Come to Me Recklessly

by A. L. Jackson

  And God, I wanted to picture her happy, like she used to be, but she was standing there drowning in all the sadness I’d caused her. The tears and the hurt. The girl falling to pieces over her own broken heart.

  Softly I smiled, somehow hating her and still wishing there was a way I could take away all her pain.

  But there was not one fucking thing I could do. So I shut it off and turned back to Jasmine. I grabbed her hips hard and fucked her like she’d been begging me to for months.

  And for a few mindless minutes, skin was the only thing I felt.

  TWENTY

  Samantha

  Rattled, I stood staring at the closed door.

  I was tempted to run back through it.

  On the other side, I could hear the low rumble of his truck when he shifted into gear.

  I wanted him to stay.

  I needed him to go.

  To say my emotions were a mess was a gross understatement. I was a wreck.

  I’d woken up next to Christopher Moore. And God help me, the first few disoriented seconds were complete and utter bliss. The smooth, inked skin of his bare chest under my cheek, the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath my ear, and what felt like an endless expanse of rock-hard abs twitching under my roaming hand.

  Intoxicated, I’d buried my nose under his jaw, gorging myself on his smell, a lust-inducing euphoria clouding my head, coaxing me to drift into the warmth of his body.

  But all of that had only drawn attention to the excruciating need in mine, this undeniable burn seated deep between my thighs promising me everything would be just fine if I got a little closer.

  Awareness had come crashing in.

  Me curled up in his arms. In his bed. With a gaping blank spot in my memory.

  And he’d been aroused.

  Very glaringly so.

  At the memory, my stomach dipped and clenched.

  Right. And there was that.

  It had been enough to send me straight into panic mode.

  Ha. Panic mode. More like deranged-and-irrational-drunk-girl mode. So maybe Christopher had been joking when he was giving Aly crap that women shouldn’t drink, but I was beginning to think there was some validity to his statement.

  Bottom line, I shouldn’t.

  Not like that.

  Not when I was with him and vulnerable, liable to fall into all sorts of foolishness. Not when the sweet boy I’d thought I once knew had come out to play.

  Especially when I was no longer sure it was just an act.

  Because I’d felt it tonight. Heartbreak. Christopher’s when he first saw Stewart, this true and genuine concern that had come rushing from him uninhibited. And for those few moments, I’d felt as if I could rely on him the way I used to. I used to believe he was the only person who really understood how I felt. The only one who’d allow me to fall apart and then patiently put me back together.

  Tonight it’d felt the same.

  Every rational side of me knew I should be terrified of Christopher. His big hands could shred me.

  The truth of the matter was, I had been. That night when he’d come into my room, I hadn’t recognized him. Seeing his face at my window? I’d been inundated with relief. Finally he was coming to save me. Finally he’d come to prove to me that everything he’d promised about making it through was the truth. He wasn’t giving up, no matter what obstacles we had to face.

  Because I’d been losing hope.

  After what happened with Jared, something had changed in Christopher. He was no longer carefree. No longer full of life. He was distant, going out and partying all the time, and insecurities had begun to wind themselves through my heart, choking out the confidence that he truly loved me.

  But I’d hung on.

  Instead of bringing relief when he’d pushed through my window, his presence had stolen all the air and filled it with fear. Terror had trembled all the way to my bones when I realized he was really going to force me.

  My first time and he was going to force me. And it wasn’t even the physical that broke my heart. It was the fact that he could treat me that way.

  The sad thing was I would have given myself to him.

  Right there, on my bedroom floor, if he’d have stopped long enough to look at me. To show me that he saw me and he wasn’t seeing right through me.

  But I’d been so caught off guard, the desperation in Christopher’s touch and in his words hadn’t processed. The next day we were moving, and I’d already been withdrawn from school, so it wasn’t until two days later that I’d heard the gossip about Jared, the boy who’d spiraled so far he’d finally hit bottom.

  As soon as I had, I’d been struck with overwhelming grief. Christopher had needed me. Just like he’d said. He wasn’t looking through me. He wasn’t able to see at all.

  So I’d gone to find him.

  To hell with my parents and all their rules.

  I didn’t care.

  We would run away.

  But when it came to Christopher, I’d always been just a foolish girl.

  Turned out I had no idea about broken hearts until that night when I found him.

  It had destroyed me.

  It’d all been a joke.

  A cruel, sick joke.

  And with her.

  It had to be her.

  Thank God Ben had been there. I was scared of where I would have ended up had he not.

  And here I was all these years later, standing in the middle of my living room, listening to the roar of Christopher’s engine as he accelerated and drove away. All those things I knew I should never want suddenly felt like they were missing. All those resolutions I’d made didn’t seem so solid. And the commitment I had to Ben didn’t feel so real.

  Yes. I was terrified of Christopher Moore.

  Physically? No. It was a sad, sick twist of fate that in his arms was where I felt safest.

  I was terrified of what he could do with this burgeoning heart.

  When I walked into my classroom on the Tuesday morning after I’d woken up in Christopher’s bed, there was an envelope on my desk. My name was pressed into it with the familiar heavy-handed script, and it was wrapped in the same red ribbon that had adorned the bouquet the month before.

