Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You) (34 page)

Aly’s mouth parted.

Holding myself suspended with one hand, I held one side of her face, my thumb caressing along her flushed skin. “What do you see in me?”

For a moment she just looked at me, intensity pouring from her, before she drew me down to bring us chest to chest. Her breath came as a whisper across my ear. “I see beauty and pain. Joy and sorrow. I see the good and I see the bad… and I love it all.”

I sucked in a rattled breath.

I dipped down and covered her mouth with mine. Months of pent-up desire rushed from my chest and pooled in my stomach. Twisted in the tightest knot. Her tongue was all tentative, soft and slow, tangling with mine as she whispered out these little words that I felt rather than heard, utterings of love and fear that came straight from her heart. I sucked her top lip into my mouth, turned to the bottom, dove in again. And I was singed. Burned.

Hers.

Without breaking our kiss, I found the hem of her shirt with my hands. I slowly inched it up, my palms flat as they traveled her curves. I pulled back enough to lift it over her head.

A pensive smile curved her mouth as Aly tugged my shirt free. Hungry eyes roamed over me, as if she’d missed every inch of my body as much as I missed hers.

Aly lost her breath when she found the mark covering my heart. Fingertips flitted over my skin. She tipped her chin up to me, her voice rough. “Is this me?”

“Yes,” I murmured, “I never could forget you, Aly. Never. You haunted me just as much as the rest of the sins lining my body.” I held her hand closer, over the knowing green eyes that would forever watch over me from their spot on my chest. But now I realized she wasn’t there because she was sin. She was there because she saved me.

This was the mark her life had left on mine.

Leaning back, I edged her shorts and panties from her hips, slipped them down her legs. My gaze traveled her length, every inch of this girl like a dream. I palmed her knees, pressed them apart. This time it was my turn to lose my breath. Every cell in my body strained. “Fuck,” I wheezed. “You’re so gorgeous, Aly,”

This slow blush started at her stomach, traveled up her chest, kissed her cheeks. “I love you, Jared. With all of me. I am yours.”

My blood pumped hard and joy leaped up in me.

Real joy. Not a hint or suggestion.

This joy was real. Overwhelming. Something tangible that Aly had shown me was still possible to feel.

My eyes locked on hers as I slowly leaned down. I feathered a kiss just above her pelvic bone where our child grew. Another mark my life had made when I’d believed I wasn’t living at all. Wisps of anxiety curled, twisting with my spirit. I didn’t know if I could ever be enough. But God, I was going to try.

I climbed over her, looked down at the girl who changed everything. The one who’d given me another chance at life.

Soft fingers caressed my face, green eyes intense. “Stay,” she whispered.

I wound my arm under her back and brought it up to hold her head. The other trailed from her shoulder and down the length of her arm. I wove my fingers with hers and brought her knuckles to my mouth. I brushed my lips over them. Our flesh so different, the pure and the impure. Yet now I knew we fit.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Emotion rumbled thick in my chest, pushing and pulsing. I swallowed hard, my chest so fucking tight as I let myself finally
feel
, feel what I’d been fighting since I walked through Aly’s apartment door six months ago.

“I love you, Aly.” The words shook, but rang with truth. Our truth.

I never believed I’d get to have
this
. But somehow I’d found myself with it.

It scared the hell out of me, but I was done running.

I wound a single finger through a lock of her inky hair. A bond. It felt like home.

It was time I built another one.

Thank you so much for reading
Come to Me Quietly
.

Come to Me Quietly
has been such an amazing journey for me as an author. It’s typical of what I write in that it’s an emotional, love-filled journey of two people with a past coming together. But Jared is unlike any character I’ve ever written before. He is passionate. Angry. Self-destructive.

Jared wasn’t originally supposed to be a character in
Come to Me Quietly
. He was the lead in a paranormal romance I began writing more than three years ago. But as I started writing that story, there was just something about Jared that stuck out to me. He was different. Special. And he just kept screaming at me that he belonged in a different story from the one that I had initially planned for him.

So that paranormal romance was shelved, and I began to plot out the story Jared wanted to be in. I so clearly saw this broken man who had so much love and passion buried beneath the pain he held inside him. I saw his burden and shame. I saw his eyes and I saw his anger.

