“Oh my God, don’t you dare go there, Christopher.” Aly waved a scolding finger in his face. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to warn our little brother to keep his hands and thoughts to himself? Both of you lady-killers had better keep the killin’ away from my best friend.”
“Says the girl who’s shacking up with my best friend. And lady-killer? Come on, Aly. You can do better than that. I’m a lady pleaser… believe me.”
Aly smacked him on the back of the head. “Whatever you are, just keep your dirty away from Megan.”
Christopher laughed and pinched Megan’s side.
She squealed and swatted him away. “Oh, I don’t think so. No touching, dirty bird.”
Christopher hooked his arm around her neck. “I’m just playing, Megan.” He dropped a kiss to the top of her head. “I don’t want anyone who’s slept with my sister.”
This time, it was Megan’s turn to smack him.
Megan stepped up and hugged Aly hard. “The house is beautiful, Aly. I’m so happy for you.”
Aly’s attention jumped between Megan and Christopher. “Seriously, you guys, thank you so much for coming over and helping us out.”
“Of course,” Christopher answered kind of soft, like his sister was crazy for even considering it a burden. Christopher had been there for her when she was at her lowest. He’d be there for her in the good times too.
“I’ve got nothing better to do unless I’m doing Megan here,” he added with a smirk.
“Ugh…” Aly groaned.
Megan just shook her head and muttered, “In your dreams.”
I laughed. Dude was such an asshole.
They waved and headed down the sidewalk.
Slowly, Aly shut the door and locked it, turned around to lean up against it. Contentment etched into every line on her face.
God, she was so beautiful.
I edged forward, pitching my head to the side as I slowly took her by the waist. “Thought I was your best friend, baby,” I whispered low as I sought out the skin of her neck.
The softest moan slipped from her mouth as she lifted her face toward the ceiling, before she nudged me back a fraction, her head rocking on the door as she met my face, her expression serious and severe. “No, Jared, you’re not. You’re my everything.”
I tore my shirt over my head as I walked through our bedroom door, heading right for the shower.
I was late.
Aly’d texted me earlier, saying Christopher wanted us to meet him out, to grab a few beers and maybe play a round or two of pool. Apparently he was bored out of his mind. He didn’t know what to do with himself since Aly had moved out, since she’d become a permanent fixture in this home I was building for us. It’d only been three days since he and Megan had been here, lending a hand to get these walls painted.
Not a night went by that he didn’t call, check on Aly, ask her how she was doing. Then he’d make some wiseass joke and act like she was wasting his time.
I chuckled low as I tossed my shirt to the hamper just inside the bedroom. I knelt down, unlaced my work boots, heeling them off before I shucked the rest of my clothes from my body and headed toward the bathroom.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days I found Christopher’s sorry ass sleeping on the couch. God knew he had plenty of friends and even more acquaintances, not to mention an endless string of girls clamoring over him for their chance to keep him company. But apparently spending time with his sister was much more appealing.
I couldn’t agree with him more.
Swinging open the bathroom door, I crossed the threshold. I stumbled, my feet nearly giving out. Regaining my footing, I froze in the doorway, my mouth dry.
Every last one of my muscles jerked and my heart sped, pounding the blood that beat through my veins. One glimpse of the girl and I just about came undone.
Motherfucking trigger.
She stood at the bathroom counter, leaning over it, inclined toward the mirror. Jaw slack, her mouth drifted open, her attention entirely focused on the job at hand as she applied a coat of mascara she most definitely did not need. Long lashes, just as dark as her hair, framed the intensity of her green eyes.
The only thing covering that delicious body was a towel, the tiny scrap of material wrapped under her arms. It came to her thighs, but since she was bending over the counter, it just skimmed the bottom of that glorious ass.
And those legs…
Those legs.
So fucking long and every kind of sexy. I wanted to live in them, wrapped up in them, lost in them.
God, she was impossible. A miracle.
And just like that, I grew hard, standing there in nothing as I looked on my girl from across the steamy room.
Moisture clung to the walls, her skin dampened from her shower, her hair wet and dark and clinging to her shoulders and back.
Through the mirror, Aly caught my eye. Her gaze drifted down, me standing there watching her, her watching me.
Need vibrated my body.
Pretty sure I would be content to spend the rest of my life coming home to this.
Exactly this.
My girl standing there. Ready for me.
I stalked up behind her, my hands impatient as they found her waist. I tucked my hips against her ass, my cock trapped between us.
I placed a gentle kiss on her spine right between her shoulder blades, that gentle action at complete odds with the intense urge I had to devour her.
Chills started there, beneath my mouth. A rush of goose bumps lifted on her back and spread in a slow blaze across her skin.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Aly accused softly, hoarsely. Her hand trembled as she set the mascara aside. She stared at me through the mirror, a flame of desire lighting in her eyes.
I smoothed my hands up her sides, back down to grasp her by the hips. I yanked her to me, making her squirm against the force of my erection.
“I think the better question would be, what do you think you’re doing?” I buried my face in her hair, nudging the locks aside with my nose, and whispered close to her ear. “Teasing me like this…” I splayed my hands wide across her ass. “Do you have any idea how temping it is finding you standing here like this… knowing what’s hidden under this flimsy cover?”
Knowing how good it was going to feel when I uncovered it.
