This sound reverberated from her throat as she looked up at me, like she was trying to convey something she was too scared to say. Like she was pleading as she pleasured me, her mouth so fucking hot as her lips pressed down my length, taking what she could while she gripped and stroked the rest of me with her hand.
My spirit thrashed, expanded and danced and writhed.
Because I saw something there I’d never seen before.
Something that sent a chill rushing through me in the same second every cell in my body flamed in praise of her.
Aly had always been a treasure I’d placed on the highest pedestal. The girl was my perfection. But maybe that foundation had its own fissures, cracks that could widen, cause her to crumple.
It was something that was so difficult for me to grasp – meaning something to someone.
But there was no doubt she needed me too. Aly was fucking scared, and maybe she didn’t have this all figured out, either. We were in this shit together, and together we had to figure it out.
The second she saw I understood, she whimpered and quickened her pace, taking then releasing. Winding me up, ratcheting me higher.
“Fuck… Aly… baby,” I groaned. “Baby, stop. I’m gonna come.”
One hand dug into my ass and she pulled me closer, refusing to let me go. She took me as deep as she could.
Pleasure pulsed as I came, careening through my senses.
I roared.
Tremors rolled through me, and I looked down at the girl, her face steeped in emotion, her eyes squeezed shut, her perfect lips wrapped around me.
It lit a frenzy in me.
Motherfucking trigger.
I gripped her under the arms and yanked her from the floor. Aly wrapped her legs around my waist. Sharp heels bit into my ass, and goddamn, if I wasn’t hard again because that’s just what this girl did to me.
With my jeans twisted around my knees, I stumbled to the end of her bed.
Her mattress was a tangle of black sheets, and I fell over her, desperate to get her closer. I kicked out of my shoes, twisted out of the rest of my clothes.
Her chin tipped up to meet my face, her hair brushing the bed as I crawled over her. I dragged her up the bed as I climbed higher.
Aly rocked, her body arching, seeking mine. “Jared, need you… need you so bad.”
Good thing, because she was about to have me.
“Is there anything I can do to hurt the baby?” I asked, just needing reassurance because I couldn’t stand the thought of doing something stupid, of giving in to the recklessness as I sought a second’s pleasure.
Frantically she shook her head, maybe just as frantic as I was to get her sweater over it. “No. You don’t have to worry.”
I tossed her sweater to the floor. Her olive skin glowed in the dim light. Redness swept up her belly and came to rest on her cheeks as I laid her against her pillow. I sat back and took her in.
“Please.” She lifted her hips with the appeal. I flicked the button free on her jeans, dragged down the zipper, slipped them from her hips.
Aly ran her hands down the flat plane of her stomach like she didn’t know what to do with them, released a soft moan of satisfied anticipation when I tugged her heels from her feet and ridded her of her jeans.
She squirmed under my stare as she lay there wearing nothing but silk and lace, her chest rising in spastic quakes. Everything about her was soft and slender and curved. Delicate and strong. Just like my girl’s heart.
“You’re beautiful, Aly,” I murmured, feeling those words strike me deep.
The rosy buds of her breasts pointed through the thin meshed fabric, fucking straining as painfully as me. I wound my hands under her back and unclasped the hook of her bra, spread my fingers wide and slipped them up her back and over her shoulders, capturing the straps as I lifted her arms and dragged it free. Climbing onto my knees, I watched her, my gaze intent. I edged her panties down those long legs that did insane things to me.
I grasped her by the knees, spread her wide.
“Fucking perfect,” I muttered, the words scraping like gravel from my throat.
And shit, I didn’t want to be disrespectful because this was my girl. But my girl was unreal. She was like the perfect pinup with her perky ass and even perkier tits. Like one of those girls on the pages of a magazine. Intangible. Make-believe.
A fantasy.
But Aly had become my reality.
I dove into the sweet of her body with my mouth. My tongue explored the folds of slick flesh, kissed and suckled and roamed. She was so warm, so wet. And this girl tasted like heaven.
Aly panted, begged my name. Fingertips trailed across my face and brushed along my lips where I kissed that body senseless.
I grabbed her by the thigh. Splaying my fingers wide, I palmed her and slowly dragged my hand down her leg to her knee. I hooked it over my shoulder, tugged her tighter to me, sucked her clit into my mouth, teased her with my tongue.
Ruptured cries escaped her in an incoherent tumble of pleasure, utterings from deep within that tickled at my ears, pricked at my chest. Tremors rolled across the surface of her skin and jerked her hips from the bed.
I took that as an invitation.
