Playboy Princes (Royals of Arbon Academy, #2)(29)

The effort it took to wipe my face clear of all the anger and frustration was immense, but Mattie was already coming to my rescue.

“Oh please, Luca,” she snickered, “you can’t recognize sexual frustration when you see it ’cause you never get girls all worked up like that. Vi is just shitty that she can’t go chase Alex down and ride him like her personal pony. Right, babe?” She gave me a playful nudge, and this time my laugh was genuine. She’d deliberately called me babe like Alex had, and it seemed to clean the word of all his creepiness.

“Yeah,” I agreed, giving a small laugh, “something like that.” I shot a lightning fast look over at Jordan… and Rafe. Damn my body for still being attracted to that bastard. “Actually, I’m not really hungry after all. I might just go over my notes for tomorrow’s chem lab.”

Mattie frowned at me like she wanted to call me on my bullshit, but I was already escaping the dining room. After everything with the dean and then Alex, I needed a second to just breathe. I wasn’t going to get that while sitting at an awkwardly tense lunch with the guy who wanted to date me, his best friend who had fucked me until I saw heaven, and a bunch of clueless bastards who thought I was dating someone else entirely.

I let out a groan when I was a decent distance from the dining room and scrubbed my hands over my face. “When did life become so complicated?” I asked myself, wondering for the millionth time why I’d decided to enter the ballot in the first place.

Footsteps on the marble tiles alerted me to someone approaching, and I released a heavy sigh.

“Violet,” Jordan called out, and I turned to face him. When I’d heard someone following, I’d initially expected Mattie. And then when I’d realized it wasn’t a girl, I’d assumed Rafe had come to pile on more assholery.

“Jordy, hey.” I gave him a weak smile, wrapping my arms around myself. Of all my new friends, he was actually the one I’d most wanted it to be following me. “What’s up?”

He tucked his hands into his pockets and dipped his head, looking at me with those coffee-colored eyes in an almost coy gesture. “I just… I know you wanted a moment alone. I just wanted to… uh… fuck it.” He looked both ways up and down the hall—making sure we were alone, I guessed—then reached out to me and clasped the back of my neck.

This time when I found my lips pressed to someone else’s, it inspired a totally different reaction within me. I froze, but not because I was disgusted or horrified. I froze because I wanted to savor every single second. Jordan was kissing me, and it was a damn fairytale moment.

Except, he wasn’t a mind reader and pulled back abruptly, misreading my inactivity as a rejection. “I’m so sorry, Vi. I shouldn’t have—”

“Shut up and kiss me again,” I cut him off. But I didn’t wait for him to initiate this time. Nope, I was a strong, independent woman who owned her own sexual desires, and holy crap, did Jordan fall into that category. I threaded my arms around his neck as our mouths caressed, and when my lips parted to deepen the kiss, he made this unbelievably sexy sort of groan that had me wanting to jump his bones right then and there. Yeah, it wasn’t the most romantic of sentiments, but I’ve never claimed to be a princess.

We kissed for longer than we should have. Considering everything with Alex and the ballot and… everything… it was foolish and risky to just stand there kissing like we didn’t have a care in the world, but he seemed just as reluctant as me to end our embrace.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, husky and breathless when we finally parted. His lips continued to trace my jaw with feathered kisses. “I shouldn’t have kissed you without your permission. I just couldn’t stand the idea of him being on your lips a moment longer.”

Holy crap. My heart did this weird fluttery thing, and I found I needed to swallow before I could find the words to reply. “For the record, Jordan? You definitely have my permission. One hundred percent.”

I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel him smiling against my skin as he kissed the bend of my neck. Of course he’d seen Alex kiss me there, too, and was erasing that unwanted touch with his own.

“Cool,” he replied, then sucked in a sharp breath and shifted back with a pained look on his face. “I can’t believe I just said that. That’s the best I had? I’ve officially lost all my smooth.” He groaned, hanging his head and shaking it mournfully while I tried really hard to bite back a laugh.

“I should go,” I said, reluctant as all fuck. I didn’t try to hide that emotion when Jordan looked back up at me either. I wanted him to see me. The real me. “If anyone sees us here…”

He grimaced, but nodded. “Yeah, I know. We should step up our plans to deal with all of that soon. I don’t know how long I can hide how I feel about you.”

Ugh. There went my heart doing the flippy thing again.

Jordan kissed me once more—quickly this time—and I grinned like a lunatic the whole way to my next lecture of the day.





Chapter 12





Over the next few days, the weather decided it wanted a shot at second winter, sending massive snowstorms across the academy grounds.

“It’s, like, almost fucking summer,” I complained.

Mattie snorted. “Well, sure, but here there’re no real seasons. The weather just does whatever the fuck it wants.”