Aleena
A soft sigh hit the back of my throat as I watched him go. Or maybe it was a whimper. My bedroom door slowly closed behind him. Loosely it came to rest on the jamb. I turned and faced the ceiling. Lying there, I tried to catch my breath, to slow my thundering heart. Tried to make sense of what had just happened between us.
It had been uncontrollable. Turbulent. Explosive.
Exhaustion sagged my entire body into a useless puddle curled in the middle of my bed, but his touch still fired along the surface of my skin, burned beneath it. Below me, the sheets felt both hot and cold, glowed with the remnants of heat from the impassioned fury that had taken us over. I flattened my palm out over them, over the place where he had had me. Where he had found me.
Deep satisfaction penetrated into the marrow of my bones. Above that satisfaction, my nerves skittered with unease.
Only one other time had I witnessed Jared like he was tonight, control slipping and something wild flaming in his eyes. It was the morning that had begun so intensely, when Jared had locked us away behind my bathroom door, the same day my mother had discovered him in our apartment.
It was the day fear and shame and self-contempt had driven him away.
Every time Jared touched me, there was something powerful in it, something overwhelming. Something stunning.
Breathtaking.
Lost in the deepest reaches of that connection, I’d felt the disturbance. Like I was so close to him I could feel his anguish as his body became one with mine.
Like I was partner to it.
I’d felt it again tonight.
But there was something distinctly different.
That day, three months ago, I knew Jared was trying to push me away.
Not tonight.
No, tonight he’d sought, hunted, like he would do anything, give up anything, to be closer to me.
And it was almost frightening, how close we were.
Maybe it was my reaction that scared me most, the one at the bar and then here in my room.
When I saw him with that girl at the Vine, I’d been shocked by my reaction. It was violent. Vicious. One glance and the deepest ache had seized me, left me gutted, splaying me wide open.
Left me questioning.
Worries I had tried to suppress had pushed their way to the forefront. Those months I’d spent alone in this room, missing him, mourning him, crying out for him, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what he was doing and who he was with. Every time my mind would go there, it would break me a little more.
But when he’d returned yesterday, I’d made the decision that it was in the past. He’d left, without obligation to me, and he had made no promises other than the one that he would forget about me and I would forget about him.
He’d broken that promise because forgetting each other was an impossibility. I think we both knew it, even though I’d struggled and prayed that one day I would accept he was gone and move on instead of pretending he would find his way back to me.
But he had. He came back to me, and I wanted to believe nothing else mattered.
Until I’d seen that girl rubbing all over him. A swell of possessive envy had collided with my love of him, and all of those worries had come flooding back.
Maybe it was because we were at the Vine. It was the place where Jared would go to unwind when he wanted a beer. It was the place that had become his excuse, where he’d tell Christopher he’d been when he was really hidden away in my room. Maybe it was the proximity to our apartment that made it so real. That made it matter.
One look at the way she was touching him, one look at the panic on his face, and I knew.
I just didn’t know when.
Part of me wanted to keep pretending whatever had happened didn’t count, to assign it to the past and focus on the future.
But I couldn’t.
Because it hurt.
I once believed I’d take whatever piece of him he was willing to give.
That was no longer good enough.
I wanted it all.
As hard as I tried to hide it, it crushed me to think he’d been with someone else during the months he’d been living with us, stealing into my room and into my bed. When he’d hold me and love me and make me whole.
I’d flinched away when he touched me back at the bar, thinking those hands had strayed. I’d tried to forge on with the night and force my worries back inside.
But Jared knew, because he knew me.
Relief had floored me when he brought me home, promising there had been no one else.
Only his true admission had been so much worse.
His confession weighed heavily on my mind and even heavier on my heart. He told me once he would always be an addict because he knew how easily he could slip. He’d also said he’d never go back there because slipping into oblivion was the easy way out and he didn’t get easy.
But somewhere inside me I already knew Jared had fallen. I’d seen the newfound shame dimming his blue eyes, the way he’d hung his head as if he believed himself even lower than the day he’d fled out my door.
I knew it the first time I saw him when he returned and I ran my fingers along the coarse, jagged scar that snaked around his head.
I just hadn’t wanted to see how bad it had actually been.
And I hurt for him. Was scared for him.
The truth was, I was scared for myself because I didn’t know what this new information meant.
