Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(85)
Author: A.L. Jackson

Difference was, I no longer wanted to forget.

No longer wanted to run.

For so many years, I believed I didn’t belong anywhere.

Now I knew better.

I belonged with Aly.

I just didn’t know how to get back there, how to love her the way she deserved, how to be that man I felt like I’d almost become.

Ghosts.

My humorless laughter ricocheted around the walls of the barren room.

Fuck, that girl knew me better than anyone. She’d been completely aware of what I was suffering all the while I was pretending the past couldn’t touch me.

I’d run from it again, although in a completely different direction than I’d ever gone.

I’d run for Aly. Which was a really goddamned good place to be.

But I should have known it’d catch up to me.

I got why Aly had been pushing me. She knew where it was headed, and maybe she’d been clinging, too, doing her best to stop something that was inevitable.

I went straight for the bathroom. I didn’t bother with a light. I just turned the shower as hot as it would go. Steam filled the small space. I shucked my clothes and stepped into the blistering heat of the relentless spray.

Waves of chills rolled through my body as it was pelted with the shocking warmth, a complete contradiction to the chilled air I’d sped into for too many hours. Sucking in a breath, I let my eyes fall closed.

Green eyes stared back at me, and the girl smiled, full of gentleness and affection.

With belief.

I leaned my forearm on the cold shower tiles and dropped my forehead to it, pinched my eyes tighter as all these images rushed me, this girl who had me completely undone.

And she was there.

Aly.

Like I could reach out and touch her. God, I missed her so bad. I didn’t think I’d ever needed her as badly as I needed her now.

Every inch of me hardened, my body going rigid as my mind slipped into her hold, as I gave in to this girl who tore right through every wall I threw up.

She’d changed me. Touched me in ways no other person possibly could. Because she was meant for me.

Couldn’t stop myself when I gripped my cock.

God, I just wanted to feel her.

Wanted to touch her. Wanted her to touch me.

My hand slipped up and down my length in a punishing rhythm, as if I could pump this need right out of me.

With every stroke, the need only grew.

The muscles in my stomach clenched, rippled and bunched, and a deep, guttural moan climbed up my throat.

Aly.

My mouth fixed in a wide, silent cry as I came.

I banged my forehead repeatedly against my arm resting on the wall.

What a joke. Like my hand stood a chance at substituting for my girl.

It didn’t even scratch the surface of the need I felt for Aly.

It just left me feeling more vacant. Hollowed out.

Made me remember what I was missing and why I’d hauled my ass all the way to California, throwing myself on the mercies of a man I thought hated me.

I’d gone seeking answers. Instead, I ended up with more questions.

Exhaling, I scrubbed myself clean, turned off the water, and toweled dry.

Never in the million thoughts I’d had of him over the last seven years had I imagined that he would have moved on. It seemed impossible.

Wrong.

My chest ached because I didn’t know what to do with the information now.

Didn’t know how to process how seeing him felt.

In the dim light that spilled into the bathroom from the main room, I stared at the darkened silhouette of myself in the mirror.

So much anger lived inside me, day after day convicting me of this unbearable guilt.

Standing before him, I thought I’d feel ashamed.

Instead I’d just been shocked.

And sad.

Unbelievably sad.

Grabbing my phone from my jeans heaped on the floor, I shuffled back into the main room and flicked off the light. It plunged the room into darkness. Blindly, I flopped on my back in the center of the bed.

Aly held fast to my thoughts.

As if there was a chance of escaping her.

It was close to two, but I couldn’t stop myself. I just needed her to know I was thinking of her because I couldn’t stand the thought of my girl imagining I’d walked out with the intention of abandoning her and our baby.

Never.

I tapped out a simple message and hoped she understood it was my truth.

I miss you.

Almost instantly, my phone chimed with a message. I pictured her lying awake, too, thinking of me, tossing and turning in a vain attempt to find sleep.

I swiped the screen.

I miss you . . . more than you could know.

Two seconds later, another message came through.

Please. Find a way back to me.

Warmth spread through every cell in my body.

Still, I knew her words weren’t an invitation for me to go running straight back to her, as much as I wanted to, like I’d done more than three months before. Without regard, without thinking about how messed up I still was inside. Using all that shit as an excuse to continue feeling the way I did, pretending like it wouldn’t cause me to stumble.

Somewhere inside me, I knew I would.

And I did.

I f**ked up the best thing I ever had in my life.

Sleep never came. For hours, I lay in the silence of the room, listening to the world passing me by.

Sunlight slowly climbed to the window. A thin strip of light bled through the small part in the heavy drapes.

The day dawned on my twenty-third birthday.

Sorrow spread, slowly taking me whole. Blood pulsed harshly through my veins, my body injected with a steady rise of fear.

Because Aly had been right all along.

It was time.

• • •

Wind gusted across the winter ground. Leaves whipped around my feet.

When I got back to Phoenix, I came straight here.

I struggled and managed to draw a lump of heavy air down my raw throat. Unbearable weight pressed against my ribs. Crushing.

Just like that day seven years ago.

The moment when my world shattered. When everything I loved was spoiled by my ruin. When I sat helplessly and watched her light dim in her blue eyes.

Screaming against the searing pain, I’d begged her to take me with her. It hurt so f**king bad, and all I wanted was to die.

That pain had followed me through the years, amplified in the moments when I closed my eyes, when my lids would flutter shut and the images would invade. When the memory drew so close it was all I could see.

All I could feel.

This same f**king pain.

Pressing my hand to my chest, I exhaled a jagged breath and forced my feet to move. My boots were silent as I treaded across what seemed an endless lawn. Nausea pooled low in my stomach, and sweat beaded on my brow.