Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(47)
Author: A.L. Jackson

As if there would ever be a moment when I’d gotten enough.

Never.

Aly whimpered, tilting her hips back, granting me more. “All of me . . . it already belongs to you.”

A growl ripped up my throat. I gripped her tighter, took her deeper. “Fuck, Aly.” She shouldn’t tempt me like that, because I’d be inclined to make good on it, and I figured that kind of shit needed to wait until after this baby was born.

Aly threw her head back on my shoulder, whimpering. “More. Please.”

I released her arms. She sagged against me. One arm was braced below her br**sts, keeping her from falling, her legs weak as I turned her to face the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the door.

“Look at you, Aly.”

Aly met my eye as I f**ked her from behind, as I drove her higher, just as high as she was steadily driving me. I splayed my free hand across her stomach, swept it down, all of my attentions going to that sweet spot that had her legs trembling under her unsteady feet.

She watched me touching her, loving her, the green of her eyes dark, consumed, filled with need, burning with outright desire.

Her mouth dropped open, her arms coming up to hold me by the back of the neck.

And she was all spread out, f**king perfect in every way.

“Come for me, baby,” I demanded at her ear.

Aly convulsed, tightened on my c**k as she bowed back, her hair and her face and f**king delicious skin sending me right over the edge.

The knot of pleasure snapped, a consuming burn exploding from me and pouring into her.

Aly collapsed in my hold, her knees completely giving way. Her breath was strangled as she struggled to draw it into her lungs.

And I stood there, just holding my girl up, watching the one who trusted me with her life through the mirror. My arms were around her, the sickness of my own flesh wound around her waist, the evidence of my sins this stark contrast to the flawless span of hers.

But Aly . . . she stood between the consequences of them, blocking the wicked mark that marred my heart, like a shield to the truth of who I was. Like her presence cast a light on my darkness. Her spirit so pure, it was enough to chase the horrors from mine.

To silence them.

Extinguish them.

They might haunt me in the night, but here, in this light, she was the only thing that could be seen.

Aly clung to me, and I held her up, refusing to let her fall. “I love you, Aly,” I murmured into the soft locks of her hair.

I loved her so much.

So much more than I should.

• • •

Sleep pressed in as an oppressive weight. Darkness crawled along his flesh, holding Jared down. A prisoner bound in its chains. Searing heat burned him from the inside out. It was quiet. Too quiet. And he didn’t want to look because he already knew what he would find. Against his will, Jared’s head lolled to the side, seeking out her face. His vision blurred with tears that could never be shed, her face streaked in blood and her smile taunting him with a peace he could never find.

That smile wavered in fear.

It slammed him—her fear. It splintered through him, becoming the most excruciating pain.

A scream locked in his throat. “No!”

But it would never come and all he wanted was to reach for her. To stop it. To take it back.

And she whispered, “It’ll be okay.”

It’ll be okay.

• • •

I jerked to sitting, my legs twisted in the sheets. Sweat drenched my forehead. It slicked down the back of my neck like the most frigid ice. Frenzied, my heart thundered in my tightened chest. I struggled for air when there was none, searching for breath in the darkest recesses where death harbored its hate.

I gripped my head in my hands.

Shit.

Nausea hit me and my stomach clenched. Beside me, Aly slept. So peaceful, her hair spread out all around her. Soft breaths parted her lips, the faint glow of the moon caressing her face.

The good.

I closed my eyes, trying to block it all out.

Still, she was there.

Guilt swam through the murky pit of my spirit.

I rammed the heels of my hands in my eyes, wishing for anything to blot it out, anything to take it away.

God.

I looked back down at Aly. How could anything I had with her be wrong?

Slowly, I unwound myself from the covers, careful not to disturb her. I kept my feet light as I crept out of our room. Blindly, I fumbled for the pack of cigarettes I left on top of the fridge. Cold air hit my exposed chest when I opened the sliding glass door. I flinched when I stepped outside onto the concrete patio on my bare feet, my heart still beating a riot against my rib cage.

Brilliant. Outside in the middle of the night in December, wearing nothing but my underwear. No one mistook me for a genius, that was for hell sure.

Still, I welcomed the cool reprieve from the tortured fire raging inside me.

I dropped to the ground and rested up against the hard stucco wall. Lighting a cigarette, I drew in, holding the smoke in the well of my shallow lungs. Slowly, I blew out the smoke toward the winter sky that cradled the endless canopy of stars. It curled and rose, fading away into the nothingness that I’d always believed was my fate. The submission to the call. Surrendering to my due.

I don’t get to have this.

I never meant to disrespect her memory, to take what I wasn’t supposed to be given. And God, I loved my mother so much. Missed her more than imaginable.

Shame burned in the deepest place inside me when I snubbed out my cigarette. Anxiety pushed me to my feet. I opened the door.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered back out into the night. Sorry I couldn’t give her more. Sorry I didn’t know how to make amends.

Inside, it was dark, so dark I could barely see.

Urges screamed through my veins, begging for that balm.

The moment’s euphoria.

But this craving? This craving could only be satisfied by one person’s touch.

This hunger was fed only by the girl and the good.

I stripped my underwear from my legs as I crossed into the darkness of our room, shrugged them from my feet as I crawled over her.

She was all twisted up, lost in the abyss of sleep, in dreams that were pleasant and pure. Ones without the stench of rancid memories. Ones that weren’t tainted by the sting of death.

I slid my hand into her panties.

Aly jumped, gasping as she was jarred awake. Her fingers bolted into my shoulders where I hovered over her like a sinister wraith in the shadows of our room.

“Cold,” she whimpered. Chills skated her skin as my freezing fingers caressed over her warmth, searching, seeking, slipping inside.

I buried my nose in the sanctuary of her hair. “Got to feel you, baby.” Coarse, jagged words grunted from my dry throat.