If Forever Comes (36 page)

His hand was warm when he brought it to my
cheek. “I’m not giving up on you.” It was tender, sweet.

He dropped his hand down to take mine, and he
ran his thumb along the raised ridges that disfigured the outside
of my left thumb. I squeezed my eyes shut, and forced myself to
keep from yanking it away. I hated when he did that.

“I’ll talk to you later okay?” I
muttered.

I jumped into the driver’s seat and started
the engine, leaving Gabe standing in the middle of the street
staring at me. I sped the short distance back to my apartment. My
heart thundered so hard I felt it in my ears.

How many times had I imagined this? Seeing him
again? Just to know he was really okay. So many of my years had
secretly been given to him. Nights spent in worry, plagued by
questions I didn’t understand. Seeing him would put it all at
peace.

I would finally be able to let it
go.

I drove around to the back of the apartment
complex and pulled into my covered parking space. I sat there for
the longest time, trying to calm my racing nerves.

Sucking in a deep breath, I climbed out of my
car and grabbed my bag from the passenger’s seat. Heat rushed over
my skin, constricted my chest. With each step across the parking
lot, the higher my apprehension rose, this overpowering need to see
him wound up with acute fear.

Finally, I found the courage to slip my key
into the lock. Quietly, I edged the door open to the darkened room.
Muted light bled from the kitchen. The air inside tasted thick with
the unknown. My heart rate increased as I chanced a step deeper
inside and shut the door. I could hear him, the shallow breaths he
exhaled, this tension that radiated through the enclosed space. For
a moment I stilled. Pictures of us playing as kids ran through my
mind, the way he’d wait for me to catch up, then tug at my hair
when I finally did.
Hurry up, slow poke, before your brother
makes you go home
. The memories of that boy drew me
forward.

My eyes slowly adjusted to the faint light.
His outline came into view, this unrecognizable man stretched out
across the length of the couch. Lost in sleep, his bare chest rose
and fell, the motion almost labored, as if he struggled to get his
lungs to work. One arm was flung over his face. He slept in his
jeans, his feet extended over the end of the couch.

The entirety of his exposed body was marked,
covered in lines and colors and indistinct designs. I edged
forward. An unknown fascination drew me on, my fingers twitching as
I fought the need to feel something familiar in this man who was so
entirely unfamiliar. I held my breath as I closed in on the couch,
inched forward and allowed my gaze to travel along his
body.

His eyes popped open, and I gasped as I
stumbled back.

He jerked upright, his eyes wild as they
worked to focus on me. They softened minimally as he took me in,
roaming as they searched. Even then, they pinned my back to the
wall.

I just stood there, breathless.

When he whispered, his voice pierced something
inside of me. “Aly?”

I was a fool if I ever thought I
could let it go.

I blinked and tried to orient myself, forcing
myself to speak. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

He said nothing, just watched me with fiery
eyes. I fidgeted and dropped my face under the intensity of his
gaze. Flattening myself against the wall, I slid further down the
hall and fumbled behind me to find my door knob. I pushed it open
and escaped inside because I had no idea what to do with all the
thoughts that tumbled through my mind.

I stood in the middle of my room, staring at
the back of my closed door. A faint glow of light crept in from
underneath.

Shedding my clothes and damp suit, I pulled on
a new pair of panties, some sleep shorts, and a matching tank. I
crawled onto my bed, flopped on my back, and stared at the
ceiling.

My pulse accelerated as I thought of him on
the other side of my door.

Jared Holt was here.

A whisper of a smile curled my lips. He was
real, no longer a veiled mystery that I’d hidden away in my heart.
He lived. He breathed.

And God, if he wasn’t the most beautiful
thing I’d ever seen.

When I woke up the next morning, diffused
morning light slipped into my room through my blinds. Blinking, I
stretched, extending my toes and lifting my arms over my head as I
yawned.
Jared
. He was the first thing on my mind, and just
the name made me smile. This morning, there was no need to coax
myself out of bed. A flicker of excitement sparked in my chest when
I thought of seeing Jared in broad daylight, hearing him speak,
learning what he was like now. I crept across the floor. Cracking
the door open, I peeked out. A blanket lay rumpled in a pile on the
couch, and I could hear water running from a faucet in the
bathroom.

I tiptoed into the kitchen and rummaged
through the refrigerator to find the container of orange juice. I
stood on my toes to get a glass from the top shelf of the cabinet,
filled it halfway, and took a sip. It was cold as it slid down my
dry throat, and I closed my eyes as I swallowed, listening acutely
as the faucet turned off and the door creaked open. A fever of
nerves raced through me, my senses keening when I felt him emerge
behind me.

I was still trying to reconcile the memories
of my brother’s childhood friend, the one I’d fancied as my own
even if I had only been a delusional little girl, with the man I’d
caught a glimmer of as I stared at him in the dark last night. I
tried to make it all add up, the real man who was here with the
fantasies I’d played out in my mind over the last six years, the
images I’d conjured of Jared as he’d grown as I’d wondered and
prayed that one day our paths would cross again. With just the
glimpse I’d caught, I knew my imagination didn’t even begin to come
close.

His movements were slow as he inched around
the bar and into the kitchen. For a moment, we stood in awkward
silence, tension radiating between us. He finally mumbled a low,
“Good morning.” His voice was thick, hoarse. My stomach knotted in
anticipation as the sound slipped across my skin.

