Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You) (20 page)

The night sky was turbulent. Sheets of lightning sliced through the heavens, igniting the world in bright bursts of light before it fizzled out. Furies of harsh wind pummeled the thin branches of paloverde trees, slanting them askew. Frantic, I searched the darkened balcony for evidence of the one who’d always set me off-kilter, the one who’d set the standard of my beliefs because he’d been the one who’d managed to touch me so deeply. The sky flashed. It cast the balcony in transient light.

Jared wasn’t there.

I took two steps back. I fisted my hands in frustration, my attention darting all over the empty room. For a second, I studied the front door, before I swallowed down the lump in my throat and found the courage to cross the room. Quietly I opened it.

Relief washed over me when I found him sitting by himself on the floor with his back propped up against the wall beside the door. That relief clashed with the pain, this overwhelming surge of feeling that crested and rose.

Like a partner to the storm, Jared rocked in agitation as he brought a nearly spent cigarette to his mouth. His bare chest expanded as he filled his lungs. Smoke swirled above his head. Thick chunks of his blond hair lashed with the wind, beaten and stirred. Aggressively he stamped out the butt. A twisted snarl bled from his lips, and he curled his lacerated knuckles and mashed them against his temples, as if he’d do anything to silence the demons whispering in his ear.

Just for tonight, I wanted to make it go away.

I felt the moment he registered my presence, the way his hands pressed harder to his head, his movements harsh as he severely shook it. His voice was hoarse, barely audible above the howling wind. “Just… go back inside.”

He knew me better than that. He knew there was no chance I’d turn away, just like I knew him well enough to know he would try to shut me out.

Thunder crashed, and I delved deep to find the same courage I’d uncovered in myself last night. Creeping forward, I kneeled in front of him, my knees scraping on the coarse concrete floor. Slowly I crawled between his legs, my hands resting on his knees.

Jared rocked his head back on the pitted stucco wall. He kept his eyes closed tight, shielding me from the hurt I knew he harbored there. “You shouldn’t be out here,” he forced through gritted teeth.

“Why not, Jared?” I demanded. “Why do you think you have to go through everything alone?”

Tortured blue eyes opened to me. They skimmed my face, like this painful embrace. “Don’t you see it, Aly? This is exactly what I warned you about. I’m a fucking disaster.” Reaching out, he touched my face, his head tilting to the side as he dragged his fingertips down my cheek, searching for understanding.

Flames burned beneath his touch, stoked the devotion I’d eternally hold for him.

Did he think he was somehow pushing me away, warning me, when all I wanted was more?

“I never wanted you to see me like I was tonight,” he said, “but it was inevitable… all of this is…
inevitable
. And still I stay because I don’t fucking know how to walk away from you. Last night… ” He wrenched a trembling hand through his hair. “Fuck, Aly… last night was the closest I’ve come to feeling something real in so long.”

With his admission, warmth flooded and pooled, filled me whole. My hands clamped down on his knees, my fingers burrowing in his skin.

Stay
.

A fierce squall of wind pushed into the space, rippled with energy, stirring my blood, stirring my heart.

Stay
.

Leaning in close to his face, I captured his gaze, spoke above the churning storm. “None of that matters to me, Jared. And it was just a fight. You were sticking up for Christopher. Sticking up for me. What is wrong with that?”

My hair thrashed around my face, and Jared twisted his finger in a wayward lock as if he were anchoring himself to me.

Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled.

I sucked in a breath, losing myself in his simple touch.

“You know it wasn’t just a fight.” Jared shook his head, his eyes narrowing severely as he opened his mouth in confession. “Christopher was right when he said I lost it. I lost it the second that asshole even looked your way. I wanted to… ” Hesitating, Jared dropped his gaze to the side, wet his lips, before pinning me with the full force of his stare. “I wanted to
hurt
him… I wanted to rip him apart. Just the thought of someone messing with you makes me insane.” He blinked, winding his finger tighter in my hair. “You make me fucking crazy, Aly. Dangerous. It’s like all I want to do is protect you even though I know I’m going to end up hurting you. And God, it kills me to think of hurting you.”