Rough, distorted voices traveled through the gap in my door. I trained my ear, listening.
Jared and Christopher.
They were speaking too softly for me to hear what they were saying, but their tone was mild enough to assure me no ill will was happening between the two of them.
I’d already seen it on my brother’s face.
Forgiveness. And maybe even relief.
A couple seconds later, the door swung open. A halo of light silhouetted Jared’s frame, his presence thick and overwhelming.
He stood there, gazing at me from across the room.
Under his stare, I squirmed, fisted the sheets at my sides.
When he stepped forward, he slowly he came into view. He towered over me. As he approached, my eyes caressed the sharp angles of his face. My attention jumped along the deformed, warped story played out on his chest and down the deep lines cut into his rugged stomach. His hips jutted out above his tight underwear, something so tempting in the way he moved. Sinewy muscle bunched and flexed beneath the color of his strong arms, bristled in the corded strength of his powerful legs.
A tremor rolled through me.
He was indescribable. Devastating.
So hard, every inch of him, callused from the wounds that had marred his life, this terrifying beauty that held me captive, tying me somewhere to the darkest places of his soul.
But his eyes… they were soft. Bright. Filled my own darkness with light.
“Hey,” he murmured quietly as he drew near.
“Hey,” I whispered back.
He knelt at the side of my bed and leaned in to brush back the matted hair stuck to my dampened forehead. “Are you okay?” Concern tightened his brow as he searched my face. “Was I too rough?”
Softly, I shook my head, unable to look away from this gorgeous man. “No, not at all.” I trailed my trembling fingers down his face. “You don’t need to worry about me so much.”
“How can I not? I just want to take care of you.”
I jumped when he placed the warm, damp cloth between my thighs, then hummed when he gently massaged it over me, deliberate, soft, because taking care of me was exactly what he was doing.
Complete acceptance nodded my head. “I know that.”
He finished cleaning me and tossed the washcloth into the hamper. Slowly, he crawled into bed. Rolling onto his side, he pulled me to him. “Come here.”
I snuggled into the security of his chest, and he drew the covers over us, wrapping me in the safety of his arms.
Warmth spread over me, contenting every fiber in my being. I buried my face in his chest, brushed my lips across the rose, breathed him in.
Jared exhaled as he pulled me closer. And I could feel the shift. Tension clotted the already heavy air. He gathered my hand and wove our fingers together. He held it tight between us. In the dim light, his blue eyes met mine, wholly tender, yet fierce and severe.
“I need you to understand something, Aly. You don’t ever have to worry about me stepping out on you.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “I can promise you that.”
For a flash he averted his gaze, before he leveled the force of it back on me. Vestiges of shame swam in the depths. “But I think you already know I left a whole mess of that behind me in Jersey.”
Jealousy bit at my consciousness, and I squeezed my eyes shut as if I could block it out. I didn’t want to be that girl, the one who let things that could not be controlled affect her life. The one who let insecurities invade, fester, and destroy. But I had to be honest and admit it hurt. Thinking of him with other girls the way he’d been with me left something inside me uncovered, abraded and raw.
Tonight had only proven that.
It had revealed a weakness in me.
Because I’d only ever belonged to him.
I knew it was foolish. Wrong. But I couldn’t help the way I felt.
He jerked at my hand, demanding my attention. My eyes flashed open. “Four years were spent that way. There were a lot of them, and I can’t promise you something like what happened tonight won’t ever happen again.” He blinked like it caused him physical pain. “Seeing your face tonight, how much it hurt you to see me with her… God, that killed me, Aly. I don’t ever want to see you hurting that way. If I could go back and change it, you know I would. But I can’t. But you need to know none of them ever meant anything.”
He edged back, released my fingers, and pressed my palm to his chest right over my eyes marking his skin. “You did this, Aly. You made me feel… really feel. None of them did that. Not one. I told you once I used girls just as shamelessly as Christopher. I’m not using you. You have to know that.”
Discomfort needled through my senses and embarrassment rushed to my face. But I refused to look away from him. I chewed at the inside of my cheek, searching for the courage to speak. “I do know that, but the thought of you with someone else, touching them the way you touch me…” My voice dropped. “I only want you to belong to me.”
Like a testimony, my naked body burned against his, the way I’d given myself to him.
