But I've never forgotten the way he made me feel. Or the way he felt. I swear my body would recognize his anywhere.
“I can feel you thinking, you know.” There's mirth in his voice.
I clear my throat and shift so my right shoulder leans against the window. Even though it's dark, it feels important to look at him while I ask the question that's been burning a hole inside of me.
“Why did you lie?”
His head jerks toward me, his brows crowding together over his eyes. “I never lied to you.”
“When you first came to Magnolia Lane, after I accidentally hit you with a candle, I asked your name and you told me Bane.”
“Thatismy name.”
I lean my head back against the glass. “But you told me your name was Lincoln. Back then.”
He dips his chin and stares straight ahead, his fingers tapping a few times against the steering wheel. “Lincoln is who I was—the part of me that existed outside of Rosewood and the Reapers.”
“And Bane?” I ask when he doesn't say anything else.
There's a pause. “Bane is what happens when you're a legacy Reaper.”
“Silas and Nova are legacies too, right?” I murmur.
He dips his head. “Aye, but it's different. Nova got out.”
My lips twist to the side as I try to read between the lines and figure out what he's not saying. “And you didn't?”
He sighs. “That's a long story.”
I lift my shoulder and glance out the windshield. “I've got time.”
He reaches over and settles his palm across my leg, right above my knee. “I'll tell you anything you want to know, baby girl. But that's a story better told another day, and you've had a long night.”
God, I'd all but forgotten about the clubhouse until now. Nerves flutter in my belly and uncertainty dampens my hands. “I think we should add something else to our talk, another topic. Well, it's more of a question, I guess.”
He arches a brow and steals a glance. “Yeah?”
I nod, just a slow dip of my chin. “Yeah, like what exactly is happening here.” I gesture between the two of us with the flick of my fingers. “And how is that going to work with what's happening with Nova?”And Silas, I add mentally. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.
He chuckles, this low, smooth noise that floats into the space between us. “Now that isn't a long story. It's very simple really.”
My heart thuds quicker inside my chest, my fingertips tingling a little. “Okay.”
His palm curves inward, gripping the inside of my leg mid-thigh, and my breath catches at the possessiveness in the hold.
“We have eight years of lost time to make up for,” he says, his voice low and almost husky. “And I plan to make every second count.”
Heat floods my cheeks at the innuendo, and I sink my teeth into the inside of my bottom lip to ground myself a bit. I promised myself I would have fun this summer, but that doesn't mean I want to hurt anyone.
“And Nova?” I press. “What would he think of this? Of us?Isthere an us?”
“There’s always been an us, even when you forgot.” He lifts a shoulder and flexes his hand on my leg, stretching his fingers wide. “They're not a factor between us.”
“They?” I ask, my voice going a little high.
“Nova and Silas.”
"What?"I inhale sharply, my heart thumping hard inside my chest for a moment before clarity fizzles in. “Oh, because I'm Hunter's nanny, you mean.”