Aleena
I froze when I heard a key slip into the lock.
I stood at the kitchen sink, facing out the window into the backyard. Rays of late-afternoon sun slanted into the dimly lit house, and my arms were soaked with the dishwater I had my hands buried in, desperate for anything to distract my distraught mind. Over the last four days, I scrubbed every surface of the house, multiple times, knowing I had to keep my hands busy if I didn’t want to lose my mind.
Or lose my nerve.
So many times I’d been close to begging him back, my finger poised at my phone in the weak moments when I was missing him so much that I’d take him any way I could. But I knew the error in that, knew I was only inviting the same trouble back into our home, and I had to wait for him to find his way.
And I knew… knew with all of me, Jared wanted to find that path just as fiercely as I wanted him to. So for the past four days, I continued to breathe belief into him, pouring all of my thoughts his direction, praying he would hear or that fate would somehow intervene.
That intervention had come in a tangible form to my doorstep.
Now my stomach twisted in anticipation, and I listened acutely to the rattle of the knob as it was turned.
God, I’d been begging for that sound, my hopes soaring on a boundless high ever since Neil Holt had shown up this morning.
Jared had gone to him.
I knew it the second I saw Neil’s pleading eyes staring down at me – of course after all the shock had worn off at finding each other there, the two of us standing with gaping mouths for endless seconds. Obviously, neither of us were what the other had expected.
Then the strongest sense of pride had taken hold of every corner of my heart and swayed in the slowest dance with my spirit, because I knew Jared had finally taken the first step.
I also knew whatever meeting they’d shared had not gone well, and the man I loved with all my life had been hurt yet again.
It killed me, knowing Jared was out there alone, suffering through the anniversary of his mother’s death, on his birthday. Being helpless this way was awful. But the waiting was even harder. I wanted to run to him, wrap him up and hold him and whisper I was never going to stop loving him.
Every single one of those assertions were the truth. Because I would never let him go, would never give up on this man with the tortured, beautiful heart. But I knew I had to wait until that heart was truly ready.
Ready for what being a family could mean for him again.
Somehow I knew that meant Jared beginning with his own family. Going back to where it all started.
I tensed, listening to the door creak open behind me. My knees went weak. I supported myself on the counter, my head dipped low between my rigid arms as I struggled to find a breath through the smothering tension that pulsed along the floor.
I could feel him standing there, watching me, his own disquiet palpable in his ragged breaths.
I could feel his want… his love… and there was no mistaking his own uncertainty.
God, how badly did I want to turn? To look at him? To set my eyes on the gorgeous face I’d been missing so desperately?
But I remained rooted.
Waiting on him.
Because this… that’s what this had always been about – Jared finding himself beneath all the debris and pulling himself from it. This was about Jared finding his way. I always knew his destination would lead him back to me.
Subdued footsteps moved behind me, cautiously but with a distinct purpose. Drawing near. Edging forward. Each step he took sent a jolt of need straight to my failing heart. That need spiraled through me, settling in the deepest place within me, in that place that had always been reserved for him.
He paused behind me, hesitating, before he reached out and wound a single lock of my hair around his finger. Jared breathed out in relief.
As he anchored himself to me, his sweet breath seeped out against the skin of my cheek, lifting a shock of chills racing from the back of my neck and down my spine, and I was suddenly inundated with this perfect mixture of a man.
I released a staggered breath of my own.
“I missed you,” fell from my mouth, because I just needed him to know.
I missed him.
So much it physically hurt. But I would endure a thousand days alone if it meant Jared had found a way to be truly free.
He twisted his finger tighter in my hair. The connection between us glowed. Years ago, this honest and pure gesture had begun so innocently, the bond between us so naively sweet. Yet the years had given us over to something deeply profound, this childhood affinity blossoming into the greatest love.
Nothing could keep us apart.
“Aly,” he whispered urgently, and he spread the rest of his fingers out, threading them loosely in the long length of hair flowing down my back.
I shivered, and listened to his call. I tilted my face up, seeking out his.
Unprepared to find him this way, a sharp gasp rushed from my mouth. My gaze traced every line of his rugged face. His lips seemed so full and red against the backdrop of blond stubble coating his entire jawline, like he hadn’t shaved since before he walked out our door four days ago. On its own accord, my hand stretched out to cup one side of his face, my thumb trembling as I brushed it along his bottom lip.
Shakily, Jared exhaled and his mouth parted.
His cheeks were red, almost blistered from the wind and sun.
Tentatively, I lifted my eyes to meet his fully.
This… this was what I had been unprepared to see.
Blue eyes begged back at me. They were puffy and rimmed in a striking red, his dark, heavy lashes framing the stark evidence of sorrow, leaving them bloodshot and misty.
Emotion overflowed from them, a flood of misery and love and devotion.
