Page 5 of Play Me

Chapter Three

CADENCE

“And don’t forget your Baroque period project due next Monday. Nothing except death will be accepted as an excuse for not turning it in. And even then, I want a death certificate signed by the state coroner. You’ve had all term, people.”

With a wave of my hand I dismiss my last class to the sound of scraping chairs on the floor and chatter about everything but school work. I sink into my chair, exhausted, kicking my shoes off and rubbing one foot against the other.

The cacophony of five hundred teenagers fleeing the confines of high school slowly dissipates and I let my body hang, completely lifeless in my desk chair, feeling the day seep slowly away from me.

But a part of it just won’t budge.

Say ‘fuck’, I can still hear his voice taunt me. And the curve of his lip, goading me.

But it wasn’t what he said but how he said it.

“Fuck.” I turn the word over in my own mouth, remembering the way it sounded coming out of his. He made it sound like a proposition. One I’d have trouble refusing.

God, he was hot.

From the way his relaxed denim jeans had ridden low on his hips, showing his taut, ripped stomach when he reached up with his arms, to the red-tinted brown stubble on his strong chiseled jawline. From the infuriatingly long lashes that framed his jade green eyes, to the way his long fringe hung over his forehead, covering one eye. Even the small vertical scar that ran just across his top lip was provocative. Everything about him screamed sex. And it wasn’t a scream I’d been receptive to recently.

But damn, he was a jerk. The cocky way he’d grinned when he made the comment about spanking him. I’d wanted to slap the arrogance right off his face.

Until he kissed you, that is, the annoying voice inside my head reminded me.

“He didn’t kiss me,” I argued back, out loud, while my cheek burned at the memory.

“Who didn’t kiss you?” A female voice pipes up and I turn my head to the doorway.

“Ugh, nobody, an asshole at the music store.” I tell my best friend and colleague, Sarah.

“But you wanted him to?” Her face lights up, always ready for a gossip, and always disappointed by my lack of ever having any.

“NO!” I yell, a little louder than I’d intended.

“WHOA!” I hear for the second time today. “So someone you didn’t want to kiss you...didn’t kiss you.” Sarah repeats, trying to make sense of something I don’t have sense of yet.

“Right.” I nod, hoping my apparent lack of information will stop her questions.

“So why are we talking about it?”

“We weren’t.”

“You were, alone here in your classroom.” She points out.

“I was just...processing...”

“Right. So um...what was this person like, who didn’t kiss you, even though you didn’t want him to?”

“He was....infuriating.” I scrunch up my face again, remembering his face as he winked at me before he ran out of the store.

“And?”

“He STOLE from me!”

“He STOLE?” She looks even more confused than before.

“Well, kinda?” Well, he did, kind of.