and left ourselves panting and still in need. Our scent still lingered in them, thick and strong. Unwilling to break our frenzied kiss, I shoved the covers out of the way with one arm, the other supporting her back as I laid her on the bed.

Aly arched up as if she ached.

I grasped her perfect face between firm hands, my hold just as commanding as my mouth. Consumed, I pressed the length of my body into hers, blanketing her as my forearms fell to the bed to support my weight.

I wanted to possess her. Take her.

Fuck.

I wanted it all.

Aly moaned as her fingers threaded in my hair. She murmured assurances at my mouth in between our desperate bid to bring each other closer, our mouths just as frantic as the beating of her heart. “It’s you, Jared… you… only you.”

Growling, I pulled back, my fingers spreading out over the back of her head as my thumbs rushed along her delicate jaw. We were nose-to-nose, and I was unable to discern the sharp gasps of air she drew into her lungs from mine. The words scraped from my throat. “Did you tell him that you’re mine?” My hands tightened, underscoring the madness she created in me. “Did you tell him that you belong to me?”

Those green eyes darkened, hinted at her fears, spoke of her desires. “Do I?” came as a plea from between her full lips.

My heart skidded, and the frenzy that had racked my body stilled.

Obviously, it was me who belonged to her.

I ran my thumb along her jaw, smiled softly at the girl. Her eyes searched, begged, everything about her perfect and kind.

My chest squeezed.

Fuck. I was in so deep.

“Aleena,” I whispered, before I brushed my lips across hers.

A statement.

She was the only one who’d touched me in years, the only one who’d made me feel.

Tipping her chin up, she met my eye, her fingers gentle as they fluttered across my face. “You,” she quietly murmured.

I smoothed the back of my hand down the flush on her cheek. Her mouth dropped open as she leaned into my touch. Joy teased along the fringes of my consciousness, quivered, and rose. This – this was our deception, where I wanted to live until the day I died. Where nothing was real but the secrets we whispered in the night.

I shifted to my hands and knees, bending my elbows as I dropped my shoulders down to kiss her softly, slowly. Because I never wanted it to end. Our tongues played.

And I reveled in this fantasy.

Aly cupped my face, lightly scratching her nails through the stubble coating my jaw, her smile warm. Tingles spread and coiled, flaring the unending need for her that seemed to never let go.

Gentle hands roamed over my shoulders, down my back, unhurried, just as unhurried as our kiss. I sucked in a ragged breath when she ran both of her index fingers just under the waistband of my jeans, dipping them into the two dimples peeking out just above my hips.