Outside the Lines (18 page)

Adri

Shock courses through my body on a jolt of electricity, contracting every muscle in a wave and forcing the air from my lungs. Dad was right. My instincts totally let me down.

But in the time it takes me to catch my breath, I realize he just told me of his own volition. He tried to lighten the blow, but he's finally doing what I've been begging him to do. He's opening up to me.

Chuck has killed people too, and I don't love him any less. I've watched them both struggle with what they've done and try to cope with it in their own way.

It takes me a second to find my voice. Dread sits like a stone in my stomach as I open my mouth, but I need to know. “What happened?”

He opens his eyes and turns his tortured gaze from the sky to me. “I grabbed him from behind and snapped his neck.”

Again, hearing his words sends a physical jolt through me. He seems almost callous about it, but I can see in his eyes that it's killing him inside. “But . . . there has to be a reason.”

“Not for a guy like me.”

There was a time, when we first met, that I was afraid of Rob. Now I feel the threads of it trying to force their way into my heart. But even though he's never totally opened up to me until now, I got to know him—his soul—and I know, despite what he's saying, he's not evil.

I press up and plant a hand in the sand on either side of his head, staring down into his surprised eyes. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Trying to scare me away.”

He props up on his elbows and his gaze hardens. “You asked me to tell you what happened, and I did. Are you saying you don't believe me?”

Our faces are an inch apart, but I don't back away. I need him to hear me. “I believe you killed someone. It explains a lot. But I don't believe you did it for no reason.”

The ice in his gaze melts into pools of molten anguish, and I see it clearly. This is the thing that has tortured him for so long. “I'd do it again if I had to. It was him or us. I chose him.”

“I'm so sorry,” I whisper.

He doesn't move a muscle as I drop soft kisses at the corner of his mouth. My lips glide along the angle of his jaw to his ear, where I drop another kiss. “You're not evil,” I whisper. “You're not bad. You did what you needed to do to protect your family and that makes you incredibly brave, and strong, and—”

He cuts me off cold when he grabs a fistful of my hair and crushes his mouth to mine. His kiss is angry and raw and frightened. I want to be his lifeline—to pull him out of the dark pit he's living in and help him see the light inside him—so I let him devour me, because that's what he needs right now. After a few minutes, his kisses become less ravenous. His hold on my hair softens and he draws away.

Neither of us says anything for a long time, but finally, he sits and rests his forearms on his bent knees, hanging his head between them. “You're too trusting, Adri. Someone is going to destroy you, and I couldn't live with myself if it was me.”

I lift his chin and hold him in my gaze. “You know why? Because you're not the horrible person you think you are. That guy would have taken advantage of me without blinking an eye when I threw myself at him. That guy wouldn't be forever beating himself up for all the unforgivable things he thinks he's done. That guy wouldn't bring his little brother to and from school every day, desperate to make up for whatever happened between them.” I lean forward and kiss him softly on his kiss-swollen lips.

His eyes glisten as he stares out over the water. “He saw it. He watched me snap that guy's neck.”

“Sherm?”

His nod is almost imperceptible. “He'll never be able to see me as anything but a monster.”

“You're not a monster, Rob. You're not that guy.”

Anger flares in his eyes. “Why are you so sure of that? Maybe I'm exactly that guy.”

“Call it a sixth sense, but I'm pretty good at reading people.”

The anger fades and those deep honey eyes search mine. “You can't be real. People like you don't exist.”

“People like me?” I ask, confused.

“You're just so damn good. So trusting. How have you gotten through life without someone killing that part of you?”

The pain thickening his voice when he says it tells me he's speaking from personal experience, and my heart aches for him, wondering what he's been through to get him here. “I'm sorry for whatever happened to you . . . that someone hurt you and destroyed your ability to trust. But you can trust me, Rob. Don't be afraid of me.”

He turns his head and stares over the water. “So if we're going to do this thing, how is it going to work?”