“Good morning,” I whispered back. I took
another sip of orange juice as I steeled myself, then I finally
gathered the nerve to look over my shoulder.

And I froze when I was able to finally really
see him.

God.

Flickers of memories flashed through my
vision, pictures of an almost white-haired boy who had spent so
much time at my house when we were growing up that he may as well
have lived there. The way he was always laughing and the constant
tease poised on the tip of his tongue. But above all that, he’d had
the biggest heart of anyone I’d ever met. I could never forget the
way his sharp, ice-blue eyes still managed to appear gentle when he
spoke to me, or the way he was so interested in everything
happening around him, his curiosity extending to the leaves on the
trees and even the bugs that crawled along the ground.

Now. . .

His hair had darkened a shade or two, the
blond touched by the slightest of browns. It was short on the
sides, and the top was just barely long enough that he managed to
run his fingers anxiously through it as he stared back at me, while
I stared in shock up at him. He wasn’t as tall as Christopher, but
tall enough to tower over me.

My hand clenched around my glass as my eyes
widened. Then wandered.

Stubble coated his jaw, which was clenched
tight as he worked one side of his mouth, nervously grinding his
teeth. He smelled of peppermint and the faintest hint of
cigarettes, this combination that was intoxicating and not the
least bit unappealing. I couldn’t stop myself from studying him,
from taking in every inch of this man who held me in the palm of
his hand without the slightest awareness that he did.

He stood in my kitchen in only his jeans. His
waist was narrow, his shoulders wide. Sinewy muscle flexed down his
arms. Strength rippled with even the slightest movement, and his
jeans clung to hip bones that jutted out just above his waistband.
My attention drifted down his legs to where he stood barefoot on
the tile floor of the kitchen. Even his feet were sexy.

I blinked away the stupor. No. The images my
mind had conjured had definitely not done him justice.

But none of those things were what I really
saw. Instead my attention went to what I couldn’t fully make out
last night. Almost every exposed inch of skin was covered in ink,
these intricate designs that bled and wept, wound together to
create an allusion of death. They all blended so none were
distinct, just sweeps of color and innuendo that blurred from one
horror to the next. Flames licked up along his entire right arm, a
pair of bright blue eyes staring out from their depths, seeming to
beg as if they were eternally damned to this raging fire. My
attention was drawn to his hands where the designs dripped down
over his wrists and leaked onto his fingers. The knuckles on one
hand had numbers that read 1990. The knuckles on the other were
marked 2006.

Sickness coiled in my stomach as I realized
the significance of the statement he made.

This boy was painted in his pain.

Tentatively, I dragged my gaze back to his
face. Those gentle eyes were no longer gentle, but harsh as they
pinned me with a completely different kind of intensity than had
shattered me last night. This intensity raved with anger and hinted
at disappointment.

He lifted his arms out to the side with his
palms up, as if he were some kind of offering, although a sneer
transformed his gorgeous face. “Go for it, Aly. You want to get
inside me, too? Let’s hear it.”

I spun the rest of the way around so I was
facing him. In the same motion, I floundered back. The sharp edge
of the counter bit into the back of my hips as I instinctively
moved away from the agitation curling through his body. “I didn’t
say anything,” I said, the words chaotically tumbling from my
mouth.

A shot of disbelieving laughter escaped him,
and he shook his head as he turned away, his hands laced on the
back of his head as he seemed to struggle with what to say. He
whipped back around. “Yeah, well you didn’t have to. I get it. I
don’t need your fucking pity, so do us both a favor and pretend
like I’m not here, all right?”

He shocked me my closing the space between us.
His head cocked to the side as he nailed me with narrowed eyes. I
could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he sucked in frantic
breaths. My back bowed over the counter as he hissed in my face. “I
don’t need your shit, and I promise you, you don’t need
mine.”

He released a bitter grunt as he leaned back
then stalked away.

I stood there trying to stop my head from
spinning while he disappeared around the other side of the bar and
out into the living room. He left me with a pounding heart and a
cutting sense of disillusionment.

I heard him shuffling and digging through his
things. I only caught a glimpse of him as he rushed out the door
pulling a shirt over his head. He slammed the door shut behind
him.

Oh my God. What the hell just
happened?

I turned and pressed my palms into the counter
for support. Dropping my head, I tried to work through the
aftermath of the storm that was Jared Holt. How had we gone from a
mumbled
good morning
to all-out war in three seconds flat?
My pulse sped, and I pulled in even breaths, trying to calm myself
and the panic that had built up in my nerves.

Guilt tugged at my consciousness because I
knew part of it was my fault, the way I’d devoured every inch of
his body as if he were some sort of exhibit on display. My thoughts
had shot between blatant desire and heartbreak, mixed and merged
into this thick emotion that had filled every crevice in my
chest.

But what did he expect? That I wouldn’t look?
That he could stand before me in nothing but jeans and my eyes
wouldn’t wander and seek him out?

“Shit,” I whispered, trying to calm my
reaction to him. But I couldn’t help the way he’d made me feel.
Part of me wanted to lash out at him for treating me like I was
nothing
, while the stronger part of me wanted to reach out
and trace the lines that were etched across his body, to feel them
because I knew in every single one there was a memory, that each
projected a feeling, symbolized a moment in time that meant
something to him. He was right. I wanted to get inside
him.