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Her cheekbones turn red and she averts her gaze but my pulse pumps. Does that mean I’m her type and inwardly I grin worse than the Cheshire Cat.
“Is that good or bad?” I rasp and Charlotte shrugs, turning her back to me and puts her glass into the sink.
“What do you do for a living, Troy?” she breathes to change the subject, and I raise my brows.
Rob cars mostly, but I can’t tell her that. She’d be disgusted, so I mutter something about being a mechanic before asking her the same question and her answer surprises me.
“A tattoo shop?” I shake my head, “wouldn’t have guessed, you don’t even have any tattoos.”
“Not visible ones, no,” Charlotte breathes and now the curiosity is killing me. “There’s no guestroom by the way, you know that right?” she then adds, dragging a hand through her hair.
I let her know I’ll be taking Robbie’s room, her lids flutter, her eyes darting because she knows what this means. I’ll be able to hear every little moan or groan she makes in her sleep.
I actually had intended to take the couch but Robbie’s room is just next to Charlotte’s...and I think I prefer staying close to her.
In fact, I’ll do anything to stay close.
She’s way out of my league, painfully so. The kind of girl who would screw her nose up as soon as she saw me coming down the street.
Yet here I am now...lucky enough to share a roof with the kind of girl I’ve always deep down yearned for.
Dreams do come true...
Charlotte offers to give me a round tour and I happily agree. I’ve already seen everything but I want to spend more time with her. She’s different from the kind of people I grew up around. I can’t imagine Charlotte sitting around the dinner table with my family while dad complains about losing money on yet another dogfight, and mom chokes on her cigarettes.
Shit...we’re so damn different that I almost feel sorry for her, but I want her. I find everything about her appealing, from the way her black hair shines like the night to the smooth way she moves. A girl like her doesn’t belong in my dirty hands but I want to wrap them around her anyway.
I watch her closely as I follow her down the hallway. I’m tempted to reach out and touch her for only a second, but I’m worried that if I try she’ll decompose. Pretty things don’t last around me, I do bad things without even meaning to and it ruins them. Give a guy like me a bouquet of flowers and watch how fast they rot.
It sounds like the lyrics to a bad song, but I think I was born bad.
Charlotte on the other hand...she seems to have been stuffed full of love that it overflows from her pores. She smiles and laughs a lot, looks at me as if I’m her equal, even though I’m not but I’m not going to complain.
Maybe she’s my ticket out of the bad and into the good. Yearning flares for me and I don’t just yearn for her. I yearn for what she has and I’d be honored if she would share that bright light with me.
Glancing at me bashfully, she wonders if I’d want to take a walk on the beach with her so that she can show me the surroundings. I nod, hiding how thrilled I am but my heart pounds until nearly punching out of my chest.
She tells me she just needs to change and comes down two minutes later, wearing a short crochet jumpsuit. My mouth waters, and I feel a sharp, unapologetic hunger in my gut.
Here’s a girl ready to be plucked, and I’ll rip her out of the roots if I have to.
Fuck, the past. Charlotte is going to be my bright future. The future I don’t deserve but crave.
And I’ll wreck anything standing in the way.
Two
Charlotte
I’m shaking on the inside and I’ve been shaking ever since I stepped onto the porch and saw him coming down the hall. And to be fair, not all of it was from fear. None of it is because of fear now and I feel as if I’ve swallowed a secret concoction with Troy’s name on.
Something happened to me, the moment I laid eyes on him and I don’t know what it was, but I was overwhelmed by such a strong sense of urgency that the world could’ve dropped off its axis and I’d still be all about Troy.
He makes my heart beat, my pulse thrash and I’m attracted to him to the point where I think Robbie was crazy for not mentioning his cousin would be this...magnetic. Yes, that’s the word because Troy isn’t conventionally good looking. There’s something raw and restless about him, especially around the eyes and the way he carries himself.
It’s rough and territorial, as if he’s secretly pulling strings no moral man would dare to pull.
My cheeks heat, my gaze wandering from his dark eyes, to his full lips to his dark blond, almost brown hair. I flinch when I notice he’s staring at me without blinking and that look of his makes me flustered.