And I saw this young woman, Aleena Moore, who was the only one deep enough to touch it.

Their story became
Come to Me Quietly
.

Through the process of writing this story, I absolutely fell in love with both of these characters. Jared and Aleena have had such a profound effect on me as a person and an author. They grew and became a permanent part of my heart and mind.

I’m absolutely thrilled that the story of their lives will be continued in my next novel,
Come to Me Softly
, because their story has really only just begun.

In
Come to Me Softly
, Jared and Aly will be able to explore their passion freely for the first time because their love is no longer a secret.

I’ve already seen what it will be like for them, waking up together each day… .

Aly stood at the kitchen counter, pouring a glass of orange juice. Locks of nearly black hair were all ratted and a mess, her bedhead about the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen. Of course, the girl was wearing those shorts, exposing the length of those long legs that drove me out of my mind.
 

Shit.

One glimpse of her, and my body was already begging.
 

After I’d had her all night.
 

I inched up behind her and pressed myself flat to her back. I grasped the counter, her sweet little body pinned. My nose dove through the waves that spilled over her shoulders to the sweet spot just below her ear. I inhaled the delicious coconut and the good and the girl. “Fucking gorgeous,” I whispered, because she really fucking was.
 

I could almost feel her blush, the heat rising from her skin as she bit at her bottom lip to suppress her grin.
 

That thing that felt like joy lit in my chest, reminding me that I really fucking was happy.
 

“Ahh
…
are you kidding me?” The obnoxious voice that could only belong to Christopher broke through our moment. “Do I really have to wake up to this bullshit every morning? That is my little sister, you know.” It was all tease, but I didn’t miss the lingering remnant of his distrust.
 

I just pulled my girl closer and tossed him a smirk. Fucker deserved it. “Get used to it, man, ’cause I’m not going anywhere.”
 

But even though I know that in the next book, Jared will have returned to Aly, I also know he still has his demons and still keeps them locked up tight. It is Aly who holds the key. She’s the one who makes him feel, the one who makes him realize he has to face his past if he’s to live a normal life. Face his family, really face himself. But that past is one filled with shame and regret.

This is something he will struggle with in the new book… .

I stood outside the shitty, run-down house, shaking. Fucking shaking.
 

What was I supposed to say when he answered the door? I guess the better question was, what would he say to me? Chances were, he’d tell me to go to straight to hell. Exactly where I deserved to be.
 

Warily, I raked a hand through my hair and glanced back at the street, where Aly sat in the driver’s seat of her car. The girl. Her face was all soft and perfect and reminded me why I was doing this in the first place. I had to do this for her. Had to do this for them.
 

Swallowing down the lump wedged in my throat, I turned back and forced myself to ring the doorbell.
 

In
Come to Me Softly
, Aleena is and will always be his rock, the only one who can hold the shattered pieces together. And Aleena and the baby will be what drives Jared to the places he’d always most feared.

I can see how she loves him in the next book… .

I wrapped myself around his back, my cheek pressed into his spine and my hands fastened around his stomach.
 

Jared released a weighted sigh. For the longest time, silence overtook us. We swam in it. Tension thickened in the crisp fall air.
 

I knew he was hurt. Those words had cut him deep. I’d wanted to shield him from them, protect him, but this was just another obstacle we had to face. All I could do was support him, hold him the way I was now, my touch a promise that I didn’t believe the insinuations that had been spewed.
 

Finally, he spoke, the words a strained groan. “Fuck, Aly.” Harshly, he shook his head. It seemed in surrender. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here. I don’t belong here. Your dad is right.” He slumped farther forward in a blatant attempt to move away. “Every fucking word of it
…
he’s right.”
 

His pain pushed into my spirit, and I wound my arms tighter around him, unwilling to allow him to drive that distance between us. My voice came as a whisper as I begged at his back, “No, he’s not. He doesn’t know you, not the way I do. He’s just surprised.” I blinked into the darkness, trying to make sense of what had just gone down inside. “Shocked,” I added. “There’s a big difference.”
 

Even though my voice lowered, my tone strengthened. “And even if he really believed what he said, it doesn’t change anything.” I hugged him closer, my cheek pressed flat against his shoulder blade. “Do you remember what I told you the night you came back? I love all of it, Jared. I love all of you. And what I think is what’s important
–
not what he or anyone else thinks. It’s just you and me. Nothing else matters.”
 

