Hey guys, its still Jacque's turn…he feels the need to prove himself so here he is. I really enjoyed this one guys, it let me explore his character and I hope you'll like it.

Average disclaimer here. I own but I don't own…yeah you get it.

A Little Too Excited

Chapter 6: A Hand to Hold, an Ear to Listen, and a Question

Jacque

(Recap)Charlotte's eyes sparkled and for a second she had crystalline tears shimmering in her eyes but she blinked them away with a laugh, "Sweet Moon, I love you monster."

"I love you too angel." I reached over to kiss her just as the server came with the menus.

When we opened the menus Charlie laughed, "I don't suppose you read French, do you monster?" She asked holding her menu out to me. This should be interesting.

"A little…enough to read a menu. I hope." I gave her a grin then glanced down at the curly French writing embossed on the laminated menu.

My family, like most of the loup-garou in our pack kept ties with our old French heritage, so simple French was still sometimes used at home and were apparent in the names and ideals that was as ever much apart of the town as the loup-garou inhabitants were.

So I knew several food words and had thought I knew enough to swing this restaurant, but apparently not. I recognized simple phrases in some of the dishes like "heart of" and that did not sound like something Charlotte would be game trying. In the end when the server came back with our drinks, sweet ice tea because that was the only non alcoholic beverage they had and I knew how to read, I ordered predictably two dishes of basically pasta with duck sauce and chicken meat balls (or I hoped that word was chicken). It also happened to be the least swank and expensive thing on the menu. I hoped Charlie didn't mind.

She just laughed when I told her what I'd ordered. "What no spaghetti we get to share?" She mocked.

"Nope. If that's what you wanted we should have went to Pizza Palace. I suppose we could still go and escape while my arms and legs aren't held ransom and you've washed all tonight's dishes." I smiled and acted like I was going to get up.

"No I don't want-" She stopped mid sentence: "Jacque!"

I laughed and eventually she did too and we washed off the awkward little dilemma easily, nothing would spoil tonight. I hadn't spent all day listening to her mother screech, forcing myself to stay calm and in my skin for nothing, this was worth it. To come here with a free conscience knowing that at least her father didn't mind me being with her.

"So how did it really go today?" She pressed.

"Charlotte, I just want to forget about the earlier part of today and focus on tonight, alright?" I sighed, hopefully she would be of one mind.

"Okay!" She said cheerfully and I got the pleasure of watching her face light up in a smile. Out of all the girls I had been with, none had had a smile like hers, so determined and sparkling, oblivious to its own beauty, when she smiled her entire body lit up like a candle and the flames sparkled from her blue eyes. Normally those eyes were calm and steady, piercing in a simple gaze. Sometimes I marveled how she must be of our kind with a gaze like that, that could knock you dead or sent your heart racing with single intent: one look.

The way she moved too, that could get even the holiest of men off just by watching her walk across the room or pass over a napkin or look down at the table like she was doing now obviously embarrassed by my staring.

"You're doing it again monster." She smirked lightly.

"Doing what, watching my beautiful girlfriend?" I asked taking a swallow of tea in attempts to quite the stream of fire pulsing down my body just looking at her.

Charlotte rolled her eyes at me.

She surrounded herself by female loup-garou on a daily basis in her social crowd at school and watching the strong, graceful animal movements of her loup-garou peers had made her envy that movement, the beauty that she saw in those things. Though if she looked closely she would see she possessed these qualities herself. She also in addition to that possessed that vulnerability that came from being human and her own unique way of dealing with the duel ability that made her ten times more alluring than any other girl.

But beauty was in the eye of the beholder and in her eyes Charlotte was nothing to brag about, just some human who longed to be an animal, to have the freedom to run more than just a human race and be extraordinary. Even if she already was.

"Now if you're through ogling me I think I'd like to talk about something!" She rolled her eyes once more, mine followed the movement.

"Like what?" I asked coolly, taking another sip of tea.

"You'd better quit drinking that so fast, I think a refill would cost you another arm." Charlie laughed again, always being funny. Another one of her qualities I loved.

"You could help me out her and quit being irresistible." I pointed out.

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, right. So anyway, I've been meaning to ask you, what do you think about the new pack in town, they're having some bonfire thing on their property tonight, we were invited, I was going to suggest we go until you had this great surprise. Which you could have warned me about, by the way, my school jeans and t-shirt aren't exactly prime material for a place like this."

I glanced to her simple white baby tee and her stone washed skinny jeans, that made her legs look as long and graceful as they did on the track, I remembered how soft and smooth her legs were, how great the skin of her thighs had felt under my lips that one night I had let my self go there. "You look perfect, this place has nothing on you."

"Jacque!" She whispered exasperatedly mock glancing around to make sure no one heard. "Do you want the rich servers to throw you out on your ass for saying their restaurant was less attractive than me? That's just about the worst think you could say to them!" She was joking, of course, "I mean really, Jacque!" She playfully reached across to tousle my hair and I caught her hand to kiss it.

"You're lovely, they should be honored they rank anywhere on the same scale as you." I kept her hand to my lips.

Charlotte's face went all soft and her voice was low when she said, "Thank you."

"So anyway…" I had to refocus the conversation, she was making me dizzy with desire for speaking! For the love of Moon! How was I supposed to concentrate through dinner? "You asked about my thoughts on the other pack correct?"

"Yeeeeeesss," She drawled out the word as if she just realized my predicament, she made as if to move her hand out of my grasp to avoid a floor show for the entire restaurant.

"Can I keep the hand though?" I asked kissing the smooth skin of her wrist, I felt her shiver. Well maybe I wasn't the only one who had problems concentrating with the simplest of things, I stored it in the back of my mind that she liked that to save for a later date.

