Come to Me Quietly(64)

My mouth sought hers, hard and demanding. Her lips were soft and yielding. And I took, deepened the kiss because I knew this would be the only taste of Aly I would ever get. Desire surged, flooded, and every inch of my body hardened. I strained against her, edged back for a breath as I whispered her name.

“Jared” fell from her mouth, her eyes wild, before she dove back in and sucked at my bottom lip. Her sweet tongue flicked out to tease at my skin. Returning the kiss, I consumed her mouth with mine.

She tightened her legs around my waist, desperation pouring from her as she struggled to bring me closer, hunger in her eyes and impatience in her touch. “Jared… please.” Her fingers dug into my shoulders.

My head spun and my pulse sped, and I wanted to devour every inch of her. Overwrought, my senses were on overload – overwhelmed – everything quickened and slowed and amplified.

Reality came crashing back to me.

No.

I tore my mouth from her, panting, my eyes frantic as they roved over her face.

She burrowed her fingers deeper into my skin, pleading.

No.

I edged back, forcing her legs to drop free as I supported her at her waist, her knees weak as she grappled for footing when her feet fell to the floor.

I steadied her before I pressed my hands to her shoulders and forced myself back.

Her fingers fluttered up to touch her lips, so much like they had done when the first of the fireworks had blanketed the sky. “Jared?” It came low, a breathy question whispered into the dimness of the suffocating hall.

“Shit,” I mumbled, stumbling back from the girl who held so much power over me, the one who chased away every rational thought.

I didn’t deserve her.

I never could, no matter how f*cking badly I needed her.

Hurt wrapped her tight, just as tight as she wrapped her arms protectively over her chest.

What had I done?

I shook my head as I backed away. “I am so sorry, Aly.”



Turning, I rushed down the hall, pushed through the throng of sweating bodies, and burst out the front door, gasping at the reprieve of the thick night air.

Pain hit me full force, as clearly as if my eyes were closed and I was living it all again, the day I destroyed everything, took my family’s joy, the day she’d died and taken my soul with her.

I don’t get to have this.

At eleven seventeen the next night, I finally put my key in the lock and turned the knob. I hadn’t come back to the apartment at all last night. Facing her after what I’d done felt impossible because I knew what I now had to do. There was no other way around it. I’d f*cked it all up, ruined it, the way I always did, and now it was time to pay.

A deep ache clamored in my chest when I stepped through the door and into the low-lit apartment, the only illumination bleeding from the small light under the microwave in the kitchen. This would be the last time I’d enter it.

And honestly, it made me f*cking sad because the last month had felt like something, like I wasn’t just existing, but there was some kind of purpose to it all.

Only I’d been deluding myself because I’d always known it’d come to this.

Most of all, this hurt because I was going to miss her.

Latching the door behind me, I took in the silence of the empty room. At the end of the hall, Christopher’s door sat wide open, the room vacant. The only sound in the apartment seeped from the thin walls of Aly’s bathroom, the dull hum of the shower telling me she stood under a steaming fall of water.

I rubbed at the soreness on my chest. Yeah. It was unbelievable just how much I was going to miss her.