Come to Me Quietly(150)

Her words penetrated my blackened soul. And I f*cking got it, this innocent girl who I’d taken.

She’d always been mine.

I inclined my head up to capture her attention, to make sure she understood. “I’m so f*cked-up, Aly, and I’m always going be. I warned you that you can’t fix me, and you can’t. I’m never going to outlive or outrun this shit.”



All that I had left were pieces, and even those were broken. But those pieces belonged to her, and just maybe we could find a way to make a life from them.

“I wasn’t lying when I said you make me better. You make me want to be better. Truth is, I can’t outrun you, either, Aly. I can’t be without you anymore. The last three months I spent without you have been the darkest I’ve ever had.”



Slowly I ran my hands down the delicate skin of her shoulders. Goose bumps lifted in their wake. I trailed them all the way down, squeezing her hands, then brought my palms to rest flat on her stomach. My throat tightened and I forced down my fear.

“But I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been going through without me here.”



Aly closed her eyes, tears slipping free. “I needed you.”



“It makes me sick that I left you.” Emotion pulsed in my chest, in the deepest places of my spirit, a tumble of confusion and apprehension of what I’d never thought should be vying to be freed. “I’m terrified of this, Aly. I don’t know how to do this.”



Hopeful, subdued laughter fell softly from her mouth. Her teeth tugged at her bottom lip as she dropped her gaze to my hands, and she traced her fingers over the numbers marring my knuckles. “Do you think I’m not? I have no idea how to do this, either. But I know I want to do it with you.”



Sliding my hands up the outside of her thighs to her hips, I tugged her to the edge of the bed, because I needed her near. I brought her flush, and she wrapped her legs around my waist. Those little sleep shorts pressed into my stomach, and I dug my fingers into the supple flesh.

“Aly,” I mumbled through a groan, my face buried in her chest. I raised my head to place a gentle kiss under her jaw, breathing her in, the life and the good. “I missed you.” I ached. It’d been too long since I was lost in her, too long without her touch.

Soft fingers played in my hair, traveled down to my neck and back up again. Chills crawled down my spine. Need coiled and spun with adoration. Fuck, I was in so deep. But now I knew it was the only place I wanted to be.

Easing off the floor, I climbed onto the bed, dragging her up to the middle of it with me. Aly clung to me, legs and arms and body and soul. She ran her nose along the sensitive skin behind my ear. “I missed you,” she murmured, “so much.”



I laid her down and sat back to take her in, my hands gripping her knees. Those long legs were bent, her back bowed. Her hair was all a mess, billowing out around that face that had become the only thing I could see.

“You are so beautiful, Aly.”



Perfect.

I raked a hand through my hair in an attempt to get myself under control because I was dying to consume her. Maybe the way she consumed me.

Wholly.

I forced myself to go slow as I crawled between her legs, propping myself on my hands and knees. I looked directly down on the girl.

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?”