  I cast a suspicious glance around the room.

  How had he snuck it in here?

  Drawing in a calming breath, I inched across the room and sank into my chair. Finally I gathered the courage to pick up the letter. My fingers shook as I pulled the ribbon free. It dropped to my lap and I slid the card from the envelope.

  Again the front was blank, but this time I had no delusions that the inside would be. My eyes blurred as I read the words.

  What does it take to delete the past?

  A thousand apologies?

  A million regrets?

  A litany of prayers?

  If I shouted them, would you hear?

  If I whispered them, would you believe?

  If I fell at your feet, would you forgive?

  If I asked, would you start again?

  Blinking away tears, I clutched the letter to my chest as if it could blunt the ache inside.

  Would I?

  Could I be brave enough to accept what I really wanted? Could I forsake Ben and shun everything my parents ever wanted for me?

  Above it all, could I ever forgive Christopher for what he’d done?

  TWENTY-ONE

  Christopher

  Slipping my key into the lock, I knocked lightly at Aly and Jared’s front door before I turned the knob and poked my head inside. “Hello?”

  Shrill cries rattled from down the hall, and I chuckled a little with the sound of Samantha’s frazzled voice. “In the nursery.”

  Yeah, I knew she was babysitting.

  And no, I couldn’t stay away.

  I strode in, flinging the door shut behind me as I headed straight for Ella’s room. Samantha was at the changing table, struggling with Ella’s flailing legs as she tried to dress her in a fresh diaper.
Samantha gave me an exasperated look. “For one of the sweetest little girls in the world, she sure hates getting her diaper changed.”

  I laughed outright as I crossed the room, loving every step that brought me closer to these two girls who absolutely owned me. Funny, their paths never should have crossed, and here I was, standing watching Samantha loving on my niece.

  “Are you giving Samantha a hard time, princess?” I asked as I palmed the top of Ella’s head. She pushed into the movement, her tiny round head sliding back to look up at me with those big ol’ blue eyes. Distracted, she gave me her biggest smile with that adorable mouth and cooed against the fist she suddenly decided to start trying to eat. Samantha took the opportunity to quickly afix the tabs on her diaper.

  “There,” she said with all kinds of affectionate pride in her voice.

  Yep, man card no more. That fucker had been permanently revoked the night Samantha had fallen asleep in my bed, because between these two girls, I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. It’d been a month since Samantha and I had really reconnected, since she’d opened up to me about her brother, and in those moments I knew where we belonged was together. Sure, she’d flipped right the fuck out when she woke up next to me, but I knew that was only because she was feeling it, too, and she didn’t know how to reconcile all the shit I’d done with the obvious bond we shared.

  We’d fallen into a tenuous friendship. The entire month of September had pretty much passed in a blurry whirl that had the two of us dancing through all the tension and pretending like we both didn’t want to decimate the boundaries that’d been set in place. We hung out a ton with Jared and Aly, but we’d also started texting a bunch, laughing over the inane bullshit that made up our days. Joking and messing around.

  Crazy thing? It didn’t feel like we were getting to know each other in a new light. It was like we were remembering who we once used to be. I was doing my best to keep it cool, trying not to be so blatantly transparent about how badly I was dying to touch her. Because even though I’d resolved she was again going to be mine, I knew that shit was going to take some time. But the more time I spent with her, the harder that got.

  Samantha pulled a clean outfit out of the drawer for Ella and began to dress her. “Would you do me a favor and get the bottle that’s in the warmer on the kitchen counter?”

  “Sure.”

  I grabbed the bottle in the kitchen while Samantha settled on the couch with Ella. She’d begun to fuss and cram her hand in her mouth with a little more vigor. I sat down close to them, couldn’t help the chuckle rumbling at the base of my throat when Ella began to kick when she caught sight of the bottle. Shouldn’t like this scene so damned much, but I did. “Somebody’s anxious, huh?”

  Samantha accepted the bottle from me and situated Ella on her arm in a good position to feed her. Ella latched on like she’d been drowning and finally caught a breath of air. Samantha slanted me a smile filled with all kinds of yearning. “She’s the sweetest thing, isn’t she?”

  Soft affection huffed from my nose, and I traced the pad of my index finger along the intense lines dented across Ella’s head as she voraciously sucked down her lunch. “Yeah, she really is. Never thought I’d fall in love with anything the way I did with her.” It was something pure and honest. No greed or selfish intentions.

  Samantha hummed, a sound that seemed both agreement and a question. “I love kids. That was the main reason I wanted to be a teacher.”

  “You gonna have any of your own?”

  The second I asked it, I regretted it. That was the problem when I was with Samantha. Couldn’t keep my damned mouth shut.

  She shrugged a delicate shoulder, that pretty face pinking up, but it didn’t seem in embarrassment. It was rather in more of the longing she always seemed to watch my niece with. “Hope so.” She lifted her shoulder a little higher and peeked over at me. “When the time is right.”

  Agitation sifted through me, and I drove a flustered hand through my hair. Brilliant. Going there. Knowing it’d rip me apart.

