Next to You

by Julia Gabriel

  “Phlox, no.” He kept his wrists crossed behind his back.

  “I don’t want to touch you if you can’t stop me.”

  “I won’t stop you. I told you that.” He closed his eyes.

  She laid her palm against his smooth cheek, caressing it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Touching your scars.”

  His breath left him in a rush, a choked sob expelling all the air he was holding in his lungs. Phlox wrapped her arms around him. She gasped at the heat of his chest searing her skin. Several more sobs bucked their bodies together, then he grabbed her ass, hiked her up to his hips, and crossed the remaining feet to the bed. They tumbled onto it together, arms and legs tangled, their lips searching for each other.

  “Use me, Jared.” She was overcome with desire for this man and with the need to just envelope him in her body, soothe whatever ached and burned inside him. “Let me take care of you tonight. Whatever you want.”

  “God, I love you.” His mouth mashed down on hers hard, not an aggressive kiss but a desperate one, like she might disappear if his need were too weak. “No one has ever looked at me the way you do. When I see all that kindness and … acceptance in your eyes, I can barely believe it.”

  “Believe it, Jared. Please believe it. I love you.”

  His mouth left her lips and attached themselves to her neck, then her collarbone, on their hungry way to her breasts. “It scares me, the way you look at me, because to have it and then lose it would kill me. It would kill me, Phlox, and I say that as a man who nearly was killed once.” His breath was hot against her skin as he buried his face between her breasts. “Fuck,” he said, raising his gaze to meet hers, his eyes burning dark and wet. “It’s already too late. If I lose you …”

  “Why did you quit then?”

  “I don’t want to be your caretaker. I don’t want to take your money.” A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “I really turned the tables on myself, didn’t I? I never expected a woman to want me for anything but my money and here I’ve been taking money from you. I’ll pay you back, Phlox. I will. All the money I took from you in salary. I know that doesn’t excuse my lies, but—”

  “I don’t want your money. I want you.” He began to lift his body off hers but she pulled it right back down and opened her thighs wider for him. She felt him hard between her legs. “What do you want, Jared? Tell me what you want.” She ran her hands down the cords of muscle on his back. “What do you want tonight? What do you want after tonight?”

  “I want to lose myself in you. Tonight.”

  “So do it. Lose yourself in me.”

  He reached between them and positioned himself at her entrance. “Tell me you like this.” He brushed his erection against her soft folds. His eyes were wild now and Phlox wanted to join him in that wildness, wanted to lose control with him, wanted to be the salve to all the things that burned inside him.

  “I love it, Jared. God. I love it more than anything.”

  His head slipped inside her and he moaned, the sound vibrating through her hips and chest. Then he pulled out. Phlox realized why, her heart dropping.

  “I don’t have any with me. I wasn’t planning on …”

  “Fuck, I hope not,” he growled.

  He climbed out of bed and disappeared into the living room, leaving her to the cold mercies of the air conditioning. He returned a minute later, tearing a condom packet open with his teeth.

  Her laugh was as silken as the pink tie lying abandoned on the carpet. “Looks like you were though.”

  He sheathed himself in one swift move. “You’ve made me an optimistic man, Phlox.”

  Then the heat of his body was on her again and he entered her, pushing deep. Her breath caught at the feel of him inside her, filling her up, every inch.

  “Am I big enough?” he asked, stroking long and slow. “Am I bigger than David Cook?”

  “No idea. Never got that far with him.” She rocked her hips to meet each thrust. Was he really worried about David Cook? David was nothing compared to Jared—not in her mind, anyway. She’d never been with a man whose body felt so right to her as Jared Connor’s did, whose touch made her feel both safe and on the verge at the same time.

  “You’re more everything than he is.” She was rewarded with a long deep groan. Jared’s face was flush now, his lips parted, his eyes trained intently on her. “What are you thinking?”

  “How badly I want to spend my life doing filthy things to you.” His hooded eyes were promising all manner of filthy things. Very filthy things.

  “Like what?”

  He nipped at her earlobe, then growled, “I think you’re past your quota of questions tonight.”

  “Take it off tomorrow’s tab.”

  His breath was hot against her ear and Phlox flushed as she listened to all the very filthy things on his mind. She dug her nails into his shoulder and wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him on.

  “Fuck, this is too good,” he moaned in her ear. “Tell me you want me, Phlox. Say it to me.”

  She could feel his thighs tighten inside hers. He was close. She cupped his face in her hands and stroked his cheeks—both sides of him, scarred and unscarred. He thrust into her harder and deeper, grinding his hips into hers.

  “I’ve. Never. Wanted. Any. Thing. More. Than. I. Want. You.”

  He buried his face in her shoulder while his entire body shuddered above her. His orgasm went on forever, it seemed, rippling over and over down his spine. Phlox held him in her arms, absorbing the energy rolling off his body. Only when his hips stilled did she realize that the shaking in his chest and shoulders was no longer from his orgasm, but from the sobs wracking his body. Tears mixed with his sweat on her skin.

  “Sorry. So sorry,” he choked out.

  “Shh. Are you okay?” She stroked his hair gently.