Only him.
Jared pulled back so he could see my face better. Knowing laughter seeped quietly from his mouth, and he softly ran his fingers through my hair. “I’ve only belonged to one person, Aly, and that’s you.” His mouth was suddenly at my ear. “And believe me, I’ve never touched anyone the way I touch you.”
A shiver raised goose bumps across my flesh.
He chuckled more as he sat back and took in my expression. “You understand?”
I hid my face in his neck, feeling all flustered and self-conscious and completely adored. “Yes.”
“Besides, have you looked at yourself in the mirror? Do you have even a single clue how beautiful you are?”
I lifted up onto my elbow, smiling down at him with the tease. “I’m going to get fat here pretty soon. What then?”
Jared turned away to look at the ceiling. A wistful grin tugged at his mouth. He turned back and that grin widened. His hand came flat to my belly. “I seriously doubt that. I can’t help but picture you just like this with a little round ball right here,” he emphasized as he palmed my stomach.
It was sweet, playful.
“What happens if you’re wrong?” I contended.
Mischief glinted in his eyes. “Baby, I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
I bit at my lip, feeling an unsettled rush of nerves travel through my body, anticipation and love and hope. I covered Jared’s hand and looked up at him. “I can’t wait,” I said honestly.
It was the first time I really realized it was true, when the fear of the future, the fear of the unknown, became so much less important than my hope for this life.
The playfulness faded from his face. “I can’t believe we’re going to have a baby. It’s so hard to imagine what’s happening inside you right now.”
He swallowed hard and increased his hold.
My eyes darted all over his face because it told a million truths, fears and shame and the misguided belief that he could never deserve a gift like this.
But I also saw the longing.
I clung to it.
“Everything about our lives is going to change, Jared,” I whispered seriously, urgently. “I…” I tripped over what I wanted to say next, my face suddenly pressed to his neck because I was scared of what haunted him, of what would stalk him in the darkness. Tempt him and trap him. “What happened in Vegas… Jared, you can’t —”
Jared jerked back and gripped me by the face, cutting me off like he couldn’t bear to hear it come from my mouth. “I know that, Aly.” Tremors rocked his chest and he drew in a ragged breath. “I know.”
His voice softened, though his eyes darkened as he stared me down, baring it all. “After I woke up in the hospital this last time, I knew I was coming back to you, but I wouldn’t allow myself to come back here for three weeks because I had to make sure I was well enough to be here. Well enough to stand in front of you with a clean mind and a clean body. But I can’t change who I was in my past, Aly. That’s always going to be a part of me, something that is never completely going to go away. I’m fucked up. I warned you last night. But I promised you then you make me want to be better. That you make me better.” He splayed his hand wide across my stomach. “This makes me want to be better.”
“Do you…” I shook my head, grasping for anything to say that might convince this man that he deserved it, that this baby and I deserved it. “Don’t you think you should talk to someone?”
But the question held so much more than that, asked so much more of him, like a silent plea straight from my heart.
You have to get help. Find a way to heal.
Still, Jared heard it.
He stiffened. His voice trembled as he forced out the words. “I’m okay.”
Reluctantly I nodded and settled my head on his shoulder. I knew he’d come so far. But still it scared me he may not ever be ready to get better.
Gentle fingers played in my hair. Softly Jared wound a thick lock in his finger. He tugged a little before he pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “I love you so much. I need you to believe that.” It was his own plea.
And I knew he wasn’t ready.
Shifting, I moved to straddle him and Jared rolled to his back. I dipped down, kissed him across his heart, hoping he could feel my belief in him. “I do.”
Tender hands flattened on my back and he pulled me down to him.
This time, his kiss was slow.
My eyes flew open to a heavy blanket of darkness. Anxiety clawed at the walls and spilled out across the floor. Panic thundered through my veins, spreading like wildfire along the surface of my skin.
But this panic was not my own.
Jared’s arms and legs twitched and jerked as he held me pinned to his side. Sweat slicked his clammy skin, and he groaned incoherently from the horrors that kept him under.
Tremors rocked through him in a rolling wave as he slipped along the fringes of sleep, an uncontained frenzy in his fingers, desperate in their search. They dug deep into my sides, and he burrowed his face into my chest in a pained embrace, as if he were searching for some kind of solace from the torture that ruled his spirit.
