Vicious Bet: Don't fall in love! (Sinners and Saints Book 1)

by Alice Ann Wonder

  "Thank God nobody was hurt," Sky said when we met on Monday morning.

  "You can say that again," I returned. "With so many people, it's almost like a miracle."

  Sky nodded as she opened the door to our next seminar - literature.

  Professor Edwards was already there.

  We were well on schedule, with more than five minutes left before the official ringing.

  He was wearing a navy blue shirt today, with beige chinos and brown leather shoes.

  With his slightly tanned skin, piercing blue eyes and well-defined upper body he had something of Bradley Cooper.

  Bradley Cooper 2.0.

  I clamped the books tightly in front of my chest and avoided any eye contact with him when passing by.

  "Are you okay?" he asked in a soft voice as I took the first step up to my seat.

  Although Sky walked next to me, I knew instinctively that he meant me.

  Slowly I turned around and looked at him.

  His blue eyes stroked my face ... and my body.

  "I'm okay," I replied, pressing the books even tighter against my body.

  Where did his interest in me suddenly come from?

  He nodded. A trace of concern was reflected in his face.

  And something else I couldn't interpret.

  Logan Edwards had only seen me a few times. Yet at that moment there was something peculiar about the way he looked at me. It was both exciting and intimidating.

  I still couldn't stand him, that was obvious!

  But after Friday and his open expression of concern, I suddenly saw him in a different light.

  "Remember this afternoon," he reminded me as I turned around and went to my seat.

  I paused for a split second when he said that.

  He pronounced the words quite normally. Yet it seemed to a part of my subconscious as if something suggestive was resonating in them.

  Projection, I decided in my mind.

  It was I who was supposed to seduce him! Probably my brain wanted to make it easier for me to believe that I could actually win this game.

  I knew the effect I had on most guys.

  Nevertheless, those I had been involved with so far were in many ways more like pubescent boys than a real man.

  Professor Edwards may only be in his early or mid-thirties, but he already had both feet firmly planted in life.

  I was not even sure if he was married or not.

  That would be a problem.

  For the rest of the hour he paid little attention to me. We treated Tolstoy and talked about what he expected from us this semester.

  I listened with one ear, but still couldn't stop thinking about what would happen this afternoon.

  Or not.

  "Is there any indication yet who did the fire?" I heard Rash Sky ask.

  She shook her head, which made her brown-red hair dance.

  Then she put her hand over her mouth to hide her speaking to Professor Edwards.

  "Not really," she replied softly. "I will keep you informed."

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Benji unbutton the top button of his jacket beside me.

  "It's showtime later," he whispered to me and I rolled my eyes.

  Although I was undoubtedly curious about the outcome of the bet, I didn't feel like playing.

  When I looked at Chloe Clarice Bell, my anger about Liam's infidelity grew immeasurably.

  Her, of all people.

  Chloe had been wearing a self-satisfied smile since the beginning of the lesson, and she, in turn, kept looking over at me.

  I pretended not to notice so as not to give her any more fuel for her campaign against me.

  One might have thought that the fire in her house had taken her away - but there was no trace of dismay or sadness in her face.

  Either she was a damn good actress or as cold as I had always suspected.

  "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Sky asked after the end of the literature class, looking at Edwards' hardened body.

  He had turned his back on us and was cleaning the whiteboard.

  "What is it," I returned in indignation. "Don't you think I can do it?"

  Sky put her hair behind her ear and looked at me with her lips pressed together.

  After she took a deep breath in and out, she said, "I'm just saying, what if he wants more?"

  She raised her brows.

  Sky was the only one in our gang who knew I'd never slept with a guy before.

  It was not surprising that none of them suspected it, because apart from that last step, there was nothing I hadn't been ready for in the past.

  I enjoyed living out my sexuality. But for some reason I had always backed out at the crucial moment.

  It hadn't felt right.

  I knew that if I did not want to be a virgin at thirty, I had to get it over with soon.

  It was probably just normal that my heart didn't do a somersault or emit electric lightning when I was making out with a guy.

  I had too high a standard, that had to be it.

  "As if," I replied, and hooked up with my girlfriend. "Just look at him." I pointed at his tight little bottom. "I'll be lucky if he engages in a flirtation sufficient for a little note blackmail," I whispered to her as we left the lecture hall.

  After all, rumours could be just as fatal for your reputation as the truth, if you knew how to spread them skilfully.

  They had to contain only a spark of truth.

  "Please?" Sky asked, as if she could not believe what I had just said.

  "You're Blaire Ella Spencer, of course he'll want to screw you if the opportunity presents itself!"

  "He can't stand me," I retorted.

  Sky tended to exaggerate at times. This was usually charming and could be left uncommented in the room.

  But now and then it did not hurt to bring her back down to earth.

  "Just wait and see," she replied and turned to our hot literature professor once more before the door slammed shut behind us.