I grasped his face between urgent hands. “Then don’t.”

His mouth collided with mine, his hands frenzied as he possessively sank them into my hair. He kissed and sucked, mumbled, “Aly… ” as he gasped for air. He pulled back, my hair threaded in his fingers as he splayed them wide. His eyes grew earnest as he held my head in his hands. “Baby, I don’t want to… God, I don’t want to.” He drew me back, his mouth forceful as it overtook mine.

I pressed my chest to his, felt his heart pound. I struggled to meet his kiss, to bear part of this anguish eating him alive. My fingers curled around his jaw before I wrapped my arms around his head. “Jared,” I begged.

Pricks of pain bit at my knees as I rose, battling to get closer, desperate as my body sought his.

I just needed to feel. To know his heart in his touch. For him to know mine.

Jared hoisted me up in one swift movement. My back was suddenly nailed to the door, his body covering mine. All the breath left my lungs. I moaned, making a frantic play to bring him closer as I clung to his wide shoulders.

Jared took my face in his hands, pulled back to search my eyes. He wet his lips, the frenzy that had blazed between us abating to a slow smolder. He hesitated, wavering, before he returned to me with a gentle, closemouthed kiss. He rested his forehead on mine. “Aly, can we… will you just lie with me? I just want to feel you.”

My exhale was shaky, and I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth, nodding against him.

Carefully he lowered me to my feet, fumbled with the knob, and let us into the silence of the darkened apartment. He led me to my room, quietly snapped the door shut, and turned the lock. In front of my bed, he pulled his shirt over his head, before he slowly removed mine.

“Aleena, you’re so beautiful,” he said as his eyes swept the length of my body.

Aleena.
 

Last night when he’d spoken my name like that, it had stolen my breath as he’d murmured it again and again. It made me feel beautiful. Made me feel loved, even when he couldn’t admit loving me was exactly what he was doing.

Lightning struck the same instant thunder crashed. A sudden torrent of violent rain pelted the window. I shivered, a rush of chills blanketing my skin. Jared reached out to caress them, fingertips light as they tickled along my collarbone.

He left us in only our underwear before he took my hand and guided me to the bed. He drew me near, his arms encircling me, his nose buried in my hair. The storm raged around us, so much like the man who held me in his arms. Violent. Unpredictable.

Beautiful.

Hours later, I listened as rain pattered lightly against the windowpanes, and thunder rolled in the far distance as the storm gave up its hold on the city.

For the longest time, I’d just lain on top of this sweet man who was so utterly hardened. It was difficult to reconcile the two. We’d said little, just held each other in the peace of the passing storm. After tonight, I knew that was really what Jared needed. Just to be held. His heart thrummed steadily beneath my cheek. He had me wrapped in his arms, his fingers playing along the skin of my bare back. He just stared at the ceiling, lost in thought.

I snuggled closer because I didn’t think I could ever get close enough. His fingers found their way into my hair, massaging up the back of my scalp. Contentment warmed me as it spread through my veins.

“This feels so good.” Jared’s hushed voice broke into the silence.

I trailed my fingers up his chest and to his shoulder. “So good.”

I didn’t want to ruin the peace we found ourselves in, but the question had sat quietly in the back of my head since that first morning when he’d confronted me in the kitchen and then stumbled into the apartment later that night with bloodied knuckles. Seeing him at the bar tonight had pushed my worry back to the forefront of my mind, where it plagued and nagged me. “Can I ask you something without you getting upset?” Timidly, I traced the dying rose that rested over his heart. I kept my head down because I couldn’t look him in the eye.

Humorlessly, he chuckled and toyed with my hair, lifting thick chunks and letting them fall in waves down my back. “That sounds like a loaded question, Aly. I think the better question would be if you can ask it without getting upset. Because I won’t lie to you, but I’m not sure you’ll like the answer.”

I swallowed. “It’s not like that. It’s just something I’ve been wondering about and you’ve never mentioned.” Okay, worrying about. Jared was right. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d handle his answer.

“All right, then,” he prodded.

