Read Private Message for Free Online Page A

That came out of nowhere! "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to jump on you like that. I don't know why I did."
    "I'm sorry I assumed," I say, finish the drawing, and pack up. He's rubbing his face with his hands like he's exasperated. "Thank you for staying long enough to let me finish, and again sorry I said anything."
    "Look, I don't talk about myself much, and people assume way too much about me. They have my whole life, but it wasn't right of me to jump down your throat." He drops his head and shakes it for a moment. I start to walk for the door, and he's quickly at my back.
    "Can I help you?" I ask him, without turning around. He lightly touches my elbow and chills shoot through me. My body is hit with a wild fire. I slowly turn to face him. Yep, mush . He's so close I can feel his breath on my face. He puts his hands on the door jamb next to both sides of my face and leans into me, but avoids touching me.
    With his eyes closed, he says, "I don't know. Can you?"

 
    It takes all the strength I have not to wrap myself around him. He's so close I can feel him, smell him, and almost taste him. He finally unpins me from the wall, dropping his hands to his sides, and I practically run out the door. Surprisingly, my legs don't give out. Once I am down the hall a little way I round the corner and lean against the cool brick. Breathless.
    Holy shit! What was that? One minute he's kind and intriguing, then he's cocky and snapping at me, and then he was all over me. If I had stayed there one minute longer, would he have kissed me? I guess I'll never know now. I let out the largest sigh of my life once I reach my car. I climb in and pull out my phone to text Erin: You busy?
    Almost immediately she answers: " Nope, free as a bird, what ya got in mind?" God as little time as I have known this girl, I feel like she's my lifesaver.
    I text back: " My place, bring wine…or something stronger!"
    She replies with a thumbs-up emoticon.
    Back at my studio, I plop down on the red couch and put my head in my hands. My phone vibrates, alerting me to a message: 1 Private Message. No way can it be him! There's no way after what had happened. I click it to open the message:
     
    Big_Ben: I am once again sorry for the way I acted; I hope you can forgive me.
     
    I'm awestruck. This is one of the most confusing guys I have ever met. Not that I have met many, but damn, he's messing with my head. Why does it matter? I'll probably never be forced to see him again. I don't know if that pleases me or depresses me.
     
    Punky_Painter: You don't have to apologize. It seems irrelevant, considering we won't have to see each other again.
     
    Big_Ben: Don't be so sure of that.
     
    And that's how I am going to leave it, because frankly he kind of scares the crap out of me with those whiplash mood swings. And thank God for Erin knocking on my door to break this feeling in the pit of my stomach. I rush to the door and before I even open it, I am yelling, "You are never going to believe who was the model in my class..." and I open the door to find HIM standing there.
    Silence quickly overcomes me.
    "So who was this model from your class?" He asks with his head tipped down, looking at me through dark hooded eyelashes.
    Still in a mind slump, all I can think of is, "Um…how did you get my address?"
    He looks to his left down the hall and Erin comes into view. What the hell? She steps into my apartment and shrugs in an apologetic way, not too convincingly, I might add.
    Erin the traitor finally speaks after a moment. "Look, he ran into me when I was leaving campus and stopped me. He knew me from Chatz and he looked a little rough so when he asked me if he could ask a question, I couldn't say no," she explains. Oh, yes you very damn well could!
    "So you showed him where I lived? What if he's a serial killer or a rapist?" I gasp. I am freaking out at this point. I am a really private person and this oversteps all the security issues I have with guys since the ' incident'