I slipped one finger inside her, then two, fucked her with my fingers while I caressed her with my mouth.
A rattled groan rumbled in my chest, reverberated from my mouth because I was thinking how good it was going to feel to be all tucked up inside her.
Aly lifted her hips higher. “Jared… oh my God… please.”
I increased the pressure, increased the pace. Loved the sounds she was making, loved that I was making her feel this way.
I felt it hit, the crashing wave that broke over her. She whined, all the muscles of her body constricting as she tightened on my fingers.
Consumed, I rushed up her body and drove inside her because I had to ride that out.
Both of us cried out, grasping at the other. Aly convulsed as another tremor tore through her.
Struggling to find a breath, I climbed to my knees, scooping her up and taking her with me. At the small of her back, I supported her, held her, and Aly wrapped her long legs around my waist. With my free hand, I gripped the top of her headboard. I lifted her and slammed her back down on me.
Aly wheezed, raked her fingernails down my back.
We began to move. Frantic, our bodies rocked, finding this frenzied rhythm, something that struck some kind of pitch-perfect chord between us.
Sweat dampened her skin, her body straining as she moved over me, working me right back to where she had me not ten minutes before.
My hand slipped up her spine and I grasped her by the back of the neck.
Aly’s eyes locked on mine. Emotion swam in their depths. Devotion and fear. Adoration and need.
I rocked into her hard, my body demanding. I felt consumed, agonized in this pleasure. Because she felt so fucking good, so fucking right.
I always thought I’d be her ruin. But right then, I was pretty sure she’d be mine. My faultless demise. Because I’d suffer for her. Bear all her burden and her blame. Would gladly die for her.
The most terrifying part of it all was that I was willing to live for her.
Aly arched. Her hands burned into my shoulders where she braced herself on me, wisps of her hair falling all down my hand and dipping down onto the bed. Every inch of her was stretched tight, tension wound in her muscles. Her stomach flexed and bowed, the cut of her arms and shoulders defined. Her full, round breasts pushed up in my face as she rolled back. Her nipples were all taut and pouty. As pouty as her mouth, her lips parted as her jaw dropped lax.
I captured one in my mouth, laved and lapped.
Soft moans fell against my ear.
My fingers slipped down her ass and brushed over the sensitive skin.
Aly gasped, rocked as she rolled over me. I lifted and strained, pressed and pushed.
And I took.
I took and took and took.
For once, this taking was right.
Because maybe I had something to give back.
I was consumed, desperate for this hunger to be quelled when I knew there was no possible way to get my fill.
There was no stopping the storm building inside of me. A flicker of rage. A flash of fear. I quaked with the thought of not having her, of losing her, and I grasped at her skin, my fingers digging in.
Wanted to dominate and devour.
Harsh breaths panted from her mouth, and my heart beat so fucking hard, slamming around in my chest.
The sick part was I’d been running so far and so fast from that trigger. Now I was fucking desperate to keep it near, to hold her safe. I couldn’t lose her.
And I craved.
Wanted.
Needed her so badly I thought I would lose my mind.
But this time I wasn’t searching for numbness. Wasn’t begging for the blackness to invade. Wasn’t looking to block it out.
Feeling lit through my entire body and overtook my senses. Every nerve fired, every inch of me alive.
I cried out, “Aleena,” my arms hugging her tight as I crushed her to me.
Motherfucking trigger.
Aly had become my drug.
I buried my face in her neck, my grip like a vise at her waist as I buried myself in her.
Completely.
Wholly.
Aly threw her head back and cried out my name. Her nails burrowed deep into my skin, just like she’d burrowed somewhere deep in my soul.
Ragged breaths palpitated from my lungs, and I just held her, Aly’s body limp when she collapsed against me.
I lifted my head, kissed her softly.
Aly stuttered a sigh.
Gently, I pulled out. I shifted, laying her across the bed. “I’ll be right back.”
I pulled on my underwear and slipped out her door. I made my way into the bathroom and flipped on the switch. Bright lights burned my eyes, and I blinked as I shuffled inside.
Turning the faucet high, I waited for it to warm.
I caught my reflection in the mirror. Colors dripped and bled across my skin, the sins I’d committed glaring in the glow. Green eyes glinted out from them, striking like a flare.
Aleena.
Shaking, I ran my fingertips over them, like I was searching for some kind of answer, like maybe I could discern if any of this was really right.
Because how would I ever really know?
I stared at my eyes. They seemed much too bright. Too alive.
Flames of fear licked through my body, kindling the madness Aly created in me, and my gut twisted into the tightest knot.
