She brought a hand to her face, slim fingers lingering near her red lips. “Because that night, when you were so close to me, it seemed like… maybe you wanted to kiss me,” she murmured.
She wasn’t wrong about that.
I crossed my arms, annoyed that I’d been so transparent that evening. I hated that she knew; hated that she thought it gave her the right to come and talk to me. “So what?” I finally said.
“So I want to know I’m not crazy. I want to know if you feel it too. This… this thing.” Laney tipped her chin upward, emerald eyes gazing right into mine. “Do you?”
I hesitated for a few seconds. “If you thought I wanted something to happen that night, it was only because we were so close,” I finally said, averting my gaze. “Normal physical reaction.”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think it’s just that.”
“What do you think it is, then?” I asked, wishing she’d get to the fucking point.
She cleared her throat. “I think whether we like it or not, there’s something between us, and there has been from the very start. And I think we could choose to ignore it and let things fester, like we’ve been doing for the last few weeks, or we could face it head-on.”
I frowned, wondering where the hell she was going with this and wishing she wasn’t right about the insane level of tension between us. “What did you have in mind?”
“A date. You and me.” Her chin was still lifted proudly high, but her eyes betrayed her nervousness.
What the fuck?Was she serious?
“A date?” I said, a sarcastic tinge to my tone. “Like dinner and a movie? Maybe you’d like a corsage, too?”
She lowered her chin again. “No, I was thinking more like—” She stopped midsentence and let out a little groan. “Oh, god. I don’t know how to say it.”
A slow grin built on my lips. I liked this change in her. It was the first time I’d seen her look so weak. So pathetic. Even when I had her trapped beneath me on her bed the other night, she wasn’t as frightened as this. She fought me tooth and nail instead, like a wild animal, refusing to give in to me.
Now she was meek. Fragile. So scared she looked like she might pass out any second.
“Just say it,” I said, trailing a finger down her arm. I didn’t mean to reach out and touch her, but I couldn’t resist it. Not when she was like this.
She drew in a deep breath, arms quivering by her side. “I was thinking… maybe you could come to my dorm on Friday night. Or Saturday, if Friday doesn’t work for you.”
“Why would you want me in your dorm?”
“So we can hang out together. Alone. Like we did in the clearing that night.”
“Again, why?”
“It might be a good way for us to address all the tension and try to get it out of our systems,” she said. “Maybe then things won’t be so horrible and awkward between us. Maybe we could even be….”
She trailed off again, biting her bottom lip, and my brows shot up.
Wow.
It was so fucking obvious what she was up to now. She was trying to manipulate me into removing her from the blacklist, using her looks and charms—if you could call this nervous chatter and hinted offer of a one-night stand ‘charming’.
I saw right through her, and I couldn’t believe she was actually trying to pull off this shit. Especially with me. She really thought I’d go for it; lap it all up like I was some fucking hormonal chump who couldn’t resist a girl brazenly throwing herself at him.
Then again, she didn’t know what I knew about her. She didn’t know we could never be friends or fuck-buddies, let alone anything else, because of all the shit I had on her.
I was about to tell her to go fuck herself when I realized I could use her faux ‘crush’ on me to my advantage.
She might be a crazy, manipulative bitch, but she wasn’t a complete sociopath like I initially assumed when I first met her. I knew that because I’d witnessed her displaying real, raw emotions over the last few weeks while the bullying went on. As far as I knew, sociopaths weren’t capable of feeling and showing emotions, unless they faked it, and Laney really didn’t seem like she was faking any of it when I saw it.
Despite her depraved nature and wicked ways, that ability to feel and express emotion meant she was capable of love like everyone else. Foolish, all-consuming, life-ruining love. It was the one thing that could tear her apart and finally force her to admit the truth to me… as long as I played my cards right.
And I would. I knew exactly what I had to do now.