Page 88 of Between the Lines

She blushes, that cute beautiful flush across her skin. She’s sitting on the hood of my Jeep, and I want her there—always. On my things. In my house. Wearing my sweater.

Caleb might have gotten her smiles down there, but up here, she’s mine.

“I’m not sure I believe you,” she says.

“Have I ever lied to you?”

She considers the question. Then she shakes her head. “No,” she admits. “You haven’t.”

“You’ve been right in the past, you know. I have kept things to myself. But I haven’t lied.”

She braces her hands against the hood. “I can understand that. I’ve done… the same.”

“It’s hard.”

“What is?”

“Trusting someone new.”

She nods, ever so slightly. There’s almost no illumination up here. Just enough ambient light from the glittering city and the stars above to see her, spotlit by a million little pinpricks of light.

“Yes. It is. I feel that way, too,” she says.

I step closer, my hand on the hood next to hers. “You’ve been hurt in the past.”

Her eyes slide from the view to mine and something sharpens in them. I see it, as she fortifies her walls.

But then she sighs, and she’s my Charlotte again, here with me in the midnight air. “Is it that obvious?”

“No, actually. You’re good at hiding it.”

“But you can see it.”

“Yes.” There’s an edge to her, and a life that lets her pick up and run every few months. Few people could work the way she does.

“It was a long time ago,” she says.

I step closer, and her knees widen a bit, as if welcoming me between them. The desire to fill that spot wells up so strongly, that I need to take a deep breath to suppress it.

“So was mine.”

“Mm-hmm. But you live with the consequences every day,” she says. “It scars you. Experiences like that.”

“You’re a mystery, Charlotte Gray.”

Her lips tip up a little, but the smile is tempered by the sudden shyness in her eyes. “Don’t try to figure me out.”

“Why not?”

“You might not like what you find.”

“That’s impossible, Chaos.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not.”

I step in between her thighs and rest my palms on the hood beside her knees. “You haven’t run from me, yet. And you know my family’s deepest, darkest secrets.”

“No, I don’t,” she says softly. “And what I know is that yourfathermade mistakes. I haven’t seen or learned of any made by you, yet.”

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