I couldn’t help but smile. Savannah was a very unique personality, and very animated as well. “Strumpet?”
“Yeah. I read trashy romance novels. They’ve scrambled my brain and ruined my vocabulary.”
“Strumpet,” I repeated, resisting the urge to laugh.
“Yeah, it’s like slut or whore. Tramp.”
“No, I know what it means, I just haven’t heard anyone use that word in, oh I don’t know…ever,” I teased.
She shrugged, unperturbed. “What can I say? I’m a trendsetter.”
This time I actually did laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
Bo’s velvety voice caused my blood to jump excitedly inside my veins. I’d been so focused on Savannah, I hadn’t felt him coming.
He spoke right beside my ear and a shower of goose flesh rained down my neck and chest, causing my nipples to tighten. I could feel a burning heat emanating from Bo’s body where he stood at my back. I wanted to melt right into him. It was all I could do not to close my eyes and sigh at the pleasure running through me.
“My stunning grasp of the English language,” Savannah supplied in answer to Bo’s question.
I could almost have forgotten she was there. I could almost have forgotten the rest of the world at that moment.
“Ah,” was his only response.
Savannah threw me a cheeky smile. “Although I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our stroll through the thesaurus, what I really came to talk to you about is a double date.”
“A what?”
“A double date,” she repeated.
“With who?”
“Me and Devon.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Bo answered. “We can talk some more about it at lunch.”
“Fabulous,” she beamed, turning to flounce off down the hall.
I turned around, so close to Bo our thighs touched. “A great idea, huh?”
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” His eyes twinkled in mischief and his deep grin brought out twin dimples on either side of his mouth. I’d never noticed them before, but I thought they were the sexiest thing I’d ever seen on a man.
“Why did you want to get rid of her?” My belly was squirming with butterflies.
“I thought I’d steal you from Home Room and—”
Bo trailed off, distracted. A fraction of a second later, I smelled something. I had no idea what it was, or even how to describe it really, other than it smelled wonderful.
“What’s that smell?” I drew a huge breath into my lungs, relishing the aroma it carried. I could almost taste the scent it was so heavy in the air.
I felt Bo’s body tense. “You can smell that?” His eyes were narrowed suspiciously on me.
“Of course I can.”
He frowned, but then his eyes moved off to lock onto something behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see what had caught his attention.
A hush fell over the crowd in the hall and they began to part, mashing themselves up against the rows of lockers on either side of the corridor. That’s when I saw him.
He stood alone at the end of the hall, towering at least a head over everyone else. No one moved or said a word. No one even breathed. It was like the world stopped spinning for a split second, time itself standing still to admire this one person.
With intense blue eyes and wavy blonde hair that brushed his forehead and his collar, he could’ve been a surfer but for his pale skin. His eyes met mine and the left side of his mouth pulled up into a cocky smirk. For a second, I thought I was going to actually swoon. Swoon! Who even does that anymore?
“Ridley,” Bo said from behind me, his voice low and deadly. “Go to class. I’ll meet you back here after Home Room.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew by Bo’s tone that it wouldn’t be wise. Just before I turned to do as Bo suggested, I saw the stranger’s attention flicker to my left. Struggling to tear my eyes away from him, I physically turned my head just in time to see Trinity round the corner and come onto the hall.
Like everyone else, she stopped and stared, instantly entranced by the new guy. Altering her course the tiniest bit, she drifted unerringly to him, almost as if he was reeling her in.
When she stopped in front of him, the top of her head barely reaching the middle of his chest, she recovered more quickly than the rest of us had. As I watched, she turned on her charm full blast, eliciting a deep chuckle from the newcomer. I shivered when the sound rang through the hall. It was like the auditory equivalent of heroine.
Bo stepped up to my side and I swung my gaze to him. He was tight-lipped and frowning, but there was something in his eyes, something I hadn’t seen there before.
“Do you know him?”
His response was terse, anxiety evident in his tone. “No, but I know he’s one of us.”
“One of us as in…” I trailed off, looking at him meaningfully.
Bo nodded, one short, curt bob of his dark head.
“What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
The bell chose that moment to ring. Bo and I stood together, watching Trinity point to something on a paper that the guy was holding and then gesture down the hall. I can only assume he was asking for directions and that she, exemplary citizen that she is, was giving them.
Not one to embrace minimalism, Trinity no doubt offered to show him the way, because they walked off together. When they were out of sight, I felt the air come back into the hall, everyone around me snapping out of their stupor and scrambling to get to class.
Bo started to walk off, but then, as if in afterthought, he turned back to me. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said, brushing his lips over mine.
He looked at me absently for a few seconds before I saw him mentally return to me with a faint shake of his head. It was evident by the clearing of his expression that he was no longer with Trinity and the stranger down the hall; he was with me in the here and now.
“Promise me you’ll stay away from him,” Bo insisted.
“Of course.”
The concern on his face had me agreeing immediately, but it also worried me. It couldn’t be a good thing when someone elicited this kind of reaction from Bo.