Mortal Danger (The Immortal Game) by Ann Aguirre Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t know where to put my arms, if I should press close, stand super still, or— Oh God. It’s a good thing I asked him to do this.
    I’d make a fool of myself with anyone else.
    “Eyes shut,” he breathed in my ear.
    I closed them and turned my face up. A trill of pleasure radiated wherever he touched me. Then Kian brushed his lips against mine, and the world stopped.
    For this moment, I only knew his heat, his heartbeat. His mouth tasted sweet and lush, like chai tea and cinnamon, and I rose up against him on my tiptoes to sink my hands into his layered hair. This wasn’t a perfunctory kiss—no, it was so much more. He caught me against him, and I lost track of everything but Kian. His hands burned through the thin cotton of my tee, roaming my back. For someone who had never been kissed, this was like learning to swim by being thrown off a boat into the ocean.
    I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. His nearness acted on me like a drug, and I clung, wanting only more. Forever, more. Eventually, I registered the hooting behind us in the quad. Fierce heat flashed into my cheeks as I pulled back.
    “Something to remember me by.” His tone carried a low and lovely ache, as if those moments meant something to him, as if he worried about me forgetting him.
    Like that could ever happen.
    “ I’ll see you in six weeks.”
    “Okay. What time?”
    “Let’s say eight, West Coast time.”
    I nodded. “Thanks for everything.”
    His jade gaze swept me from head to toe, as if committing me to memory. Then he stepped back. The leafy foliage hid his vanishing act, but the air crackled after he went, like charged wind after a storm.
    I ached for him already.

 
    A STITCH IN TIME
    Going forward, I’d control everything this summer, taking charge of my life just like I had by asking Kian for my first kiss. That resolve made me feel better about being thrown into a college credit program with minimal preparation.
    You can do this.
    As I strolled toward the red-and-white registration banner, a girl fell into step beside me. She seemed … nervous, gnawing at her lip with oversize front teeth. Her mouth was chapped; her hair was dull and needed trimming. And before this morning, she would’ve considered herself too cool to be seen with me. At least that was my experience; even loners and outcasts preferred not to risk my social contagion because hanging out with me wasn’t worth the potential grief from the Teflon crew. But maybe my Blackbriar experience wouldn’t repeat here; there was no way this girl could know I had been a pariah.
    “Was that your boyfriend?” she ventured, as if I might slap her for speaking to me.
    At Blackbriar, this would be a nonstarter, a definite faux pas. People who looked like me did not hang out with those who looked like her. But here at the science program, that didn’t matter—and I would never crush someone like they had me.
    “Nah. Just a guy.” That seemed like the kind of thing the new Edie would say.
    One who saved my life.
    Who liked me before.
    “Really?”
    “We haven’t known each other that long.” Surprising and true.
    The other girl’s eyes widened at that revelation. “But you were kissing.”
    Somehow I managed a shrug. “I was curious.”
    My companion didn’t know what to say to that, clearly. “Wow.”
    “Are you part of the science program?” I figured it was better to change the subject because there were so few things I could reasonably say about Kian. Hell, I didn’t even know his last name.
    “Yeah. I guess you go to school here?”
    I shook my head. “I’m heading over to registration myself.”
    “I never would’ve guessed.” She wore a near-comical expression of disbelief, and if I’d been born with this version of my face, along with my brain, I’d find her incredulity offensive. It must suck for smart, pretty girls not to be taken seriously.
    “Why?” I dared her to say it out loud.
    “Y-you just don’t look like the type,” she