I slam Grayson into the first available library chair like I’m conducting some kind of citizen’s arrest.
“Babe, if you want me all to yourself, you can just say so.”
“Stop calling me babe!” The words explode out louder than intended.
Mrs. Henderson, the ancient librarian who’s probably been here since the school’s founding, appears like some kind of literary specter. “Alden and West, if you cannot maintain appropriate volume levels, I must ask you to leave.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, face burning.
Grayson just grins. Fucking grins.
I drop into the chair across from him, close enough to smell his cologne but far enough to maintain what’s left of my sanity. “We need rules.”
“Great,” he says, leaning back like he owns the entire academic institution. “I fuck rules.”
“West!” Heat explodes across my cheeks.
“What? It’s a philosophical stance. Rules are social constructs designed to—”
“I need you to keep your tongue and your dick to yourself while we work on this project. Can you manage that without destroying my goddamn reputation?”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Damn, Alden. Didn’t know you had such a dirty mouth.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” He leans forward, elbows on the table, close enough that I can see gold flecks in his gray eyes. “What do I get in return?”
My brain short-circuits. “What do you mean, what do you get?”
“Relationships are transactional, sweetheart. You want something from me—discretion, professionalism, keeping my apparently legendary appendages to myself. What’s my incentive?”
The way he says ‘sweetheart’ should be illegal. Low, intimate, like he’s tasting the word. My pulse does something absolutely treacherous.
“Your incentive is not failing Ethics.”
“I don’t fail classes.” His voice drops. “But I might fail to resist you.”
Abort mission. Abort the damn mission.
I stand up so fast my chair scrapes. “This was a mistake.”
“Was it though?” He’s standing too now, moving around the table with that predatory grace. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’re the one who dragged me here. You’re the one who can’t stop thinking about me.”
“I think about you like I think about root canals. Unavoidable and painful.”
His laugh is rich, satisfied. “Liar.”
I’m already walking away, but his voice follows me like smoke.
“Running away, Alden? That’s not very principled of you.”
Hours later, I’m trespassing.
St. Augustine’s chapel is officially off-limits after sunset, but I need somewhere sacred, somewhere clean, somewhere that smells like incense instead of his cologne.
The side door clicks open easily—perks of being the headmaster’s favorite student. Stained glass windows cast rainbow shadows across empty pews. Candles flicker beneath the altar. Everything here feels holy, untouchable.
I kneel in the back row, hands clasped tight enough to leave marks.
“God, I need help.” My voice echoes in the silence. “I need strength to stay pure. To honor the promise I made to myself, to You, to my future husband.”
The virginity vow isn’t just a religious promise—it’s survival. Mom drilled it into me: Your body is the only thing they can’t take from you, Juliet. Don’t give it away to someone who won’t treasure it.
After watching Dad’s addiction destroy everything sacred in our house, after seeing Mom cry herself to sleep because the man she loved chose bourbon over his family, I promised myself I’d never be that vulnerable. Sex means attachment. Attachment means pain.
“Help me resist temptation. Help me remember why purity matters. Why waiting is worth—”
“Confessing sins you haven’t committed yet?” a voice murmurs from the darkness. “Hot.”
My blood turns to ice.
Grayson West emerges from the back pew like some kind of beautiful demon, cigarette dangling from his lips, eyes gleaming in the candlelight.
“What are you doing here?”
“Following my favorite hypocrite.” He takes a long drag, exhales slowly. “Heard every word, by the way. Very enlightening.”
I scramble to my feet. “You followed me?”
“You’re not exactly subtle.” He flicks ash onto holy ground. “Sneaking around, breaking rules, praying for strength to resist me. It’s almost like you know you’re fighting a losing battle.”
“Get out.”
“Make me.” He steps closer, boots echoing on marble. “This is interesting though. All that fire, all that attitude, and you’re still Daddy’s perfect little virgin.”
“Don’t.”
“What scares you more, Alden? That you might like it? Or that you might be as human as the rest of us?”
He’s close now. Too close. Close enough that I can see the way candlelight catches his cheekbones, the way his eyes darken when he looks at me.
“You want to know what I think?” His voice drops to a whisper. “I think you pray so hard because you know how badly you want to sin.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you’re shaking.” His fingers brush my wrist. “I know your pulse is racing. I know you’re thinking about what it would feel like if I kissed you right here, right now, in front of God and everyone.”
“Stop.”
“Want me to give you something real to repent for?”
And then his lips crash into mine.
The world explodes.
His mouth is warm, demanding, completely overwhelming. My first kiss tastes like cigarettes and danger and everything I’ve ever been told to avoid. His hands cup my face like I’m something precious, something he’s been waiting his whole life to touch.
For one perfect, terrifying second, I kiss him back.
Then reality slams into me like a freight train.
I slap him. Hard.
The sound echoes through the chapel like a gunshot.
“Don’t ever touch me again,” I whisper, but my voice is shaking, and we both know why.
I’m running before he can respond, feet flying across marble, through the door, into the night air that suddenly feels too thin to breathe.
“Next time,” his voice calls after me, echoing through the darkness, “you’ll kiss me back.”