“I’m getting ready to go out… not teasing you. You do remember we’re supposed to meet my brother, right?” Aly was shooting for indifference, I knew, like she could brush me off, pretend I didn’t affect her every bit as much as she affected me. But her voice wavered and cracked, deepened and dove as I pulled her closer to me.
“I have to disagree, Aly,” I murmured low, my hands exploring the front of her thighs, my thumbs teasing up under the fabric. “I think you knew exactly what finding you this way was going to do to me.”
Just her being in the room was a tease.
Torture, really.
Desire throbbed, twisted and curled.
And right then, all tight up against Aly’s body? Any plans we had became nothing but a distant memory.
“I might have blanked on meeting up with your brother, baby,” I said as my fingers continued their journey, sliding around to brush along the back of her thighs where they met the curve of her perfect ass. “Pretty sure Christopher will understand if we’re late.”
Aly giggled through a moan as I pressed myself to her back. “Jared,” she whispered on a sigh.
“Do you feel that, Aly? What you do to me? I didn’t even have to touch you…”
Because the girl managed to touch me from across the room.
I slipped my hands around her front, over the tiny bump on her stomach. She’d just begun to show, the smallest hint of the child that grew within her, a subtle widening below her belly button. For a moment, I cupped it, my fingers spread wide. Something like pride filled me, awe and fear and devotion. My pulse stuttered when I met Aly’s unfailing gaze in the mirror, her th
oughts matching mine as they played through her trusting eyes.
We were doing this together. All of it.
My family.
A bolt of fiery energy hit me, all these thoughts burning through my veins. All the things I wanted for our lives. The man I wanted to be.
Aly made me that way. Different. Better.
Lately I’d almost been feeling like him, like who I wanted to be. Providing for my family. Taking care of them. Protecting them.
I’d be doing it for all my life, because I didn’t have one without this girl.
A spiral of need twisted through me like a raging storm, passion and desire and lust. It wound with the commitment I had for her, like they were one and the same, this consuming hunger that made Aly everything.
I had to have her.
My palms pressed in as they roamed up, her ribs prominent where I caressed them with my firm hands. I palmed her breasts over the plush white fabric.
Aly whimpered.
I released the little knot, baring them, all that creamy flesh exposed.
“Shit, Aly, you’re beautiful. So fucking perfect.”
Aly took in what was captured in the mirror, the portrayal of perfection, the way I saw her every time I looked at her.
A soft moan rolled from her as she watched me, as she watched me dip down and kiss the side of her neck while I flicked my thumbs over the taut peaks of her nipples, while I plumped the heavy weight of her breasts in my hands. I brushed my lips along the shell of her ear, never leaving her eyes as I showered her in adoration, as I kissed and sucked, my mouth at her jaw, at the side of her mouth, at the cap of that sexy shoulder.
Through the hazy glass, her eyes flitted up to mine. A tremor of need rocked through her. “Jared, you don’t… You have no idea what you do to me. How badly I want you… every day.”
Aly’d braced herself on the counter, her palms flat. Mine wandered, sliding up over her shoulders, all the way down to her hands. I took her by them, shackling her wrists as I urged her up against the wall next to the counter. I flattened her chest against it, pinned her arms above her head.
Her hair was all in my face, her cheek pressed to the wall. “Jared.” It was a whimper, a moan, a plea.
I groaned.
Taking her wrists in one hand, I let the other trail the contours of the endless expanse of soft skin, back over her breast, down the slope of her side, to her full hip. My fingers sank in. “Baby, I need you.”
“Always,” was her answer.
I took my dick in my hand, positioned myself behind her. I wedged my knee between her legs, forcing them apart, nudging her feet back.
Goddamn… she was gorgeous, the deep curve of her back jutting out that glorious ass. Hair fell all around her, tumbling over her shoulders and down her back.
Coconut.
Fuck, she always smelled like coconut, like girl and good and everything in this world that meant anything.
Voracious, I wanted to consume every inch of her, have all of her.
I brushed my fingertips between her legs, the folds slick and wet and scorching hot. I edged forward, poised at her eager center. I let my aching head slip into the welcome of her warmth.
Aly fucking shook.
Shit.
This girl was too much, every time, every second. There was nothing I could do to control the way she spun me up and strung me out, stretched me thin.
“Aleena.” I rocked into her, hard, giving it all.
Taking it all.
A rigid gasp shot from her. She fisted her hands in my unyielding hold. I kept her pinned to the wall. My free hand drifted, exploring every inch of her body, smoothing along her front, her muscles flexing and bowing as I filled her fast and deep. Again and again. Clutching her hip, I kneaded the soft skin, the creamy flesh, my fingers an anchor as they burrowed in, staking this claim that had overtaken my heart.
The girl was mine.
I took her hard, making her moan and writhe and beg my name. My hips jerked, coming flush to that perfect round bottom every time I buried myself in her.
Pleasure fisted my stomach. My mouth came to her ear, my voice fierce and desperate as I drove into her. “One of these days I’m going to make that sweet little ass mine,” I warned, sure it was true. Damn, I wanted all of her. Every inch. To somehow be everywhere. My skin and her flesh, a vain attempt at satisfying this hunger that would never be sated.
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 breasts, 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 fucked 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, fucking perfect in every way.
“Come for me, baby,” I demanded at her ear.
Aly convulsed, tightened on my cock as she bowed back, her hair and her face and fucking 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.
Come to Me Softly Page 19