Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(22)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I wrapped her in my arms and lifted her off her feet as I kissed her hard, welcoming the warmth of her tongue as it slipped along mine. I staggered forward. Aly’s back hit the wall next to her window with a low thud.

“Jared.” It was a plea. Persistent fingers dug into my shoulders, raked down my back, gripping at my neck as she did everything she could to bring me closer.

Between our frantic kisses, I mumbled at her mouth, “Aly, baby, I’m so sorry . . . so sorry . . . I never wanted you to witness something like you did tonight. I hate that it hurt you. You . . . it’s you.” I repeated her words from months ago, when she promised she belonged to me.

The night I took her.

The night I took it all.

It scared the hell out of me that the same promise now bled so easily from me.

But I knew it was always going to be her.

That I belonged to her, heart and soul.

Because I only existed in her.

Aly yielded to my kiss, gave me all of her while I devoured the good and the girl. Blood thundered through my veins, my pulse pounding so hard I couldn’t see. Nerves rushed as an unfound need crashed through me, and tripped my sanity.

She set me on fire, lit me up. Every inch of my body tightened. I was f**king hard, straining.

God, I wanted inside her.

To bury myself in beauty.

To get lost there.

Forever.

My hands found her waist and I crushed her against me so she would make no mistake of just how f**king badly I wanted her. So she’d know exactly what she did to me.

Aly moaned.

I kissed her deeper. Her weight was pinned to the wall with my hips. I ran my hands up her sides, over the soft fabric veiling the perfection beneath. I dragged them up her arms, grasped her hands, pinned them over her head.

Aly writhed, rocked against me, and wrapped those long legs around my waist.

Fuck.

How was it possible one girl could feel so good?

“You.” The word was hard. Rough. My spirit’s demand.

She slipped down my body and settled on her feet, her hands frantic as she ran them under my shirt. Her hot palms flattened on my stomach. My muscles jerked and ticked, twitching in anticipation. Her hands were all smooth and soft as she dragged my shirt up. Still, they burned, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

I took one step back and leaned down, and Aly ripped my shirt over my head.

For a second, we stood there, staring, our breaths heaved into the thick air. My gaze traveled down the glorious curves of her body, rushing over the softness of her sweater, the slim black jeans that had me itching to get inside them, and down to the heels that just about left me undone.

Then she crashed back into me in the same moment I crashed into her. I pressed her into the wall, like I could consume her.

She whimpered, clutched my shoulders. She dipped down and covered the dying rose in the center of my chest with her mouth and her love and all the f**king belief in me I’d never deserve. The blunt edges of her nails raked over her eyes that stared out from behind the wilted petals.

“You,” rumbled out in a slow breath from my mouth as she touched her mark.

The one who’d given me something to believe in, the one who discovered something in me that had been buried for so many years.

The blameless one amid all my sins.

“You,” she whispered back at my skin. She scorched me with her touch, her palms sliding up and over my ribs; then she changed course, splaying her fingers wide as she slipped them down my sides. With trembling hands, Aly yanked at my fly and ripped the buttons open with one firm jerk.

Need thundered through my veins, burned as it sped, stoked the need for this girl that was never going to let me go.

“Ugh . . . Aly . . .” I fisted my hands in her hair as she kissed a trail across my chest. Her mouth was wet, hot as it blazed a path down my stomach.

Aly dropped to her knees, dragging my jeans and underwear down my thighs as she went.

Air punched from my lungs and I gripped her tighter. “Oh shit,” I wheezed. My c**k sprung free, f**king begging for this girl who was on her knees, staring up at me.

Trust and fear collided on her face, merged into this tentative hope.

She took me in her hand.

I jerked. Pleasure rocked down the back of my thighs.

Slowly, she stroked me as the severity of her gaze kept me pinned. Her expression left her exposed, vulnerable. A thousand insecurities played out in the depths of her green eyes, worries and fears and needs. Like this was some kind of surrender.

Or maybe acceptance.

I hissed when she took me in her mouth. “Oh . . . shit . . . Aly.”

That sweet mouth felt so f**king good, it nearly brought me to my knees.

I gripped her head, f**king straining as she took me whole.

This sound reverberated from her throat as she looked up at me, like she was trying to convey something she was too scared to say. Like she was pleading as she pleasured me, her mouth so f**king hot as her lips pressed down my length, taking what she could while she gripped and stroked the rest of me with her hand.

My spirit thrashed, expanded and danced and writhed.

Because I saw something there I’d never seen before.

Something that sent a chill rushing through me in the same second every cell in my body flamed in praise of her.

Aly had always been a treasure I’d placed on the highest pedestal. The girl was my perfection. But maybe that foundation had its own fissures, cracks that could widen, cause her to crumple.

It was something that was so difficult for me to grasp—meaning something to someone.

But there was no doubt she needed me too. Aly was f**king scared, and maybe she didn’t have this all figured out, either. We were in this shit together, and together we had to figure it out.

The second she saw I understood, she whimpered and quickened her pace, taking then releasing. Winding me up, ratcheting me higher.

“Fuck . . . Aly . . . baby,” I groaned. “Baby, stop. I’m gonna come.”

One hand dug into my ass and she pulled me closer, refusing to let me go. She took me as deep as she could.

Pleasure pulsed as I came, careening through my senses.

I roared.

Tremors rolled through me, and I looked down at the girl, her face steeped in emotion, her eyes squeezed shut, her perfect lips wrapped around me.

It lit a frenzy in me.

Motherfucking trigger.

I gripped her under the arms and yanked her from the floor. Aly wrapped her legs around my waist. Sharp heels bit into my ass, and goddamn, if I wasn’t hard again because that’s just what this girl did to me.

With my jeans twisted around my knees, I stumbled to the end of her bed.