Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(6)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I knew that from the pain I lived through in the months he was away and recognized it in the devastating relief I felt when I found him sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for me yesterday evening. It’d been blinding.

And God, I’d been so scared, telling him about the baby. But he had to know, even though I’d realized there was a very real chance the knowledge would drive him away once again.

This was no longer just about Jared and me. Now I had a baby to think about, too. And I understood the risk in taking Jared back. How vulnerable it made me.

I’d missed him so much, and I wasn’t sure I could deal with him leaving me again.

But it went far beyond that.

The little life growing inside me filled me with so much fear and anxiety, but even stronger was this surprising sense of anticipation. It filled me with love along with my worry, and wonder at the way that my life had been sent down a different course than I’d ever imagined.

So many nights had been spent praying and begging in the dark for him to return, drawing his face again and again in the pages of my sketch pads, those images that came to life in them the only thing I had left of him. Until last night, I’d never shown anyone my hidden drawings. They were so special to me, I didn’t think anyone could understand how important the faces I drew inside were to me, and I worried that others might minimalize the way I saw the people I loved as I brought them to life on a page. But last night, I’d shown Jared, because I needed him to know, to understand how significant he was to me and how he’d inhabited my drawings since I’d first picked up a charcoal pencil when I was just a little girl.

I’d desperately wanted him to be a part of my life.

I always had. But God, I couldn’t fathom how much I wanted him to be a part of our child’s life.

I believed in what we created. With all of me. In the beauty of it.

Last night, we’d talked very little about it. Instead, I’d found Jared’s affection in his touch, in the way he kissed across my belly and looked at me with fear and amazement shining in his eyes.

I searched for his left hand and lifted his knuckles to my mouth. I brushed my lips across the tattooed skin that marked the year Jared believed he had ceased to exist.

2006.

Jared had spent his life running from his past.

I thought of his right hand, where the knuckles were stamped with the year of his birth.

1990.

Jared had once believed those sixteen years were the only ones he’d truly lived.

But he returned now because somehow, through all of that, he’d seen a future with me, that he’d seen life beyond the date when he believed he should have died in his mother’s place.

I chose to believe in him because I knew no other truth.

I chose to believe in his love, as fragile as it was.

I chose to believe he would be strong enough to face all the demons darkening the goodness of his spirit, the ones he’d etched onto his skin in images of horror, the ones that manifested as tremors that shook him in the night.

Jared had always been a risk I had to take. Risks always involved danger. But the only danger I felt where he was concerned was the possibility of him no longer being a part of me. That was a fate I refused to consider.

He shifted, taking my face in his hands and lifting it to his. He pressed his lips to mine, softly, yet wholly intense. Almost desperate. His large hands covered most of my face. His fingers dug into the back of my head, something that I felt all the way to my heart.

“I love you, Aly.” His voice was low, rough with the promise, like maybe he needed to remind himself. Blue eyes blazed as he pulled back and stared down at me. I’d seen his love for me in those eyes for so long.

It was unmistakable.

How amazing did it feel that he was no longer trying to hide it?

“I love you . . . so much,” I whispered back.

“God.” Christopher cursed from behind us, the sound a mixture of disgust and surrender.

These last months, I’d scared my brother. I knew that. I’d witnessed it in his expression as he’d watched me lying balled up on the couch. I’d seen the worry in his eyes and known he had no clue what I needed or how to help me.

But he had. Just being there and supporting me had helped me. Up until last night when I told Jared, Christopher had been the only one to know about the pregnancy. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell my parents, who lived so nearby. I don’t know what I would have done without Christopher to support me.

My face was still buried in the safety of Jared’s chest, but I could feel him and Christopher still staring each other down. Testing. Tension thickened the air, so heavy I could actually hear Christopher swallow.

“You want to stay here? With her?” Christopher finally demanded. “And I’m not talking some temporary bullshit. You know this isn’t some kind of f**king game.”

Jared placed his warm hand on the back of my head, as if he were shielding me. “It was never a game, Christopher. I already told you that.” He ran his fingers through my hair, and I shifted to look back at my brother. “I think you already know that,” Jared continued. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

A grimace twisted Christopher’s mouth and he looked to the wall again. He huffed a loud breath. “Guess I’m going to have to get used to the idea of you two.”

Jared’s heart thundered where I had my ear pressed to his chest. “Yeah, you’re going to have to get used it.” Jared brought his mouth to the top of my head, and I knew his words were whispered to me. “Because I won’t let her go.”

• • •

“Go,” Jared grumbled at my mouth as he bent me back, those strong arms holding me up while he kissed me again.

“I don’t want to,” I contended with a forced pout, clinging to the back of his neck.

At all.

I just wanted to stay there.

In the safety of his arms.

Forever.

The arms that promised my future. The arms that told me he’d missed me as intensely as I’d missed him.

The exam I spent the last week struggling to study for, the one I had to take to pass my class? It suddenly didn’t feel all that important after all.

The thought of leaving him physically hurt.

He pulled back. A smirk lifted one side of his full lips. “You think I want to let you out of my sight?” Tender amusement flickered around his mouth before he leaned in close to my ear. “Not in this century, Aly. I want to spend my life wrapped up in you, wrapped up in that body that has me itching to drag you back to your room and show you just how much I don’t want to let you go. Just how much I’ve been missing you.”