I ran a tender hand over the small protrusion of my belly, my smile soft as I glanced down. Well, maybe not the best.
But close.
“Yes, we do,” Jared whispered back, holding the phone away from his ear. He spoke toward the receiver, to me, to Christopher, like he was letting it be known. “It’s just me and Aly Tuesday night, Christopher. Sorry, dude, no offense, but there’s absolutely nothing you can say to change what I have planned.”
My heart swelled, throbbed and pulsed and raced.
How much did I love this man?
I bit my lip, trying to cover up the huge smile that worked to break free from my mouth.
Christopher cracked some joke I could barely catch.
Jared rolled his eyes my direction. “Whatever, man.”
Jared laughed, listened, shook his head.
“Your brother’s such a dickhead.” Jared staged the whisper, just loud enough for Christopher to hear.
Christopher scoffed, lifting his voice and shouting into the phone so I could hear. “Fine, Aly, choose this asshole over me.”
“That’s because she’s mine,” Jared shot back. “Get over it.”
I giggled because it felt good, the two most important men in my life fighting over me, their banter light and full of ease. Contentment glowed bright.
I loved my life.
I felt complete.
Whole.
Jared softened, nodding at whatever Christopher said. “All right… yeah… of course I will… okay, I’ll talk to you later.” Jared paused, his ear craned toward the phone, but his attention entirely trained on me. A smile lit his face. “Yeah, you too, man. Thanks… bye.”
Jared ended the call and tossed my phone to the cushion beside me. He crawled the rest of the way over. Kneeling in front of the couch, he grabbed me by the outside of my thighs and pulled me to the edge.
“What was that, what Christopher just said?” I asked, searching his face.
Jared’s teeth clamped down on his bottom lip. The skin blanched. Ice blue eyes glimmered with the unknown.
Waves of warmth skimmed along my skin.
“It was nothin’,” he said, too low and too severe for it to be true.
Jared edged back a fraction. He ran the back of his hand down my face, palmed my neck as he stared at me, searching. His thumb ran the length of my jaw, somehow shaky and unsure. “Is that okay, baby, that I made plans for us? I don’t want to do all that party shit. I just want to spend the night with my girl. Alone.”
Rapidly he blinked, and I watched the thick knot in his throat bob as he swallowed hard.
I brushed my fingers through the short length of his hair, then dragged them down his rugged face. For a flash, Jared’s eyes dropped closed. I let my fingers linger on his full lips. “I can’t think of any better way to spend the New Year. Just you and me,” I murmured.
He slowly opened to me, accepting my answer for the truth it was.
Gently, Jared kissed the tips of my fingers, the softness of his tongue flicking out to meet my skin.
Jared slipped his hands down my sides and found the hem of my tank. Intently he watched me as he nudged it up a few inches, exposing our tiny bump. He trailed circles on my flesh. Goose bumps flashed, and I trembled.
Leaning in, he pressed the softest kiss to my belly, his voice hoarse.
“Good, because I wouldn’t have taken no for an answer.”
Below us, the deep valley was lit up in the city’s glow, a bed of twinkling lights stretched out as far as we could see. Above us, a shimmer of stars blanketed the impenetrable, darkened sky.
Somehow, Jared and I seemed suspended in an unknown world lost somewhere in between.
Cold air gusted in. It lashed at my hair, stirring up the long strands. They thrashed at my shoulders, whipped at my face, uncontrolled, just as uncontrolled as the thundered pulse battering my ribs.
I was pretty sure Jared had staged an assault in my heart.
Yet I felt so safe.
Nothing in this world could touch me. Nothing. No one.
No one except for the man holding me in the haven of his arms.
He managed to pull me a little closer. “Are you cold, baby?” he whispered from behind. We were nestled on the bed of blankets he made, the two of us completely cocooned in a thick comforter. Unyielding, he held me tight, firm and unwavering, his body a rock of support behind mine. He tucked his chin over my shoulder and feathered a row of kisses on my jaw.
His heavy breaths panted out into the night air, filling up my senses as I drew him in. As I rested in his warmth.
“Mmm,” I managed through a small moan. “Perfect.”
So maybe I was a little cold.
But I wouldn’t trade this moment for anything.
Like he’d just read my thoughts, he bundled us tighter in the blanket to deflect more of the cold.
“I can’t believe how beautiful it is up here.” I’d told him before, the first time he brought me to this place.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised we’d return, that this was the spot Jared had chosen for us to ring in the New Year.
South Mountain.
It overlooked the breathtaking expanse of the sprawling city below. But more important than that was the fact it was the place that had meant so much to him as a child, an integral piece of those memories.
The same place he had ventured to bring me all those months ago.
Again, he wanted to share it with me.
