Very Wicked Things (Briarwood Academy 2)

“Where you want me, Mrs. Weinstein? I won’t give you any grief; I like the front row,” Sebastian said, flashing his trademark easy grin. Smooth move. Good luck with that.

She looked at her list, considering. “April, you sit with Zero back in the back. Sebastian, you and Emma can sit here,” she said pointing to the next row over, directly across from me. Score.

April flounced off to the back with Zero, giving Sebastian a longing glance as she left. I knew I wouldn’t miss her.

Sebastian sat down in the adjacent row and we fist-bumped. He had my back.

A few minutes later, Weinstein set down her clipboard and made an announcement. “Based on the overall scores from your last exam, we’re doing more in-class work with partners. Hopefully, this will get you out of the rut some of you seem to be in for my class. Only half of you scored a passing grade on the Macbeth test.” A few heads nodded, remembering the Scottish dude and his crazy-ass wife. Who knew a damn spot could create so much drama? Oh wait. I did.

She continued. “Today, your goal is to interview your new study partner. Find out who they are because they’ll be helping you when we study the poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.”

Groans and sighs came from every direction, but I’d quit listening to their complaining, too focused on the girl in front of me.

“Okay, let’s begin,” Weinstein said. “Face your partners, please.”

Students milled around, turning their desks around, and I watched with a dawning sense of dread. I’d have to look at her for an entire hour.

Dovey stood and maneuvered her desk to face mine, and it made an awful scrapping sound on the tile, making me draw up more. I froze and sucked in, preparing myself. From the moment I’d met her, I’d decided she wasn’t the kind of girl who made a guy catch his breath, yet I always did. Or maybe all males did, and I was just lying to myself. Either way, guys watched her, desired her—that was obvious from the way their heads moved when her body glided by. She didn’t care about them and that was part of her sexy factor. She didn’t put on airs or pretend to have the latest Louis Vuitton bag, yet she carried herself like a rich girl.

From across the row, Sebastian waggled his eyebrows at me, nudging his head at Dovey. For once, I wasn’t in the mood for his jokes.

He whistled under his breath. “Damn. Looks like you got lucky,” he said to me.

“Hello. I’m not deaf,” Dovey said, face taut.

“Sorry. Rude, huh?” he said to her, an engaging smile working his face.

She dipped her shoulders in an elegant shrug, doodling on a piece of paper.

He cleared his throat. “Most know me…’cause I’m that kind of guy…but in case you don’t, I’m Sebastian Tate.” He looked around the room expectantly. “You’d really think there’d be a drum roll or something when I say my name.”

She rolled her eyes and drew a heart, coloring in a jagged crack down the middle.

He grinned, not giving up. “And this should come as no surprise, but I’m a big deal here,” he said. ”And you aren’t even listening, which is crazy ‘cause you are gorgeous. Why have we never talked before?”

She graced him with brief glance and quirked an eyebrow. “I’m Dovey Beckham. You’re new this year, right?”

“Yeah. Wanna show me around sometime? I hear there’s some study carrels in the back of the library I’ve never seen. It might be dark though. You’d have to hold my hand.” He winked at her and her mouth twitched, making my chest tight.

Everyone loved Sebastian. No doubt, she would too.

He needed to chill with the flirting.

“She’s a ballerina,” I blurted for no apparent reason.

Sebastian shifted his eyes at me, a gleam of surprise there. That boy saw way too much, and I’d hear about it later. “That so? I’d love to hear more.”

“This is stupid,” I remarked, sounding surly. I eyed him, biting my tongue, wanting to tell him to back the hell up and go talk to Emma. Dovey was my partner, not his.

“I find this whole class boring,” Emma said from her desk. I cast a lazy grin at her, encouraging her.

“You a good ballerina?” Sebastian asked Dovey.

Dovey fiddled with her notebook. “I’ve never been to an official academy, just a personal trainer and the dance school here, but I’m good enough to audition for a company, maybe get an apprenticeship. It’s my whole life.”

“Can I call you “tiny dancer”?” he said. “You know, like in the Elton John song?”

She arched a brow. “I know the song—and no.”

“Not with those legs anyway,” I murmured, immediately wishing I hadn’t when she glared at me head-on with those blue eyes.

What? They weren’t tiny; they were long and luscious and when she straddled…

“So, I take it you two know each other?” Sebastian asked, his eyes bouncing back and forth between us.

“Yes,” Dovey answered.

“No,” I said at the same time.

Sebastian laughed and scratched his head. “Which is it?”

Emma yawned delicately. “Oh, leave it. Can we get on with our interviewing now, Sebastian?”

And then it happened. She dredged up the past.

“I thought I knew him,” Dovey said, speaking to Sebastian, but with her eyes burning into mine. “But he turned out to be a liar.”