Fucker had apparently missed the memo.
He dropped her hand like a stone. I watched him squirm in discomfort. I couldn’t help but get some kind of morbid satisfaction out of it.
Still, he stayed, talking to her. Aly blinked, and I was doing my best to decipher their conversation, because I couldn’t imagine one thing Aly needed to say to him.
What it was about him, I didn’t know, except for the fact he wanted my girl.
Hell, half the guys here wanted her. I knew it. I could see it written all over their faces, the way their fingers would twitch and their throats would bob whenever she came near.
She was a fucking knockout.
Gorgeous.
I doubted there was a guy here who hadn’t had thoughts straying that direction.
But something about Dickhead made me crazy with jealousy.
Just because he hadn’t gotten that far didn’t mean he hadn’t been anywhere. And the thought of anyone else’s hands on Aly made my blood boil. His mouth had been on what was mine. He’d touched and explored and hoped he’d have half a chance with her.
I bet the asshole spent half his time stroking his dick, thinking about her.
“What a douche bag.” Incredulous, Christopher continued, watching them as closely as I was. “The guy is more shameless than I ever gave him credit for. Aly with a ring on her finger and a baby in her belly, and he’s still looking at her like he wants to eat her.”
Yeah. And I’d knock all his fucking teeth out.
Christopher laughed. “You’d better go on and get your girl before you crawl right the fuck out of your skin. Last thing I need is to drag your ass out of here after you incite a brawl.”
I smirked back him. I was already on my way.
I slinked past a group of girls who crowded the way. Rounding around the back, I inched up behind her. My hand slipped around her waist, all too hasty to flatten my body to her back. Pulling her close, I met his eye from over her shoulder.
Hatred flashed on his face, before Dickhead reeled it in. Then he tossed me an arrogant smile. “Hey, man.”
“How’s it going?” I lifted my chin in my own silent sneer.
That’s right, asshole.
Mine.
And fuck, I didn’t pretend not to know what I was doing. Claiming her. Marking her.
Unease shifted his feet and flared his nostrils.
Dickhead deserved it, too, making me squirm that night months ago when he’d been locked up behind her door, driving me straight out of my goddamned mind, not knowing what was happening or what was being said. He’d come looking to reconcile, wondering what had gone wrong between the two of them. Aly had taken him into her room to talk. Him being alone with her had driven me crazy. At that time, Aly and I had been messing around, touching, feeling, kissing. No sex. That had been the rule.
But that night I’d snapped. Tripped.
Right into ecstasy.
It was the night I finally accepted there was no stopping what was happening between Aly and me.
It was the night I’d taken it all. Aly had given herself to me. Gave me what no one else had ever had. Sarcastic laughter caught in my throat. Guess I should be thanking him for pushing us over the edge.
Dickhead shrugged it off, like it didn’t matter at all. Like he could pretend none of this mattered anything to him.
But I saw it all there, witnessed it where it was written across his face.
“It was great to see you, Aly. I’m sure I’ll talk to you soon,” he said with a nonchalant lift of his shoulder as he backed away. His eyes made another pass down the length of her body.
“Yeah, I’ll see you around,” she returned.
Darkness shrouded the room. I stared up at the shadows on the ceiling. I’d been awake for hours. There was nothing I could do to settle or quiet my mind. Couldn’t still the agitation twitching all the muscles in my body.
Wind howled. Branches screeched along the outside wall, and a faint rim of light flicked shadows through our bedroom window. Winter battered the desert city on cold gusts of air, the sky inky and clear. There would be no rain or snow. No relief for the dried-up ground.
And there would be no relief for what haunted me tonight.
Aly stirred at my side where she slept. A soft breath of air parted her lips. All that silken hair was strewn out on our bed, a single bare shoulder exposed where she rested on her side, facing me. I looked down at her angel face. I traced the sharp cut of her chin and across the defined angle of her high cheekbones.
Yet everything about her was soft.
The hardness of me always seemed a contradiction.
But still we always seemed to fit.
Doubt fluttered into my consciousness and mingled with the guilt.
Christopher’s concern had gotten under my skin. Gabe’s presence had irritated it like a little piece of sand.
In the shadows, I lifted my hand, stared at the numbers stamped on my knuckles. I fisted it, wishing for a way to erase it.
A way to erase who I was.
God. I just wanted to be free.
To forget it all.
Aly burrowed into my chest. Her naked flesh burned into mine. She singed me. Made me forget my name and made me lose my mind.
Allowed me escape.
A way to shun the pain and neglect my shame.
That was what I had to hold on to. Not the fucked-up questions brewing in my head, the ones Christopher had planted there.
A blink of light lit up on Aly’s nightstand. A silent text illuminated her phone.
