Come to Me Recklessly by A. L. Jackson (19)

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.

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?