Come to Me Quietly

A throaty chuckle filled my room, and he lay back on my bed. My toes were pressed into the covers just at his side. And I loved it, loved that he wanted to be here with me, loved that what I saw in him was kind.

Even if he couldn’t see it himself.

He wove his fingers together and rested them on his chest, the incongruous numbers tattooed across his knuckles meshed. He sat very still, and seemed to drift away in his thoughts.

I kept my attention on my page, until I felt the gravity of his stare burning into my forehead, like I could sense a pull. Drawn to him. I always had been.

When I turned to him, the grin on his face was something I almost didn’t recognize because it’d been so long since I’d seen it. But I had, so many times before. I’d witnessed it in the carefree boy who had meant everything to me.

His blue eyes danced as they flitted from my sketch pad to my face. “It used to drive me fucking crazy that you wouldn’t let me see what you kept hidden inside those books.”

I gasped when he suddenly moved. He twisted onto his knees in almost a crouch, his chin tucked and his gaze peeking at me from just above the top margin of my book. Predatory. As if at any second he was going to pounce and wrestle it from me. My breath caught. Tingles sped under the surface of my skin, and he hadn’t even touched me.

My hands tightened around the edges of my sketch pad like a vise.

“And you know what, Aly?” His eyes darted everywhere, absorbing, taking in the lines of my face, my mouth, my hands, the pad I clutched to my chest, before they fixed firmly on my own. “It still drives me fucking crazy.”

Strength bunched in the muscles rippling along his shoulders, but in his movements there was this playfulness, so much like I remembered. An echo of our childhood sounded in my ear, the way he’d pestered and begged me to let him see, but never forced me into anything I didn’t want to do.

At that time it was because I was embarrassed and afraid he might make fun of me. I didn’t want him to see the inexperience in my drawings. Now it was because it’d be like slicing my heart open and exposing everything I wasn’t ready for him to see.

It’d scare him as much as it scared me.

Shock stunned me when he abruptly grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me down, forcing me flat on the bed. The sketch pad slid off my lap, facedown on the sheets.

Suddenly I was staring up at Jared’s gorgeous face as he hovered over me. He straddled my waist, and I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could only feel the blood coursing through my veins and pounding in my ears.

His nose was an inch from mine, his hands resting on both sides of my head, but he was everywhere – everywhere – sinking into my consciousness and my spirit.

Then he smirked, all cute and smug, and my eyes went wide when the realization hit me. “Oh my God, Jared Holt, don’t you even think about it. Don’t you dare,” I begged in a whisper, my voice strained with need and a little bit of old childhood fear.

He knew exactly how to get me.

“What?” he asked with feigned innocence, before his fingers began to tap at the center of my chest on my breastbone with his index fingers. His legs cinched around my sides to keep my arms pinned to the bed. This had been Christopher and Jared’s favorite form of torture.

I bucked up, trying to throw him from my body, or maybe I was trying to bring him closer; I couldn’t tell. “Jared… stop… Oh my God, you’re such an ass.”

I made an attempt at flailing my arms. His thighs held them down. Held me down.

Oh my God.

He laughed, quiet and low. “You’ve tortured me for years. Don’t you think it’s only fair I pay you back a little?”

The taps came harder, faster, his touch no longer that of a boy’s fingers, but now heavy and strong. But somehow it felt the same.

How intensely had I missed this?

The push and pull. The tease and the taunt.

I’d missed my friend.

Furiously, I squirmed. Tears gathered, streaking down the sides of my face, and dripping into my hair before I knew it. A low whine rose from deep within my throat and mixed with the quiet laughter I couldn’t hold back.

A hushed chuckle tumbled from Jared’s mouth, so thick it was almost a pant, his expression so soft, like just maybe he was seeing the exact same thing as I was.

And I could feel this change in the air. As if every cell in his body shifted, Jared slowed, then stilled. Mesmerized, I watched as his tongue flicked out to wet his full lips. I was hyperaware of every inch of his body that touched mine, the fire that lit under my skin, how our chests rose and fell in sync. He raised a cautious hand, his attention pitching between my eyes and his intent. A dense hesitation weighted his movements before he seemed to give in and gently ran the back of his fingers along the trail of tears that had slipped down my temple.

A fragmented sigh stuttered from my lips as they parted. Never had I felt anything better than what I found in Jared’s touch.