Page 70 of The Pawn

"Women's intuition. It just made sense you'd be a germaphobe. I figured there was probably a reason why you've never kissed anyone."

He goes still all over at my words, a shadowed expression in his eyes. "How did—how would you possibly know that?"

There was more to the video than what I posted online, and after a quick request for translation from the source, I found out part of what started Blake's fight with the girl. Apparently, in addition to calling him jealous and mean, she made fun of him for being a teenage boy who has never kissed a girl.

It wasn't that part that got to him—there seemed to be something else going on, something the video that never caught—but it was another interesting piece of information that I filed away for later.

Of course, I can't reveal that to him without revealing that I'm Legacies. So I settle for saying, "The girls around here talk abouteverything.Including their past at other private schools, and who's doing whom—and who's not doing anybody. Your never-been-kissed status is a hot topic of conversation. Wasn't hard to figure out all that time in hospitals as a child made you a repressed germaphobe."

His eyes boil over with anger, fists clenching. "I amnotrepressed."

I can't help but raise my eyebrows at this a little bit. If you looked up repressed in the dictionary, Blake Woo Bin Lee Garrison would appear in a photo of his starched and ironed uniform. Even right now, he's still tugging at the hem of his shirt, like he thinks he can un-rumple it through sheer willpower.

"Just teach me math so I don't fail out, like we both agreed to, okay? Then you can go back to ironing the creases on your pants in your spare time."

He stalks towards me, and despite myself, I feel the urge to step back. But I refuse, planting my feet and looking up into his face as he looms over me. He has his father and uncle's height, I'll give him that, but I'm not going to let him intimidate me.

"I've never been repressed in my life."

"Okay." I don't know why he cares about my opinion so much. Then it occurs to me. "I won't tell anyone about you not having kissed anybody. Er, at least, I won't tell anyone who doesn't already know."

Blake snorts. "As if I believe that. You've been gunning for me since the start."

I frown at him, wondering what he's talking about—especially since he doesn't know it's me behind the blog. "No I haven't been," I lie.

"You have. You're angry that your brother was revealed for the charlatan he is, and that he dropped out of school."

I can feel my pulse skyrocketing, my mind on the verge of a flashback, and I want to talk about something else.

"I don't like you," I admit, which is an understatement. "You're too privileged. I mean—bothof your parents are millionaires in the entertainment industry? What, one famous parent wasn't enough for you? And on two continents, too. But I literally couldn't give a shit who you've kissed. You can kiss your own ass and call it a momentous revelation of self-love for all I care."

"You're intolerably frustrating, you know."

A silent laugh escapes my lips. "I aim to misbehave."

Moments pass between us. I'm looking up into his eyes still, for some reason. I won the bet, but somehow nothing feels settled or certain. It's like the whole damned house around us is on tilts, and it's moving back and forth, up and down, a ship at sea without a captain.

A group of giggling girls stumble into the room then back out again, confused by the stillness and lack of horror happening here, clearly drunk from pre-gaming before they showed up.

I wonder if it's madness that makes me look at his lips.

Surely it's insanity when I lick my own, then flick my eyes up into his.

I've lost all control of my faculties, but I actually sway forward towards him. Maybe the house really is moving. Maybe the Earth, in its wisdom, is heaving the ground beneath us in an effort to remove the rich from its surface before they're fully grown and dangerous.

I must have gotten tipsy by proximity when the drunk girls went through the room, because I'm looking at him again and parting my lips.

Blake reaches out and grabs my upper arms—softly, gently, like he's waiting for me to tear away from his grip.

I don't.

"Aren't you scared of me?" I demand, heart beating a staccato rhythm. "The whole point of this was to frighten you."

"I'm not scared." His eyes are wide, his voice like a feral animal caught in a trap. "I just never thought it would happen this way, when it happened."

My brows come together. "What do you mean?"

In answer, he presses his mouth to mine.

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