Beautiful Villain

“I’m not working tomorrow,” I tell him. “I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t have to,” he looks at me carefully, and I can’t tell whether he doesn’t want me to drive him or he doesn’t want to be inconvenienced by me. Is he scared to go alone? Or does he want to be by himself so he can explore without any distractions?

“I don’t mind,” I say.

“I don’t want to bother you.”

“Will I be in your way?”

“Never.”

“Then I’ll go.”

He looks down at me and cups my face. In this moment, the gesture is intimate and sweet: very different from yesterday, or maybe it’s the same. Maybe I’m just completely enamored with this guy and I don’t know where to go or what to do.

Maybe all I can think about is him.

“You’re swe

et,” he says.

“And you’re handsome.”

He raises an eyebrow, obviously surprised.

“Why, Finley, I do believe that’s the sweetest compliment that’s ever dripped from your lips.”

I blush a little bit.

Is it?

I was always very careful not to flirt too much in my letters. I’m kind of a flirty person in general, but I didn’t want to give this guy the wrong impression. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who writes to convicts and falls in love with them.

That’s definitely not my style.

But Neil…

Well, I knew him before. Not well or anything, but still, we had a little bit of a connection and now it seems like that connection has only grown.

“Tell me what you want, Finley,” he says, stroking my cheek.

“I…to come with you tomorrow?”

It comes out like a question, like somehow I’m not even really sure what I want. How horrible is that? I definitely know what I want. It’s not just to come with him. It’s more.

And I think he knows that.

“No, Finley,” he says. “Tell me what you really want.”

And this is the hard part.

I’ve dated before.

Plenty of times, really.

I’ve dated a lot. Like, a lot.

But there’s a difference between dating a few people and dating a lot of people and there are different levels of experience that accompany your dating choices.