The Past Between Us novel Chapter 15

|Present|

"I'm going to win you back."

Hunter's words still rang through my mind.

I lay awake in my bed. I couldn't sleep. My thoughts were a mess.

Every time I closed my eyes I saw his face.

Why does he affect me so much?

Why can't I stop thinking about him?

I groaned.

I jolted up when I suddenly heard something tap against the glass door in my room, the door opened into a small balcony. The curtains were drawn over it so I couldn't see outside.

Tap

I nearly yelped when I heard the noise again.

My heartbeat spiked up in panic.

I almost screamed when my eye caught a shadow moving outside from a small slit between the curtains. I quietly pulled the drawer of my night-stand open and took out my pepper spray.

Very quietly, I tiptoed towards the window.

By now I could make out the silhouette of the person standing outside.

My heart-rate sped up even more when I recognized who it was, my breath hitched.

"Hunter?" I breathed out in disbelief as I threw the glass door open.

His stormy grey eyes met mine before they leisurely traveled down and locked onto the pepper spray still tightly clutched in my hands. Very slowly, his lips lifted into an amused smirk.

"So, if someone did actually try to break in you'd try to attack them with pepper spray instead of waking up your dad or calling the police? That's not very smart." He raised a dark eyebrow in question.

I gave him a scowl.

"What are you doing here?" My voice was cold.

His expression suddenly became serious, all traces of humor gone. For a while we just stood there staring at each other. No one spoke.

"You used to love it." He turned away from me when he said it. "You used to wait for me to sneak onto your balcony at night after your curfew. Sometimes we'd talk for hours, and sometimes, we'd just sit there and stare at the sky." Hunter murmured as his eyes traveled upwards towards the full moon illuminating the sky above.

"That was a long time ago. I'm a different person now." I hated how my voice trembled when I said it.

I stepped forward so my back was to him.

The breeze picked up and I wrapped my arms around myself. My thin silk pajamas did little to protect me from the cold.

Hunter stepped closer to me, my back was to his front. He wasn't touching me but I knew he was close, I knew if I leaned back an inch we'd touch. His smell enveloped me. I didn't know if he did it because he noticed that I was cold, but the heat radiating of his body comforted me.

"Your hair's shorter." He murmured.

One of his hands came up and tucked a loose strand behind my ear. "I like it, it suits you." His voice was rough with a tinge of huskiness.

I took in a deep breath, trying not to let his words affect me.