Jared’s entire body jolted with the nightmare that was his reality.
Frantic, I wrapped him in my arms. “Shh… shh… Jared. It’s okay… I’m right here… it’s okay.” I swept my mouth across his forehead and brushed my fingers through his dampened hair, clutching him to me, murmuring reassurances again and again to the man shaking in my arms.
Sharp breaths wheezed from his lungs, and he struggled to draw in air.
Grief traveled his throat in a sharp gasp and blurred with the anger I could feel radiating from his pores.
I took his face between my hands and forced him to look at me. In the darkness, wide blue eyes stared, completely lost.
There were no tears. Just pain.
Nausea pooled in my stomach.
“It’s okay,” I whispered again, knowing it was a lie.
Because no matter what I said or what he claimed, I knew Jared was not okay.
The next morning, I stood in the kitchen at the bar, peering out the sliding glass door to the apartment balcony.
Jared was there. With his back to me, he stared out over the low stucco wall to the parking lot below and the city extending out far beyond his view, though I knew he was lost to the thoughts in his mind. Twitching, he lifted his hand, and his back expanded as he inhaled the cigarette that burned between his fingers. Smoke curled over the top of his head, evaporated in the sharp gusts of wind that whipped short pieces of his blond hair into an uncontrolled frenzy.
Dark jeans hung low on his narrow waist, clinging to his hips.
But he was shirtless, leaving the canvas that continued his story exposed.
Bold marks of suggestion cut across his wide shoulders and spiraled in a shifting whorl down his back. Distorted faces flashed in a tumble of color, some appearing demonic. Others angelic.
Of all the ink covering his body, this was what terrified me most. It screamed confusion and chaos, an unsound spirit lost in a daze of disorder, something begging to break free from its chains.
So much like what I witnessed in his eyes last night when I woke him from his nightmare.
I lifted the glass of orange juice to my mouth and sipped at the cool liquid, my eyes refusing to lose sight of the man I loved with all my life, willing him to recognize it.
To see through it.
This morning, he was agitated, but I knew he was doing his best to make this okay.
Today was going to be rough.
He and I both knew it.
Christopher barreled down the hall, breaking up my thoughts as he came around the bar and into the kitchen. He planted a quick kiss to my temple. “Happy Thanksgiving, little sister.”
He grabbed a mug from the cupboard. The coffeepot clanked as he pulled it out and poured a cup.
My attention slid to him, and my mouth lifted with sincere appreciation. “Thank you, Christopher.” Clearly, I was thanking him for so much more. He’d supported me through the last three months when I was scared and alone.
For a second he just looked at me, serious, like he knew how truly grateful I was for everything he’d done for me. “You don’t need to thank me, Aly. You’ve always taken care of my sorry ass.”
Mild laughter seeped from me. “No… I just nagged at you enough to make you think I was taking care of you.”
“Ha… now that you have.” He winked. Leaning back against the counter, he held the mug between his hands and took a tentative sip of steaming coffee. “You still planning on telling Mom and Dad today?”
I nodded. “Yeah. We are.”
Christopher looked at his feet. A sympathetic snort escaped his nose as he glanced up at me. “You know Dad’s going to lose his shit.”
“I know.” I wasn’t defensive, just sad, because I knew my dad so well and I felt like he knew so little about me. I knew he loved me, how much he cared about and hoped for his children. He wanted us to be happy and strong and live good lives.
I just wasn’t sure he understood what having all those things really meant to me.
And I wasn’t a child.
But I’d always be my dad’s little girl.
Christopher and I stood in silence for a few minutes, scenarios running through our heads on how things might play out today.
I finished off my orange juice, doing my best to ignore the anxious nerves that nagged at my heart and mind.
Christopher blew out an exaggerated breath. “Well, we’d better get a move on. Mom’s going to start calling and asking where we’re at if we don’t get over there soon.”
I inclined my head to the balcony door. “Give us a few minutes to finish getting ready.”
“Not a problem. I need to finish getting ready myself.”
He dumped his mug in the sink and brushed his fingers across the side of my hand as he passed by, leaving me with a silent show of encouragement.
Walking out into the main room, I stopped for a moment to appreciate Jared from behind, before I went into my bathroom to finish my makeup and hair. Five minutes later, I headed out of the bathroom and turned the knob to my bedroom.