  Slowly he lifted his head and wiped his face with the back of his hand, then smiled sheepishly. “I always thought people who cried when they were happy were so full of shit,” he said. “Like they’d never experienced anything really painful enough to cry over. “ He kissed the tip of her nose. “I was wrong.”

  “So these are tears of joy, then?” Phlox thumbed away the wetness from his cheeks.

  He shook his head. “Tears of ecstasy. Stupid happy ecstasy.”

  Chapter 35

  Jared turned the rental car into a neighborhood of neat, tidy homes. It was middle class suburbia, but a more affluent version since he was a kid. The houses had newer siding, the trees were more mature, the Fords and Hondas of his youth had been driven away by Lexuses and Volvos. But the place still looked perfectly normal and innocent … on the outside, at least. He resisted the urge to glance at the back seat, at the small box sitting on the tan leather.

  Phlox had waited in the car while he went into San Quentin. If someone had asked him yesterday morning whether he would be picking up his father’s ashes, he would have said no fucking way. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to do with them. Probably toss them into a trash dumpster somewhere or hurl them out of the car window at seventy miles an hour. Either way, it would be an exorcism of sorts, a vanquishing of the demons from his past. Jared wanted a fresh start and a new life. He wanted to bring as clean a slate as he could to the woman sitting next to him. She deserved no less.

  “Welcome to Walnut Creek,” he said, checking the GPS on his phone one more time. “Sorry. It’s been awhile since I was here.” He leaned forward and squinted up at a street sign.

  He drove slowly through the neighborhood, hyper-aware of Phlox taking it all in. He tried to remember the families who had lived on the block but their names were long gone from his memory now. Like the families themselves were, no doubt. When he got to the house, he pulled the car over to the curb.

  “This is it,” he said.

  He watched nervously as Phlox looked through the passenger side window at the small two-story house with its brown siding and grey stone water table, its Craftsman-st
yle porch and roofline.

  “I mean, that isn’t the house,” Jared clarified. “They had to tear the old one down after the fire. But this is the address. Number eighty-seven.”

  She squeezed his hand. “It looks like a nice neighborhood.”

  “It was,” he agreed. “I don’t think anyone expected it to happen in a place like this. Though who knows, I guess. Maybe the neighbors knew more about my parents’ marriage than I thought.”

  Two boys riding bikes whizzed past on the sidewalk. He watched as they careened around the corner at the end of the block and disappeared. He remembered racing Jake down the street the same way and letting his brother win every second or third time. In the distance, a dog howled.

  “You know what I don’t understand?” His voice was low and quiet. “Why he couldn’t have just left. Walked away, abandoned us. It would have been better for him in the long run, too. I don’t know why he felt he had to kill us all.”

  She glanced into the back seat. “Did he ever say anything ...”

  He shook his head sadly. “My aunt never took me and Jake to see him in prison. And as far as I know, he never asked to see us. I finally went to visit him the summer after my freshman year at Stanford. He refused to see me. I never tried again. Some people just aren’t good.”

  “You’re a good person, Jared.” She threaded her fingers between his. “I knew that the first day I met you. That you were a good, solid person.”

  “Even though I was cranky and pissy?”

  “Turns out cranky, pissy—but good—men are just my type. Who knew?”

  He checked the street for kids on bikes, then pulled the rental car away from the curb. There had been times when Jared wished he had died in the fire, that Jake had awakened and gotten himself out of the house. He no longer wished that, not since he had met Phlox.

  “You’re healing me,” he said. “I’m not totally there yet but every day I spend with you is making me a better person.”

  Her smile warmed his entire body, right down to his bones. “Or maybe not,” he said. “Maybe I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  “You seemed pretty alive last night.” She traced her finger along the top of his thigh, which had the effect of bringing a certain part of his body back to life. And it wasn’t his thigh.

  “Show me where you went to school,” she said suddenly, pulling her lovely hand away. “Since we’re here, give me the grand tour.”

  The school was two blocks away. He pulled the car into the parking lot and followed her to the playground, where she climbed up onto the jungle gym and sat.

  “What did you do at recess? I still have the rest of my twenty questions to ask,” she added.

  “Ask away.” He climbed up onto the jungle gym and perched his body next to hers. It felt good to tell her things about himself. He never would have believed it but there it was. For the first time in his life, he actually wanted another person to understand him. He’d never cared before—or told himself he didn’t care, anyway. But it mattered to him that this woman next to him knew him, understood him enough to be patient with him when he fucked up. He wasn’t that experienced with real relationships so he was going to fuck up. Probably a lot until he got the hang of it.

  “Most of the time I played kickball or dodgeball,” he answered her question.

  “Were you any good?”

  “I was the man when it came to dodgeball. I had all those Matrix moves. Until, you know.”

  “How about your favorite subject?”

  “Recess and lunch? Much to my mother’s chagrin. She taught second grade here.”

  “I wish I could have met her.”

  “She would have liked you.” He leaned over and kissed her, basking in the happy smile that produced in Phlox.

  “Kiss any girls on this playground?”

  He laughed and looked out over the playground, at the slide and the swings, the soccer field and the basketball court. “No. Though not for lack of trying.”

