Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(26)
Author: A.L. Jackson

Discomfort needled through my senses and embarrassment rushed to my face. But I refused to look away from him. I chewed at the inside of my cheek, searching for the courage to speak. “I do know that, but the thought of you with someone else, touching them the way you touch me . . .” My voice dropped. “I only want you to belong to me.”

Like a testimony, my naked body burned against his, the way I’d given myself to him.

Only him.

Jared pulled back so he could see my face better. Knowing laughter seeped quietly from his mouth, and he softly ran his fingers through my hair. “I’ve only belonged to one person, Aly, and that’s you.” His mouth was suddenly at my ear. “And believe me, I’ve never touched anyone the way I touch you.”

A shiver raised goose bumps across my flesh.

He chuckled more as he sat back and took in my expression. “You understand?”

I hid my face in his neck, feeling all flustered and self-conscious and completely adored. “Yes.”

“Besides, have you looked at yourself in the mirror? Do you have even a single clue how beautiful you are?”

I lifted up onto my elbow, smiling down at him with the tease. “I’m going to get fat here pretty soon. What then?”

Jared turned away to look at the ceiling. A wistful grin tugged at his mouth. He turned back and that grin widened. His hand came flat to my belly. “I seriously doubt that. I can’t help but picture you just like this with a little round ball right here,” he emphasized as he palmed my stomach.

It was sweet, playful.

“What happens if you’re wrong?” I contended.

Mischief glinted in his eyes. “Baby, I’ll take you any way I can get you.”

I bit at my lip, feeling an unsettled rush of nerves travel through my body, anticipation and love and hope. I covered Jared’s hand and looked up at him. “I can’t wait,” I said honestly.

It was the first time I really realized it was true, when the fear of the future, the fear of the unknown, became so much less important than my hope for this life.

The playfulness faded from his face. “I can’t believe we’re going to have a baby. It’s so hard to imagine what’s happening inside you right now.”

He swallowed hard and increased his hold.

My eyes darted all over his face because it told a million truths, fears and shame and the misguided belief that he could never deserve a gift like this.

But I also saw the longing.

I clung to it.

“Everything about our lives is going to change, Jared,” I whispered seriously, urgently. “I . . .” I tripped over what I wanted to say next, my face suddenly pressed to his neck because I was scared of what haunted him, of what would stalk him in the darkness. Tempt him and trap him. “What happened in Vegas . . . Jared, you can’t—”

Jared jerked back and gripped me by the face, cutting me off like he couldn’t bear to hear it come from my mouth. “I know that, Aly.” Tremors rocked his chest and he drew in a ragged breath. “I know.”

His voice softened, though his eyes darkened as he stared me down, baring it all. “After I woke up in the hospital this last time, I knew I was coming back to you, but I wouldn’t allow myself to come back here for three weeks because I had to make sure I was well enough to be here. Well enough to stand in front of you with a clean mind and a clean body. But I can’t change who I was in my past, Aly. That’s always going to be a part of me, something that is never completely going to go away. I’m f**ked up. I warned you last night. But I promised you then you make me want to be better. That you make me better.” He splayed his hand wide across my stomach. “This makes me want to be better.”

“Do you . . .” I shook my head, grasping for anything to say that might convince this man that he deserved it, that this baby and I deserved it. “Don’t you think you should talk to someone?”

But the question held so much more than that, asked so much more of him, like a silent plea straight from my heart.

You have to get help. Find a way to heal.

Still, Jared heard it.

He stiffened. His voice trembled as he forced out the words. “I’m okay.”

Reluctantly I nodded and settled my head on his shoulder. I knew he’d come so far. But still it scared me he may not ever be ready to get better.

Gentle fingers played in my hair. Softly Jared wound a thick lock in his finger. He tugged a little before he pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “I love you so much. I need you to believe that.” It was his own plea.

And I knew he wasn’t ready.

Shifting, I moved to straddle him and Jared rolled to his back. I dipped down, kissed him across his heart, hoping he could feel my belief in him. “I do.”

Tender hands flattened on my back and he pulled me down to him.

This time, his kiss was slow.

• • •

My eyes flew open to a heavy blanket of darkness. Anxiety clawed at the walls and spilled out across the floor. Panic thundered through my veins, spreading like wildfire along the surface of my skin.

But this panic was not my own.

Jared’s arms and legs twitched and jerked as he held me pinned to his side. Sweat slicked his clammy skin, and he groaned incoherently from the horrors that kept him under.

Tremors rocked through him in a rolling wave as he slipped along the fringes of sleep, an uncontained frenzy in his fingers, desperate in their search. They dug deep into my sides, and he burrowed his face into my chest in a pained embrace, as if he were searching for some kind of solace from the torture that ruled his spirit.

Jared’s entire body jolted with the nightmare that was his reality.

Frantic, I wrapped him in my arms. “Shh . . . shh . . . Jared. It’s okay . . . I’m right here . . . it’s okay.” I swept my mouth across his forehead and brushed my fingers through his dampened hair, clutching him to me, murmuring reassurances again and again to the man shaking in my arms.

Sharp breaths wheezed from his lungs, and he struggled to draw in air.

Grief traveled his throat in a sharp gasp and blurred with the anger I could feel radiating from his pores.

I took his face between my hands and forced him to look at me. In the darkness, wide blue eyes stared, completely lost.

There were no tears. Just pain.

Nausea pooled in my stomach.

“It’s okay,” I whispered again, knowing it was a lie.

Because no matter what I said or what he claimed, I knew Jared was not okay.