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She turned and headed back into my room as if the world wasn’t spinning around us. She yanked open my closet door and dragged out a summer dress. “Oh, this is so cute! Don’t mind if I do.”
I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry, so I only told her, “Don’t think we’re not going to talk about this Otto thing,” as I crossed my room to the bathroom and shut the door behind me before I started to peel myself out of my sweats and tank so I could get into the shower.
I turned on the faucet to Raven shouting, “Don’t act like you need to twist my arm, Charleigh. Otto is my very favorite subject.”
FORTY-ONE
CHARLEIGH
Work passedin a blur of nerves and uncertainty. Unsure of where I stood or where I was supposed to go.
Because while logic told me I should have finally packed up my things and left last night, stop this insanity, my spirit whispered its gratitude that Raven had intercepted me instead.
At just after five, I grabbed my things from my locker in the breakroom, slung my purse over my shoulder, and headed down the hall and across the lobby.
My nerves quivered where I stood at the door, the vestiges of the fear I’d felt yesterday when I’d left buzzing in my ear. Warning me that I was being careless.
Inhaling a steadying breath, I pushed out into the late-afternoon warmth of the summer, praying for peace.
For rest.
To find a way when it felt like every direction I turned brought me to a dead end where I’d have to pick up and run the opposite way.
I paused just outside the door, attention dragging across the near empty lot as I searched for any sense that I might be being watched. Searching for a monster lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect time to strike.
Butterflies scattered when I saw what was really waiting for me.
He might be a monster, but my heart both rattled and leapt at the sight.
This dark, dangerous demon who leaned against his bike on the other side of the lot. Tattooed arms crossed over his massive chest, wearing his signature uniform.
Black jeans and black fitted tee and black motorcycle boots.
My stomach toppled over with the memory of the way he’d looked beneath those clothes last night.
The carved, sculpted beauty of his ferocious body. Covered in ink and misery. The way he’d touched me. The promises he’d made.
And I wondered if it could be exactly as Raven had suggested. That two souls could recognize the other without really knowing the person.
He pushed from his bike, towering in the distance, that rugged, vicious face carved in possession.
I gulped around the uncertainty and slowly edged his direction. I stopped three feet away, the sun blazing down, burning me up. The knot in my throat was so thick I couldn’t speak. Or maybe I just had no idea what to say.
Because the relief I felt at finding him there was staggering, but that didn’t change anything, did it?
“Think we need to talk.” The words rumbled over me, and I tried to swallow around the barbs in my throat.
“I’m not sure?—”
His hand came out, and some piece inside myself shifted when I didn’t flinch. When I realized how much I truly trusted him.
Heat blistered where he set his palm on my cheek. “Please…just fuckin’ talk to me, Charleigh. Can’t leave things the way they ended last night.”
I wavered, fighting this war inside me.
His thumb brushed the hollow beneath my eye. “Told you if you ran, I would only chase after you. Thought it was going to have to be across the country, but you didn’t seem to get very far. Think that says something, yeah?”
Gulping, I gave him a bare nod, and he took my hand and led me the couple steps to his bike. He swung over the black metal, the man looking as if he were carved from the machine, or maybe vice versa.
