The Matchmaker's Replacement Read online

  Ignoring him, I took the stairs two at a time and pushed the door open to what Ian jokingly referred to as my Fortress of Solitude.

  The lights from my three computer screens flickered in the darkness. I popped my knuckles, did a little stretch, then sat back in my leather chair while visions of taking over the world danced in my head.

  Not really.

  Okay, at least not all the time, but what the power hackers had at their fingertips was addicting.

  I stayed out of everything illegal. The only time I’d ever been flagged was when I’d accidently stumbled upon something that may or may not have pissed off a certain government agency enough to give me a warning and then a job offer.

  I declined.

  I was only a freshman at the time; the last thing I wanted was to work for suits.

  “What shall we do today?” I said, tapping my fingertips against my desk. For some reason, images of Gabs wouldn’t quit. First it was Gabs biting her lower lip, then the way she had moaned in my arms while we kissed in the kitchen, which of course naturally turned into an extremely graphic vision of her taking off her shirt and crooking her finger in my direction. Hot damn.

  That wasn’t what I needed.

  I checked the clock; it was only ten in the morning. And just like that I was back to thinking about the playbook. Ian wanted hands-on training for Gabi? Proof that she could do the job? I was just going to have to alter my training a bit. Why make it easier on her by giving her the actual guide that Ian and I had memorized since freshman year? I smiled, even though I felt slightly guilty at the thought that I was screwing her before she even started.

  Whatever. It was her fault to begin with.

  If she hadn’t had homework, we could have gotten all of the training done today. Instead she’d scurried off like a little mouse, leaving me stressed about finding time to train her the rest of the week. Every minute I spent with her drained my superpower, or at least it felt like it. A villain can only handle so much light before he wants to go all freeze-gun on someone’s ass. Small doses. I needed her in small, manageable doses.

  “Hmmm . . .” I quickly brought up the school Ethernet, and with one swipe of the keys I was typing in Gabi’s login, cracking her password, and looking for her class schedule.

  I pulled it up in seconds and frowned as I read through her workload, which was almost as intense as mine. Technically she shouldn’t be graduating with us, but she’d done summer school along with the UW premed intern program, so she was well on her way to walking in a few months—that is, if she passed the rest of her classes.

  Curious, I hacked into her student account and pulled up this semester’s grades.

  Biology was a B-minus. Shit, talk about teetering on the edge of failing. That was basically like getting a D. It was a core class.

  Organic Chem was next.

  C-plus.

  She really did need to study her ass off if she had any hopes of bringing that grade up.

  I could do Organic Chem while sleeping. I played with a thought . . . If I helped her, really I’d be helping me, because she’d be free to get her training over with.

  Making my evil plan that much easier: help her with her grades, earn her trust, then get her to quit. Either that or she would just kill me in my sleep.

  I needed her gone. She’d been easy to avoid before because I hadn’t seen her on a daily basis. The last thing I needed was to be on the wrong end of an unfortunate accident where Ian cut off one of my nuts because I looked at Gabs the wrong way.

  Which I was already doing.

  Because it was Gabi.

  Damn me to hell.

  I stared at the blinking cursor.

  Technically, my motivation was completely selfish.

  I could deal with that.

  I quickly grabbed my keys and cell and told my stupid-ass body to stop humming with excitement—this wasn’t a booty call.

  More like charity work for the mentally unfortunate.

  Chapter Four

  Gabi

  It was only eleven in the morning, and my eyes were burning with unshed tears. I was reading but not understanding anything, making it so I had to go back and reread sections. I literally wanted to bang my head against the very expensive, very heavy book.

  I wanted a scone.

  Not just any scone, but one with blueberries, one that promised me that regardless of how crappy my day was, there would always be sugar.

  My mouth watered.

  “Focus, Gabs.” I was ten pages in. I had to read eighty. And on top of not understanding anything I was reading, there was that kiss.

  And the bite.

  And the . . . um, hardness.

  “Nooooo!” I wailed, slamming my book shut. I would not go there. I refused to remember the way he felt pressed against me. With a cry, I jammed my fingertips against my temples and counted to three while I did some breathing exercises. I just needed to focus. Coffee. I should make a pot of coffee. Coffee always made things better.

  I placed my book and highlighters on the coffee table and stood just as the doorbell rang.

  My roommate, Serena, wouldn’t get it. She never got the door. Just like she always conveniently forgot about trash day or when rent was due.

  “I’m coming!” I called just as I reached the doorknob and jerked.

  Lex poked his head through the door. “In that case, should I leave you to it?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You suck.”

  “And blow,” he confirmed. “Just in case you’re making a mental checklist of things I do well . . . I can also do this trick with my tongue where—”

  “Why are you here, Lex?” My anxiety tripled as he stepped his large body through the doorframe and held up a small brown bag and Starbucks coffee.