"Of course." She cleared her throat. "So. Other Pack. Thoughts?"

"I think that despite the fact that the leader whooped my ass his first day here, I did deserve it and he seems like a stand up guy, doing everything for the betterment of his pack and all that, a lot like a younger Giles I would think, minus his and my sister's scheming nature of course. I don't know, I think that they're moving here was a good thing. I like what I've seen so far about their pack laws, they're more old and traditional and I think that a lot of our old laws have either become lax or they've been replaced, the old authority is missing. They have that, and they have good strong leaders to lay it down. I think it will be good for our pack if their laws rub off, or if Gabriel ever replaces Giles. He's not as young as he once was."

"It thought you were Giles' 'understudy'" She asked her graceful brows furrowing to the seriousness of the conversation.

"I was…another reason I think its good someone else came along. I know you have faith in me, but I have too many issues to be leader for long…to many…I have authority issues…and part of being a leader is knowing when to take advise knowing when to listen to reason or keep a calm face, I don't think I have that capability."

"You've seen me flip out on your parents way to many times to tell me I don't mind being told what to do, it makes me go crazy, yeah Giles considers me because I'm the strongest of the pack right now and I've calmed down a lot since I started dating you and I pretty much try and do the right thing…but…"

"But? I think you'd make a great leader." Charlie gave me that glowing smile, she really thought too much of me. Suddenly I felt the need to explain to her that I really wasn't that great of a guy.

"Angel, I have a lot of bad stuff rolling around in me from my parents…they ignored me for most of my life….boys are predominate in my family…so the fact that my parents had two girls, meant so much. I acted out a lot when I was a teenager, and probably would still be if it wasn't for you, to get attention…they had the nerve to tell me what to do everyday when they gave me no sort of attention otherwise. I built up a major issue with authority, with parents…maybe why I think Giles is so cool, he parents on a level that is easy to abide by, he schemes his way until he molds you into what he thinks you have the potential to become in a way that makes you unable to feel resentment for the push, like giving me you."

"He saw potential in me underneath my anger and tried to work through it by setting us up, and there is no way I could resent that. Without you I'd still be some loser hothead bursting into fur every time I got angry at someone for telling me what to do, I still do, with your parents, but its so much better now that I've spent time with your dad. Giles knew that, he's still molding my potential even though he has his eyes on a different leader."

"He still knows you're a great guy. A great choice."

"I'm still pretty rough."

"One of the things I love about you." She smirked.

"Really, just one? What's another?"

"You're genuinely a good guy who always tries to do the right thing, just has a few crazy tendencies as a product of his upbringing, but then again don't we all? You fight against them, and you look good doing it, you are gentle and sweet when you speak to women, unless its my mom, very chivalrous you are, and you love me and that's just scratching the service." She smiled that electric smile again and I leaned over the table to kiss her.

"I love you." I mumbled against her lips.

"I love you too." She breathed.

"Excuse me, your food is ready." The server announced, holding two fancy plates with our pasta meal decorating the plate with the chicken meat balls in the center and the duck sauce rimming the noodles from the outside to make the dish look particularly handsome, not that I really cared about the food, it had escaped my notice whether the server was male or female and I only sat back against my seat so he/she could set the plates down and leave me with Charlotte.

I honestly don't know what we talked about beyond that, I think that she mentioned her friend Adelaide and some new crush but I really just ate robotically, watching her. I loved her so much. Manipulation, scheming, whatever had led her to me, she was mine now and tonight I loved her all the more for loving me despite my anger issues, for hearing my problems and still loving me.

I watched how she sipped her tea, how she mixed the sauce and the meat balls in with the snazzy pasta the way it was supposed to be eaten and then laughed when a dribble got on her chin and she wiped it off. I watched her graceful movements, the attitude in the way she talked and her blue eyes shifting from sparkling to softening to hard steel depending on who she was talking about, all the while keeping that steady look that exuded calmness to whomever she was with. Though at the moment I was anything but calm: I didn't know how I was going to spend the next few hours after the meal not jumping all over her.

"Jacque? You done?" She gave me that funny look of hers and gestured to the plate the server was trying to ask if she/he could take. I had only eaten a little over half too distracted by Charlotte to really taste it, though I now noticed that Charlotte had cleaned her plate, obviously loving it.

"Yes, thank you." I said in the servers direction, taking the check she/he handed me. I glanced down. Only fifty bucks really not that bad for this place. I dug out a check from my wallet, all my cash was in the bank. I wrote it out, handed it to the server I now noticed was a lady who thanked us for the business and I walked Charlotte out of the restaurant, the only thing running through my mind was the arm she had entwined in mine. I was so hyperaware of her tonight, it probably had something to do with the fact that the last time we were alone we had pushed some boundaries of our physical relationship that probably shouldn't have been pushed at this point.

"What are you so lost in thought about?" She asked. I hadn't noticed that we were both in the truck until I turned my head toward her voice. And saw her putting on her seat-belt, I noticed she was taking extra care to put it on in such a way that made my eyes trail along her body where the seat belt crossed, it might just have been my imagination or maybe she knew my thoughts and was doing everything she could to tease me. It was probably the later, Charlotte did like to tease.

"You." I answered honestly.

"I have a question." Charlotte asked as I started the truck and put my mind to the task of backing out into the street.

Uh Oh. "Yeah?" I tried to ask calmly.

"I think I should wait to ask this one when we get out of the truck." Charlie said seriously and that only left me to wonder….

I certainly am stringing Jacque's chapters along aren't I? Tell me if you hate it, but I happen to love Jacque's PoV, but I want to know what you think, so review, please?

I also want to know what people think of Giles, I have been giving his character quite the toss around in both stories and I want to know if anyone has him figured out, so review your thoughts, I'll be waiting :D melissaturkey