Chapter Three
Cade
I keep my head down, hood up. That’s how I fly under the radar, how I don’t draw suspicion. It’s an etiquette I’ve perfected. No one gets in, and I can bide my time without losing my shit. I don’t give a fuck who’s in this class or what anyone is doing as long as I can pay attention to Mr. Rykes and maintain my GPA. Everything rides on me being Valedictorian, and I refuse to let three years of planning be derailed.
So, tell me why my gaze snaps up when I hear the door open.
Bronze blonde hair sticks to the new edition’s face, and she tries to swipe it away as she stumbles into the room. I had a feeling she would be placed in this class. It’s a senior requirement.
She freezes as Mr. Rykes frowns at her entrance. She bites her lip, draws her brows together, and apologizes with her eyes.
Damn. My chest constricts in a foreign way with how her big brown eyes plea.
Rykes huffs and rolls his eyes, and I have no idea how he doesn’t crumble underneath that gaze.
“Another latecomer,” he says, pursing his lips at her before flicking his sights on me—the first latecomer.
Yeah, that look right there is why I keep my head down. Arrogant prick. I ignore his reprimand and track the girl’s movements as she tries to make herself small, slipping between all the eyes on her and finding an empty seat.
Right. Next. To. Me .
The back row we are in has two other desks—not to mention the bay window seats—that she could have taken, but instead she’s setting up residence on my left, dropping her bag on the floor by my feet. I twist in my seat, cock my head to the side, and wait for her to notice who she has sat next to.
No one sits next to me. Everyone knows better. I’m pretty sure anyone else would choose to stand if their only option was a desk on my left. She’ll figure it out though, hear through the gossip mill about my time away, and come to the same assumptions everyone else has. Their assumptions are correct, but they have no way of knowing that. If they really knew, I think they would act a whole fuck of a lot nicer. Either way, I stare her down from beneath my hood, trying to get the point across sooner.
She’s oblivious to me though and inhales through her nose before exhaling through pursed lips. Dust motes swirl as she flips her hair behind her. The action shows off her smooth neck, but my attention is rapt with those full lips. I wonder what they would look like wrapped around my dick, her pleading eyes looking up at me from beneath her lashes.
My brows smash together at the image. What the fuck am I thinking?
She seems to relax and then leans down to her bag. Something about the unfairness of it, that she gets to relax when she’s done whatever she’s done to me, has me swiping my foot around the bag and pulling it underneath me.
Her hand freezes, and she slowly looks up. Her big eyes widen further, and her face pales. The milky tone of her skin means her flesh goes almost transparent. It accentuates the blue of her veins—so delicate and intricate, running down her jaw and neck, splitting off on her chest before they dip and hide underneath her uniform. They make me wonder what it would take to get that blood really flowing. A rumble comes from my chest, and I tuck the bag even further under my seat. No bags for you and your tempting little veins.
She swallows hard and then hisses, “That’s mine.”
“I thought it was mine.” I shrug. “Seeing as how it was in my space,” I whisper and turn forward.
From my peripheral, I can see that her bottom lip has fallen, and she’s blinking rapidly, like she doesn’t understand what I’m doing. What the fuck am I doing?
“Did you need something from it?” I feign a disinterested tone, which is ridiculous because I’m obviously very interested or I wouldn’t be holding her bag hostage.
“My book,” she snaps.
“Which one?” I sigh, like I’m the keeper of her things and her needing something is an inconvenience.
I reach down and pull the leather satchel into my lap, waiting for a response. But she seems too stunned to answer, so I take it upon myself to go hunting.
Warmth spreads from my fingertips and up my arm as I root around in the buttery leather. It feels intimate, as if I’m inside of her. But it’s a dumb idea—thinking I can ever get inside her, that, and to blindly dig around in someone’s bag. If she did the same to mine, she might cut herself, but I don’t think I have anything to worry about with this girl’s belongings. She looks like a good girl. Part of a cheerleading team maybe, but not a captain. Her eyes are too kind to be captain, her smile too genuine.
I clamp my jaw.
No one is kind.
The fact that I just had to remind myself of that rattles me, and suddenly I don’t want anything to do with this charade. She’s no different than the rest of Hillcrest. I can guarantee it. I quit messing around and quickly find our social studies book in her bag. I extend it out to her and then roughly toss the satchel at her feet.
I feel her eyes searing into my profile as she gingerly takes the book, and I pull my hood farther over my face so I don’t get burned. Fuck this. Fuck her. Fuck it all.