Come to Me Quietly(151)

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 f*cking 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.