A Fox's Love (American Kitsune Book 1) (21 page)

Lilian tilted her head to the side, her eyes blinking and her lips turning into a curious frown. Her confusion was evident. "Stop what?"

"That. You keep staring at me. It's making me uncomfortable."

"Ufufufu. There's no need to be embarrassed. I simply like watching my Beloved enjoy the meals I prepare."

"And why do you keep calling me Beloved?"

"Because you're my Beloved. Why else would I call you Beloved, Beloved?"

"Can't you just call me by my name?" grunted Kevin.

Lilian ignored that last bit. Naturally. She had a very bad case of selective hearing.

She decided to ignore The Author for his previous comment too. That kind of hurts, you know.

Several minutes after breakfast ended, Kevin stood in the doorway, his back pack slung over his back. Lilian was standing with him, her foxy ears drooping. As always, she was very sad to see him leave.

"You have school again today, don't you?"

"Yep," Kevin tightened the straps on his bag. He didn't want it getting jostled on his back when he rode to school. Nothing sucked more than having his homework getting knocked into his pens and finding them covered in ink when he took them out. "I've got school for the next five days." At least it wouldn't be all bad. He'd get to see the friends he didn't get to see this weekend because of Lilian. And being at school meant he would not be near said aforementioned Kitsune, which was the biggest bonus of all.

"We really need to do something about this." That was Lilian. "I don't want to wait here everyday for you to come home." She looked truly depressed. "It gets lonely without you."

"Not much I can do about that," Kevin shrugged. "I have to go school, and since you don't go to my school..." he trailed off and shook his head. "Anyways, I'll see you when I get home."

"W-wait!" Lilian's panicked voice sounded out as he rushed out the door, unlocked the padlock to his bike, and began flying down the stairs. "You forgot to give me a kiss goodbye!"

No he didn't. He just didn't want to give her a kiss goodbye.

Kevin took off down the road, leaving Lilian standing by the doorway. He put on as much speed as possible until he had exited the complex. Only when he had reached the main thoroughfare did he slow down and begin riding at a more leisurely pace.

Frowning as the buildings, trees and cactus passed him by, Kevin turned over the problem that was Lilian. He wasn't sure what to do about her. This morning he'd managed to avoid her advances, but only just. In the future, he would need to think up a more comprehensive means of dealing with her amorous intentions towards him.

And just what was up with her lustful advances anyways? She came barging into his life, completely turning it upside down within a week and she expected him to simply accept her advances because
she
had decided that he was her mate? What about what he wanted? Didn't he get any say in deciding whether he even wanted to be her mate? Did she even care what he thought?

Probably not. Kevin doubted Lilian had even thought about his feelings on the matter. The girl was determined to live in her own little fantasy world from what he had seen.

It wasn't long after Kevin arrived at school and locked up his bike that he found himself sitting in his first class of the day: math with Ms. Vis.

Cue pitiful groan. Why oh why was math his first class of the day?

"Morning, Kevin." Lindsay, who was already seated when he arrived, greeted him with a smile. She was one of those students who was always early to class. The girl was just punctual like that.

"Morning," Kevin mumbled in return as he sat down. Unzipping his back pack and taking out his notebook and pencil, he prepared for class. He didn't notice, but unlike most of the other times Lindsay spoke with him, he did not turn into a blushing, stuttering mess.

It just goes to show you how preoccupied his mind was. Not surprising really, given all the crap he's had to put up with this past week.

While he might not have noticed how little he reacted to Lindsay's presence, someone else did.

"Are you okay?" asked Lindsay, leaning over slightly so she could whisper to him while Ms. Vis was taking roll call.

"I'm fine." Kevin tiredly ran a hand through his hair. "I just didn't get much sleep this last weekend." Or the entirety of last week, but there was no need to tell Lindsay that.

"You weren't up late doing something you shouldn't have, were you?" asked Lindsay, a mischievous grin on her face.

Kevin began to choke and sputter as he tried to keep his mind from going down the gutter. Whether she knew it or not (she didn't, by the way; there was no sexual connotation to anything she had just said), Lindsay's words invoked a lot of images of a certain foxy female clad in various pieces of sexy lingerie.

"Mr. Swift," Ms. Vis glared at him, "Is there a problem?"

"No." Kevin smacked a fist into his chest a few times as he continued coughing. "Some air just went down the wrong tube. Sorry."

Ms. Vis raised an eyebrow. "Try not to disrupt my class again. If you do, I may decide to give you detention."

"Understood." As Ms. Vis went back to taking roll, Kevin tossed Lindsay a bit of a glare. The aforementioned girl blinked in surprise, having never been on the receiving end of that look from him before. "For your information I was not up to anything. I was just... busy."

"Sorry, sorry." Lindsay looked only slightly abashed. "I was just teasing you. I didn't mean to make you angry."

"No, it's fine," Kevin slumped in his seat. He must be more irascible than he thought if he was snapping at the girl he'd been crushing on for years. Dang, Lilian had really done a number on him. "I just had a very trying weekend and would rather not think about it, that's all. I didn't mean to snap at you. Sorry."

"That's okay," Lindsay said cheekily. "I'll forgive you, just this once." Her words had Kevin chuckling. At least they did until Ms. Vis decided to put him in the spotlight again.

"Something amusing that you would like to share with us, Mr. Swift?" asked Ms. Vis.

"No ma'am," Kevin said quickly. "I apologize. I was just thinking about something that happened this weekend."

Ms. Vis narrowed her eyes, but thankfully she decided not to pursue the issue any further. Once role call had finished the strict math teacher went straight into her lecture. They were covering the Pythagoras Theorem today.