I smiled a little to myself.
Had to be Christopher. At half past three in the morning, no less. He’d probably gotten himself into trouble. I was betting my phone would ring in about fifteen seconds with him asking me to come bail him out of whatever he’d gotten himself into.
Instead Aly’s lit again.
Then again.
Unease twisted through me. Carefully I stretched over her to retrieve it. I sat up in bed, careful not to disturb her. She just shifted to her stomach and turned her head the other direction.
I flicked my thumb over the faceplate.
Not Christopher.
And I knew I was intruding, reading Aly’s texts. But fuck, I couldn’t stop myself.
Can’t stop thinking about you after seeing you tonight.
Hatred flared like a sickness clawing at the inside of my stomach.
Instinctively, I scrolled through the feed.
What are you thinking, Aly? Is this really what you want?
I crushed her phone in my grip.
You can’t want that, Aly. That life? That guy? What happened to you? What happened to the girl I knew? We had a good thing and you’re wasting it on him? I should never have just walked away. I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder.
My vision clouded.
I know you have to feel trapped. I promised you a long time ago I wasn’t giving up on us. I’m still not.
I swallowed the lump wedged in my throat. Shaking. Fucking shaking. The good-guy act perfected, playing me out to be the bad guy when he knew nothing about how much Aly meant to me. Fucking asshole. What did he think? That I’d let him have her? Give her up? Not a fucking chance.
I scrubbed my palm over my face, trying to break up the nerves, trying to clear my narrowed sight.
Another text came through.
The baby thing, it’s weird. I admit it. But I can get past it. Just call me. Let me help you.
The baby thing? He could get past it?
Rage simmered in my blood. A steady build that just about hit an all-out boil. I ground my teeth as I squeezed Aly’s phone in my hand, the other fisting tufts of my hair as I fought with the impulse to throw her phone against the wall, and I had the sudden undeniable urge to hear glass shatter. I tried to shun the compulsion to jump to my feet, did my best to ignore the desire to seek out a release, the moment’s reprieve I’d find in the destruction, my fists lost in a fury as I buried them again and again in the wall
.
Or better yet, buried them in his face.
I swallowed hard, staring at the screen as I tapped out a return. My hands trembled, and my fingers fumbled across the plate.
Shit.
Stay the fuck away from my girl. I won’t ask you twice.
I gritted my teeth as I pushed send.
Minutes passed while I sat there seething, waiting for a response.
Daring him for one.
The coward gave me none.
Her phone sat silent while I struggled to breathe.
Did it make me an asshole that I read her messages? I mean, I wouldn’t think twice about Aly picking up my phone. I had nothing to hide. She already knew every distasteful blemish tainting my soul.
Still, I found myself going through and deleting the messages from Aly’s phone.
And I felt like shit, like a bastard for taking the coward’s road, too.
But I couldn’t stand the idea of Aly reading this.
Not from him.
Not when she was my all.
I would do whatever it took to protect that, to keep her away from anything that would threaten to steal her away.
I wouldn’t let it happen. Couldn’t.
Urges hit me hard. I wanted to forget. Needed her touch and her hand, her soft whispers that seeped like a tonic through my veins and poured directly into my soul.
I dove my fingers and my nose into her hair. Coconut filled my senses, that fucking trigger lighting me like a match.
Aly moaned, an incoherent fluttering from her spirit easing from her mouth.
Led, she rolled onto her back, like she was just as powerless to this need as me. Dependent.
Addicted.
Her eyes flew open to the deepest night. She looked at me hovering above her, confusion in the depths of her searing green eyes. A lick of fear. A rush of desire.
I nestled between her thighs.
A deep groan rumbled from my chest as I rocked into her with one deep thrust.
And I took.
Rough. Hard. Demanding.
The sick part was she seemed just as desperate to give it to me as I was to take it from her.
Aly whimpered and in seconds shattered around me. Her nails cut into my skin. Pain pricked at the surface, and satisfaction rolled deep.
“You,” she whispered as she tipped up her hips to meet mine, driving me right to the edge sanity.
I felt it slip.
I roared when I came. “Aly.”
Frantically I gathered her in my arms. “I won’t ever let you go. Never,” I promised. It sounded too close to a threat.
“Never,” Aly assured. Soft fingers gentled through my hair.
Never.
SIXTEEN
Aleena
Rays of late-afternoon sun shined through the window, lighting up the small room. It glowed on the pale yellow walls, wrapped it in luminous warmth that I felt all the way to my bones.
I rubbed the fuzzy fleece blanket between two of my fingers. A smile lifted the edge of my mouth as I pressed it to my cheek. Anticipation hummed in my spirit.
