Trouble

|Chapter Eighteen| Snapdragon

[Snapdragon]: Sweet deception

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Would Darius notice if I melted like the ice in my glass of coffee? Because that's what happens every time Connor's sleepy voice invades my mind, which is probably more than nine hundred times a day. And even now, as my project-mate sits across from me in the backyard of our library building after our Monday classes, I'm back in his house, pressed against his side, his voice in my ear.

"Want to be the only one, Sky."

The memory of last Thursday night has been playing in my mind like a broken record for three days already: the way he touched me, bit me, kissed my neck, the way he whispered things in my ear I'm sure he'd never say if he were sober or fully awake.

There's no way he could have faked it to play with my feelings again, he was too weak and delirious to do it. So whatever he said at the time was true.

He wants me and he hates it as much as he hates me.

I came to this conclusion after I got home that night and started my operation on Connor Black's dark little secret. I cleared my board and got to work in the middle of the night, feeling like those profilers from detective movies.

Connor's been playing a game of push and pull with me since the day we met in college because even though he claims to despise me and not want to be seen with me ever again, his body wants me.

That's why he keeps driving me away with his cruel words all the time but then reaching out for me himself as if looking for a way to be near me again.

The mature Connor finds me attractive, and he can't do anything about it.

This realization both is delightful and annoying, because why the hell couldn't he see me like that when we were still kids? Why the hell did he have to think of me only as a friend and then give me the perfect reason to destroy us?

The sound of my phone makes me jump in my seat and only then do I come back to reality and realize the poor guy is still talking while I was fantasizing, my hand touching the plaster on my jaw. The only way I could cover his bite. It was worse on Friday since it was just starting to turn blue, but after three days it now has a yellow shade and is almost unnoticeable.

Still, I didn't want to risk it today either, since it obviously looks like a hickey with a little more teeth than necessary, and Jack and especially Syd would notice it. They did ask about the plaster too, and I had to lie to them, saying I got burnt while straightening my hair.

"...means. So we could identify an old garage in the city and turn it into a bookstore or something like that." Darius is saying.

Right, we were discussing what we were going to do for our joint project, which Connor is a part of as well, mind you. However, he's decided not to show up to the discussion, although he's clearly seen the message Darius has sent in the group chat.