  The mid-afternoon sun was still hot, and the jungle gym bars were uncomfortable to sit on for long. He dug into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his phone. He leaned his head against hers and held the phone out in front of them.

  “Say cheese,” he said.

  The photo was a good one, or as good a one as Jared expected himself to take. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to seeing Phlox’s lovely face in the same frame as his ugly mug. He tapped Jake’s name in his contact list and sent the photo to him.

  “Jake was the one who outed us,” he said. “He leaked our relationship to the press.”

  Phlox shrugged. “I was never hiding it.”

  “Still not sure I’ll be good for your business.”

  “If my company is on that much shaky ground, that’s my problem. Not yours. As long as you’re not as bad for business as Zee’s boyfriend was, I think we’ll survive.”

  His phone pinged with a text. He grinned at the photo and turned the phone toward Phlox.

  “I think my family’s ready to disown me and adopt you,” he said.

  In the photo, a smiling Emma and Aidan held a handwritten sign reading, “Hi Phlox!” Scribbled stars and hearts encircled the words.

  “Emma wants an aunt. She’s under the impression that they are cooler than moms.”

  “What about Aidan?”

  Jared let go of the hot metal bars and dropped to the ground. Phlox followed, her feet kicking up a small cloud of wood chips when she landed.

  “I think he’s hoping I somehow magically disappear so he has a shot with you.”

  Phlox wrapped her arms around Jared and kissed him sweetly. “Aidan could be pretty stiff competition for you. He is awfully cute.”

  “Oh, believe me, I don’t underestimate him as competition. I see a lot of me in him. Unfortunately for him, probably.”

  An image of a ten-year-old Jared carrying his little brother through a burning house flashed through her mind. “I think it would be a mistake to underestimate kids in your family,” she said quietly.

  Jared hugged her tight to his chest for a long moment, then led her back to the rental car. He wanted this woman. Wanted her in his bed, in his home, in his life. His brother had been right. He had underestimated Phlox Miller. How could he have done otherwise though? There had been nothing—and no one—in his life that would have led him to believe he’d meet a woman like her.

  “How many questions do you have left?” he asked her

  “I’ve lost track.”

  “Well, save one for me.”

  * * *

  “What’s this?” Phlox asked as Jared braked the car to a gentle stop. The driveway ahead was blocked by a thick chain and a rusted metal sign that read “No Admittance. Private Property.” But Jared was already out of the car and opening the door to the back seat to retrieve the box of ashes he had picked up at the prison. Phlox pushed open the passenger side door and got out, too.

  She followed Jared down the gravel driveway, ducking under the chain as he did, and jogging lightly to catch up.

  “Where are we?”

  “Tahoe Acres Family Campground,” he replied. “Or it used to be anyway.”

  “Are we allowed to be here? That sign back there—” She glanced back over her shoulder.

  “I own the place. So yes, we’re allowed to be here.”

  “You own a campground?”

  “It went bankrupt a few years ago so I bought the property. I thought I would reopen it or maybe build a house here or something. Haven’t gotten around to it yet though.”

  She peered into the woods as they walked toward Lake Tahoe up ahead, the evening sun glinting off the dark water. Narrow paths led back into the trees and here and there she could make out the squat forms of tiny cabins, their porches overgrown with weeds. She looked at the small box in Jared’s hands.

  “Are you going to scatter the ashes here?”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  He squinted into the woods, then headed down a narrow
path. Phlox followed until he stopped at cabin number twenty-four. It looked like every other cabin they had passed on the trail, its white wood siding shaded green with moss. Twenty feet away sat a jumbled circle of rocks, an old fire pit. Through the trees you could see a dark slice of the lake.

  Jared stepped gingerly onto the rotting porch and pushed at the cabin’s door. It opened easily and he stepped over the threshold. Phlox joined him. Inside, the cabin was dark and cool, completely empty. No furniture, no chairs or table, gaping holes where small appliances used to stand in the kitchenette. A window on the back wall sported a craggy hole.

  Jared walked the perimeter of the room. “We used to come here every summer, my parents, Jake and me. This was the cabin we stayed in.”

  Their trip here was beginning to make sense. Phlox was touched by the effort Jared was making to show her more of his life, more of who he was. He had let her come with him to pick up his father’s ashes, then took her to see where his old house had stood before the fire. It had taken no small amount of courage to do that, she knew. She’d had trouble just walking back into her kitchen without hyperventilating. She couldn’t imagine going back to a place where you had very nearly died. Where someone had wanted you to die.

  Jared leaned his hips against a peeling cabinet, the only thing that hadn’t been stripped from the place. Even the light fixtures on the ceiling were gone, their wires dangling uselessly.

  “He would take me and Jake fishing in the lake while she read on the beach. Then we’d cook burgers for dinner or drive into town to get ice cream. Mom never really liked it here, but Jake and I loved it. Nothing bad ever happened here. He was always so happy at the lake. Like he was a different person.”

  “Is that why you bought it when it went out of business?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t want some developer coming in here and building a bunch of luxury homes. That’s probably what will happen anyway. There’s no point in my holding onto this forever.”

  “Or you could reopen it. Let other families be happy here.”