He looks me over like I mean too much and nothing all at once. I don’t get it, what our issue is.
“If you think I’m going to sputter around and deny this, you’ll be sorry.” Parrish’s frown turns into a smile, one as cruel and wicked and obscene as everything else about him. He’s a villain in a very pretty story, that’s what he is. And once he’s set you as a target, that’s it. I can feel it now: he’s bringing me down. At least … he’s going to try. And he can try his fucking best. “I’m going to embrace it. Actually, I’m going to start spreading rumors of my own. Just remember that you brought this on yourself.”
He leans down beside me and presses his lips against the side of my jaw, his kiss iniquitous and violent and searing as anything I’ve ever felt. Heat flares through my veins and I shoot to my feet, but all that really does is put us closer together.
Parrish gathers my head in his hands and then his mouth is on mine, his tongue stealing between my lips as they seem to part of their own accord. Oh my gods, what the fuck am I doing?! I wonder as my arms go around his neck and I end up on my tiptoes in an attempt to deepen the kiss. Parrish seems mildly surprised, but then his arms are around my waist, squeezing hard enough that it almost hurts.
When he pulls back from me, his lips move near my ear.
“That’s what I thought, Gamer Girl,” he says, releasing me like I’m venomous and stepping back with a confident smile warping his lips. Lips that are just this side of glossy from kissing. From kissing me, specifically.
Oh shit.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
Did I … was that … oh hell, that was my first kiss?! With Parrish of all people? What the actual fucking fuck is wrong with me? I clamp a hand over my mouth as my cheeks flame and that ember in my belly turns into a raging fire, crawling through my veins and burning me up from the inside.
He can sense it, too, the way he’s looking at me, all smug and shit. He warned me not to fall in love with him and I hate him and I would never and yet I kissed him and now I’m standing here looking like a total moron and everyone is staring and multiple people have their phones out andohmygodthisisgoingonthegoddamninternet.
“Clearly that was your first kiss,” Parrish remarks absently, frowning down at me in that way of his, that way that makes me wish I knew how to acquire ricin poison to slip into his morning coffee. Every goddamn day he makes a cup with Tess’ five-thousand-dollar espresso machine and sits there sipping it in his Whitehall uniform, and it just pisses me the fuck off. I hate the way he drinks coffee, slowly and contemplatively, like there’s actually something going on inside his stupid, ugly head. “But I’ll keep that to myself or else the rumors I’ve spread won’t make much sense.”
He has the audacity to smile at me. I feel like a fucking tea kettle boiling over and steaming.
“Shows what you know because it obviously was not,” I snap back, but he just keeps smiling in that infuriating way of his.
“Then I guess you’re just a shitty kisser. Less spit, less tongue flapping, less desperation, Gamer Girl. If you’re nice to me, maybe I’ll let you practice a little.”
“Stick your dick in a meat grinder,” is all that I can manage to get out. I’m losing this battle, no doubt, but I think by befriending Lumen and impressing the students at the party I might be able to win the war.
“Dick can’t be all that small if you’re gonna kiss him like that,” Chas says finally, lifting up his drink in salute and then downing it as several of the people nearest him laugh. Someone lays out a line of what I think might actually be cocaine on a table nearby, and I feel my face pale.
Maybe I’ve just stepped into something I’m not quite ready for?
What was it that Parrish said to me: Hope you’re ready. Because it only gets worse from here on out.
I’m starting to wonder if he was right about that.
By the time I find Maxx and the Jeep Gladiator, it’s twenty minutes past the time we said we’d meet. For his part, X doesn’t seem particularly bothered, offering up a tight smile when I climb into the front seat beside him.
“It seems like you’ve made quite a name for yourself,” he tells me with a raise of his brows. “Good work, Kota. You’ve nailed the Whitehall Prep test.”
“There’s a test?” I ask, but I know what he means. The test of whether I belong here or not. Apparently, I meet their required level of drama, lucky me.
