Jared
I’d never had the chance to give it to her.
Did she even know, the way I saw her?
I dropped my head into my hands.
God, I just wanted to breathe…
That breath was sharp as I sucked it into my rigid lungs.
Because Aly… Aly was my breath. My light.
I rushed to get to my feet, desperate for her touch. Need flashed through me. It blazed as it clashed with the cold.
She was my balm, her fingers the calm I craved, the one drug that would finally take it all away.
I opened the sliding glass door. Who knew how many hours I’d spent alone in the darkness? All the lights inside had been turned off. All except for the single one she’d left on in the kitchen over the stove to guide my way.
And my way was to her.
Cracking open the bedroom door, I snuck inside, my quickened footsteps silent as I stole through the darkened shadows.
Aly lay as a silhouette across our bed. The covers were all twisted around her middle, covering up those legs that I was dying to have wrapped around me. One arm was turned above her head. She jerked, restless where she was lost in the abyss of sleep. Unease twitched through her muscles.
My heart pounded so fucking hard, I was sure it would jar her from sleep, fucking call to her the way she sang out to me. My perfect siren.
Everything I needed.
I climbed onto the bed on my knees. I rushed my hands up her sides.
Aly jumped, then moaned in her sleep. Disoriented, her eyes blinked open. My mouth descended on hers, desperate for the reprieve only she could offer.
“Jared,” she mumbled against my lips. Her sweet breath fanned across my face, stirring that insanity inside of me.
I felt crazed, sick with need. Frantic, I shoved the covers away from her, tugging them free from her legs. She only wore a tight white camisole and a pair of panties. The tiny shirt hugged all her curves, the evidence of our child protruding out from that perfect body.
I dove in, kissing her jaw while I gripped her hips, roughly tugging her against me.
“Jared, wait,” she said.
“Please, baby, need you… need to feel you.”
My hands trailed, and Aly lifted to them, accepting their touch, because she needed me, too. Her hands were in my hair, and she kissed me, her mouth so fucking wet and warm and perfect.
I sat back, my hands clamoring for the panties that hindered what I needed most.
Her hands went to my wrists. “Wait,” she said again, her voice a strained command.
She searched me in the shadows. Her chest heaved with indecision, and I could barely make out her face, the sharp lines and her pouty, full lips. Still, she was all I could see.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she pled through a pained whisper.
Palpitations rocked through my heart, and I released my hold on her panties and rushed to move over her, my hands on either side of her head. “Please.” I pressed the word to her neck where my mouth met the sweetness of her skin. I kissed a path upward and nipped at her jaw. “Please.”
She lifted her chin, allowing me access. A whimper rolled up her throat, because she needed me, too.
“Aly, baby, I love you so much. So fucking much.” I burrowed deeper. Seeking. Pleading. “You feel so good. So good.”
“Talk to me,” she begged through a pant as I devoured her flesh, the softest hands working back through my hair, nudging me back, still holding me close. “Tell me what happened tonight.”
A gush of air punched from my lungs, and I stilled. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Aly pushed up to sitting. I snapped back to find the sadness in her face, this girl who could undo me in five seconds sinking her fingers into my skin. Literally. She clutched my hands. Green eyes flashed. “You can’t keep doing this, Jared. You think I don’t know that something is killing you right now? You think I don’t know it’s been getting worse for the last month?” Pain laced through her tone. “These nights when you wake me up in the middle of the night… your eyes… they’re so intense. But hollow, Jared. Like you don’t really see me.”
Rejection slammed me, wound with a spike of remorse.
All I ever saw was her.
Her.
Didn’t she know that?
I felt sick as I pushed away, because there was no chance I could deal with this shit right now.
Aly dug her fingers in deeper, refusing to let me go. “Don’t you dare walk away from me right now, Jared. I know you, and I know what you’re thinking right now. I want you.” Hoarsely, it trembled from her throat. “Always. I love you more than anything in this world and I know you love me. But I also know whatever my mom was talking about tonight shredded you.”
Her expression softened, and she released one hand to cup my face. It singed me, her touch always fire, always comfort.
With it, my eyes dropped closed.
“I know you’re hurting. I’m here for you. You can talk to me. You can tell me.”
Bitter laughter broke into the night and I blinked back at her in disbelief. Was she really asking me to do this again? Did she not remember?
“The last time you told me that, Aly, I lost you.” The words flew from my mouth, harsh and hard, with all the crushing pain of living those months without her. “I refuse to ever let that happen again. Nothing is ever going to come between us. All this shit… none of it matters. None of it. Not when I have you. I keep telling you to let it go.”
“You can’t just keep pretending, Jared.”
“I’m not pretending. I’m just trying to find a way to live.”
To find a way to live when I knew I really shouldn’t.
Aly’s eyes pressed closed for the longest time. Agony pinched up her expression, before she opened to me, those green eyes falling over me with all this love and affection.
My heart steadied, pounding hard.
She took my face between both her hands. “All I want is for you to live. To be free.” Fear cut into the tenderness of her affection. “But I know you better than anyone else in this world. Anyone, Jared.” She leaned forward and gently placed her palm over the punctuated throb of my heart. “And I know there is still a huge piece of this that is dead.”
I swallowed hard with the strike.
Her voice lowered, filled with all the understanding of what she really didn’t understand. “You have to talk to someone, Jared,” she pressed on. She shook her head as if she was trying to grasp the right thing to say. “Find your father. Do something. What happened tonight? Do you think I missed the expression on your face? Do you think I didn’t know how deeply my mother hurt you just with the mention of your family? You are not okay.”
Anger surged and anxiety spun. “I told you to let it be, Aly.” It slid from my mouth as a hiss.
Fuck.
She was going to do this now? “I warned you, told you I would never outrun all the shit in my life. You accepted that.”
Aly lifted her chin. Her throat bobbed heavily as she swallowed. A tear slipped down her cheek, and God, if it didn’t hurt watching it.
I didn’t want to hurt her.
Ever.
But she had to know I wasn’t going there.
Her voice was soft in surrender. “You also told me you wanted to be better.”
I squeezed my eyes closed.
Goddamn it.
My fingers twitched because part of me wanted to destroy. To give in to the destruction. Because that’s what I always did.
I looked back her, at this girl who’d shattered all of my beliefs. Cupping her precious face, I lost myself in all that love. “Baby, it’s you… you that makes me better.”
Aly’s face tipped away, and she took in a shuddered breath.
“Please,” I said as I inched forward. “I need you to let this go.” Cautiously, I folded her up in my arms, careful as I laid us down in the middle of our bed. My hand slid down her delicate neck and flattened on her chest. “Please,” I whispered again.
Aly curled onto her side. She pressed her face to my neck and whispered her own plea. “Please, let me help you.”
But that’s what Aly didn’t fully understand. She couldn’t grasp that she’d brought me back from the dead. Yeah, a piece of me died when my mother did. But what was left of my heart and soul belonged to Aly.
She clung to me, like I’d been clinging to her earlier. “I can’t lose you,” she said.
I brushed my fingers through her hair, wound a lock in my finger, the words hoarse. “You won’t.”
She couldn’t.
Because she was the only air I could breathe.