“Why’d you have to lend yours to Kai?” she said, exasperated.
“Because his had about four percent left.”
Zoe shook her head in frustration, her dark hair sliding across her shoulders. Telling her to leave it down had been the best inspiration we’d had so far—even better than not letting her wear panties. Her clothes said she was all business, but that hair, those full pink lips, and the black shoes with the three-inch heels hinted at the sensual woman who would sometimes come out and play.
“Can we just get this over with?” Zoe asked.
“How? It’s not an escape room where we figure out the clues one at a time.”
She muttered something that I caught only part of.
“What was that?”
“I saidyoushould get a clue.” She was so cute when she was sulky. “This is so dumb. You and I are going topart ways as soon as we get back to campus. What does it matter if we’re getting along or not?”
Shit. That hit me like a kick to the balls. Did she really want to go back to Langley and pretend we didn’t know each other? Pretend none of this ever happened?
“Maybe it should matter.” I leaned my hip against the table by the door.
That surprised her. “Why?”
“For starters, we’ve seen each other naked. Made each other come. Those things aren’t exactly impersonal.”
“It’s just sex,” Zoe said, and though she blushed, she kept her voice steady.
I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes. The woman, who had been a virgin until just a few days ago, was trying to lecture me about the meaning of sex. “Which is something I have a lot more experience in than you do. And sex is rarely just sex.”
She stopped pacing and whirled around. “Don’t even go there.”
“Go where?” Shit, she was hot when she got angry like this. Her eyes looked darker and as if they could shoot fire to burn me alive.
“There. The whole feelings thing. Remember, you guys almost refused to teach me because you thought I couldn’t separate sex from feelings. And now that I’ve proven I can, you’re somehow holdingthat against me?”
“No.” I said it matter of factly. “But I don’t think you’ve proven it.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Feelings don’t have to be all rainbows and puppy dogs. They can also be anger, frustration—anything really. And you’ve already admitted you feel something for me.”
“What? No I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. I think choosing me as your victim in the fuck, marry, kill game indicates you had a pretty strong feeling about me.”
Somewhat to my surprise, the corner of her mouth quirked upward. “Maybe I’m just a violent person.”
“Or maybe I was a complete asshole to you when the internship started even though you didn’t even remember me.”
Zoe’s shoulders slumped and her face tightened. “You were mean to me because I was mean to you first.”
“No.” I moved to her side. “You weren’t. You tried my food, and you gave your opinion of it. That’s not mean, it’s honest.” I’d been meaning to tell her this for a while now but hadn’t found the right time. I’d been wrong to blame her for her opinion.
She stared at me, her expression serious. “It wasn’t honest,” she said quietly.
“It’s okay, Zoe. Not everyone has to like my food. You?—”
“But I did like it.” Her voice was so quiet I had tostrain to hear her—especially since my pulse had sped up, echoing in my eardrums. “It was incredible—the best thing I’d ever tasted. But… all the other students in the class, they’d grown up eating in Michelin-starred restaurants. Dining in Paris and Rome during frequent European vacations. I was so different from them, and I felt like a small-town girl who knew nothing. So I picked on the food to keep from showing how much it had impressed me. To keep from showing that I hadn’t ever experienced anything like that, when they had their whole lives. Because maybe if I acted like I wasn’t impressed, they might think I was one of them.”
Shocked, I stared at her, unable to quite take that in. When she finally turned to face me, and I saw something vulnerable in her eyes. “I didn’t want them to know that I was just a scholarship student who’d never had anything fancier than Olive Garden. So I used all these pretentious words I’d heard the other students use. I tore you down to make myself sound sophisticated.”
