Prologue - Zoe
High school. I would rather be on a suicide mission to Mars than sitting in a classroom with no AC next to some of the biggest douches in rural upstate New York.
Yep, while high school was terrible, a small-town high school was its own special blend of incestuous drama and petty, closed-minded individuals.
The worst? Weston Svensson. He lived in a big house with his rich older brothers, drove the fanciest cars, and had all the popular girls in school drooling at him and following him around like horny sheep. With his blond hair, gray eyes, and personality that screamed “future billionaire sociopath,” I stayed away from him and all his groupies.
And, no, I totally didn’t fantasize about him from afar, because that would totally be beneath me.
Okay, maybe I did a little. But only in the safety of my own bedroom. Definitely not in school and definitely not when he was paired with me for the afternoon in our home economics class.
Normally, my home ec partner was my bestie, Elsie, but she was out that day for a doctor’s appointment. Since Weston’s partner, the meanest, prettiest girl in school, Sharla, was gone as well, it meant I was stuck with him.
Even though he was a teenager, I could still see his features shift and settle periodically to give me a glimpse of the man he was going to become. He would add a few more inches to his height, his jaw would get stronger, he would grow broader in the shoulders, and his blond hair would darken a bit, but his eyes were going to stay that same steel gray.
Er…I mean, gross! Rich boys, amiright? Ahahaha...
Weston furrowed his brow and glanced at me. I gulped, hoping he didn’t realize I had just been thinking about him.
You need better taste in men, I chastised myself.
Weston blew out a breath. “Fuck, home ec is so stupid. Why do I have to learn how to cook?” he complained. “Why is this a mandatory class? This sucks. It’s so dumb. When I get older, I’m going to be a billionaire and pay people to do this type of mundane work.”
“Cooking is not mundane,” I snapped at him. “Everyone has to eat. You might as well make it something delicious.”
Weston rolled his eyes at me and leaned on the tall counter of our kitchen pod. He clicked absently through the text messages on his flip phone.
“Cooking is for people, especially women, who have nothing better to do with their silly little lives.”
My nostrils flared. “People make money cooking.”
“No, they don’t,” Weston scoffed, walking over to me.
My heart jumped for a moment. I half thought he was going to kiss me but then realized, in my teenage hormone-addled state, that actually, no, he was just reaching for an apron. And besides, there was no way a guy like him was going to kiss a girl like me in the middle of class with fifty other people in the room.
Weston put on the apron. My hormones were bouncing all over the place. Even though I totally did not stalk him from afar, being this close to him and having him talk to me…well, it was enough to make me almost forget that he was a spoiled rich boy.
“What are you doing?” I squawked as he scooped up a cup of flour. He didn’t even use a knife to scrape and level the mound before he dropped it into the mixing bowl with a white puff.
Weston sighed in annoyance. “I’m making a fucking cake, because for some reason, we get a grade on whether or not we can make dessert.”
“You have to sift the flour,” I cried, trying to stop him before he cracked two eggs into the bowl, shells shattering in the batter. “You can’t do it like that!” I protested.
Weston ignored me and started blending the batter with a whisk. I should have tried harder to salvage the mess—I did want to be a chef when I graduated—but I was hypnotized by his forearms as he mixed up the batter by hand. Then Weston dumped it into a pan and shoved it into the oven and went back to his phone.
I was dizzy and leaned against the counter to try to gather myself. I need to make a new cake, I thought, but all my brain could concentrate on was Weston just a few feet in front of me—the way his blond hair fell over his forehead, the way the muscles on his chest rippled slightly as he breathed or shifted.
Get it together! I mentally slapped myself. He was so hot I could practically smell his clothes burning.
“Shit!” I yelled as smoke started pouring out of the oven.
Weston looked on, bored, as I grabbed a metal spatula and hastily tried to scoop out the smoldering batter that had overflowed onto the bottom of the oven and was happily flaming away.
“Help me, you big, dumb idiot!” I snapped at Weston.
He plucked the mixing bowl that was half filled with dirty water from the sink then dumped the whole thing all over the oven—and me.
I screamed and jumped up, water dripping down the front of my Good Charlotte band T-shirt.
“Mr. Svensson and Ms. Roberts!” the home economics teacher declared, marching over to us.
“I don’t know how to cook, Mrs. Miller. I’m so sorry! My partner said I was doing it right.”
With his pretty face and wide-eyed look, Mrs. Miller bought Weston’s innocent act hook, line, and sinker.
“You’re my prize student,” she admonished me. “Why did you let him do that? I put him with you because you know how to cook and could look after him.”
“He’s practically an adult,” I protested.
“You both need to stay after class and clean this up then bake a new cake. You can leave it here, and I will grade it in the morning,” she told me.
“But it’s last period, and I have to go to work after this,” I pleaded.
“But cooking is important,” Weston said in a mocking tone.
“I know it’s important,” I hissed. “I’m going to work at my grandmother’s restaurant.”
“Chop, chop!” Mrs. Miller clapped her hands.
I dripped and seethed as I waited for the oven to cool down so we could clean it.
“I hate you,” I told Weston under my breath. “You did this on purpose.”
“Me? I can’t think that far ahead. I’m a big, dumb idiot, remember?” Weston said snidely. “Though,” he added, lowering his voice, “I do like that I can see your nipples through your wet T-shirt.”
What the fuck?
Everyone had left by the time Weston finished cleaning out the oven and I finished the new cake batter. I poured it into the pan, trying not to think about the fact that Weston had said he could see my nipples through my shirt. My pussy was practically dripping wet as I imagined him thinking about me like that.
You have issues.
I wished Elise were here. She was no nonsense and would have set me straight. But as it was, there was only Weston, hovering behind me.
“How much longer?” he asked.
“Fifteen minutes after I slide the cake into the oven.”
Weston huffed out a laugh.
“That is not an innuendo; don’t you dare make a sexual innuendo about cake,” I ordered.
“I wasn’t going to make an innuendo. I was going to blatantly ask if you wanted to fuck while we wait.”
My mind blanked. “Ah wha fu wha?” I stammered unintelligibly.
Weston pulled a condom out of his pocket and waved it at me. The rational part of my brain had jumped into the oven with the cake, and the horny virgin in me was ready to lose her V card to the Viking god in front of her.