Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(72)
Author: A.L. Jackson

Aly knew her friend well, and I was pretty sure these decorations were spot-on.

Today was Megan’s twenty-first birthday.

And that shit was going down here.

Yeah, Aly’d offered.

It was no secret she glowed with pride over this house, and any chance she got, she showed it off. Not that I minded. It felt f**king good, this house, knowing what I’d created for my family.

I pushed from the wall. Aly looked up when she heard me approach. She dragged one side of her bottom lip between her teeth, biting at her smile as I rounded the island and edged up behind her.

“Mmm . . .” She hummed as she leaned back on me, still whisking while she fell into my hold. “You smell good.”

A soft chuckle rumbled in my chest, and I buried my nose in her hair, all coconut and good and f**king delicious girl. “Not nearly as good as you smell, baby.”

I snaked my arm around her, quick to dip an impulsive finger into the bowl of white frosting. I sucked it into my mouth. “And not even close to how good this tastes.”

Aly giggled and swatted my hand away. “Keep your fingers out of the frosting.”

“What? I just had a shower.” I wiggled my fingers out in front of me. “Clean . . . see.” I slanted my mouth to her ear. “But I can think of all kinds of ways to get them dirty again.”

“Oh, you can, huh? Like what?” Aly made a valiant attempt at appearing flippant. Unaffected. But I felt the shiver. The flutter of nerves that moved through her.

I bit back a satisfied grin, and dove in again, this time with three fingers. I brought out a soft mound and smeared it at the corner of one side of her mouth. Over her shoulder, I leaned in, my tongue and lips stroking across the soft flesh. “Like this,” I whispered.

A little whimper left her. The sound pierced me in the pit of my stomach.

Damn, this girl made me insane.

I swiped a single finger into the frosting again. This time I dipped it into her mouth. “Or like this.”

With her head tipped back on my shoulder, Aly sucked it clean, those green eyes watching me watching her.

Lust twisted me in the tightest knot.

I groaned and Aly smiled, a little victorious and a whole lot sexy.

What had this girl done to me?

“I think you’d better stop. Megan will be here any minute and this cake should already be finished.” She uttered the warning with a shot of playfulness. It wasn’t close to being enough to cover up the need that thickened her voice.

I reached for the bowl. Megan could wait.

“Don’t you dare put your fingers in there again,” Aly mumbled through laughter, her hand clenching my hand to stop me. “You’ve already stuck your fingers in there enough that I should probably dump this out and start over.” She turned a little, nudging me back by pushing on my chest, though her fingers lingered a little longer, twisting a bit into my black tee. Her eyes gleamed with mirth. “Don’t you think you’ve contaminated it enough?”

“I doubt very much I’ve ever eaten a cake that someone didn’t snag a little taste of first. It’s expected.”

Aly cocked a challenging brow. Really?

“Okay, maybe under different circumstances.” I grabbed her hand, pressed it to my face, kissed her palm. “I say we just cancel the whole thing and see how creative we can get with this since I’ve already contaminated it.”

“Ha. Not a chance.” She smirked, and shook her head with a laugh. “Do you really think Megan would let us get away with that? She’d be over here banging our door down. You only turn twenty-one once. And the one thing my best friend asked me for was a party. So she gets a party.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . I know . . . today is Megan’s day,” I said, relenting. Never had a chance in the first place. My eyes made a pass over my girl. But hell, it was worth a try.

Caution transformed Aly’s expression, and she dropped those green eyes that always saw so much, that watched me and knew me and spoke to me.

With just the look, my chest tightened.

She chanced peeking up at me. “We have so much to celebrate, Jared. Not just Megan.”

Fear and anger collided. I forced them down, doing my best to keep my voice even. “Please don’t, Aly.”

Tuesday was my birthday. Four days away. It loomed like this omen I couldn’t shake.

And not a good one.

Aly gasped when I grabbed her around the waist and set her on the island countertop. I settled between her thighs, my cheek pressed to the rapid beat of her heart.

I knew what she was doing. What she wanted. But she kept asking for f**king impossible things. And God, I wanted to give her everything. Anything. But not this. “I won’t ever celebrate that day, Aly,” I mumbled into her shirt, away from her face where she couldn’t see me, close enough that she could understand. That she could feel. “You have to stop doing this to me, suggesting this shit that isn’t going to happen.”

Aly stilled in my firm hold.

Since I turned sixteen, my birthdays had come with destruction. I’d drown myself in the deepest bottle I could find. The day always ended with bloodshed, whether it was my own or caused by my hand. It was like I was called out into the night, seeking chaos. It was never hard to find. So many ass**les were out there looking for the exact same thing.

But f**k, this year was going to be different. It had to be. This one would be spent with the girl, with the one who’d injected her light into me. Things had changed so drastically since she lit up my life.

But I sure as hell wasn’t going to be celebrating it.

All I could do was pray for it to pass, and when it finally did, that it would take all this f**king agitation that’d been simmering in me with it.

Aly shifted back to look at me. Compassion wove into her expression. She brushed her fingers through my hair that had gotten way too f**king long. “What do you say we just celebrate today?”

I reached out and held one side of her head. My hand covered most all of it, the silk of her hair weaving through my fingers the same way as she’d woven herself into my heart. I kissed her, softly, just a brush of my lips. “Yeah, let’s celebrate today.” I moved my hands to her belly. She was getting bigger now. Really showing. And damn, I’d been right. It was just a ball low in her stomach, the rest of her lean and long and f**king sexy as all hell. This girl just kept getting better and better. “Like you said, we have so many other things to celebrate.”

Aly set a hand over mine, pressing my hands a little firmer against her stomach. Tenderness spilled from her. Hopeful, she glanced up at me. “Do you feel that? The baby’s moving like crazy right now.”