  And what did assholes like me do when they got all edgy and disturbed? They lashed out, and damn it all if I didn’t know better, but I couldn’t keep the scornful words from whipping from my tongue like a flog. “So where’s dickhead this weekend?”

  Samantha winced and averted her gaze, discomfort fortifying all those walls that I wanted to break down.

  On a regretful sigh, I flopped against the sofa back. “Damn it,” I muttered quietly as I scrubbed my face. I rolled my head to the side and caught Samantha peering at me warily. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Really, I wanted to say a whole ton more, to berate the asshole who I knew in my gut had always had it out for me, but what good would it be taking it out on Samantha?

  “It’s fine,” she whispered with a short shake of her head. “I know you weren’t exactly his biggest fan.”

  “And he wasn’t exactly mine.”

  She laughed. “No. Definitely not.” She smiled over at me, and it was sad and small and like a confession. “Honestly, he can be a real asshole.”

  Anger tightened my chest, a swell of protectiveness that had me wanting to wrap her up and never let go. “Does he know you’re here?”

  “No.” She looked at me as if she was truly wondering if I wanted the truth.

  I lifted my chin toward her, urging her to go on.

  “He’d flip out if he knew. The couple of times I’ve mentioned Aly, he just about came unglued, and I really don’t want to deal with his judgment.”

  “You scared of him?” The words were strangled, and I wasn’t sure I could handle the answer.

  She swallowed hard. Blue eyes that had me all itchy and anxious settled on me. “Not like that.” Her voice lowered with the confession. “I’m scared that he’s not right for me. Scared that I’ll never love him like I should.”

  Relief pounded another beat of hope into my heart. I’d known that night when I took her home that she didn’t love him. And now she sat five inches away, admitting it to me.

  I struggled through a heavy breath and shifted to the edge of the cushions so I could face her. She was so close that she was filling up my breath. Drawn, I scooted forward. All I wanted was to eat her up. Consume her. Make her realize that she was always going to belong with me.

  But there was this nagging inside me, her parting words from a month ago haunting me day and night. There was a piece of Samantha that was scared of me. Terrified really. I saw it there in the shift of her eyes, the way they flared with want and need, but darted away when she’d be hit with a flash of fear.

  She sucked in a sharp breath when I pushed to standing and leaned over her. Her head dropped back, and I took that gorgeous face between my hands. Held it gently like the fragile treasure it was. “I need you to know something, Samantha.”

  She blinked, and there was no missing the tremor that rolled through her body. I hovered close, my nose an inch from hers.

  “These hands.” I squeezed her a little with the significance. “They won’t ever hurt you.”

  That sweet mouth dropped open a fraction, the plump red flesh the greatest damned temptation I’d ever faced. But this wasn’t about lust or my fucked-up need. This was about a girl I’d done wrong. “That night I came to you? I stopped because I felt you. Even through the haze of my mind, I heard your heart, Samantha. I realize that now. I never would have pushed you over that line.”

  A strangled sound worked its way up Samantha’s throat, and all I wanted was to swallow it down.

  “The night last month in my truck?”

  She gave a tiny nod of acknowledgment, still remaining in my firm hold.

  “What did you mean, what you saw?”

  Her expression immediately hardened, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when the front door suddenly flew open to a giggling Aly. She came to a standstill just as fast as she’d stumbled in, breaking through all the intensity that hovered thick in the air.

  Shit
.

  In surprise, Aly looked between me and Samantha, who’d jerked out of my hands as if she was being branded by fire. She turned all her focus back to the little girl who’d fallen asleep in her arms. Aly cocked her head in question, and I glared across at her.

  Perfect timing, little sister.

  She shrugged and mouthed, What?

  Over her shoulder, Jared smirked at me, scratching at his temple with his index finger, thinking he knew all too well what he’d walked in on.

  If only it were that simple.

  I turned back to Samantha, tucked my finger under her chin, and lifted it so I could latch onto those tentative eyes. “I mean it,” I said, not caring that we had an audience. “Wouldn’t, Samantha. You gotta know that’s not me.”

  And yeah, we had a shit ton of unfinished business. So much that needed to be said and resolved. But if this was the only one we ever tackled – and we never got a chance to work through the rest of it? This was the one I needed her to know.

  I’d never hurt her.

  I cast her a pleading glance as I backed away.

  Never.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Samantha

  I tried not to skip out of my boss’ office. But the second the door closed behind me, it was on. I raced back to my empty classroom, my feet barely touching the ground. I threw the door open to the darkened room, and it slammed closed behind me.

  Squeezing my hands into the tightest balls, I squealed and ran in place, my knees nearly knocking into my chin. Like a thirteen-year-old girl who’d just found out her favorite boy band was coming into town.

  It wasn’t pretty.

  But I couldn’t find one hidden place inside me that cared.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” I screamed below my breath, my hammering heart pumping an erratic elation through my veins.

  I couldn’t wait to tell him.

  Dancing around like a complete spaz, I grabbed my phone from my purse, unable to contain the grin plastered across my face. My fingers flew across the screen as I texted Christopher.