Page 19 of Reckless Dare

She saw students walking towards the cafeterias placed around the campus. She wanted to walk into one to grab breakfast, but she wasn’t hungry. She was too anxious and excited to have breakfast. She decided to grab a heavy lunch later.

A sudden burst of laughter drew her attention to a group of guys as they passed by. Her heart leaped when she saw that they were wearing Red and gold Viper jerseys. Immediately, her eyes searched the faces in the group, and when she didn’t see the one she expected, she looked away.

She shook her head.

Focus on your first day!

Pulling out her phone, she looked at her schedule once again along with the map.

Her first class was Pharmaceutical Sciences which was in the Pharmacy building that was nearly a twenty minute walk. Although there were shuttles running, she decided to walk.

She reached the huge building and stared at it in awe. The building was over a hundred years old and retained its colonial architecture. She had read the history of the building and department. Some of the best pharmaceutical companies were owned by the alumni who had graduated out of the Simha Pharmaceutical department.

Pharmaceutical sciences was a familiar subject to her as she had taken it at Harvard. But she knew the curriculum and research would be much harder and in-depth at Simha University. And the professor teaching the course was nominated for a Nobel prize which made it all the more intimidating and exciting.

Smiling, she went inside the building where her first class would be held. It was relatively empty because she was quite early. But she wanted to check out the locker assigned to her where she could keep her text books and notes.

She let out a laugh when she saw that access to lecture halls at Simha were once again different from the other universities. Student IDs had to be scanned to access any of the lecture halls. That way the management kept a track of time.

She stood in the corridor by a wall, checking her phone to look up the room number of the lecture hall when she heard a familiar, deep voice.

“What are you doing here?”

Her heart began to thud as she felt a presence in front of her.

Slowly, she looked up, only to suck in a deep breath. Abhiram Simha was standing a few feet away from her. It was as though her mind had conjured him by thinking about him a few minutes ago. He was wearing his usual red and gold house team jersey.

From such close proximity, he once again looked larger than life, especially with a grim look on his handsome face.

“H-Hi,” she greeted. “I’m taking pharmaceutical sciences.”

His gorgeous face hardened when he took a step towards her.

“I didn’t ask you about your bloody classes. I’m asking what the hell are you still doing here. Why haven’t you left the campus?”

Her heart thudded. She felt a sizzle of uneasiness along with the awareness. In her mind, she had blocked out the last hour of the previous night’s party. She didn’t want to believe that the guy she had been crushing on spoke to her rudely and wanted her gone.

Looking at his handsome face and feeling the intense awareness, her mind only thought of him as the guy who asked her to keep her weekend free and to not leave his party early.

“Abhi, I don’t know why—”

“Quiet,” he snapped. “Answer my damn question first. Why haven’t you left?”

She sucked in another deep breath, only for her senses to be filled with his cologne.

Oh God.

Her mind was racing with confused feelings. On one hand, she was still strongly drawn to him, but on the other hand, her mind sent warning signals to run away from him.

The warning signals grew stronger when he stepped even closer. She took a step back until her back hit the wall of the corridor. He was so close that she could see his thick dark lashes while his eyes blazed with anger.

“Why haven’t you left?” he gritted out.

He was scaring her.

“I-I am not leaving. S-stop joking like this. It’s not f-funny.”

There was a scary pause while he looked into her eyes. Slowly, his mouth twisted, causing her stomach to tremble.

---