Genius (CENTURIES series: Book #2)

5

"Where are my panties?"

"Do I look like a Victoria Secret store to you?"

Mia gritted her teeth and stared coldly at Eli who was polishing the windows in the hall, the ones he had splashed graffiti on. "My thong I was wearing yesterday, before..."

"Before what?" He glared sideways at her, clearly wanting her to say the words. She sure as hell wasn't going to.

"Just give them back," Mia growled, trying to keep her voice hushed. A few students were glancing their way, but they didn't lay much into their intimate argument. They were too consumed with waiting for the forensic team's official report which was scheduled to go public today. Maybe then they would finally discover who the mysterious genius was.

"Do you honestly think I took them?" Eli replied, aggressively polishing down the window where the stubborn graffiti kept sticking. "You think that us fucking meant something so meaningful to me, I had to steal your underwear as a sentimental souvenir? And here I thought you people were supposed to be smart."

"I'm smarter than you, which is why I know you took them," Mia snapped, crossing her arms. "You're known for being a criminal, and clearly you're a sociopath too or something. Taking my thong, for whatever reason it may have to you, is still considered theft, so I demand you give it back!"

"You demand? Do you ever listen to yourself?" He drawled. "Jesus Christ, you sound like you're presenting a fucking court case. I'm going to say this one last time," Eli turned to face her and then leaned down until he was but inches away from her face. "I. Did. Not. Steal. Your. Fucking. Thong. Did you catch that or would you like me to repeat it in Hebrew?"

Mia blinked up in shock at him and swallowed. Was he telling the truth? He was. He truly didn't take them. "But if you didn't take them, then where are they?"

"That sounds like a shitload of not-my-problem," He flatly replied and then resumed scrubbing down the windows.

Mia clenched her hands and tried to keep her cool. Always a dismissive prick, except for when he was trying to get into her pants - which he now had. She wondered if he was even going to keep talking to her now.

Oh, but she had been so damn stupid. Mia still couldn't remember how it had happened – it all went so quickly; One minute she was drawing his body from memory, the next he was actually there and had her bended up against the wall, juices running down her legs.

Just thinking about it made her insides clench from how mind-blowing it had been, but of course now also came the inevitable part where it was just sheer awkward. She had been so easy, it almost made her feel like a common whore. It was humiliating. Even more so now that she had to go up to him and ask him for her thong back, only to realize he didn't have it.

"Fine, whatever," She finally sighed, shaking her head. "I have to get to class."

"Good luck with the inspiration."

Mia froze in her steps but refused to turn around and get a look at his self-pleased face. Instead she begun walking again, ignoring the fact that her lower abdomen just clenched.

~~~

"Who drew this?" Mr Valenches asked, coming into the art class with a canvas. Her canvas.

"Oh, my God," Mia whispered, quickly clamping a hand over her mouth. It was the sketch of Eli. Of course nobody could see that because she had never actually gotten to the drawing-his-face part. It was just a headless body with a coat of unfinished ink. She had left it in the closed studio the other day and Valenches had to have found it.