Free Taking Risks by Cassie Allee Page B

about Risk. I was actually starting to get a little jumpy.
                  Risk smiled slyly at me as he pulled into a clearing in the woods. He stopped and shut the car off. I glanced at Gray, who looked curious but not uneasy, and then Risk turned to me. I could see the desire in his eyes and I started to sweat as we watched each other getting tenser by the second.
                  “Uh…Should I leave?” Gray said and it snapped me out of my trance. I looked away from Risk and shook my head nonchalantly so that Gray would know that I needed him to stay.
                  “So what’s up with you? You’ve been avoiding me.” Risk said.
                  I took a deep breath. “Your mom cornered me at the bar yesterday…”
                  Risk seemed to get anxious and rubbed his palms on his jeans. “Well…What did she say?”
                  I repeated the conversation between his mother and I word for word, even the parts that I called him my friend and defended him. He didn’t look surprised.
                  He lowered his head and started fiddling with a fray on his jeans. “You know she can’t just stake her claim to me. I’m an adult now, and they don’t even want me anyway. I’m not their biological son.”
                  So at least I now knew that the rumor of Risk being adopted was true, though his mother nearly confirmed it when she called him a bastard.
                  “I’ve heard that your parents say that you’re crazy and dangerous. They say that you’ve had a bad past. What’s that about?”
                  “Look Marlee, I know that you feel like you barely know me, but I don’t know much about you either. If you want to be…whatever it is that you want to be with me, than you’re going to have to be patient until I’m ready to tell you my story. It’s pretty interesting too so I suggest you stay tuned.” He said and revealed his movie star smile. How could he do that? How could he start off talking so serious and then be smirking by the time he was done? I could tell that life had dealt him a bad hand, so I wondered if making everything a joke was a coping mechanism for him, or a way to hide.
                  “I have some things I need to talk to you about too, but like you said, you’ll have to wait until I’m ready. I need you to have a chance to get to know me so you can decide if I’m crazy or not.” I confessed and Risk gave me an uneasy look, but then shrugged it off. It was the time to be real and honest with each other as much as we could be for now.
                  “So what is it that you want with me? Friendship? Security? I can’t figure it out.” I tried to ask confidently but I could feel my cheeks heat in embarrassment.
                  Risk sighed as he searched for the right words. “That’s a hard question Marlee. I’ve never really been the relationship type. All I can tell you is that I feel something unique with you, but I’m also scared that we aren’t going to like each other once all the secrets are out. Why don’t we start off dating, nothing exclusive or labeled, and see where that leads us.”
                  “I can handle that, I think.” I heard Gray laughing quietly in the back seat. He knew that I had never had a boyfriend before so being exclusive wasn’t going to be a problem for me. “Where are we anyway?” There was no way that he just found this place at random with all the twists and turns that he took.
                  “I come here when I don’t want my parents to find me. I can have peace for a while when I’m here.” He looked at peace as he observed the clearing.
                  “Where are you from?”
                  He looked at me as if he were surprised that I was starting the getting-to-know-you process so