Perfect grades, perfect manners, perfect physical condition, even perfect combat skills.
So great.
So admirable.
So fuckingirritating.
Vaughn Morozov looked down on me the second we met, and I’ll never forgive him for it.
Yup. Call the petty police.
Anyhow, I’d love to rip Vaughn fucking Morozov a new one, so he’ll stop shoving people into the tiny boxes he has in his head.
They’re probably color-coded and in alphabetical order.
I let my lips curl in the wide grin he hates so much. “Oh no. Mr. Perfect doesn’t have perfect vision?”
Now he’ll say I’m the one who wasn’t watching where I was going while looking down his nose at me.
Again.
Cy’s right. This prick is predictable.
I wait and wait, but Vaughn says nothing. He has a hand in his shorts pocket, and his white shirt is wet at the top. Not sure if it’s because he spilled water from the bottle he’s carrying or he’s been working out.
Actually, uh, he was definitely working out. He wouldn’t continue to wear a wet shirt if he’d spilled something on it. I know because I saw him remove his shirt the other day after Nikolai spilled some lemonade on it.
It was one of the few times he’s gotten naked—half naked, to be precise.
I kept watching him that time as I licked the blood from my lip after a fight with Nikolai. The taste of violence exploded on my tongue while I took in the view of his lean abs glistening under the golden rays of the sun.
Once again, I find my attention zeroing in on the pulse that throbs in his neck.
His neck is coated with a sheen of sweat, and a droplet slides down it, gliding over his protruding collarbone before dissolving in the collar of his shirt.
“What?”
My gaze snaps back to his face at his question. No—actually, my eyes rest directly on his mouth because it’s also glossy, slightly pink. Probably from the water.
And I’m just looking at it.
His lips, I mean.
It’s like the most normal thing. Lips. Everyone has them.
And yet I can’t help noticing how his lower lip is slightly fuller than the upper one, and that for some reason, now, of all times, a droplet of water is stuck at the dip at the top.
“Yulian?”
“Huh?” I say like a goddamn idiot, and Vaughn frowns, probably because I’m gawking at him as if I were caught with my hand in the cookie jar.
Which might as well be the case.
What. The. Fuck.
“Why are you staring at me?” he asks, his tone not at all as abrasive or cold or disinterested as when he usually talks to me.
If anything, he seems to be a bit…flustered? Out of his element?