  “Shit.” I stomped my foot. “What did you do, Lex? Seriously. Did you kill Ian? Is that why you’re here giving me treats? Or did you put Ex-Lax in a scone? Or my coffee? Both?” I let out a groan. “The Fates despise me because all I want right now is a pastry. On a scale of one to ten, how much Ex-Lax are we talking?” I eyed the bag, imagining the scone I was craving, my mouth watering almost to the point of drooling. “It might be worth it.”

  With his free hand Lex reached out and pinched both of my lips together with his fingers, giving me immediate duck face. “First off, it’s really hard to put Ex-Lax in baked goods—it throws off the consistency. Second, pastries make your ass big. The pastry is bad enough without me having to poison it.” He released my lips and shoved the bag in my face. “You’re welcome.”

  “I’m not thanking you,” I grumbled as the scent of blueberry scone floated into the air. It was as if he’d read my mind, and I refused to think about what that might mean. I inhaled deeply. “It’s warm.”

  “Like my heart.” He winked.

  “I love your jokes.” I sighed. “Next you’re going to tell me you helped a nice old lady cross the street before saving her cat from a large oak tree, and you were given the keys to the city.”

  Lex ignored me and kept walking into my living room. He stopped in front of the table, picked up my textbook, and sat on the couch with it in his lap.

  “I didn’t invite you,” I said around a mouthful of scone.

  “You’ve got crumbs on your shirt, and you look like a starved hyena. Chew, Gabs, the food will still be there when you swallow.”

  I made a face.

  “Saw that,” he sang as he turned the page and kicked off his shoes, putting his smelly boy socks up on my clean couch. Though who was I kidding? Nothing about him was even remotely smelly or revolting. His socks were probably clean enough for me to lick. “Hurry up and eat so we can study.”

  “We are not doing
anything!” I kept eating the scone—even though it was a pity scone and would probably give me diarrhea, but it was so damn good. “I’m studying, you’re leaving! Or are you here for Serena?” He’d had a one-night stand with my roommate, and to this day she still talked about how he’d changed her life with one lick. I was way too much of a prude to ask what that meant, and instead I’d nodded my head and changed the subject to the rent she was always late coughing up.

  “You have a C-plus in Organic Chem,” Lex said in a bored voice as he licked his finger and turned another page. “I can’t have you failing out of school with no job prospects and no money, needing to start a very lucrative career stripping for cash.” He looked up from the book and winced. “Not that you’d make a killing or anything. Most strippers appear female—you know, with actual boobs rather than whatever the hell it is you’ve got going on upstairs.”

  I refused to cross my arms in embarrassment. “You wouldn’t know real boobs if they smacked you in the face, since you only sleep with plastic!”

  “Oh, they do.” He burst out laughing. “Smack me in the face. Then the girl, then me. It’s like a mating dance. I’ve got some footage on film if you’re into that sort of thing, you dirty little girl.”

  “Just because I’m eating your scone does not mean I want to watch your pornographic videos. I will puke up blueberry all over you.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time you puked on me.”

  My cheeks heated as the scone went dry in my mouth. The one and only time Lex had ever been nice to me was the previous semester, when I thought I was dying from swine flu. Really it was just a stomach virus, but he’d seen how sick that virus had made Ian, and he’d made himself a permanent resident in my house until I got better.

  “I come in peace.” Lex let himself into my house, holding a grocery bag up in surrender. He took one look at me and cursed. “Gabs, have you eaten anything?”

  He was blurry, and I was so hot. “I don’t remember.”

  “Shit.” Strong arms wrapped around me, lifting me into the air.

  I started shivering.

  “You’re burning up.”

  “Put me down,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. I had zero strength and felt like I must be hallucinating if Lex was carrying me up the stairs and not purposely throwing me down them.

  He used his foot to push open the bathroom door, set me on the toilet lid, and started the shower, then began peeling off his shirt.

  I was too weak to do anything but stare at his six-pack and wonder how it was physically possible for a computer science major to look so hot without his clothes on.

  Once he was down to his black boxer briefs, he tugged at my T-shirt. I moaned out a weak no, but he ignored it like he did everything else that came out of my mouth. My teeth chattered as he lifted me into the air and slid my shorts down. I was naked except for my underwear and black Under Armour sports bra.

  “Try not to scream,” he said under his breath, stepping with me into the shower. The cold water was horrific; I immediately clawed at him and struggled to get free, but he held me firmly in his muscled arms. I was locked in place.

  And I felt like hell.

  I started sobbing uncontrollably. It had been forever since I’d been that sick, and I just wanted my mom and chicken noodle soup. What I got? A nearly naked Lex and a cold shower.

  He sat me down, then ran his hands up and down my arms. “Just bringing the fever down, Gabs, and then I promise you’ll have some soup.”

  “With stars?” I asked, blinking up at him. “Chicken and stars?”

  “Yeah.” His voice was etched with a heaviness I couldn’t quite place, and he cleared his throat. “Nothing but the best for you.”

  “I’m hallucinating,” I admitted.

  He smirked. “Oh yeah? How’s the hallucination so far?”

  “Cold.” I shivered as my hands grazed over his firm chest. “And hard.”