  Benji threw one of his disturbing looks at me as he said goodbye to me after the last class for the day.

  If he wanted to, he could make you feel like he was looking at the bottom of your soul.

  I felt a chill run down my spine every time he did that.

  I'd never get used to that.

  "Break a leg, B," he said, winking at me.

  I shook my head in annoyance and gave him the middle finger.

  Our usual game.

  Then he laughed and the white of his teeth flashed out.

  "Ciao, Blaire," said Rash and raised his hand.

  I waved back. Then I turned around and ran to lecture hall number six.

  ***

  Professor Edwards was standing behind the desk, staring at the empty rows of seats as I entered the room.

  "Sit down," he instructed me.

  "Hello," I said with strong emphasis.

  Now why was he so unkind to me again?

  I chose the middle row on the right.

  Probably it would have been wiser if I had sat further forward.

  But something in me wanted to check the situation from a safe distance first.

  Even though I knew that I would have to change that tactic soon.

  ... because otherwise I wouldn't get very far with my seduction plan.

  I buried my hands in my lap and looked at him expectantly.

  He returned my gaze.

  The blue of his eyes glowed intensely when he said, "Tell me about Tolstoy. "

  I slipped back a little in my chair and crossed my legs.

  "I... well, I began hesitantly.

  Edwards walked towards the stairs, his eyes still fixed on me.

  He was like a predator - a tiger planning to tear me to pieces at any moment!

  I told him a few trivial facts. Then everything I'd researched for the paper. Professor Edwards didn't seem very pleased. In fact, throughout the entire time I was speaking, his expression was inscrutable.

  "I w
as particularly impressed by a quote from him," I concluded.

  I hadn't intended to mention it.

  But since I was obviously about to fail anyway, I could go for the whole thing.

  "Which one?", he asked, as if my life depended on it.

  He slowly took the first few steps up to the rows of seats.

  Why did he make me so upset?

  I nibbled my lower lip.

  Not because I wanted to turn him on, but rather because they were suddenly as dry as the Sahara.

  "All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life consists of shadow and light," I said softly as Professor Edwards entered the row below me.

  "Interesting choice, Ms Spencer."

  He was standing right in front of me now. Each of his perfectly defined muscles seemed tense.

  My gaze was drawn to him as if he were a particularly powerful magnet.

  "Excuse me, have we met before?" I asked.

  That could not be true. But ... now that he was so close to me, I could have sworn I had seen him before. I just couldn't imagine where it could have been. I'd never been to California. Did I mistake him for someone else?

  "What makes you think so?" Edwards replied with a smile.

  I nervously ran my fingers through my long hair, which fell over my shoulder in great curls.

  "Just a feeling," I said in a whisper as he reached out his hand for me.

  My breath faltered.

  "Shadows and light, yes?" he asked in a rough voice, while he took one of my hair strands and twirled it slowly.

  Our eyes locked together. My heart began to stumble.

  "How to love the beautiful if you have not experienced the darkness too?", I murmured and lowered my eyes.

  My palms were soaking wet and it didn't help that I rubbed them on my trousers every second.

  Professor Edward's warm finger made its way from my hair up to my chin.

  "Are you familiar with darkness, Ms Spencer?"

  He exerted slight pressure under my jaw so that I had to look at him.

  I swallowed.

  "I swallowed.

  My answer was little more than a puff.

  I thought about what it was like to be left by the most important person in my life. without knowing why.

  I thought of how I'd lay awake at night, or wake up in a sweat, wondering if his "I love you" had been true just once.

  "Seems like we have something in common, Ella."

  My literature professor ran his finger from my temple, across my cheek, then across my lips.

  "Why do you call me that?" I asked.

  The same storm raged in my chest as in his eyes.

  "You're not Blaire. I saw that from the first moment," he replied with a deep bass.

  He put his thumb on my lower lip and pulled it down gently.

  I closed my eyes.

  My breathing accelerated.

  "You are an Ella."

  Slowly, he put his thumb in my mouth.

  And I let him.

  "Playful."

  Deeper.

  "Wild."

  Deeper.

  "A kitten that wants to be tamed."

  I started sucking on him.

  What was I doing?

  What was he doing?

  Edwards moved his thumb back and forth in regular rhythmic movements in my mouth.

  I played with my tongue, gently stroking my teeth up and down.

  "Open your eyes," I heard his dark voice.

  I did what he had asked me.

  Still sucking his thumb, our eyes met.

  "I see you, Blaire Ella Spencer," he said slowly.

  "You are hiding behind a mask."

  Carefully, he pulled his thumb out of me and spread saliva on my lips.

  I pressed my thighs together.

  My abdomen twitched as he pressed my lip down once more.

  Unbridled desire was written all over his face.

  Only now did I notice that he was breathing as frantically as I was.

  "I've got your number," he said and pulled back his hand.

  The moment I could no longer feel the warmth of his fingers on my body, I suddenly realized what had just happened.

  It hit me like lightning!

