Page 2 of The New Girl

“The new girl,” he said, pulling himself together. He wiped his eyes and straightened.

I still didn’t know what he meant by that but I didn’t contradict him. “Is there something I can do to help?”

“Come here. Come closer.”

I obeyed. I don’t know why.

He reached his arms toward me in the shadowy glow from the lights far overhead. I stepped into them without thinking.

I was squeezed against his chest in a tight embrace and I felt a long shudder go through him. My arms were around his waist. I pressed my hands to his back and rubbed it comfortingly.

“It’s going to be alright,” I murmured. Something my mother always said when I was upset.

He gripped me harder and I felt the force of effort it was taking him to keep from breaking down again.

“What can I do to help? Tell me.”

I didn’t think he heard me at first but then he released me just slightly and bent his face to mine until I could see deep into his eyes.

And then his lips were on mine, against mouth, kissing me breathless. He pivoted and pressed me back against the shelves. The kiss deepened, his tongue driving into my mouth, stunning me, arousing me with such violence that I almost fell down.

My arms were no longer around his waist but were pinned at the wrist to the shelf by his strong hands.

There was no need to restrain me. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was frightened, but not because I thought he would hurt me. I was afraidforhim. That if he let go of me, he would hurt himself.

So I held on. I held on through the sharp, keen sexual intensity of the kiss. Through the bruising of my lips, the assault on my mouth by his tongue that moved in ways that excited erotic images of it probing other parts of my body.

My panties were wet. His cock was rock hard grinding against me.

And just when I thought he was going to lose all control and take me on the library floor, Lysander Stark broke off the kiss with abrupt violence.

With a dark, heated look at me, he stalked off, disappearing around the stacks, leaving no trace of him behind but the scent of his aftershave and my pounding heart.

Chapter Two

Ididn’t see him again. Classes were fine. My job at the library was fine. I was fine. Lonely but physically I was doing okay. I ate in the dining hall each night, looking for him. I walked the halls with my leather satchel swinging from my shoulder, peering under my bangs for his long stride coming toward me. In a tide of perfect faces, I searched for his perfect face.

Lysander Stark had dark hair. Most of the other guys at St. Swithins were blonde. Lysander was dark and his eyes were technically blue but there were prisms of color in the irises that gave them depth and made them stand out. He had an arresting stare that held me captive. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

In the ensuing weeks since The Kiss, I had classes, of course. I made friends with a girl who was majoring in Theatre Arts during a workshop production of Shakespeare’s problem play,Troilus and Cressida. Imogene was one of the performers. She was approachable; not like the other rich girls I had encountered. Her family was old money rich, but her parents made her and her siblings do hours of volunteer work when they were growing up to earn the clothes and tech they wanted. She told me her youngest brother was putting in hours for Habitat for Humanity to buy a car.

“They wanted us to work but they didn’t want us to take jobs from people who needed them. So they paid us to volunteer but they were serious about it. No hours, no money. Consequently, I’m more grounded than the girls you’ll meet here, but even I don’t know what it’s like to grow up without money. I had a safety net. That’s what I love about theater. There’s no safety net. If I suck at the audition, I won’t get the job.”

Imogene didn’t suck. She had stardom in her future. And she kindly filled me in on Lysander Stark. I brought the subject up without saying anything about the library. I told her about my roommate and what she had said about the guy who bumped into me in the hall when I first arrived.

“Alexis Bancroft is a pretentious bore. She thinks life begins and ends with her. So tedious. But she’s not wrong about Lysander Stark. He’s our faculty rep but not a revolting political animal like some of them are. He has brains as well as brawn and beauty. My older brother used to hang out with him when they were kids. According to Carter, Sander stopped being fun when they reached high school, but my brother is a perpetual twelve-year-old. He wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.”

“Lysander called me the new girl. I’m not the only new girl here, am I?”

Imogene pulled her copper-hued hair up into an elastic and smeared cream on her face. We were in the dressing room in the basement of the theater. Her class in stage makeup had just concluded and she had invited me to join her friends for drinks.

“You’re new to us. No one knows you, Jane. Almost everyone at Swithy has known each other from the cradle. It’s positively incestuous. Our parents and grandparents run in the same social circles. It’s been like that since the nineteenth century. You’re fresh blood. And Sander is just about the most important student in this place. He practically runs it. Chancellor Westfield wouldn’t have it any other way.”

There was an edge to her voice when she mentioned the man who ruled over us all. I wanted to ask her to elaborate but I didn’t want to excite suspicion by asking too many questions.

The families they came from were household names, made famous from generations of wealth. Their children were given names that practically announced their importance even before they had a chance to prove it. Imogene Franklin, for example.

My name was Jane Aire because my mother adored the novel,Jane Eyre,to the point of saddling her only daughter with the name. Fortunately for me, the kids I grew up with had no idea who Jane Eyre was; I was protected from ridicule.

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