  Our eyes met, and for a very brief second I felt it, a lingering pull as if the invisible thread that had connected us was suddenly on fire, tugging our bodies toward one another. But just as quickly as I felt it, he closed his eyes and backed away. “Let’s get you dried off so we can feed you. Skinny does not look good on you.”

  I frowned. “So now I’m too skinny?”

  He flashed me a grin. “What can I say? I’m hard to please.”

  “I’m sure,” I grumbled as he helped me out of the shower.

  The next two days were absolute hell, between my fever and Lex.

  I felt so smothered that at one point I locked him out of my house.

  He called the freaking police.

  His reason? He was worried. I highly doubted it.

  I shook the memory from my head as a realization struck. “You ass!” Mouth full, I nearly choked on a blueberry. “You hacked the registrar’s office, didn’t you?”

  “Hack is such a dirty word.” Lex grinned smugly. “I simply evaded a few passwords in order to gain information that would mutually benefit us both.”

  I took a sip of the strong-brewed coffee and nearly sighed in relief.

  “Is it good?”

  “The treats change nothing. You still hacked into my records. I knew you did something wrong. You always bring food when you want to apologize—which is rare, by the way, since, according to you, you never mess up, you simply misstep.”

  “I love it when a girl knows me inside and out.” Lex put his hands behind his head, smile still in place. “And the treats are because I know you forgot to eat breakfast . . . again.”

  I looked away, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of being right and seeing it in my eyes as I continued to eat my shame scone. I always forgot to eat when I was nervous about school.

  “So . . .” He reached down and tapped the book with one finger. “I know you’ll never say it, but you need me. Let’s get this sweet hell over with so I can train your sorry ass.”

  My mouth was still watering from the scone, and my body betrayed my good sense as I trudged over to the couch and gave a pointed look at Lex’s feet.

  “Fine.” He sighed, slowly pulling his feet from the edge of the couch. “Happy now?”

  “Am I ever happy when I’m with you?”

  “If you are, it’s because I put pot in your scone. Surprise,” Lex said without looking up from the textbook.

  My stomach dropped. “You didn’t.”

  “I didn’t.” He glanced up, a wicked grin marring his perfect features. “But admit it—that would be hilarious.”

  I had to stay calm. If I reacted, he’d actually do it. So I shrugged and went for casual. “Sad that the only way you can have your way with me is if I’m high on drugs, Lex. Seriously.”

  Lex glanced up. “You have a crumb on your left tit. I’d get it, but I don’t want to touch any part of you that may respond to my caress. You understand.”

  I growled out a curse. “Just . . . get on with the whole study session so you can leave and I can drink my body weight in wine.”

  “That’s a shitload of wine—just saying.”

  “Lex!”

  “Organic Chem . . .” He held up the book. “I’m going to help you ace this chapter in less than thirty minutes, but you have to do something for me in return.”

  “I’m not giving you a blow job.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Like I’d ever have to use extortion.”

  We were at an impasse, both of us staring at one another, my gaze more irritated and just pissed off while he looked way too calm. If I blinked, he’d win. I kept my eyes wide, watching, waiting, while his upper lip twitched. Why did all the good-looking ones always have to possess evil powers?

  I crossed my arms.

 
His eyes lingered on my lips before he cleared his throat and looked down at the book, knocking it with his knuckles once before saying, “I help you understand all the complicated stuff, and you’re mine to train for the rest of the day.”

  Panic erupted all over my body—or maybe it was just the pot scone. Spending time with him wasn’t just emotionally damaging and draining but physically altering. I never walked away from Lex the same.

  But I needed to pass this class, and already I was behind.

  “Fine.” I lifted my chin, faking a confidence I really didn’t feel. “But no more kissing or touching of any kind.”

  “Can’t train you unless you have actual hands-on experience, Gabs, and I’m pretty sure the last dude who touched you was that really weird emo kid who said you smelled like cheese.”

  “Lex!” I calmed myself down by imagining him getting hit by a party bus full of prostitutes. Something about him dying by his own sin really sat well with me. “His name was Josh, and he was really nice.” There, that sounded calm, collected.

  “Right.” Lex nodded and leaned forward. “Are we really not going to revisit the romantic moment where Josh leaned in to kiss you, then said your hair smelled like feta and burst into tears?”

  “It’s called turophobia, and it’s a real thing, Lex!”

  “The fear of cheese”—Lex nodded as a smug expression crept over his face—“can also be diagnosed as a fear of different types of cheeses, which in turn can trickle into xanthophobia, the fear of the color yellow.” Lex was talking so fast it was like I’d just typed “phobias” into a search engine.

  I huffed. “What’s your point?”

  “My point!” Lex barked out a loud laugh, his bright white smile making my stomach clench with . . . something. It was an ache, and not a good one but one that reminded me what that mouth felt like, damn him. He leaned in and spoke in a low tone. “My point is that it would be totally understandable if one such as yourself suffered from . . .” He tilted his head. “Phallophobia.”