And hope.
My brows knitted softly and my head listed to the side, taking him in, him staring down at me while I stared up at him, this hardened man exposed in a kind of vulnerability he’d never shown before. Moisture gathered in my own eyes, and my thumb caressed just at the side of his mouth where it trembled, where all this emotion played out, visibly and without restraint.
Jared shifted to take my face between both his big, strong hands. They were warm, secure, almost fierce in their hold.
His voice was hoarse, his expression rigid. “I have made so many mistakes in my life, Aly… Won’t make you one of them. Not ever again.” His eyes softened while his hold increased. “You never were. You’re a gift. A gift I didn’t know how to truly receive.” He shook his head, and mine followed the movement, locking onto him. “God, Aly, I pushed you away for the longest time because I couldn’t accept the way you made me feel. But when I couldn’t resist you any longer, feeling you became everything. And you felt so damned good I used it to cover up all the bad shit I didn’t want to feel.”
With a long blink of his eyes, he released a revealing laugh. “And God, I crave you, Aly. Need you. But I get it. I fucking get it. I can’t fully belong to you if I belong to my past, too.”
Jared’s hands went to my waist. Gently he lifted me and set me on the counter, wedging himself between my legs.
Tender hands went right back to my face, and his fingertips brushed softly against the lobes of my ears, tickling along the backside of my jaw, before they kneaded the nape of my neck.
My tears broke free, slipping into the palms of Jared’s hands.
Right where this man had always held me.
“Please, don’t cry.” He swept his thumbs beneath the hollow of my eyes, capturing all the relief spilling from me. “Don’t cry. God, baby, I hate that I hurt you. Please, don’t cry.”
I ran my fingertips across his tense brow, down between his eyes, and across the dark bags shadowing his eyes, before I cupped all of his face in my hands, stretching my fingers out as wide as they would go, holding him whole. Praying he would understand. “Sometimes it’s okay to cry.”
Jared’s eyes slammed closed, and he nodded against my hands that were all in his face, on his lips and his nose and pressing into the lids of his tortured eyes.
“It’s okay to cry,” I whispered again close to his mouth. “It’s okay to miss her and be sad and wish she was here. You don’t have to be ashamed of that.”
Jared’s eyes opened to me, the blue raging in intensity. Glassy and transparent.
Desperate but not distant.
Not like the nights when he woke me with fumbling hands.
He pulled me to him, holding me under my jaw as his mouth crashed onto mine.
Every last one of my nerves sparked. Wet heat slipped from his parted mouth. Coaxing. Pulling. Promising.
I opened to him and met his tongue with a tangle of pent-up need, with all the relief that flowed so freely and the desire that flooded my chest, expanding my ribs and slithering down in a hot wave straight to my core.
Tingles spread over every inch of my skin.
Little needy sounds climbed up my throat, encouragement and pride and joy. And all the honor I felt at giving my love to this incredible man.
Jared swallowed them down, kissing me harder. Demanding. Possessive as he led me through this passionate kiss.
I gripped his shoulders, drawing him closer. My legs wrapped around him, high up on his chest.
Jared dug his fingers into my hips, then stroked them down my legs, caressing from my ass to my knees, dragging them back up again.
I wrapped him tighter, the burn of his stomach pressing right between my thighs, right where I felt frantic to have him.
God, he thought he craved me?
“These legs,” he mumbled at my mouth, squeezing into my flesh, taking wild handfuls like he could never get enough. “You are a fantasy, Aly. Please tell me you’ll let me spend my whole life here, wrapped up in you.”
“You,” I murmured. That was all Jared ever needed to know.
Suddenly he pulled back. His eyes flashed to me before he grabbed the hem of my shirt and yanked it over my head. He tossed it to the ground. I sat there with my chest heaving, Jared staring at me for a long beat before he set his hands on each side of my widening belly. He dipped down and placed a tender kiss below my belly button, like the sweetest embrace, like maybe he’d missed our baby as much as he missed me.
I melted.
Then fell a little further for this man.
Impossible?
It should be.
But in that moment I slipped deeper in love with him.
Jared wound his arms around my waist. He pulled me from the counter and against the strength of his body, and I wrapped him back in my legs, hooking them over his narrow waist. He looked at me, his hair a mess, his eyes filled with our future and swimming with his past.
That past he had found the courage to face.
And I could feel his heart, pounding at mine. It thundered in my ears and danced with my spirit, this man that was mine.
Volatile yet pure.
Corrupted yet worthy.
My beautifully broken boy.
Jared hiked me up higher. Neither of us looked away as he carried me to our room. The mass of my hair fell down around us, tumbling over my arms where my fingers were anchored in his shoulders.
