Chapter 7 Charles
Charles
I want her. Watching the way her face keeps lighting up, the fact solidifies in my chest. There’s no doubt about it. I want her.
I can’t go back to watching her on my phone and pretending that I’m okay with never marrying. I want a wife, a family, too. There’s no woman better fitting for the position than Ellie herself.
Our tour of Hope Peak continues past the bakery. While she clings to my side for warmth, we stop at a coffee shop for hot cocoa, a candy store for some chocolate, and now, we’re approaching a bookstore.
Is she still the same bookworm she was in high school? I wonder. The memory of her, curled in a library chair while her brother bitched about our report in the background, completely lost to the world, is one I’ve revisited a thousand times.
“If we get anything here, I’m buying it.” She looks at the bags of chocolate and baked goods in my hand with a scrunched nose. “Seriously, Charles. You’ve spent enough.”
I scoff, the sound coming out more tender than I intended. “This is nothing. It’s fine, I don’t mind.” My voice drops, turning earnest. “Let me spoil you.”
She rewards me with a dark, beautiful flush that spreads from her cheeks down her neck, and that alone is more than enough to pay me back. Instead of putting up a fight, she just nods, a small, surrendering smile playing on her lips.
Entering The Velvet Book, the smell of old paper and binding glue hits me hard. It’s a scent I know too well. It’s similar to the smell of dry legal tomes and endless financial reports. One inhale, and just like that, I’m back in my office, the weight of a thousand decisions pressing down on me.
All it takes is Ellie nudging my side, her eyes wide with delight as she spots a towering shelf of classic literature, to bring me back.
“It’s like a library,” she whispers, her voice full of reverence.
She’s right. It’s quiet, hushed. The only sounds are the hushed whispers of the shoppers and the gentle rustle of pages. We drift away from the main aisle, moving deeper into the maze of shelves. The shop narrows to this corridor of books, the air thick with dust motes dancing in the slanted light.
Right here, we are utterly alone.
She’s trailing her fingers along the spines, a soft smile on her face, and I can’t take my eyes off her. This is it. This is the woman who haunts my best dreams. I see a familiar title a few shelves above her head—The Secret Garden, a book I remember her clutching to her chest for an entire summer.
I reach for it, my intention to hand it to her, to spark that memory. But my movement, in the profound silence, is too sudden. My arm brushes her shoulder.
She jumps, spinning around with a small, startled gasp. The motion brings her flush against me in the narrow space. Her back is to the bookshelf, and I’m caging her in, one hand still braced on the shelf near her head.
We both freeze.
Her eyes, wide and startled, lock with mine. Her lips part, but nothing comes out. Tilting her chin, neither of us rushes to be the first to move.
Have I always towered over her like this? I guess I’ve never gotten this close to her before.
My gaze drops to her mouth.
Fuck.
It’s a silent curse, a surrender. I’m losing control. My head dips, my entire being focused on the nonexistent space between us. I can almost feel the softness of her lips, taste the cocoa and sugar on them before I catch myself.
This is Ellie. I can’t just… take. Not like this, in a dusty corner, startling her. I’m a man who plans, who avoids risk. This feels like the highest-stakes gamble of my life.
I start to pull back, my muscles screaming in protest. My voice is a ragged, apologetic whisper. “Ellie, I—”
But I don’t get to finish.
She sees me retreating, and like instinct takes over, her hand lifts. Her fingers curl into the lapel of my coat, pulling me back down.
It’s all the permission I need.
I close the distance, my mouth finding hers in a kiss that feels less like a beginning and more like a homecoming. It’s not tentative, not questioning. It’s a release of every ounce of longing I’ve ever felt for her.
Her lips are soft and warm, and taste of chocolate and hope. One of my hands cups her jaw, my thumb stroking her cheek, while the other remains braced against the shelf, gripping tight enough to cause pain in my fingertips. Proving that this is very real.
She kisses me back with a matching desperation, her grip on my coat tightening, a small, broken sound escaping her throat that is undoubtedly going to haunt me if I don’t hear it again.
It’s the sound of a throat being cleared, awkward from the next aisle over, that destroys the perfect moment between us.
Reality crashes back in, cold and unwelcome.
I break the kiss, pulling away so suddenly it feels like tearing my own skin.
Ellie is panting, her lips swollen, her eyes wide and dazed.
Her chest rises and falls in unsteady breaths, and the sight of her like this, so thoroughly wrecked, sends a wave of desire straight through me.
I’m left hungry, starving, a man who’s been offered a single, perfect bite of a feast and then dragged away from the table.
My own breath is ragged. I can feel the heat in my face, the wild, untamed look in my eyes. I need to get a grip. Now.
Clearing my throat, I try my damned hardest to bring us back to where we were moments before.
“The book,” I manage, my voice strained. I reach for the forgotten volume of poetry still in my hand and offer it to her. Our fingers brush, and the simple touch is nothing but. She flinches, her gaze dropping. “Here. For you.”
I shove the bag of pastries and candy into her hands as well, the plastic crinkling loudly in the tense silence. She blinks, confused. I don’t think she’s wrapped her mind around the kiss, either.
“I… need a moment. Please excuse me.” I don’t wait for a reply.
I turn and walk away, my strides long and purposeful, a man fleeing the scene of a crime.
I find the door belonging to the restroom and lock it behind me, the click of the bolt promising a moment to release everything growing inside of me at a rapid rate.
I brace my hands on the edge of the small sink, hanging my head, trying to steady my breathing. I look at my reflection in the mirror. My lips are slightly red. My eyes… they are full of a hunger that frightens me. A hunger I thought I had locked down perfectly.
Get a hold of yourself, Charles. Calm. Down.
“That was an accident,” I tell the wild-eyed man in the glass, my voice a low, forceful whisper. “A moment of insanity. It just… happened.”
But the lie tastes bitter. It wasn’t an accident. It was everything I’ve wanted since I was old enough to know what wanting was. And that is the problem.
If I don’t cool down now, if I walk back out there with this need written all over my face, I will scare her away.
I will ruin this fragile, beautiful thing being built between us in this snow-globe town.
She deserves more than a man consumed by a decade of pent-up longing. She deserves gentle, she deserves slow.
I turn on the cold tap and splash water on my face, the shock of it a temporary fix to the heat coiling in my gut. I need to be the man who can give her a book of poetry, not the one who pins her between bookshelves and devours her.
But as I dry my face, her taste and hope still lingers on my lips, a silent promise of everything I’ve ever craved. And I know, with a terrifying certainty, that cooling down is going to be the most brutal battle I’ve ever fought.