Rent a Boyfriend - Gloria Chao Page 0,54

girl. No wonder she had spouted off so much information on our journey over here—she hadn’t planned to come onto the roof with us.

Following Nicolette’s advice, we scooted up the dome on our butts. The height didn’t bother me, but I wondered what kinds of germs I was rubbing into my pants to bring home later. Bird poop? STDs from MIT students who’d once had sex here? There was definitely a picture making the rounds on Facebook of a couple doing it on the little dome. Maybe it was Nicolette, I realized. Maybe she did get chlamydia from hacking!

When we reached the local maximum (not the global one—that was the Great Dome), I snuggled against Darren for warmth. Just me and him, on top of the world, where nothing else could reach us.

“Saved anyone else recently?” he asked, staring at the stars overhead.

“Nope. The campus has been safe—no distress calls.” I pictured someone beaming a dumpling into the sky to ask for my help and had to stifle a laugh.

The teasing crinkle appeared, along with a new, unreadable tilt to his lips. “So you haven’t had to tell your Horny story again? How is Horny, by the way?”

My mouth slacked open. “You heard that?”

“Every word.”

We burst into laughter at the same time.

“Well, that’s mortifying,” I said when, really, it wasn’t. Back at Chow Chow all those weeks ago, I had thought Darren knowing about Horny would have been The Worst Thing, but now it was just funny.

When the laughs subsided, he said in his warm honey voice, “Actually, it made me notice you more.”

Seriously? He hadn’t looked my way once that day. The blonde popped into my head, and I shoved her out with a kick to her perfectly plump behind.

“Made you notice my weirdness maybe,” I said as lightheartedly as I could.

“I prefer to call it ‘uniqueness.’ ”

He leaned in to me, our knees interlacing and his sandalwood scent enveloping me. I wondered if he could smell my soap too.

He placed a hand over mine, and my palm immediately turned sticky, but propriety be damned—who said sweaty girls couldn’t get the guy? Confidently, I weaved my fingers through his.

We looked into each other’s eyes, no longer in the awkward way of stolen first glances, but in the I-truly-see-you kind of way. The chemistry between us was so strong I could practically see the forces—ionic, covalent, even van der Waals.

Our gazes wandered to other features, our path dictated by the moon’s illumination. I followed the light to his cheekbones to his nose to the mole beside his lip, a pinpoint speck. Had I been sitting farther, I might have mistaken it for a crumb. Somehow I felt like I knew him better now that I had noticed it. A landmark for me to anchor on to.

When his gaze passed over my features, I didn’t feel self-conscious. Just beautiful. The way Darren saw me. The way I now saw myself. It had come at a price, a steep one I still wasn’t fully sure I wanted to pay, but . . . I felt beautiful, completely měi, even down to the off-center mole on my forehead, which for the first time, I didn’t feel the need to hide.

He traced his index finger over the pale-pink scar on my chin.

“I tripped when I was little and there was broken glass on the ground,” I explained.

He leaned down and kissed the scar gently, his breath trailing across my cheek. It was so tender. So compassionate. I turned my head, and our mouths met in an explosion of heat.

I had spent countless hours worrying about how to act in a boy’s presence, reading elicit romance books to try to learn what my parents wouldn’t teach me . . . but now that it was happening, it felt so natural. I didn’t need to think.

I gave in to my impulses, resting my hands on either side of him and pressing my torso to his. I felt his chest heave against mine, and then he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him as if he needed me closer than physically possible. I curled into his lap seamlessly, our limbs entangling.

He ran a hand up my back and into my hair, cradling my head. My skin tingled everywhere he touched, little jolts of pleasure that danced through my synapses. And his lips. God, his lips. They were so soft, caressing mine like silk. The tip of my tongue glided gently along them, feeling, tasting.

I wanted