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I sigh as I unwrap the second pumpkin. “You’re right. I guess we have a better chance of coming out of this crap alive if we put our heads together for once. What kind of evil villain comes up with this kind of shit, anyway? A bridge made of nothing but straws and straight pins?”
“Seriously. That dude needs a freaking life,” he mumbles, flipping through his notebook. “Or at least to get laid.”
“I’d never expect my students to do something this dumb and irrelevant for a grade if I were a teacher,” I remark, digging around for the box of straight pins I’d purchased earlier.
“You mean to tell me you don’t plan to torture your students just for the fun of it, Reed?”
I glare at him, surprised that he knows about my career aspirations. “Well, at least not in the beginning. But we’ll see how bitter and bored I get by the second half of my career.”
He laughs at that. “You know, I forget how funny you are.”
“And I forget you’re just a nerd disguised as a jock, Mr. Golden Ratio.” He probably thinks I’m poking fun at him for knowing that term a minute before, but I’d be lying if I said he isn’t ideally proportioned in every manner.
Well, there are a couple of his proportions I haven’t been exposed to after being forced to spend my summers and afternoons at the football field house for the past few years, though I figure Blake’s incredibly defined abs and perfectly symmetrical face are a decent representation of the rest of him.
Or maybe that’s his fatal flaw?
I stifle a giggle and look over at him. He’s staring at me with a curious expression. “Did you just call me perfect?”
My face flushes slightly. “I called you a dork for recognizing the reference in the first place.”
“Hmm. You brought up da Vinci first. Wait, hang on, you left a little bit of chocolate …” He reaches out and pulls my chair closer. Then he lightly brushes his knuckle over the corner of my mouth, leaving behind a trail of heat. I blink a few times and try to pretend like a current of electricity didn’t just pass between us, and Blake clears his throat before wiping the back of his hand over his thigh.
“Thanks,” I mumble as I struggle to open the box of pins to no avail, eventually handing it to him. He takes it wordlessly and opens it with little effort before giving it back, making me roll my eyes again. “Anyway, in regards to your point, I have never portrayed myself as anything other than a dork. I am what I am. You, on the other hand, have tried to bridge the gap between jock and homecoming king and valedictorian, and those don’t really—ouch!”
I shake my hand out before looking down at my fingertip, and a small bit of blood bubbles up from where I’d punctured myself on a straight pin. “Shit, that hurt,” I curse. “This doesn’t bode well for the rest of the project.” I move to bring my finger up to my mouth to stop the bleeding, but Blake reaches over and grabs my hand first.
He tugs on his T-shirt and wraps the hem around my fingertip, applying pressure. “There, is that better?” He looks up, concern etched on his face.
I nod, trying to remember how to breathe, and another awkward silence fills the room while he continues cradling my hand and squeezing my finger. I force my gaze away from the strip of skin he’s exposed by lifting his shirt, and I jerk my arm back after a minute, instinctively shoving my injured finger between my lips this time.
And then I meet his widened eyes with mine and see that his pupils are dilated. I slowly remove my finger, watching his chest heave as he shifts his gaze to my mouth.
“There’s … you, uh, still have some chocolate right there,” he mumbles, wiping the corner of my bottom lip again, this time with his thumb. Then he shoves it into his mouth, audibly sucking his finger to clean it off and making a smacking sound when he pulls it out.
I swallow involuntarily, licking my lips and noting the lingering taste of his skin, a salty contrast to the sweet peanut butter, and his brow furrows as if he’s in pain. Then I watch as his eyelids get visibly heavier, just as he lets out something resembling a growl from deep in his throat. I bite my lip at the sound, and he inches his body closer.
Holy shit.
Is he making a move on me? Have I managed to turn him on?
Okay, so I may be one of the last virgins left in our class, but I’ve read enough romance novels to see where this is going. By now I’m breathing hard too, and my eyes dart down to his lap.
Oh, fudge.
He’s definitely into this. The shorts he’s wearing leave very little to the imagination, and that’s saying a lot, since I have a pretty wild imagination.
I involuntarily lean into him, his face so close now that I feel his breath fanning over me, and he chokes out a hoarse, “Gah, Loren,” as he reaches up and cups my cheek. “You’re so … can I please?—”
And, of course, that’s the moment that my bedroom door flings open. “All right, Mom’s passed out in her bed, but?—”
Landry grimaces as his eyes bounce back and forth between Blake and me. To be fair, we are sitting close enough for our knees to touch, not to mention the fact that it probably looks like he was just seconds away from kissing me.
It certainly felt that way, too.
“What in the actual hell is going on in here?” Landry booms.
Blake jolts upright and looks at Landry. “A physics project,” he replies, the husky tone of his voice betraying our innocence.
