It was the truth, and it hurt. I didn’t want the stupid assistant’s job to begin with, and now that I’d come to terms with it, it wasn’t even available. My entire existence seemed pointless. Vaughn said nothing.

“I do.” His voice came out of nowhere, surprising me. “I do need you, just not for my fucking piece.” He bared his teeth, finally looking at me. “Happy?”

“How do you mean?” I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

He looked down to his lap, and after a brief silence, I followed his gaze. He was hard. We hadn’t even touched. We didn’t even flirt. But I guessed those things happened, right? He was nineteen. Boys that age were notorious for getting hard from anything, including shaved raccoons.

“This.” He removed his hands from his lap, offering me a better view of his thick, throbbing erection behind his black sweatpants. “It doesn’t happen to me. Well, it does, but only when I want it to, and it doesn’t feel the same…as it does when I’m with you.”

He grunted the entire sentence, like he was admitting a terrible crime. I licked my lips, swallowing a ball of something in my throat. Excitement? No. It was more than that. I felt…triumph.

“What are you saying?”

His gaze sliced straight to mine. He glowered. “What the fuck do you think I’m saying? You’re hot, and I guess I want to fool around with you. I didn’t use any fancy words, Good Girl. No need to crack open a dictionary.”

There’s the asshole again. But I knew he was frightened of the truth. For some reason, sex was a touchy subject for him. And maybe I was right. Maybe we were both virgins. I’d said it as a joke, but it made a lot of sense when I thought about it. I’d never seen him actually making out with a girl. I never saw him flirt or talk to anyone.

I’d never seen him kiss a girl.

Christ, I don’t think I’d ever heard of him kissing one, either.

I flung my legs out of the bed, moving to sit next to Vaughn, hip-to-hip. I asked my next question without meeting his eyes.

“Was I your first kiss?”

That would mean Vaughn’s first kiss was at age eighteen, more or less. A prospect too ridiculous to be taken seriously. No guy gets blow jobs before kissing, surely.

He snorted, shaking his head. “Fuck off.”

“Tell me.”

“No, you weren’t my first kiss,” he snapped cruelly.

I said nothing. Maybe I got it wrong after all. There was a beat of silence before he opened his mouth again.

“You were the second one. I kissed Luna Rexroth at the pre-Christmas party at the Coles’ last year to spite Knight, so he’d finally make a move.”

My pulse kicked up again. He’d only kissed one girl in his entire life. Two, including me. And the first one didn’t even count. It seemed not only unlikely, but completely bonkers. Even I had kissed four guys. And I had no experience to speak of. Vaughn truly didn’t want anything to do with girls if he was that reluctant to be with them. But why?

“Maybe I’m asexual,” he said dispassionately.

I didn’t think he was. The way we kissed…there was magic there. The wild, untamed lust of two hot, mortal bodies connecting, exploding, desperate to claw each other out of our skin and blend together into something intimate and the same.

The same.

That’s why I couldn’t resist Vaughn’s kisses or when he laced his fingers in my hair or when he looked at me from across the room. When we touched, it felt like we were one entity, and that scared and thrilled me.

“I don’t want to fuck you. I don’t want to eat you out,” Vaughn said gravely, his throat bobbing.

He seemed like he was on the brink of an epiphany tonight. What had happened to make him like this?

“But I want to kiss you. A lot. And everywhere. And…” He frowned, rolling his eyes with a sigh. “I guess I don’t mind if you end up liking it when I do.”

I burst out laughing.

He wasn’t expecting that. His frown deepened, and he widened his eyes in annoyance. It seemed he couldn’t understand why I was flattered and thoroughly entertained by the idea that he was attracted to me so much, he was willing to break many of his rules. He had to come to terms with making someone else feel good. Christ, with this lad, I needed to be careful. Moments like this made me like Vaughn as a person, see past the persona. Luckily, they were few and far between, and I truly was incapable of falling in love.

“It’s not funny.”

“It is. You’re right, I shouldn’t leave here. You’re going to do the work for both of us, and I could use the time to work on my project. But as for kissing, I have a few inquiries before I make a decision regarding your offer.”

“It wasn’t an offer,” he snapped, as if horrified that I might take this as a compliment.

I shrugged, pointing at the door, in case he’d forgotten his way out.

He let out a heavy sigh. “Lay it on me.”

“Will you be kissing other girls?” I grabbed my pillow and hugged it to my midriff. Namely, Arabella.

“No.” He nearly shuddered, staring at me like I was mad. “’Course not.”

“Will you let them give you head?” I asked.

“Will you give me head?”

“No, not if you won’t go down on me.”

“Well, then, I guess, yeah. I’ll get head elsewhere.”

“Then we don’t have a deal.”

“Are you serious?” He pulled back to examine my face.

I shrugged. “I’m not asking for a ring, Vaughn. We both know this is going to be nothing more than fooling around, and I like making out with your sour arse. Now that I have nothing to do but work on my piece, I guess you could be a nice distraction until we get out of here. But I don’t want anything to do with you if you continue sticking your willy in other girls’ mouths.”

“Fine,” he spat, his lips thin with rage.

“Fine,” I said breezily, and somehow—somehow—I realized I had managed to convince myself during this conversation that this was a brilliant idea.

That it was grand that Vaughn had given me all this spare time.

That it was lovely we were going to kiss and fondle and maybe even shag each other.

There was no chance on Earth I was going to catch feels for Lucifer Junior. I didn’t want to fall in love. To get married. To have children. That’s why I’d tattooed Carlisle Prep’s motto on my inner thigh.

I even managed to tell myself that Vaughn flexing his muscles in front of Pope wouldn’t cause future problems, that I had both men under control.

In fact, the only bitter taste I couldn’t shake off was Papa’s betrayal. The way he’d hidden the truth about my internship from me. It felt like my father had compromised me to help my enemy, and I was furious with him.

Vaughn owed me nothing.

But my father? Oh, he did.

“And I mean, you could hurt me,” Vaughn continued, clearing his throat. “I mean, blood and shit, if that’s your jam.”

I don’t know why it saddened me so much that he offered me his pain as a token for our deal. I liked hurting him when he was hurting me. I wasn’t a connoisseur of pain, like him.

“I don’t want that.” The timbre of my voice reminded me of padding on tiptoes.