Inside, the blinds were drawn, the room darkened, lit only by the late-afternoon sun seeping through the cracks. He crossed to our bed, keeping a firm hold on me while he dragged down the comforter and gently laid me back on the cool sheets.
I sighed, my eyes wide as I watched up at him watching down on me, climbing over me, hovering an inch away.
My fingers pushed through the length of his soft blond hair, and massaged into his scalp. He moaned and leaned into my touch, hungry for it, before he dipped down to kiss along my jaw. “Missed you… missed the way you taste…” He pressed his nose behind my ear. “Miss the way you smell.”
I lifted my neck, my head pressing back into the bed as I invited him closer. I could feel him breathing me in, his chest expanding as he filled himself with a little more of me.
Jared nuzzled his nose against the lacy black fabric of my bra, slipping a hand under me to free the clasp, exposing me to the cool air.
My nipples hardened.
Jared groaned as he edged back, flicked open the button on my jeans. “So beautiful.”
I almost cried when he pulled away.
Jared smiled a small, satisfied smile. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ve got you.”
Stepping off the bed, he pulled my jeans from my legs and took my panties with them.
Then he slowly began to undress himself. My eyes never left him, just trailed his movements, watched as he peeled his shirt over his head to reveal every toned muscle that rippled over his stomach and chest, his story screaming out from above it.
A story that had robbed him of so much.
But a story that had yet to tell its end.
I wanted to be a part of the rest of it. To add a million new chapters. Ones filled with laughter and smiles and soft caresses.
And an uncountable number of moments like this.
“I love you, Jared.”
A soft breath left him, and he slowly climbed back over me, taking one of my hands with him. He pressed it over his hammering heart. “Since I was just a little boy, this has beat for you. Even before I knew what it meant. Now I know it means everything.”
“You can’t imagine how badly I missed you,” I admitted, splaying my hand wide over the wilted rose.
Regret and blatant lust swirled through his longing eyes. His expression burned me, boiled in my blood and throbbed between my legs. His voice cracked. “I knew every second where I belonged. Nothing in this world is right unless I’m here with you.”
He stared down at me, pain drawing his brow into a severe line.
I lifted my hand and smoothed it out. “Please, don’t look at me like it hurts.”
“Right now it does… looking at what I could have so easily let slip away. I can’t do it, Aly. I can’t run from any of it. Not anymore.”
My heart swelled, overflowed in my chest.
Rejoiced.
But still I understood all Jared had to overcome.
Softly I nudged him. For a moment, he appeared confused, before he allowed me to lead him to roll onto his back.
I straddled him and dipped my head down to kiss along the outline of the rose, that piece of him that had died too soon.
He sucked in a strangled breath, before he twisted his fingers in my hair, chills sliding over me as he caressed my head and allowed me to pour all my love into him, all this belief I’d held for him all along.
I leaned back. My gaze moved along the defined planes of his body.
“You are beautiful,” I whispered low as I reached down to take his thick erection in my hand.
His stomach jumped, the muscles twitching as I gripped him, softly, then tight. The smooth skin was hot, radiating heat.
I burned.
I leaned up on my knees and brought him to my center.
For the longest moment we just stared, drowning in a sea of anticipation.
Jared’s mouth dropped opened as I slowly sank down on him.
He was so big, it stole my last breath, his body searing into mine, like he’d become the most prominent part of me. Spreading me. Filling me so full it almost hurt. This perfect, pleasured pain.
I dropped my head back with a whimper, and Jared dug his fingers sharply into my hips. “Goddamn,” he grunted, shifting under me to draw me deeper.
I planted my hands on his stomach, my eyes meeting his, silently asking him to lead me.
He lifted me, guided me back down, his movements controlled. Slow and hard.
I got lost there, watching as his face washed in pleasure, piercing blue eyes blazing into mine as he filled me again and again.
“You scared me,” I confessed on a murmured whimper, my fears openly revealed, given to the man who held me in his hand.
Jared increased our pace, moving to take hold of my waist with one hand while he let the other wander up to tangle in my hair.
I met with the vulnerable truth revealed in endless sea of his open eyes. “I scared me, too.”
Leaning back, my body arched, and I gave in to the heated tingles gathering low in my stomach. My walls grasped him as I slid up and down his length, meeting his hips as he rocked into me, straining as I coaxed the need from his body.
He just watched me.
Touched me.
He’d been the only one who ever could.
He brought the hand tangled in my hair to the side of my face, pieces woven through his fingers the same way he’d woven himself through every fiber of my heart while he continued to drive my body to the brink.
It all felt contradictory, the softness and the fire, the raging flames with Jared’s soft glow, all of it merging, molten as it surged through our veins.
The connection between us was so profound I was sure I’d been created from a tiny piece of his soul.
Jared steadied me, holding me still as he continued to rock into me. Harder. Faster. My legs shook when he hit that spot inside me. “Oh, God,” trembled from my lips.