The tingle in my belly at his question is followed instantly by a cramp that nearly doubles me over.

Dad.

I don't know all the ins and outs of Rob's situation—whether he killed that man during a robbery, or a carjacking or what—but Chuck is right. Dad's already asking questions. He'll rake Rob over the coals if he thinks there's anything between us. There's no way I can tell Dad I'm falling in love with Rob until I know more about what happened so I can do some damage control. Maybe in a few weeks, if Rob opens up to me a little more, I'll be able to tell Dad. But not now.

“I think we just need to take things slow . . . for now.”

The hint of a smile tugs at his mouth. “I wasn't the one moving at the speed of light.”

I sigh and know I'm blushing. “I just think you and me all up in the faces of the school board probably won't help my cause. I'm hoping to get hired permanently. In a few months, at the end of the school year, Sherm won't be my student anymore, so it shouldn't be an issue.”

He stands and holds his hand out to me. “Sorry I ruined our first date.”

I take it and he pulls me up like I weigh nothing. “This doesn't feel ruined to me . . . unless you're going to confess you were really out with Candy Girl earlier.”

His grip tightens on my hand and we start back toward Widow's Leap. “Never gonna happen.”

We climb the bluff and he walks me back to my car, where he kisses me good night. It's sweet and slow and I sink into it, feeling it all the way to my toes. And, God, I wish we weren't taking it slow.

*   *   *

Rob is the first guy I've been serious about since Mom died. Even when I was away at college, I never kept anything from her. I knew she never kept anything from Dad. So, in a roundabout way,
I
never kept anything from Dad. With the other guys I dated, Mom was the buffer. I've never had to tell Dad directly that I was seeing someone. But Mom is gone. There's no buffer this time.

I listen to him snoring through the wall and remember how he was with the only other guy I dated long enough to meet my parents. Trey was a criminology major and wanted to go into law enforcement. He and Dad had a ton in common. But Dad was so overprotective he never gave Trey a chance.

I'm pretty sure Rob is going to give Dad a coronary.

I'm pretty sure Rob is going to give
me
a coronary.

I might have been going at the speed of light, but it's only because every time he touches me my whole body lights up. It's like he's electricity and I'm the bulb. I was serious when I told him I'm not expecting a fairy tale. Rob doesn't strike me as a fairy-tale kind of guy. But there's one thing I'm sure of. Rob is going to be The One.

Is that something you tell a man? That he's your first? I'm twenty-three. My high school was a regular Melrose Place. No one made it out of there a virgin. No one but me, that is. I guess Chuck had something to do with that, though I didn't know it at the time. There were three guys I dated at Clemson, but none of them ever lit me up the way Rob does. I didn't know what I was waiting for, but now I do.

Passion.

Rob
.

But we're taking it slow.

I glide a hand under my nightshirt to my breast, remembering the way his mouth felt on me. It was one of the most erotic experiences of my life. I want to feel it again. Right now.

Damn.

I pick up my phone and look at the time. Twelve seventeen.

I bring up his number and type in,
Are you awake?
My finger hovers over Send, but I can't make myself push it. I set it back on my nightstand. It's not even out of my hand yet when it vibrates.

I panic for a second, thinking I hit Send by accident, and when I look at the screen, above my unsent text is this:
You awake?

I backspace away my original text and type,
Yes
.

Thinking of you
, comes back as soon as I hit Send.

Me too
, I text, then realize how that sounded and add,
about you
.

The taking it slow thing. Any flexibility there?

A pulsing ache between my legs starts keeping time with my pounding heart.

Maybe
.

Good, because I'm thinking of you and doing unspeakable things to myself
.

“Oh my God!” I hiss into the dark.
I like it when you talk dirty
.

You ain't heard nothing yet
.
Wait till I start speaking those unspeakable things
.

I'm already out of bed.
I want to see you
.
Where can we meet?

Nothing comes back for long enough that I'm afraid I scared him off, but then.
Park where you parked earlier and meet me on the beach
.