  Was it not what I had wanted?

  Why was I in such a shock?

  "See you in class tomorrow."

  Professor Edwards pondered me one last time with his hypnotic eyes before he turned and went back to his desk. He grabbed his bag as if nothing had happened and headed for the door.

  "What's this note?"

  My voice echoed loudly through the empty room.

  "Passed," he said without turning around and let the door close behind him.

  ***

  As I walked down the hall, still dazed and with frighteningly wet panties, I suddenly heard a familiar giggle.

  Please not now, I begged in my mind.

  But it was no use.

  And what I saw around the next corner, right next to the laboratory, was even worse than my original assumption.

  "Stop it," Chloe giggled in an artificially high voice and pushed Liam's head aside.

  He had just nibbled at her earlobe. ...just like he'd done with me.

  I stopped and stared at them like they were a circus attraction.

  "Well, well, well," Chloe said when she noticed me. "No wonder your lover - uh... oops... ex-lover - has shed you like old underwear."

  She stared at me up and down. "Your taste in clothes was better, too.

  Her smile was spiteful and just plain mean.

  She took a sip of coke from the bottle and demonstratively kissed Liam on the cheek.

  My ex-boyfriend gave the caught second grader His eyes were wide open and his shoulders raised.

  Like I didn't just catch him and Chloe together a few days ago.

  It surprised me how my chest tightened and hardened at the sight of them.

  "Blaire," Liam muttered apologetically.

  What?

  That's it!

  I walked towards him with big steps and gave him a resounding slap.

  As if at the touch of a button, he rubbed his hand over the spot where mine had left a red mark.

  "Don't you dare speak to me again," I hissed softly and determinedly.

  "And you -" I turned to Chloe.

  But instead of telling her what had been burning on my mind for a long time, I reached for her Coke and tipped it over her head.

  She screamed so loud, the walls shook.

  I laughed.

  "Have fun, you lovebirds," I said goodbye with a disdainful look and left.

  "You wretched ...", Chloe screamed, obviously wanting to follow me.

  But Liam held her back.

  "Leave her alone," he admonished his new girlfriend or affair ... or whatever! I didn't care.

  I turned again and waved them both with a fake smile on my lips.

  When I turned away again, I took a deep breath and slapped my hand on my chest. For I feared my heart would burst at any moment.

  Why did this deception hit me so hard?

  I hadn't loved Liam. We had only been together for six months. Why did it hurt so much?

  On the way home, I saw James and the short-haired blonde again. They were eating ice cream together and it looked like they were going to the beach.

  I ducked behind the wheel, hoping he wouldn't recognise me.

  My heart now seemed to go completely mad.

  Edwards and Liam were one thing... but James... that was something else entirely.

  I was done with him. Now was not the time for sentimentality. I didn't want to think about earlier. I don't want to think about it ever again.

  I pulled over when I parked in front of Bill's villa

  My mind was so tightly wrapped around the car that I lost all sense of speed. I hope I didn't get a speeding ticket!

  "Blaire?" cried Mom when she heard the front door lock.

  "Hi, Mom," I greeted her with a loud v
oice.

  I was about to walk up the stairs, when she came out of the kitchen with a margarita in her hand.

  "Any news about your internship yet?"

  She waved her glass and shifted her weight from one leg to the other.

  "Is there anything to celebrate?"

  I knew even buying a new outfit was reason enough for my mother to have two or three cocktails.

  Normally I said nothing more about it, because she was old enough and wouldn't listen to me anyway - the past had shown this several times.

  But today she had caught me on the wrong foot.

  I was sensitive and not receptive to one of her jibes.

  "Why don't you give it a rest, sweetheart? Bill and I both feel that you would be much better off in his company."

  She sipped her drink; her Botox-smoothed forehead gleamed.

  "Mom," I replied, struggling not to raise my voice. "How many times do I have to tell you - Bill's company is pretty much the last one I'd ever apply to!"

  Bill, like Rash's parents, was in the oil business and so busy destroying nature.

  I was grateful to him for financing my studies and for all the luxuries he offered me. But that didn't change the fact that I had never received his gifts with a clear conscience.

  In the past I had asked myself every now and then why I did it at all.

  Old Blaire would have fought it tooth and nail.

  But I wasn't the Blaire I used to be.

  The man who had taught me everything had left me without explanation. And with him, his principles.

  Most of them, anyway.

  "Think it over, honey. It would do you good to learn from someone like Bill," my mother insisted.

  I sighed.

  "I've got work to do," I said, kissing her on the cheek.

  It wasn't that I didn't love my mother. Because I did.

  It just seemed to me that most of the time we lived on different planets under completely different conditions.

  I didn't understand what she was telling me about her world because mine was nothing like hers. And it was the same the other way around.

  Strange, considering I'd been inside her womb at one time.

  When I got to my room, I threw myself on the bed and texted Benji:

  Operation Chloe is ready to go.