I swiped a single finger into the frosting again. This time I dipped it into her mouth. “Or like this.”
With her head tipped back on my shoulder, Aly sucked it clean, those green eyes watching me watching her.
Lust twisted me in the tightest knot.
I groaned and Aly smiled, a little victorious and a whole lot sexy.
What had this girl done to me?
“I think you’d better stop. Megan will be here any minute and this cake should already be finished.” She uttered the warning with a shot of playfulness. It wasn’t close to being enough to cover up the need that thickened her voice.
I reached for the bowl. Megan could wait.
“Don’t you dare put your fingers in there again,” Aly mumbled through laughter, her hand clenching my hand to stop me. “You’ve already stuck your fingers in there enough that I should probably dump this out and start over.” She turned a little, nudging me back by pushing on my chest, though her fingers lingered a little longer, twisting a bit into my black tee. Her eyes gleamed with mirth. “Don’t you think you’ve contaminated it enough?”
“I doubt very much I’ve ever eaten a cake that someone didn’t snag a little taste of first. It’s expected.”
Aly cocked a challenging brow. Really?
“Okay, maybe under different circumstances.” I grabbed her hand, pressed it to my face, kissed her palm. “I say we just cancel the whole thing and see how creative we can get with this since I’ve already contaminated it.”
“Ha. Not a chance.” She smirked, and shook her head with a laugh. “Do you really think Megan would let us get away with that? She’d be over here banging our door down. You only turn twenty-one once. And the one thing my best friend asked me for was a party. So she gets a party.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know… today is Megan’s day,” I said, relenting. Never had a chance in the first place. My eyes made a pass over my girl. But hell, it was worth a try.
Caution transformed Aly’s expression, and she dropped those green eyes that always saw so much, that watched me and knew me and spoke to me.
With just the look, my chest tightened.
She chanced peeking up at me. “We have so much to celebrate, Jared. Not just Megan.”
Fear and anger collided. I forced them down, doing my best to keep my voice even. “Please don’t, Aly.”
Tuesday was my birthday. Four days away. It loomed like this omen I couldn’t shake.
And not a good one.
Aly gasped when I grabbed her around the waist and set her on the island countertop. I settled between her thighs, my cheek pressed to the rapid beat of her heart.
I knew what she was doing. What she wanted. But she kept asking for fucking impossible things. And God, I wanted to give her everything. Anything. But not this. “I won’t ever celebrate that day, Aly,” I mumbled into her shirt, away from her face where she couldn’t see me, close enough that she could understand. That she could feel. “You have to stop doing this to me, suggesting this shit that isn’t going to happen.”
Aly stilled in my firm hold.
Since I turned sixteen, my birthdays had come with destruction. I’d drown myself in the deepest bottle I could find. The day always ended with bloodshed, whether it was my own or caused by my hand. It was like I was called out into the night, seeking chaos. It was never hard to find. So many assholes were out there looking for the exact same thing.
But fuck, this year was going to be different. It had to be. This one would be spent with the girl, with the one who’d injected her light into me. Things had changed so drastically since she lit up my life.
But I sure as hell wasn’t going to be celebrating it.
All I could do was pray for it to pass, and when it finally did, that it would take all this fucking agitation that’d been simmering in me with it.
Aly shifted back to look at me. Compassion wove into her expression. She brushed her fingers through my hair that had gotten way too fucking long. “What do you say we just celebrate today?”
I reached out and held one side of her head. My hand covered most all of it, the silk of her hair weaving through my fingers the same way as she’d woven herself into my heart. I kissed her, softly, just a brush of my lips. “Yeah, let’s celebrate today.” I moved my hands to her belly. She was getting bigger now. Really showing. And damn, I’d been right. It was just a ball low in her stomach, the rest of her lean and long and fucking sexy as all hell. This girl just kept getting better and better. “Like you said, we have so many other things to celebrate.”
Aly set a hand over mine, pressing my hands a little firmer against her stomach. Tenderness spilled from her. Hopeful, she glanced up at me. “Do you feel that? The baby’s moving like crazy right now.”
I stilled, strained. Longing pulled at my heart. God, how badly I wanted to. To know my child. To see his or her face.
I smiled at her and slowly slid a single hand upward to the center of her chest. “No… not yet… but I can feel your heart beating.”
Redness settled on her cheeks, and I dropped my forehead to hers. For a few minutes, I lost myself in her.
The doorbell rang.
I groaned and Aly giggled. “It’s party time,” she sang with an obnoxious waggle of her eyebrows that was about the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen.
Aly tipped her head to the side. “Go answer that. I’m putting five bucks on Megan and I need to get this cake frosted before she sees it.”
