Page 40 of The Wrong Play

My stomach twisted at the way he said my name. Like he was tasting it, savoring it.

“How do you even?—?”

Jace laughed, completely unbothered. “I told you I was gonna find you.”

I blinked at him, and his grin spread. “You left something behind, babycakes,” he murmured.

Before I could react, he reached forward, grabbing my wrist, flipping my palm face up, and dropped something into it.

I looked down.

My credit card.

I stared at it like it was a bomb about to explode.

“You—” My mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.

Jace just grinned.

I snatched my card up, fingers tightening around the plastic, staring at him as I tried to process what was happening.

I had been going to this class for months. He wasn’t in this class.

Which meant…

“You transferred in,” I blurted out, heart pounding.

He shrugged, like it was nothing. “Turns out I had some free time in my schedule.”

“Jace,” someone hissed from a few seats away. I turned and saw a guy with a baseball cap shaking his head, holding a notebook full of nothing but doodles of dicks. “Dude. Why the hell are you even here? You’re a junior. This is a freshman class.”

I turned back to Jace, waiting for his answer.

His eyes never left mine. His lips twitched, like he was holding back a laugh.

“What, can’t a guy expand his academic horizons?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“You’re stalking me,” I accused.

Jace’s smirk grew impossibly wider.

“That depends,” he said, his voice low…intimate. “Would you be into that?”

I flushed, hating that I felt warm all over.

I scanned the classroom, searching for another open seat—one that wouldn’t come with a six-foot-four, cocky, insufferable football player attached to it. My eyes landed on one near the middle of the room, a desk flanked by two already-occupied chairs. Perfect. No room for him to slide in beside me.

Keeping my expression neutral, I strode toward it, setting my bag down as I pulled the chair out. But before I could sit, a shadow loomed in front of me.

Jace.

Standing directly in front of the person next to the empty seat, his broad shoulders squared, his stance casual but somehow…menacing.

The poor guy barely hesitated before gathering his things and scrambling out of the seat like it had just burst into flames.

I gawked at Jace. “You’re ridiculous,” I muttered, stepping around him toward the desk, pretending like my heart wasn’t slamming against my ribs.

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