I smiled a little, correcting myself.
Our bedroom.
Was it ridiculous that the idea of that made me giddy with joy? The thought of Jared and me as a family? That the man who held all of my dreams had become my home?
And I thought no. There was nothing ridiculous about us, about this love that was always supposed to be.
That’s what I was giving thanks for today. For this start, this beginning, as rocky as it was. But really, I couldn’t even think of it as a beginning when Jared had forever been my always.
I swung my door open. Jared stood in the middle of the room. He fumbled with the buttons of a dark blue, long-sleeved dress shirt.
From under his brow, he glanced up. He stilled when he caught sight of me.
Something that looked like awe and disbelief filled the blue of his intense eyes as I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
The truth written on his face sent a flood of emotion rushing over me. Just the look thundered my heart, pounding it with affection for him.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured.
I smoothed out the deep plum dress I’d put on for Thanksgiving dinner. It had a fitted V-neck bodice with three-quarter sleeves, and the tailored skirt came down to just above my knees. Black stockings kept my legs warm, and I’d paired it with black ankle boots. My long hair was pinned up into a messy, chunky twist, and pieces fell down around my face.
Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ was never fancy, always a house full of laughter and easy conversation and comfort. And a strong current of thankfulness.
But we dressed up a little just to honor the day. The dress was simple but pretty, and my parents had given it to me last Christmas, so I thought it was fitting.
Jared slowly crossed the room, each step unhurried, like he relished each one that brought him closer to me. As he approached, he tipped his head to the side in slow appreciation. “Keep telling you, baby, but every time I look at you, you knock the breath right outta me.” Something significant flashed in his eyes. “Still can’t believe you’re my girl.”
My fingertips fluttered down the hollow of his strong neck, trailed down his chest to take over his job. I slowly worked through the remaining buttons of his shirt as I gazed up at him. “I’ve always been your girl. You just didn’t know it.”
His expression was all over the place, sexy and sly, this cocky quirk lifting just one side of his mouth, an expression that hammered my heart and sent my stomach tripping with desire. But it was the soft creases at the corners of his eyes that stole my own breath.
I straightened his collar, murmuring close to his mouth, “Thank you for doing this with me… for me. I can’t tell you how much it means.”
One arm slipped low around my waist, and he tugged me flush to him. “I’m not ever going to leave you alone to deal with shit again, Aly. We’re in this together.”
A surge of joy pushed at my ribs. I bit my lower lip as I melted into his embrace, trying to contain how happy he made me. I rested my cheek on his chest. “Together. I like the sound of that.”
He wound me a little tighter, rocked us as he held me in the middle of the room. “Me, too,” he murmured at the sensitive skin just below my ear. An errant lock of hair strayed down the side of my neck, and Jared brushed it back with his nose, kissed beneath it, before he wound it in his finger. “I like anything that ends in you and me.” The suggestive words fell into my room like a promise.
I sighed and shoved all my worries down because none of them mattered when I was in Jared’s arms.
Two loud raps rattled my bedroom door. “Let’s go,” Christopher called.
Jared pulled back. Something mischievous and sweet played all over that gorgeous face. “God, your brother is a pain in my ass.”
Softly laughing, I laced my fingers with his, thinking how the two of them had hardly changed, how they fought and warred and seemed once again forever the best of friends.
“Come on. Let’s go celebrate.” The words were soft, filled with my hope for the day.
With my hope for us.
Yeah, today might be difficult, fraught with the glaring obstacles Jared and I knew we’d eventually have to face, sooner rather than later because we’d been tossed right in the middle of them.
We would have to contend with his past that would forever trail every move he made, the lurking shadows that chased him in the day and haunted him in the night.
But today that past wouldn’t just linger in the recesses of his mind.
I’d asked Jared to go back and stand right at the doorstep of the ghosts that ruled his world.
To step into them.
And we’d have to deal with all the assumptions born from the trouble Jared had been in, the faulty ideas bred in my father’s mind, and the inevitable disappointment that would come along with them.
A shiver of nerves raced through me as Jared squeezed my hand.
But Jared and I were doing this together.
In response, I gripped his hand tighter and let the deepest peace settle over me.
Yes, today was a day to celebrate.