Of course, we had to sneak up here tonight. Jared had parked my car off the side of one of the dirt roads at the base of the mountain where it was being developed, the main park closed off for the night.
I’d felt light as he’d wrapped my hand in his, both of us giggling and feeling so free as we stole our way up the mountain to find the deserted path Jared had scoped out a few days before. I loved knowing we’d be completely alone, loved the feeling of Jared whisking me away to a place he’d reserved only for us.
I ran my fingers over the backs of the hands that held me close. Night had taken hold, deep and dark, the half-moon barely enough to illuminate the sharp lines of his face. “Do you remember the last time you brought me up here?” I asked.
He snorted a little. “How could I forget?” He snuggled closer, his nose weaving through my hair as he breathed me in, as if it was the breath that sustained his life. “You on my bike… those legs wrapped around me…” I felt the affected grin push to his mouth. “One of the best fucking days of my life. God, Aly, I wanted you so badly I thought I was going to lose my goddamned mind.”
I rolled my head back on his shoulder, looking up at him. His eyes glinted in the faint light, all soft and affectionate, lost to those days that had been so unsure.
“You had me the next night.”
He nuzzled my temple, chuckling beneath his heated breath. “Now that was the best fucking day of my life.”
I giggled and snuggled closer.
“I never stopped wanting you… not for a second… never gonna stop, either,” he mumbled out on a flood of words he whispered against my skin.
Tingles spread.
I bit at my lip, a rush of joy speeding through my veins, infiltrating every cell. “Good, because I’m not going to let you go.”
A sharp bite of cold air blew across the desert rim, and he hugged me, like he was affirming the statement I’d just made. Silence overtook us, the extreme beauty of the night not coming close to the beauty Jared and I shared.
A roll of agitation curled through Jared. “I wanted to bring you up here for a reason, Aly. So much has changed since the first time we came here.” He shook his head against all the doubts. I could feel them, like an unseen plague, festering. But as strong as they were, I could feel Jared fighting them. Fighting for us.
“God, I was so confused. Always in this fucked-up war with myself, hating what I felt for you. Trying to pretend like you and I weren’t meant to be together. All I knew then was I needed to see you in
this place. Some of the best memories of my life were made here and I somehow wanted to make you a part of it. Now I know why I needed to bring you here the first time.”
His chin dug further into my neck, his face pressed right up against my jaw. He ran his cold nose along it. Chills slipped down my spine. Comfort and unease. Like I could feel it, the inundating well of emotion that had built inside of Jared.
I knew he was getting ready to pour it out on me.
And I ached for it, for more, for him to press his mouth there instead, to lay me down and to love me under the stars.
Mostly I ached for his words, for him to open up to me, to show me more.
I knew the man still hid so much pain inside.
I clenched his hands in mine, clinging to him, begging him silently to continue.
“There was no stopping it… the way you worked yourself right into my heart. You took it over, Aly. You made me feel something real again when I believed all I could feel was hate.” Jared’s tone shifted just the same as his demeanor, almost desperate in its emphasis. “I can’t live without you, baby… can’t sleep without you… can’t breathe without you.”
My pulse escalated with the palpable rise of his. His heart beat erratically where it pounded against my back. He sucked in a shaky breath and unwound himself from the blanket. Cautiously, he stood, never releasing my hand. He looked out on the blackened horizon, over the vast sea of lights. “It’s getting close.”
An uproar echoed from afar, horns and the faint shout of voices, the pop of small fireworks being lit from backyards, the rise in excitement.
Jared helped me to my feet, making sure to keep the blanket secure around my shoulders. Wrapping me in his arms, he brought us cheek to cheek and turned to face us out over the city that harbored so many of our memories.
The place where we were building more.
Jared dug his phone from his pocket and swiped the screen.
The countdown rolled on, this past year that had changed the direction of my life coming to an end.
He gathered me up tight. His voice came as a soft rasp, like a promise at my ear. “Five… four… three…”
With each number that fell from his tongue, his voice dropped lower, the tone twisting through me with a frenzy of anticipation. With all our hopes and dreams.
“Two…”
Jared dropped his phone to the ground. He rested his forehead against mine and framed my face in his big, gentle hands.
“One.”
I jumped with the loud boom.
I was sure I felt it all the way in my soul, the flare of firework colors that flashed, climbing toward the sky. The ripples of energy vibrated all the way to my bones the second Jared’s mouth overtook mine.
He kissed me passionately, with all of him, demanding all of me. Lips tugged at mine, suckling at the top before turning to the bottom, making a firm pass over the top again. He just teased me with his tongue, the faintest whisper of wet.
Jared’s hands held fast.
