Page 4 of Study Games

I just couldn't decide if he wanted to flirt with me or ruin me. Chances were that either way boded really bad things when his attention locked right on me and refused to budge.

2

WAVERLY

Sometimes even a smoking hot bad boy wasn’t enough to even the playing field. Or in my unsuccessful case, save me from my smart mouth.

My head shot up so fast that my neck cricked. “If you're going to be such a smart ass about it, then I'll go back to my damn bees and you can wander on home.” Pain shot through my teeth as I gritted them in a brutal smile that was all gleaming whites and tight lips.

Why was I letting him get to me over something so small? Why?

Because I’d set–I thought I’d set–the time aside for myself. Just me. And maybe today I wanted to be a teensy bit selfish just for once.

“Could it be that the geeky bee girl has a little sass in her…hive?” Jax extracted the textbook from my hands and crawled–literally crawled– to settle beside me, so close his pants leg brushed my thigh.

I pulled my brown corduroy skirt tight around my knees and tried to sidle sideways, but he placed the open book on my thighs, freezing me in place and making a book stand of my lower half. The backs of his knuckles grazed over my tights leaving a searing path in his wake. He stilled for a second, staring down at his hands, before he removed them without so much as a hint of a reaction of what I experienced.

Guess that’s Geek girl zero, bad boy feels nothing.

I swallowed, itching to move away but unable to avoid the job I agreed to do. This isn’t part of the school policy. Or my scholarship. My satchel slid off my legs and landed at my side between us. I reached forward but Jax beat me to it–again.

Long artist’s fingers picked up my sketch pad. I cringed as he flicked through, studying the pages and my toddler level drawings.

The protective urge to snatch my work back clawed at my empty stomach, but I knew he wouldn't ruin it. He was an art student, right? Of all things, he got it about not screwing around with other people's work.

Not a word passed his lips as he delved deeper into my brain where I’d vomited my thought process onto the page in tiny dot-to-dot drawings. My cheeks heated as the boy who bullied me for the better part of the last semester and could buy out my entire family with a flick of his fingers saw just how silly the workings of my mind appeared on the page.

Unease lit a dark light inside me, replacing the clawing with a level of cringeworthyness I couldn’t avoid.

Opting to ignore that instead I repeated his motion, flicking through the text we studied last week until I picked out a familiar diagram. “We were… Here. Turn on your listening ears, Arthouse,” I begged quietly in an effort to distract him from my months of work at Rippton U. Please let it work. “Indulge me.”

“That’s new, bee girl.” He finally moved, though not in the way I expected.

I thought he reacted to what I’d called him, but Jax was busy working through my patterns, tracing above them with an inked fingertip. There was something familiar in the way he swirled his hands over the path my chosen insect tracked, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Pun. Ha.

Frustration rose in me at not being able to pick the annoyingly absentee item out, and my words emerged waspish. Or bee-ish.

“If you're going to give me a nickname, make it better than bee girl, or something.”

Jax lost his composure, his head tossing back to light me up with a grin of a thousand watts right in my face. If it was possible, his smile made him more handsome, which just wasn’t fair.

“Damn, girl. You've got some balls.” He leaned a little closer, brushing his lips against my ear.

Shivers rioted over my skin while I clutched my textbook to my chest, losing my page all over again. “You– What?”

His breath whispered along my throat, slipping beneath the high neck of my knitted top. “Maybe I'll call you Honey. Hell, maybe one day I'll take that sassy mouth and find out whether or not you taste like ambrosia, too.”

You want to know what I taste like?

I licked my lips, seriously considering the offer those arched lips presented before sense cracked into me. Hot, flirty, or otherwise, anything Jax related was worse than a bad idea. The sort that could lose me my scholarship. He wouldn't even care of the ramifications because for a wealthy kid like him, there weren’t any. And I’d just be–buzz–another inkless notch on his bedpost.

“You can't say things like that,” I shoved the book at him and got up for the second time, putting a few extra feet between us and much needed breathing room. The leather/smoke scent of him dissipated a fraction, and I missed it. Almost. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. Go back to the bar, Jax. I'll email notes you can read at your leisure later.”

That last line left me shaking. When did I become such a bitch? Oh, that’s right, when an entitled billionaire offspring pushed their way into my world and took up residence without asking permission.

Completely rattled, I grabbed my bag and patted around for my phone.

“Hey,” Jax caught my hand, tugging me back down to where he still reclined on the grass beside my hives. “Don’t go,” he all but cooed the words, and I found myself kneeling next to him.

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