Falling Under Read Online Free PDF Page A

sense than dreaming up a guy from thin air. Which reminded me of the burning man, and suddenly I felt not good again. “I feel like my life has taken a turn for the strange.”
    Donny was applying blusher to my cheeks even though I tried to move my head away from it. “Stop squirming. Deciding you like boys doesn’t mean your life is getting strange. It means you’re finally growing into your hormones. Let’s go out there and get him, tiger.”
    She and Amelia each grabbed an arm and took me into the hall, despite my dragging feet. Once we got to the office, my heart plummeted. He was surrounded by students—two of them cheerleaders, one of them holding his new schedule, obviously ready to show him to his class. As much as I hated to admit it, he looked natural at the center of the beautiful people.
    “Oh, God,” Amelia said, scrunching her face. “He’s crawling with sneetches.”
    How long could my heart keep falling? It just dropped further and further, turning everything around me to a shade of gray. “It doesn’t matter.” I said it, but I didn’t mean it.
    Everything about him suddenly mattered very much to me. Too much. The hole where my heart used to be ached. I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone so attractive. I willed his dark eyes to look at me. I wanted to pull the other girls off him and be the only girl he shared that smile with. I wanted to know his dreams, his secrets … his name.
    Donny gave me a little squeeze. “I’m as morally opposed to the sneetches as you guys are—but let’s cut him a little slack. He’s new—he doesn’t know how vile they are. Plus they probably descended on him like a pack of wolves on a rabbit.”
    At that moment, the rabbit looked up and right into my eyes. He wasn’t helpless prey. Far from it. His eyes were nearly black and made him look more dangerous than any predator in the forest. An involuntary shiver racked my body—he actually smiled at my reaction. It wasn’t a happy smile, or even a pleasant one. It was an expression of pride, like he’d accomplished a strategic move on the chessboard. Or maybe trapped Bambi in a corner.
    I became spoils of the hunt.
    Even as he looked at me, he looked through me. And then he put his arm around a sneetch and whispered something in her ear without dropping his gaze from mine.
    And I felt it.
    I gasped at the sensation. As surely as if I were the one standing next to him, I felt his breath against my face, hottest near my ear.
     
    He watched her.
    Theia didn’t move like the other students. She considered every movement carefully, as if she was concerned that her body might do something without her. Like she was always reining something in.
    The kind of control he would never have.
    She dropped books off at her locker, glancing over her shoulder occasionally. No doubt she felt his presence. He checked his impulse to get her attention. He didn’t know if he could stand another interlude like the one this morning. Not without losing control.
    He half hoped she would untether her hair again. The amber and honey curls were such a contradiction to her carefulness. They caught the light, spinning the colors in a whirling dervish of caramel and brown sugar.
    Instead, she left the band around her ringlets, pulling the hair tautly away from her oval face. Her eyebrows were highly arched over her wary eyes, eyes the color of slate. The depth of her eye color changed with her emotions. Sometimes her eyes reminded him of the seas violent with storm. Other times they were as gray as a cemetery headstone.
    He closed his eyes. Whatever had made him think coming here was a good idea abandoned him just as surely as his good sense had. Last night had been a mistake. One he hoped he’d be strong enough not to make again. She had no place in his world, just as he had no place in hers.
    He hung back but kept her in his sights, wishing that his weakness didn’t make him feel like a common stalker. Even that would have been