I'll be there in twenty
.

Oh, God. I'm totally on fire just thinking about it. I tug off my nightshirt as I tiptoe to my dresser. I shaved for our date, and I'm still in the sexy lace thong I picked out with him in mind. I forgo the bra, because I'm pretty sure it's coming off anyway, and slip into a cotton skirt and a loose sweatshirt, then pull my hair back and secure it in a clip.

The back door hinges creak as I open it and slip out into the cool night. I pause at the T-Bird, waiting to see if I woke Dad. Then I pause longer.

Mom's car. Is this something I'm willing to do? It feels like sullying her memory to use her car for a clandestine meeting where I'm fairly certain depraved sex acts are imminent. Goddamn Frank! How could he let me down like this?

I look at the key in my hand. Click the lock. Slide inside. “Okay, Mom?”

No answer. As usual.

A thread of anger weaves into my typical disappointment and I crank the engine. I'm not sure if I'm angry at myself for expecting anything, or at her, but either way, I need to get past whatever stupid fixation I have about this car.

I speed across town, safe in the knowledge that the chief of police is home in bed. Ten minutes later, I'm skidding to a stop at the end of Rob's driveway.

I skitter around the house and to the trailhead at the top of the bluff, thinking he might meet me there. He's nowhere in sight. I wait for a minute, but I'm totally dying of anticipation, so I skip down the winding path to the thin swath of sand below.

In the moonlight, I see him, on the beach where we sat earlier. He's bare-chested in loose black sweatpants that ride low on his hips. There's a candle in the sand at his feet. Seeing him standing there, it hits me. We both know why I came back. It's really going to happen.

I catch my tongue before it slips over my lower lip, but I do wipe my suddenly sweaty palms on my skirt.

He's watching me, waiting for me to come to him. I force my feet to move and half walk, half stumble through the sand toward him. As I get closer, I see it's more than a candle at his feet. There's a hurricane lamp set at the corner of a makeshift bed, several blankets arranged on the sand with a pillow.

“Hi,” he says when I stop a few feet away.

“Hi.”

Without another word, I'm in his arms. He kisses me as if I'm his beginning and his end, and any lingering doubt that he doesn't want me or that I'm not ready vanishes into the fine sea mist all around us.

Even in the cool night air, his skin is hot. My hands glide over every inch of his ripped chest and abs, needing to know this is real—that I'm not home in bed dreaming him. My fingertips trace the scar below his right pec, and another just to the left of his belly button. When my hands glide around his back, there are more. But I don't mention them tonight. He'll tell me when he's ready.

He pulls the clip out of my hair and starts to inch my sweatshirt up.

“Does anyone come down here?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Not this late. It's a private beach.”

I draw away from him and yank it over my head. And then we're kissing again.

Between him and the chill of the air, my nipples are pebbles, and as they brush over his skin, little shock waves ripple through me. His fingertips dance gently over my back and waist, as if he's handling some delicate, breakable thing. I don't want him to think of me that way.

I glide my fingers down the contours of his abs, then lower, over brushed cotton, to the substantial bulge in the front of his sweats. A low groan purrs up from his chest when I wrap my fingers around him and squeeze, but his mouth doesn't leave mine. It grows hungrier, and his tongue plunges deeper, taking possession of me.

I slip my hand under his waistband and find his erection. It's huge and hard and hot, and the muscles in my groin contract painfully of the thought of it inside me. In the furthest recesses of my mind there's the concern that this enormous shaft won't fit without doing damage. But his hand inches under my skirt, and any thoughts of pain or logistics are lost when sure fingers glide over my thong to the core of me. I hook a leg around his thigh to give him easier access as his fingers slip under the elastic, the whole time stroking the pulsing shaft in my hand.

He breaks our kiss and lifts me right off the sand, pulling my other leg up so my knees are spread over his hips, and his finger sinks deep inside me.