Hesitation stilled him before he turned around to stand between my legs. His strong hand spread out against my still-flat belly, where our child grew. Blue eyes flamed as they locked on mine. “Just you and me and
this
.”

Everything softened, the tension, the worry, the shame that had seethed through his veins.
 

It was Jared’s own promise. An oath.
 

We wouldn’t let any of this stand in our way.
 

“Just you and me and this,” I promised back.
 

His gentle gaze slipped all over my face. A caress. “I love you, Aly Moore. You know that, don’t you?”
 

I cupped his face. His fire burned my skin, the connection we shared greater than anything that should be possible. My head listed to the side, lost in his desperate expression. “Of course I know that.”
 

I had known it long before he knew it himself.
 

In
Come to Me Softly
, Jared will finally be ready to face his past head-on.

When jealousy and secrets and dishonest intentions threaten Aly and their baby, Jared will be ready to stand up and become the man he has always wanted to be – even if he destroys himself along the way.

In the new book, you’ll see Jared protect what is important to him… .

“What did he say to you?” Rage coiled in the pit of my stomach, bled free as a hiss from my mouth as I stormed the room.
 

Aly flinched, blinked, twisted her fingers in her hands. She choked over the words. “He didn’t say anything. He was just standing there. Waiting. He knew where I was going, Jared. What does he want?”
 

It didn’t matter what the fuck he wanted. I wasn’t about to let him have it. No one would touch her. I’d die first.
 

I invite you to come visit my Web site at
www.aljacksonauthor.com
to get an early peek at
Come to Me Softly
.

And look for the whole story when the book is published in the summer of 2014.

Thank you again for investing your time in me and my characters. I hope that you have enjoyed meeting them as much as I have and that you’ll continue to join me as the hearts and lives of Jared and Aly are shaped in
Come to Me Softly
.

All the best,

A. L. Jackson

Can’t wait for the second in A.L. Jackson’s
Closer to You Series,
Come to Me Softly
?
 

Read on to discover more fresh voices in New Adult, coming soon from Piatkus
…
 

 

DEEPER
 

Caroline & West, Part 1
 

Robin York
 

When Caroline Piasecki’s ex-boyfriend posts their sex pictures on the Internet, it destroys her reputation as a nice college girl. Suddenly her once-promising future doesn’t look so bright. Caroline tries to make the pictures disappear; hoping time will bury her shame. Then a guy she barely knows rises to her defence and punches her ex to the ground.

West Leavitt is the last person Caroline needs in her life. Everyone knows he’s shady. Still, Caroline is drawn to his confidence and swagger – even after promising her dad she’ll keep her distance. On late, sleepless nights, Caroline starts wandering into the bakery where West works.

They hang out, they talk, they listen. Though Caroline and West tell each other they’re ‘just friends,’ their feelings intensify until it becomes impossible to pretend. The more complicated her relationship with West gets, the harder Caroline has to struggle to discover what she wants for herself – and the easier it becomes to find the courage she needs to fight back against the people who would judge her.

When all seems lost, sometimes the only place to go is deeper.
 

FALL FROM INDIA PLACE
 

Samantha Young
 

The
New York Times
bestselling author of
On Dublin Street, Down London Road
and
Before Jamaica Lane
returns with a story about letting go of the past and learning to trust in the future
…
 

When Hannah Nichols last saw Marco D’Alessandro five long years ago, he broke her heart. The bad boy with a hidden sweet side was the only guy Hannah ever loved – and the only man she’s ever been with. After one intense night of giving in to temptation, Marco took off, leaving Scotland and Hannah behind. Shattered by the consequences of their night together, Hannah has never truly moved on.

Leaving Hannah was the biggest mistake of Marco’s life – something he has deeply regretted for years. So when fate reunites them, he refuses to let her go without a fight. Determined to make her his, Marco pursues Hannah, reminding her of all the reasons they’re meant to be together…

But just when Marco thinks they’re committed to a future together, Hannah makes a discovery that unearths the secret pain she’s been hiding from him – a secret that could tear them apart before they have a real chance to start over again…

Out in paperback and ebook 2014!