I helped her down from the counter, making sure she was steady on her feet. Impatiently the doorbell rang twice in a row.
Striding toward the door, I glanced over my shoulder at Aly, who was slathering the remnants of my burst fantasy all over the waiting cake sitting on the opposite counter. “Stall her,” Aly mouthed, smiling proud.
God, I loved her.
I swung the door open to Megan. She was all dressed up, her blond hair set in these long, wavy curls, wearing jeans and heels and probably the biggest fucking smile I’d ever seen the girl wear. “Happy birthday, Megan,” I said, pulling her in for a quick hug.
“Hey, Jared.” She patted me on the shoulder. “How are you?”
“Pretty damned good.”
Aly’s voice bellowed behind us. “Happy birthday, Megan! Don’t move, I need to get this cake done and you’re not allowed to see it until I’m finished.”
Megan laughed and waved her off. “Pssh… I won’t look, I swear. Why don’t you put me to work instead?”
Megan tossed her purse to the couch.
Aly smiled across at her. “Fine… but no peeking. But I can use some help. There are some veggies and dip and chips and stuff that need to be set out. You want to handle that?”
“On it,” Megan said. She smoothed out her shirt and stood tall, like she’d just put on her work face.
Laughing a little, I grinned across at my girl. “What else do you need done, baby?”
“Just the backyard stuff.”
I crossed into the kitchen and dropped a swift kiss to her forehead. “Is that your way of trying to get rid of me?”
“Never,” Aly said at the same time as Megan said, “Yes.”
A short giggle escaped Aly, and she hiked up on her toes and planted a playful kiss to my lips. “I think we just need some girl-talk time before everyone else gets here. And outside work is” – her eyes widened in emphasis – “man work.”
My head cocked. “Man work?”
“What, do you want your pregnant girlfriend hauling wood and lighting fires?”
“Pregnant fiancée, almost wife,” I corrected. “Big difference.”
She squeezed my jaw. “Fine… Do you want your pregnant fiancée, almost wife hauling wood?”
I wrapped my arms around her expanding waist, rocked her in the middle of our floor, kissed her a little deeper than was entirely appropriate for a witness.
But hey. She was asking for it.
Pretty sure she was begging for it.
&nbs
p; “No, I definitely do not want you out hauling wood.” With a smirk, I stepped back. “I’ll just leave you two to the kitchen.”
Megan beaned me in the head with a baby carrot.
“Ow!” I lifted my arm to shield myself from the next that flew through the air as she pelted me again.
Megan was grinning hard. “You’d better be watching yourself there, Jared Holt. That’s some hot water you’re dipping your toes into. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to mess with a pregnant woman?”
“Yeah,” Aly shot back in defiance, doing her best to muster a look of offense, as if the girl could be angry for a second of her life.
“Fine, mama bear,” I baited through the smile pushing to my mouth. I dipped in for another kiss. “I’ll be outside. You let me know whatever you need me to do.”
Soft affection passed between us as I slid open the back door.
I escaped outside, narrowly missing whatever gossip began to spew from Megan’s mouth.
That’s really what the backyard had become.
An escape.
I came out here when my thoughts got too thick. Out back here, in our small patch of desert, I could work through them, sifting through all the bullshit.
Crazy thing was those thoughts always ended up in one place. On the girl inside.
Tonight the air was cool. Twilight stretched its fingers across the sky, light blues and a stark white hanging on to the horizon as the sun disappeared. Faint stars began to blink high in the sky as it deepened to dark.
I finished stocking the coolers with beer. I broke up little pieces of wood into kindling, and piled them into the fire pit I’d installed off to one side of the yard.
I got to one knee, my head craned over as I flicked my lighter against the wadded-up pieces of newspaper I used as a starter. Instantly, a flame consumed the paper. I blew on it, urging it to spread.
The back door slid open behind me.
“Hey, man, what’s up?”
I looked over my shoulder.
Christopher stepped out with a huge-ass grin on his face. He dove a hand through his hair, then shook the mess free as he closed the door behind him.
“Just getting this started… supposed to be chilly tonight.”
He laughed, though it sounded too low. “Playing with fire. Always fucking playing with fire.”
I glared at him. Fucking smartass.
Pissed me off he was always treading so close to the truth. I gestured to the woodpile I had stacked up against the back wall. “Make yourself useful and bring me some wood, would you?”
“Not a problem.”
Christopher crossed to the far end of the yard, stacked a few pieces of wood in his arms, and lugged them back over to the fire. He dropped them unceremoniously next to the pit.
“Thanks.” Sarcasm lifted my brow as I grabbed the smallest one and wedged it over the growing flames.