I paused, searching for some way to frame the question without sounding as if I were accusing him of something I really didn’t know all that much about. Because it wasn’t an accusation. I just needed to know. “I heard what they found in your locker when you were expelled… ”
Knew what I had seen
. My heart thudded a little too hard.

Jared sighed with impatience, but he didn’t seem all that surprised or angered by the question. “You want to know if I still use? If I’m an addict?”

I cringed at the bluntness of his words.

Jared sighed again, but this time it sounded like an apology. “Hey, look at me.” He nudged me. I lifted my head and he placed a warm hand on my face. Sincere blue eyes locked with mine. “Yes, Aly, I’m an addict because I’ll never forget how easy it is to slip into oblivion, and I’ll never stop wanting to go there. There are days when I think I’ll go crazy because I crave it so much and other days when I don’t think about it at all. But using is the easy way out. I tried that route, and it didn’t take long for me to realize this life wasn’t going to be easy. I haven’t used since the night they sent me away. I learned then I don’t get an escape.”

“Jared – ”

“Don’t, Aly.” He ran his thumb over my cheek. “You think I can’t feel this? How badly you want the things I can’t give you? That’s why it makes me sick that I’m doing this, because I already warned you… you can’t fix me, and you can’t say or do something that will change my mind or fill up the void in my soul.”

There was no anger in his words. Just sadness.

He increased his hold on my face and I nuzzled closer to him, wishing I could disappear inside him. Wished I could fill that void.

“I know that. I just care about you,” I whispered seriously.

A wistful smile quivered around his mouth, his eyes gentle, and I knew he cared about me, too.

“I know you do, Aly,” he admitted before his blue eyes dimmed. “Just be careful that you don’t care too much.”

I pulled his hand from my face, kissed across the numbers tattooed on the ripped and torn knuckles of his left hand:
2006. Death
.

The year he’d lost it all.

I prayed that somehow he could again learn to live again.

The next day, I had to get up early because I was scheduled to work both the breakfast and lunch shifts. Jared had crept from my bed sometime in the very early morning hours, but not without leaving me another glimpse into his thoughts.

The foul spoils the beauty
.

His words both touched me and saddened me.

I’d left him with a token of me, a tender kiss I’d placed just below his ear. He’d smiled, his sleepy eyes flickering open to look at me as soft words rasped from his hoarse throat. “Hi, beautiful.”

I’d left feeling good. Alive. As if maybe Jared and I had stumbled upon some kind of understanding, as unstable as it was.

I blew the bangs back from my forehead and began to tap an order out on the computer. Sundays were always busy, which I loved because it meant time passed quickly. I peeked at the clock on the wall. Only half an hour until I could go to him.

“How are you holding up, Aly?” Karina asked, popping her head through the swinging door.

I smiled at her. “I’m all caught up. It’s finally slowing down out there.”

“Looks like the rush is over. Why don’t you go ahead and finish up your last table and then you can cut out of here?”

“Thanks, Karina.”

“No problem. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Sure thing.”

The door swung closed behind her, and I turned my attention back to the computer and put in my last order of the day.

Two seconds later, the door swung open again. I glanced to the side to see another waitress, Clara, standing there staring at me, a question framing her set mouth.

I frowned and tucked my order pad back in my apron.

Suspicion tipped her head to the side. She was in her late twenties, bleached blond, wore too much makeup, and was one of the hardest workers at the restaurant. She once told me that being a single mom gave you a whole new work ethic.

I couldn’t help but like her.

“What?” I asked, a smile wobbling at the corner of my mouth. I just couldn’t help it. Happiness had that way about it.

I grabbed two glasses and began filling them with ice as I glanced over at her.

She shifted her weight back and crossed her arms over her chest, her expression glimmering with smug humor. “So, Aly, my friend,” she drew out, “do you care to explain to me why there’s a crazy-hot, scary guy asking for you out at the hostess podium?”

My hand tightened on the glass I was filling.

Jared
.

Warmth flooded my face, spread down to wind through my heart. He was here.

Laughing, she edged forward and started filling glasses with ice and tea. She knocked me with her hip. “And I’m guessing by the look on your face you know exactly who I’m talking about.”