The sky lit in a barrage of color that reflected against our skin, beating at the lids of my closed eyes, like flashes of our future, like a vow had been spoken between us.
Jared pulled back, still holding my face. Fiercely. Fervently.
“Are you going to marry me, Aly Moore?”
Hopeful blue eyes looked down on me.
I froze with the shock. The question collided with my spirit. Flames of hope blazed within me. Tears welled, and I blinked through the blurriness, praying Jared really meant what he asked.
“Jared?” It scraped from my throat with all the love I had for this man.
He dropped to his knee.
My hand shot to my mouth to cover the sob that gathered in my tightened chest. The blanket fell free and pooled at my feet.
The fiercest squall of wind gusted in. Cold lapped at my skin while I remained submerged in the warmth of Jared’s unflinching gaze. The faint moonlight illuminated the contours of his face, the sharp angles and planes, all that coarse beauty staring up at me.
He wet his lips, and slipped his hand in his pocket. He shook when he withdrew the treasure he had hidden inside.
Light glinted on the diamond set at the center of the ring.
And I was sure my heart would explode because he’d filled it so full.
Burst.
He took my shaky hand in his.
On the wind, Jared whispered his praise.
“Aleena…”
I watched him swallow down the emotion that thickened in his throat. “Tell me you want to spend your life with me, and I promise to give you mine.”
“Oh my God… Jared…” Tears streaked down my face, hot and fast and hard. They dripped from my chin as I nodded. “Oh my God, yes. Yes.”
Yes.
How could I want anything else?
Jared slid the ring onto my finger.
A rattled sob escaped my mouth, something like relief and shock and this undying love that I kept for this man.
I was overcome.
Slowly, Jared stood, his movements slow but sure. He lifted me from my feet and into his arms. I clung to his neck, and I buried my face in the warmth. Slowly he spun us, loved me in the slowest dance, my feet dangling two inches from the ground. His mouth was at my ear. “Won’t ever let you go, Aly. I promise, I won’t ever let you go.”
FIFTEEN
Jared
I was never going to let her go.
I turned right onto the narrow neighborhood street. A ramble of older houses sat close to the road, barely a breath between them, the road cramped with what had to be a hundred cars lining each side. Timothy’s house was lit up like a Christmas tree, white twinkle lights strung up everywhere, a haphazard jumble strewn in the trees and across the face of the house. People poured out the front door and onto the lawn, undoubtedly because they all couldn’t fit inside. Hands boasted red cups and bottles, too loud voices and too loud music thumping against Aly’s little car as we slowly passed by.
“You sure you want to go in there?” I asked, trying to untwist the frown that took a deep seat between my eyes.
New Year’s Eve on a college street.
Now that was just a straight-out mess, a disaster waiting to happen.
No, thank you.
But it hadn’t taken her much to get me to head over here.
When we got back into the car after climbing the short distance back down the mountain, Aly had inspected her ring in the overhead light for about five minutes straight.
Then she’d called her mom. Guess she figured her mom would still be awake on New Year’s Eve, and if she wasn’t, Aly didn’t seem all too worried about waking her up. It’d been crazy listening to Aly talking to her, the thrill in her voice and the tenderness in her words. The joy.
Karen had asked to talk to me. She told me thank you, told me she already considered me a son. Her statement came like a double-edged sword, like fucking torment as it cut me through, then washed over me like some kind of astonishing consolation.
I cut my gaze to Aly. She looked over at me with a huge-ass grin owning that gorgeous face.
Once she’d stopped crying, she hadn’t stopped smiling.
Joy lit a frenzy in my chest. The girl made me insane with it, a fray of nerves that clashed, all this fucking ecstasy and fear and need that all added up to her, added up to her happiness and everything I wanted to give her because she’d given me everything.
After tonight, after the promise we made, I hated the thought of taking her through that door. I didn’t want to be here.
At. Fucking. All.
The only thing I had on my mind was getting this girl home and getting her laid out on our bed.
But I got it. Aly wanted to announce it to her friends. To her brother. Part of me wanted to scream it, too.
I mean, fuck.
I raked an uneasy hand through my hair.
Why the hell did I want that ring on her finger in the first place? I already knew she was mine. I
just figured it was about time the whole damn world knew it.
A rash of memories stirred through my spirit, my mother’s voice a warning in my ear.
I was a fool if I thought that was all. I knew what it meant, me asking Aly for forever.
My mom had been pretty open-minded, did her best at teaching me not to judge, to be tolerant and let people live out their lives the way they saw fit. But she taught me that some things were special, too. Sanctified. That marriage wasn’t a fucking joke like so many treated it. It wasn’t something to be wasted, wasn’t a test or a trial, even though she made sure I knew marriage would be full of them.
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