He cackled, all raucous and loud. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“Asshole,” I mumbled the slur, unable to stop my smile. God, this guy. Didn’t know how I got through all those years without him around to razz my ass. He’d started to feel like a necessity, like something fundamental would be missing if I didn’t have him there to give me a hard time.
Laughing, he traipsed over to the cooler. “Want a beer?”
“That’d be cool.”
I poked at the fire, stirring it up. Flames took hold of the splintered, dried wood and rose up to hug the log.
Glass clinked behind me as Christopher dug through the cooler. Five seconds later, he handed me a beer. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” I twisted the cap and tipped my neck to Christopher’s.
He flopped down into one of the chairs surrounding the fire.
Taking a long pull, I stared into the dancing fire.
“God, I love this kind of night,” Christopher said with a heavy sigh. Lifting his bottle to his mouth, he settled back, stared up at the unending sky. “So fucking quiet. Calm. Like nothing else in this world matters.”
My eyebrows climbed toward my hair, though I was feeling so much the same. “Dude, when did you get all sentimental on my ass?”
He laughed, scrubbed a hand over his face, his own taunt muting out the seriousness. “Apparently when you knocked up my little sister.”
I grinned. “You aren’t ever going to let me live that down, are you?” It was said as if it were a minor glitch. As if Aly and me colliding hadn’t shifted our worlds. Like that baby growing in her hadn’t become our lives.
“Uh, yeah, probably never,” Christopher said pointedly with a shake of his head, snickering below his breath as he lifted his beer to his mouth.
Movement caught my eye behind me. I looked through the windows to where the house was all lit up within. The front door opened, and the first of Megan’s guests poured into our house.
The house slowly filled up. Voices began to echo from inside and out back. Night slowly took hold on the city, a mild chill pressing down from above. When inside finally maxed out on capacity, people began to overflow into the backyard, where Christopher and I watched over the growing party. We kept the cooler stocked and the fire stoked, letting Aly and her friends do their thing.
Didn’t mean I didn’t keep glancing at Aly or that Aly didn’t keep glancing at me. Our attention was always on the other while she made her rounds and entertained her guests. But it was like we revolved around the other, gentle brushes of hands and deeper connections of eyes.
I could never get close enough.
She spun me up, wrapped me tight, left me completely undone.
That smile… that smile kept slamming me, hitting me right in the center of my chest every time she cast it my direction.
It took Christopher about half an hour to find his next pawn in whatever fucked-up game he played. This girl was tall with huge tits that I was pretty damned sure were real, all wrapped up in a gorgeous face hidden behind a shy smile.
I wondered how pissed off he’d be if I warned her, told her to get the hell out of here before she fell victim to his prey. She looked way more unsuspecting than the type of girl he usually went for, and something about that just didn’t sit right.
Night deepened and wind gusted in. People gathered around the fire, laughing and messing around as they vied for a better position to keep them warm.
I put a couple more logs on it, figured if I was going to build it, I might as well do it up right.
Flames licked up, popped and cracked, glowing warm against our faces as the fire grew higher, stretching for the sky.
“Ah, now that’s a fire,” Christopher called from where he sat, the blonde perched on his knee. She held her palms up in front of her, glancing back at him with a timid smile when he squeezed her thigh.
“I aim to please.”
Laughter mingled through the conversations in our backyard. The party was easy. Voices grew louder as the night progressed and more drinks were consumed, the party coming to fruition as the mood heightened.
Megan laughed hysterically when Aly came outside bearing her cake, twenty-one tall pink candles blazing, matching the beat of the fire.
“Oh my God, that is the best cake ever!” she squealed. Megan had definitely been living it up tonight, doing rounds of shots with her friends while Aly watched on with an amused smile. Megan just kept getting tipsier and tipsier by the minute.
Everyone gathered around the small table where Aly carefully set the cake.
They all belted out “Happy Birthday.” Half the backyard sang off key, their voices discordant. Whistles rang out and Megan ducked down and blew out her candles, wished for whatever desires she kept hidden inside. She doused them in one swoop. With a sloppy grin shot in the direction of Aly, she pumped her fist in the air and yelled, “Woohoo… no more lame boyfriends for me!”
Aly laughed outright, loud and free.
Off to the side of the crowd, I smiled a little, brushed my hair back, sipped my beer.
I went
back to tending the fire. Feeling fucking good.
Even with my own birthday looming just days away, I felt good.
Joy swelled around the edges of my heart.
The reason for that joy wrapped her slender arms around me from behind. “There’s my man.”
Peace pumped like the beat of blood through my veins.
She nudged her head under my arm and poked around my side to face the fire. With a short chuckle, I wound my arm over her shoulders. Both her arms were wrapped tightly around me, held snug at my front, the two of us in this awkward embrace as we swayed in front of the fire.
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