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A frown emerges between her brows. “You said you didn’t read it for a class either. Why did you read it then?”
“For fun,” I admit.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “Is that so?”
“Why would I lie about this? I have no reason to impress you, do I?”
She bites her lower lip, seemingly contemplating her response—butIpreempt her with another question.
“Is that all you did today? Reading I mean.”
“Yes. I don’t do much else,” she replies, adding an insecure shrug. “Told you, I’m pretty boring.”
“Not to me,” I maintain.
A nervous flicker darts across her face when I lean forward, bringing myself closer to her.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” I declare, my voice so low that it’s almost a whisper.
And just as I hoped, she bows in closer, unable to resist the pull of curiosity. Her intoxicating scent envelops me, and I have to fight the urge to grab her and pull her into my embrace.
“I hold a degree in American Literature,” I reveal. “It was just a minor, but by far the most interesting class. Very few people know about this.”
“How come?”she asks, tilting her head to the side. “Why make such a secret of it?”
I shrug. “Sometimes things just turn into secrets, because no one ever asks about them.”
The somber tone of my response comes as a surprise, even to myself. I don’t know why I said it, but I know it’s true. My family never cared for my ambitions, they never asked about my classes, my life at college, my passion—things like that don’t mean much in a world that is ruled by violence and money. College was the first place where I didn’t feel the need to hide behind my fists and crude words.
“I never asked, and you still told me,” the girl says, and her lips curve into a coy smile.
“Touché,” I retort. “But I’m sure my secret is safe with a fellow booknerd such as yourself.”
“Fellowbooknerd?”she repeats, before she erupts in an amused giggle.
Her laughter is surprisingly high-pitched, almost childlike with its unrestrained levity—and dangerously endearing.
But she catches herself within seconds, and her hand flies up to her mouth, silencing the lighthearted spirit as quickly as it appeared.
“Don’t do that,” I reprimand, as I close my hand around her wrist, gently pulling her hand away from her face. “I like what I’m seeing. Don’t hide from me.”
The confusion on her face only adds to her sublime allure. She looks astonished, as if she has never received a compliment before.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s just… I’ve never been called a booknerdlike that.”
“Like what?”
She shies away, nervously batting her lashes as her gaze trails down into her lap.
“In a… nice way,” she utters, still avoiding eye contact. “It almost sounded like a compliment when you said it.”
“Because it was,” I assert.
Fuck, she’s killing me. I must have her.
Fuck the rules.
She stiffens when I move closer and place a finger beneath her chin. A little nudge is all it takes to make her look at me again.
