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Losing everything has been hard to adjust to, and I won’t lie, there are still days when I miss my old life.
Especially when one of the wheels on the old suitcase decides it no longer wants to be attached to the case and performs an escape act, which almost sends me flying. At the last moment, from behind one of the columns supporting the path’s shelter, someone steps out and wraps their arm around my waist to stop me faceplanting the floor.
“Thank you.” I extract myself from the other person and straighten out my clothes. As the uniform doesn’t need to be worn until classes start, I’ve opted for comfort; leggings and an oversized T-shirt. Finally, I look up and everything I’ve ever learned to keep my face as indifferent as possible disappears with my case’s wheel.
The man in front of me is a god.
I lived in Manhattan, and I saw all kinds of models and celebrities all the time, but the face of this guy seems unreal. His hair is blond and cut short enough to be styled with an effortless bedhead look, but with no hair out of place. Sitting below that are eyebrows, a shade darker than his hair, that have most definitely been shaped into that curve. A guy who takes grooming seriously.
His eyes are… I’m not sure what color they are in this dull light, but they look gray. And they’re inspecting me, head to toe, with curiosityand—I’m not embarrassed to say—interest.
For the last two years, I’d hit the books hard. I had a goal to get into this college, and I wasn’t going to let guys or partying stop me from achieving that. But before that, I had boyfriends. Hell, I lost my v-card when I was fourteen, and I wasn’t the only one in school who’d been sexually active at that age.
It isn’t that I’ve sworn off men, but I am here to find out the truth about what happened two and a half years ago. The only way I can do that is to keep as anonymous as possible for as long as possible. Something which already isn’t going to be easy considering my status as the scholarship kid. If anyone finds out who I am—who my brother is—information and evidence is going to become infinitely harder to obtain.
Which means guys aren’t a priority. Thankfully, I have a couple of vibrators packed away in the broken case to get me through the lonely nights, but that doesn’t mean I can stop the butterflies in my stomach from the look he’s giving me. And it also doesn’t mean that I can’t drink him in, giving me an image to focus on when I use one of those vibrators later…
“So, this is what it feels like to have women falling at my feet.” He gives me a grin that somehow makes him even more beautiful. Seriously, if this guy had been alive a few thousand years ago, he’d have been the inspiration for Adonis.
“I doubt this is an alien feeling for you,” I say, finally tearing my gaze from his face to look down at my case. Wherever the wheel went doesn’t matter because the entire arm it was sitting on snapped in two. Nothing is fixing that.
“You look like you need some help there.”
When he doesn’t move, I glance back at him and arch an eyebrow. “Wasn’t that your cue to save the day and carry the case for me?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t sayIwas going to be the one to help you.”
“Wow.” I blink.
The guy takes a few steps back and leans against one of the columns, looking out into the rain. “I’ve already given you a freebie when I stopped you from needing plastic surgery.” He reaches up and taps his nose as he glances back at me. “Anything else is going to cost you.”
All I can do is stare at him, completely taken aback by his attitude, and then curiosity kicks in. “What’s your price?”
Apparently, my response is not the one he expected because he tilts his head and stares at me before finally pushing himself away from the column and walking back over to stand beside me. This time he doesn’t stop until his Berluti shoes are practically toe to toe with my secondhand Nikes. “If it were money, you couldn’t afford it.”
“And if it wasn’t?”
The look he gives me then feels like he’s somehow managed to ignite my insides. He leans in closer, and I can smell his Tom Ford perfume as he brings his mouth close to my ear. Instead of saying anything, he makes a hmmm, and I can almost feel it vibrate against me.
I swear if he wasn’t so close, I’d be fanning my face. Somehow, that’s the sexiest noise I’ve ever heard come from a man, and now my mind is racing, wondering what other noises he makes and what I need to do to hear him make them.
Suddenly, he stands upright, a huge smirk on his face. “Maybe I should ask you what dirty little thoughts you’ve got going around in your mind and pick one of those.”
Before I can comment, he swoops down and picks up the broken case like it’s filled with feathers and promptly starts walking away.
It takes a good twenty seconds for my brain to kick into gear, and then I hurry after him. “I never agreed to anything.”
The guy doesn’t stop but glances down at me with another smirk. “Not yet.”
His arrogance is becoming annoying, and I know without a doubt that he’s gotten his way his entire life. Even more irritating is the fact that I can’t even be mad. “Oh,” I say, suddenly, looking around. “You don’t know where I’m going.”
“You’re a freshman. You’re in Bennett.”
He moves across the campus with the ease of someone who’s either a junior or a senior. His saunter has long strides, and while I’m tall enough with long legs that could keep up and match his pace, I stay a few steps behind. He’s wearing designer jeans that look like they were made for his ass. Later on, when my imagination tones down his arrogance, I’m going to want all the details I can remember. Especially that ass.
James Keyingham University requires all students to live on-campus for the four years they’re here, although there’s not a curfew. Of course, there isn’t. It’s twenty minutes to the nearest town—where the train station is—was probably built before the college and zero amenities for anyone under the age of forty.
I’m sure there’s some old-standing belief that the students will stay on campus and be good little angels who only study, but I know that’s a load of crap. If the legal drinking age can’t stop teenagers from getting drunk, then a remote college campus isn’t going to stop college students from partying.