“Let it go, baby,” he whispered.
My breath hitched in my throat, my fingers grasping at Jared’s skin when the pleasure broke free. I threw my head back, my eyes squeezed tight while I rode out the blinding bliss.
Jared jerked up to sitting, bringing us chest to chest. Both of his hands dug into my backside as he pressed me down, burying himself deeply in me.
So deep I cried out, shocked when I was slammed with another orgasm, just as intense as the first, but slower, languid as it lingered and spread out through every cell of my body.
I shuddered, shaking in Jared’s arms. He pulled me down, bringing us chest-to-chest again. He grunted and strained. With one last thrust, he went rigid.
Jared roared as he poured into me.
He let out a sharp breath, clung to me with all his life, his face pressed into my neck.
Panting, we both remained still, catching our breaths and stilling our frenzied hearts, holding on to what was precious.
Finally, Jared exhaled as one last tremor rolled through his chest.
He pulled me down at his side. I rested my head on his shoulder and trailed my fingertips over the rose imprinted on his chest. He shivered under my touch, but he didn’t pull away. He just wrapped me up in his arms, and at the top of my head, he released a gush of air that sounded distinctly of relief, gentle as he buried his nose in my hair. We rested in the silence, in the calm of the darkened room, listening to each other breathe.
Finally I leaned down and pressed my lips to the green eyes he’d forever etched as a piece of himself onto his skin, that piece of me he wanted to live eternally in his heart.
I felt the words forming on my tongue, and I took a chance. “Happy birthday, Jared,” I whispered against his skin.
He tensed below me, his fingers halting their lazy pursuit through my hair. Shifting, he blinked up toward the vacant ceiling. I worried I’d made a mistake before he finally spoke. His voice cracked over the hushed words. “I went to see her today…” His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “To her grave.”
I hugged him tightly. Floored. I knew he’d taken a step in the right direction. I just had no idea the distance he’d gone.
God, what had he been through today?
I had no clue.
In the silence, I waited, supporting him through the heightened emotions that bobbed heavily in his throat.
“It took everything I had to go there. I swore I never would, but I felt drawn… like there was no way to resist it. Like she was calling me back at the same time all the darkness in me was condemning me for even considering it.”
I snuggled closer into his side, urging him to continue.
He exhaled heavily. “All these months I’ve been running, trying to stay one step ahead of my past, because if I did, then I could keep it from catching up to me. And you… my sweet girl… you knew exactly what was happening. And like an asshole, I just kept shutting you down.”
“You were scared,” I contended through a murmur, my fingertips smoothing over his bare chest.
He seemed to debate this for a second in his mind before he admitted, “Yeah… I’ve always been. Fucking terrified, Aly.”
He hooked his finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him.
Like I’d ever be able to look away.
“Baby, I can’t… please… just don’t give up on me,” he pled. “I’m fucked-up. I told you a long time ago I was always gonna be. But I realized today it doesn’t always have to be like that. And, yeah, I’ve got a long way to go… I know it, and I’m sorry that’s who I am, but God, Aly, I can’t do it without you.”
He blinked rapidly, shook his head. “Maybe I could,” he admitted, like it just occurred to him that he had to rely on himself too, that maybe he was worth the effort. “But I don’t want to. I don’t want to do it without you.”
For a moment he held a breath. Then he blew it achingly between pursed lips. Tucking me closer, he uttered the statement at the top of my head.
“I need help.”
His words sounded with a trumpet of deliverance.
And I repeated the ones he’d promised me so many times.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Faint rays of sunlight broke through our bedroom window. I blinked against them, slowly pulled from the depths of my restful sleep. I awoke to an empty bed. I propped up on my elbow and swept my palm across the cool sheets beside me.
In the middle of it rested a folded-up piece of paper, washed out and worn, the edges frayed from where it had been torn from a journal.
I bit my lip as I reached out and snagged it. Slowly I pushed up to sitting and held the small treasure Jared had left.
He hadn’t written me one once since he returned home just before Thanksgiving. Instead he’d whispered sweet words into my eager ear.
Carefully I unfolded the note. I just sat there, absorbing the statement he made.
When beauty breathes life back into the broken.
Without making a sound, I slipped from bed and tiptoed out our bedroom door.
In the early-morning light, I stood and gazed down on the man who held all my days. In the family room, he was kneeling on the floor with his back to me, facing the fireplace.
Pieces of splintered, broken wood were spread out around him, dragged out from where I’d stacked them in the corner after he’d torn all the beauty he created from its rightful place.
He sensed me, and Jared sat back on his haunches and shifted to look at me over his shoulder.
For a moment we just stared, before his mouth edged in the softest, sweetest smile.
Butterflies took flight in my stomach.
And I knew… this was Jared’s new start.