Page 57 of Forbidden

“Yeah, you two are always paired up together. Your doing or his?” He sounded way too interested in the answer.

“His.”

He arched his eyebrows like that proved something. “You’ve got nearly every male following you around school.” He pointed his cigarette at me. “You are worse than my sisters.”

“Hannah and Eve are stunning. And I don’t have males following me.”

“You can’t even go have a smoke in peace. Suddenly half the male population at school is smoking.” He gestured his cigarette at me, which I took.

“Do you do anything else at school, apart from watch me?” I exhaled a mouthful of smoke. For some reason, smoking always calmed me. Maybe it was the inhaling and exhaling. I don’t know how but it did. I was feeling relaxed after one inhale on his cigarette.

“You’re more interesting. Like last Tuesday, when that teacher made a move on you, and you—well, we both know what you did.” He grinned.

“If you saw that, why didn’t you step in?! I thought I was alone!”

“I was about to when you punched him and broke his nose.”

Mr. Haywood was a worthless worm. Who makes a move on a student? I narrowed my eyes at Tyson. “So why were you there?”

Mr. Haywood had asked to speak to me alone in his office. He had left the door open, which must have been how Tyson saw what happened. What an idiot of a teacher he was. If you are going to make a stupid move on a student, at least close the door.

“I heard him ask you. I know what he’s like. Made a move on Eve. Dad gave him a few broken ribs for it. Then got him kicked out for two years. This is his first year back.”

I handed him back the cigarette. “Well, you didn’t need to look out for me. I’m more than capable.”

“Clearly. I know two guys you’ve punched up now.”

“Cameron got my left hook. So he doesn’t count.”

“Because your right can break bones?”

“Exactly.” I found myself smiling and my eyes glanced at the spot he was leaving open for me. I could just sit in a recliner or I could keep standing. Either option was better than being close to him. “So, business question?” I brought us back to the topic and off the topic of me.

He inhaled on the cigarette, his piercing blue eyes on me. I watched him exhale slowly.

“You going to sit down, Layla?”

So, he had noticed my lack of moving. I rocked on my feet. Chicken out and take the recliner or make a stand of not sitting because I won’t be here much longer?

“I don’t bite.” He butted the cigarette out and a smirk appeared on his lips. “Unless you want me to.”

“Don’t flirt with me, Wilson. You’ve made your impression.” And he had made the impression that put him in the category of men I would never go near. I shouldn’t be scared to sit next to him.

“I’m working on making a new one.” He kept staring at me. “Come sit down, Layla.” Was he really going to insist I sit? Yep. I moved toward the recliner. “Next to me,” he added.

So much for the chicken way out. I huffed. It was like he knew he would be tempting me if I sat next to him.

Fine. Just do it.

I walked toward him and sat on what I would say was the most expensive couch ever.

I made sure my bare leg didn’t brush his, but my dress worked its way up as I sat down. And he noticed. I was quick to pull it down. Whose idea was it to wear a skin-tight dress? Oh right. Mine. Fucking idiot.

Well, I hadn’t planned on sitting on a couch.

I expected to be standing or sitting in an armchair. Not sitting next to the devil himself. Whose eyes were running up my legs.

“Why are you always in heels?” he asked, after his eyes had run down my full body. He could at least pretend to have masked his eyes checking me out. But he didn’t even sound ashamed about it.