Fearless
Part II: "Crossing Lines"
Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Gilley
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Maggie had made white chocolate, dark chocolate, and marble cheesecakes for the dinner, and everyone waited to be served…everyone but Mercy. Where had he been? Maggie wondered. She hadn’t seen him for at least a half hour. Ava neither, now that she thought about it. It was a big house, a big party; easy to get lost.
But Mercy and Ava stood together
over the marble cheesecake at the kitchen counter, Mercy’s tall frame almost
curled around her as he looked over her shoulder, smiled at whatever she’d
said. His hand, for just a second, was at her hip, too low for casual.
He pulled it away and turned as
Maggie stopped in the threshold, his eyes coming straight to her face, the mask
not fast enough in coming down. Naked fear strobed in their black depths before
he could catch hold of it.
Don’t
say anything. Don’t take her from me. Don’t you dare. I will fight all of them.
Oh, God, it’s all going to blow up, isn’t it?
Then his face blanked over and he
looked away from her, hand going in his pocket, attention going back to
whatever Ava was saying to him over her shoulder.
Maggie saw the little things: the
clothes not quite straight, the high color in their faces, the windswept look
to Ava’s hair.
The air shimmered around them, neon
with possibility, the chemistry of them this hot, sticky amalgam of
complementary metals.
Mercy had crossed the line.
Ava had either followed him, or
invited him to come across it to her.
Maggie felt the lump well up in her
throat, the sting of tears at the backs of her eyes.
It was so perfect, and it was so
disastrous.
And they’d be sliced to bits before
it was all over.
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