Come to Me Quietly(101)

Christopher dropped the remote to the cushion. “I’m going to get out of here. You sure you don’t want to come?”



“No, I’m good.”



At this point, he couldn’t drag me out of here.

Christopher inclined his head in the direction of Aly’s room. “Glad you’re here, anyway. You can keep an eye out for her.”



“Yeah, of course.”



Christopher went to his room to change, and waved over his head as he left.

I bounced a little more. Time had slowed to the most excruciating pace. I kept looking at her door, willing Gabe to emerge.

Thirty minutes later, he did. Her door slowly opened and Dickhead appeared. The good-guy expression I was sure he reserved only for Aly transformed the second he caught my eye. He lifted his chin in a silent insult, tossed me a grin that smacked of arrogance and self-satisfaction as he pulled her door shut.

The intense need to completely take him out engulfed me. I wanted to make him pay for showing up here. For thinking for a second he belonged with her.

For being stupid enough to f*ck with me.

I just sat there, leering at the little twit who was obviously so ignorant he believed I’d continue to sit here if he kept looking at me that way.

I was gritting my teeth, itching to loose my aggression on him, when he turned his back and headed out the door. That was all it took before I was at hers.

I didn’t knock, just turned the knob and let myself into the muted light of her room. Tonight, the blinds were shut. Thin lines of moonlight bled through the slats, and a small lamp sent a golden glow crawling up the wall behind her dressing table. It cast the rest of her room in shadows.

With her back to me, Aly stood as a silhouette in front of her bed. Her work clothes had been discarded at her feet, and she’d pulled on those same pink sleep shorts she always wore, giving cover to that glorious ass. She was in the middle of pulling a tank over her head. Waves of chunky hair fell down her back, all mussed and sexy. My fingers twitched, because damn it, I really wanted to touch, but I stayed rooted because I figured I was in no frame of mind to give in to it.

Over her shoulder, she peeked at me as she adjusted the hem of her shirt. Discomfort lined her face, the green of her eyes subdued. “I was just coming to find you,” she whispered.

Swallowing hard, I stared at her from across the room, not sure what to do with the hostility still boiling in my veins. I felt on edge. Unhinged. But this felt completely different than the sickness that would forever darken my soul. It felt a little too much like the night I’d lost it at the bar at the mention of her name.

Motherf*cking trigger.

I reached back to lock her door before I turned to look at her, rushing an agitated hand through my hair, trying to quell the f*cking insanity she spurred in me. “What are you trying to do to me?” My tongue felt thick as I struggled through the admission. “I don’t… f*ck, I don’t even recognize myself around you, Aly. I thought I was going to lose my mind out there, thinking about you in here with him.”



Aly slowly turned around and took one step forward. With her head angled low and tipped to the side, she squinted, like maybe I’d just pissed her off.

That was okay because I was a little bit pissed off, too.

Lines deepened between her eyes, disbelief laced in the words that spilled from her mouth. “Do you think for one second I’d choose him over you, Jared? He came here to tell me he missed me. That he wanted to be with me and he’d do anything to fix whatever had gone wrong between us. But the entire time, the only thing I could think about was you in the other room. How the only thing in this world I want is you. Don’t you understand that?”