“This room is going to be perfect, Aly.” Megan sat on the floor behind me, folding a pile of blankets and miniature pieces of clothing I couldn’t resist buying. Yesterday, I’d gone on some sort of pregnancy-brain-induced shopping spree, filling my cart full of small things that I wouldn’t need for another four months. This morning, after I’d washed it all, I’d texted Megan a proud picture of the heap in the middle of the floor. I’d captioned it My Tower of Tiny Treasures. Megan showed up unannounced about an hour later with a grin splitting her entire face, proclaiming I want to play.
Apparently baby clothes had some kind of compelling force over women of any age, because I was now hosting a family dinner tomorrow night because my mom wanted a good excuse to come over and play, too.
“Do you think so?” I asked. I cast an appreciative glance around the room.
Jared and I had painted the room over the last weekend. I’d picked a soft yellow color that showered the room in calm and peace. White crown molding capped off the room with a luxurious feel. It flowed perfectly, both comfortable and elegant.
Jared had surprised me by bringing home the white sleigh crib I’d been eyeing. It fit so perfectly into the room it appeared to have been cut from it, the carving almost an exact match of the molding cradling the walls overhead.
I leaned forward and placed the blanket in the crib, then glanced back at Megan.
Her ponytail bounced around as she shook her head like I’d lost a little piece of my mind. “Uh… yeah… I know so. What kid wouldn’t want to grow up with this being their room? It’s gorgeous. Hell, I’d move in if you’d let me.” She pitched an exaggerated wink in the direction of my ever-expanding belly. “That is if Itty Bitty wouldn’t mind sharing a room with me.”
Tiny teddy bears covered the onesie she held up in front of her. Carefully, she folded it into a little square, then reached for another one. We still didn’t know if this was a boy or a girl. And we wouldn’t. I didn’t want to. When I met my child for the first time the day he or she was born, I wanted it to be without expectations. All except for the one that I loved him or her with my entire heart.
“I wouldn’t make offers like that if I were you,” I warned with a sly smile in her direction. “A built-in babysitter is really kind of tempting. You’ll end up here at night watching this little thing instead of hanging out with Sam.”
“Ha. I’m going to have to force you out of this house once the baby is born. My bets go on you not wanting to let Itty out of your sight. I’ll be on my hands and knees begging for auntie time.” She offered a revealing smile, replete with widened eyes. “And believe me, I won’t be missing out on anything by losing time with Sam. What I was all spun up over that guy about, I have no clue.”
I piqued a curious brow. “Bored?”
She shrugged. “Bored… annoyed. Tired of him not showing up when he says he’s going to. I’m so over it. I deserve better than that.”
And I kind of wanted to pump my fist in the air. So I did. “Uh, yeah, you do.”
He’d been stringing her along for months, making promises the jerk was never going to keep.
Megan giggled through an uncontained grin. “Half the time I think he just shows up to some of the places I invite him to because Gabe is hoping you’re going to be around.”
I groaned. “Ugh… that guy is clueless. I mean, seriously…” I flashed my ring that Jared had placed on my finger three weeks ago. “You’d think this would be enough to convince him I’m not into him.” I flung my hands down, gesturing my annoyance toward my stomach. “And if that isn’t enough, then at least this is. I’m thinking these two scream spoken for.”
Megan’s giggle transformed into an outright laugh, loud and uncontrolled, and she listed to the side as she clutched her stomach. “You know he thinks you two are soul mates.”
“What?”
“Yep, that’s what Sam told me, anyway.”
“God, what an idiot.”
“Yep,” she said again, like I wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t thought.
I turned back to tucking the sheets into the crib mattress. My voice lowered. “Jared would lose his cool if he knew that. You should have seen him New Year’s Eve when Gabe showed up…” I shook my head. “If looks could kill and all that,” I said with a shudder.
Or if tension could strangle.
I was pretty sure if Gabe would have remained standing in front of us any longer, Jared would have snapped. And by snapped, I mean snapped Gabe’s neck. Five seconds after Gabe had walked away, Jared had hauled me out of the house and into the night. He’d seemed desperate to touch me. He always did, really, but this had been… different. Jared had woken me several times during the night with the same intensity, in some sort of aggrieved frenzy. Like he was somehow trying to shed his own skin and seep into mine.
That night it’d been the worst.
“Well, if
anyone could shoot deadly daggers, it’d be Jared.” Megan laughed quietly below her breath, so low she had to be talking to herself. “God, that is one scary man.”
“What?” I asked, because I suddenly heard her words in a way I never had before.
Megan’s head snapped up and her eyes went wide. “Oh shit, Aly. That came out wrong. I’m sorry.”
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