Price of a Kiss (Forbidden Men, #1)(5)

Gasping out a silent gulp to cool my inflamed esophagus, I blinked back tears. “So…” It took me a few tries before I could add, “You said you had Brit Lit with me, right?”

“Right,” Eva answered. From her breathy reply, I could tell she was still busy staring.

“Well, it starts in…three minutes. Maybe we should get going.” At this point, anything to get her to heel and take her eyes off my hunk would do, even attending Early British Literature.

Spotting a trashcan nearby, I took aim and sank my empty cup, nothing but net, thanks to three years on the high school basketball team. “So let’s do this,” I announced, gathering my backpack and getting ready to stand.

But Eva slid over, slamming her body into mine until she smashed us together, hip to hip. “Wait.” Her voice went hushed and serious as her hand landed on my leg, holding me in place. “He’s coming this way.”

Drawing in a sharp breath, I glanced up. He’d abandoned his bronco statue and was strolling down the sidewalk by himself toward the main entrance of the school. Problem was, the bench Eva and I inhabited sat along the edge of that very path. He was going to walk right by us.

Nothing but ten feet of dead air was going to separate him from me.

Dear Lord in heaven, please deliver me. Could I survive such close proximity? I honestly didn’t know. My chest heaved from the sudden unsteady rhythm of my breathing.

“Watch this,” Eva whispered in my ear.

I glanced at her, hoping to find some kind of direction, for her to tell me what to do. But she didn’t look a bit aware of my approaching panic attack. The girl looked damn mischievous.

I grabbed her wrist. “Oh, God. What’re you going to do?”

Eva merely smiled her infamous Cheshire cat grin as she settled her gaze on the passing hottie. “Good morning, Mason,” she called.

Every muscle in my body tightening, I dug my nails deep into her wrist, warning her to shut it. But her greeting had already captured his attention.

He glanced over, his gaze indifferent. Jerking his chin in that way guys had of greeting someone with their head, he nodded. “Sup?”

I melted, and a dreamy whimper oozed out. But, wow, he had a compelling voice to go with that compelling body. It was deep, yet smooth, and entirely too sinful to belong to someone so pretty. It made me want to close my eyes, and just…liquefy.

“Looking good today,” Eva told him, her tone full of feminine wiles and not-so-hidden invitation. Tipping her face just enough for the sunlight to catch her flawless complexion, she let her beautiful mane of platinum blonde hair spill over her shoulder to bounce down her sizable chest. She couldn’t have said come-and-get-me-big-boy any more flamboyantly than if she’d shrieked it aloud. “What say we skip class this morning and do something…fun instead?”

Mason Lowe snorted out his disinterest at the same moment I gasped, “E.!” I really was going to have to remind her she had a boyfriend, wasn’t I?

At my reprimanding hiss, Hotness zipped his attention to me, and suddenly his expression was no longer unresponsive. His intense gaze burned into me, and yes, I was going to need a whole vat of Aloe Vera to soothe the delicious sting it left behind.

Again, our immediate connection held me prisoner. His heavy stare cemented me into place as if it made every organ in my body weigh a million pounds each. I could do nothing but gape back. Like a punch to the solar plexus, he left me breathless. I sucked in air, seeking oxygen.

He looked even better from ten feet away than he had fifty yards away. Separating himself from his guy-pack hadn’t even diminished his appeal.

And that face. I swear, angels sprouted up around him and began to sing in harmonious worship of that glorious face. Straight nose, prominent brow, über-defined square jaw, dimpled chin. He had every alpha male feature a guy could possibly possess. Even his eyebrows were thick and rugged. There was simply a hallowed kind of masculine perfection about him.

When he tore his gaze away, I felt wrung out and abandoned. I watched him pass by us and stroll all the way to the front door. Then I watched him disappear inside. Licking my parched lips, I turned to my cousin in a daze.

“Okay,” I heard my own voice say, the tone a trifle faint to my ears. “Maybe I could believe women paid him for sex.”

“Hells yeah,” Eva purred. “If I had the cash, I’d definitely do him.”

She sounded a little too invested in her statement, so I nudged my knee into hers, aghast. “What about Alec?”

She gave me an empty stare. “Hmm? Who?”

I lifted one eyebrow. “Your boyfriend.”

“Oh.” Blinking, she seemed to return to herself. With an airy shrug, she pushed to her feet and swung her bag over her shoulder in a fluid, graceful way only a supermodel could accomplish. “Mason is only a pipe dream. Like I said, we could never afford him.”

Something about the way she worded that made me think she’d actually tried. It worried me, but I didn’t question it. Guys were the very last thing I wanted to get tangled in right now. And true gigolo or not, Hotness had sticky mess written all over him. Eva obviously had some kind of prior claim.

For once in my life, I let my curiosity lie dormant. Silently, I trailed Eva toward the front doors of Waterford County Community College and into my new life as Reese Alison Randall.