What happened when I lost it all?
I slammed my eyes shut and shook my head.
Stupid shit.
Couldn’t go there.
I grabbed a washcloth from the cabinet under the sink.
Just as I was wetting it under hot water, Christopher appeared in the doorway.
He lifted a sarcastic brow. “Looks like you two made up.”
“Fuck you, dude.”
God, he was such a smartass.
Chuckling, he leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. In thought, he pursed his lips. His voice was softer than I expected. “You know my sister isn’t one of those girls who holds grudges, Jared.”
I lowered my face and shook my head. I wrung out the washcloth. “You think I don’t know that? That’s the only reason I’m here.”
Didn’t deserve to be. He and I both knew that.
Sighing, he roughed his hand through the mess of black on his head. Somehow he managed to make it stick up even worse than it already was. “You’ve gotta be honest with her, man. Let her in. Tell her about whatever shit your past has gotten you into because you can’t leave her unprepared for it. She loves you enough to forgive you for it, whatever it is.”
I nodded, swallowed hard as I straightened. I looked at him seriously. Honestly. “I just wish I could erase the mess of it.”
Guess I was more scared of repeating it.
Humorless laughter seeped from him. “Don’t we all.”
I rubbed my palm over my face and blew a breath from my lungs.
He inclined his head toward Aly’s door. “Go on… take care of my sister… you know she’s waiting for you.”
SIX
Aleena
A soft sigh hit the back of my throat as I watched him go. Or maybe it was a whimper. My bedroom door slowly closed behind him. Loosely it came to rest on the jamb. I turned and faced the ceiling. Lying there, I tried to catch my breath, to slow my thundering heart. Tried to make sense of what had just happened between us.
It had been uncontrollable. Turbulent. Explosive.
Exhaustion sagged my entire body into a useless puddle curled in the middle of my bed, but his touch still fired along the surface of my skin, burned beneath it. Below me, the sheets felt both hot and cold, glowed with the remnants of heat from the impassioned fury that had taken us over. I flattened my palm out over them, over the place where he had had me. Where he had found me.
Deep satisfaction penetrated into the marrow of my bones. Above that satisfaction, my nerves skittered with unease.
Only one other time had I witnessed Jared like he was tonight, control slipping and something wild flaming in his eyes. It was the morning that had begun so intensely, when Jared had locked us away behind my bathroom door, the same day my mother had discovered him in our apartment.
It was the day fear and shame and self-contempt had driven him away.
Every time Jared touched me, there was something powerful in it, something overwhelming. Something stunning.
Breathtaking.
Lost in the deepest reaches of that connection, I’d felt the disturbance. Like I was so close to him I could feel his anguish as his body became one with mine.
Like I was partner to it.
I’d felt it again tonight.
But there was something distinctly different.
That day, three months ago, I knew Jared was trying to push me away.
Not tonight.
No, tonight he’d sought, hunted, like he would do anything, give up anything, to be closer to me.
And it was almost frightening, how close we were.
Maybe it was my reaction that scared me most, the one at the bar and then here in my room.
When I saw him with that girl at the Vine, I’d been shocked by my reaction. It was violent. Vicious. One glance and the deepest ache had seized me, left me gutted, splaying me wide open.
Left me questioning.
Worries I had tried to suppress had pushed their way to the forefront. Those months I’d spent alone in this room, missing him, mourning him, crying out for him, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what he was doing and who he was with. Every time my mind would go there, it would break me a little more.
But when he’d returned yesterday, I’d made the decision that it was in the past. He’d left, without obligation to me, and he had made no promises other than the one that he would forget about me and I would forget about him.
He’d broken that promise because forgetting each other was an impossibility. I think we both knew it, even though I’d struggled and prayed that one day I would accept he was gone and move on instead of pretending he would find his way back to me.
But he had. He came back to me, and I wanted to believe nothing else mattered.
Until I’d seen that girl rubbing all over him. A swell of possessive envy had collided with my love of him, and all of those worries had come flooding back.
Maybe it was because we were at the Vine. It was the place where Jared would go to unwind when he wanted a beer. It was the place that had become his excuse, where he’d tell Christopher he’d been when he was really hidden away in my room. Maybe it was the proximity to our apartment that made it so real. That made it matter.
One look at the way she was touching him, one look at the panic on his face, and I knew.
Part of me wanted to keep pretending whatever had happened didn’t count, to assign it to the past and focus on the future.
But I couldn’t.
Because it hurt.
I once believed I’d take whatever piece of him he was willing to give.
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