It was certainly not a lesson he wanted to start learning when he was still trying to get his head on straight, but there was very little he could do about that. So he tried to pay attention to the stern woman's lecture, taking notes as dutifully as possible. He wasn't the best note taker―he wrote very slowly because his hand writing was so sloppy―but he at least managed to jot down the main points of her lecture. Hopefully, it would be enough to satisfy her.

Halfway through the lecture, however, Ms. Vis was interrupted by a knock at the door. With a very conspicuous frown on her face and a crease on her forehead at having her lecture so inexplicably halted, she marched over to the door and opened it up.

She blinked. "Yes?"

Kevin, along with the rest of the class, craned his neck to look in the direction of the door. He heard some excited whispering from those closest to the door, but he couldn't hear what they were saying. What was going on?

Ms. Vis was handed a note, which she quickly read, her frown growing even more prominent. After a moment, she handed the note back to whoever was on the other end of the door and rubbed her forehead. She looked exasperated. "Very well, come in."

Kevin watched with growing trepidation as someone stepped into the room, following Ms. Vis to the front of the class. The person in question was a girl around his age. Her beautiful tresses of red hair fluttered behind her as she walked. Her hips seemed to swing with a sensual elegance that drew more than a few eyes. At least it drew the eyes that weren't staring at her chest, which bounced and jiggled enticingly with each step she took. Regardless of where they looked, every single male in the classroom was staring at her like she was a piece of meat, blatantly stripping her with their eyes.

She was wearing a white Sunset Cliffs tank top with embroidered patterns at the hem, a gathered neckline with subtle ruffles, double straps and dark wash, and low rise shorts with floral embroidery at the bottom. On her feet were the pair of gladiator sandals that she seemed to have taken a liking to.

None of that was what caused Kevin to feel a sense of dread well up in the pit of his stomach, that had his heart feeling like it had stopped cold, and his mind grind to a screeching halt. No. The reason he felt like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die was because he knew the person now standing in front of the classroom, gathering the attention of every single person there.

It was Lilian.

Chapter 12: The New Student

"Class," Ms. Vis tried to bring the attention of her students back to her. She didn't do a very good job. Most of the class was still gawking at the perfect example of feminine beauty they had ever seen standing right next to her.

"Dude, dude! Check out the ass on that chick!"

“
Fuck the ass! Check out those tits!"

"I'd totally tap that."

"Hell yeah."

Right. So, maybe they weren't gawking so much as they were making lewd comments about the gorgeous red head. It seemed Eric wasn't the only perverted male in school. He was just the most blatant and daring one.

"Look at that slut. Who does she think she is, dressing up like that?"

"Hmph. That's what happens when you've got breasts like hers. Look at those things. They're practically popping out of her clothes."

"I hate girls with large breasts. They always think they're so much better than everyone else."

"Couldn't agree with you more."

Or in the case of the girls, judging Lilian because of her clothing and looks.

Ms. Vis' lips thinned into a tight line as no one listened to her. Barely masking what had to be some serious displeasure at being ignored, she continued with a raised voice. "We have a new student who just transferred here."

She looked at Lilian, glaring at the girl as if it was her fault none of the students were paying attention to their math teacher. Which it was, but it's not like she was doing it on purpose. Place the blame where it belongs, Teach, the teenage boys who couldn't keep their hormones in check and the girls who had a serious case of breast envy.

"Why don't you introduce yourself," Ms. Vis suggested, her cold glare increasing in intensity as she was forced to give the floor to Lilian, who stepped forward, her hands clasped together in front of her. Kevin wondered if the girl even realized that the action had pushed her breasts together, making her already impressive assets severely strain the fabric of her shirt. And if she did, did she know what effect it had on the boys in their class?

Somehow, he doubted it. The girl seemed oblivious to almost all male attention with the exception of his own. He remembered that when they were shopping at the mall, she hadn't looked at any of the men there, even when they had been walking right through her field of vision. It was more than just ignoring their presence for his own. As far as she had been concerned, they weren't even there.

"Hello!" Lilian greeted everyone with a truly beautiful smile. It was the kind of smile that made men melt. It was also the kind of smile that made every girl seethe in jealousy. "My name is Lilian Pnév̱ma. I hope we can all get along with each other." Her eyes scanned the crowd, searching, before they landed on him. Kevin paled when her eyes light up like a mega watt bulb as she waved at him. "Beloved! Look! I decided to join your school!"

All noise ceased. Even the crickets had stopped chirping. Kevin sunk into his chair as the eyes of every single person in class turned to him, their expressions incredulous, accusing, or both.

Realizing that the cat was officially out of the bag and that trying to deny knowing her would only make things worse, Kevin sighed and gave the girl a wan smile.

"Hello, Lilian."

"Mou, Beloved. I thought I told you to call me You Sexy Thing You."

A good number of jaws, meaning the jaw of everyone in the classroom, dropped. Kevin tried, and failed, to not blush. "Not happening."

"Anyways, isn't it amazing that we're in the same class together?"

Was she ignoring him again?

"I suppose that would depend on who's asking."

"I'm really looking forward to spending more time with you."

Yep. She was definitely ignoring him.

"Urk!"

A shiver went down his back. Was it just him, or had the temperature suddenly taken a nose dive?

It wasn't just him. Surrounding Kevin were a bunch of hormonal, teenage males, all of whom were glaring at him with DOOM in their eyes. If they had heat vision or the ability to shoot high intensity laser beams from their eyes, he would have undoubtedly been dead by now.

It was a good thing none of these people were named Cyclops or Superman.

"Mr. Swift, Ms. Pnév̱ma," Ms. Vis gave the two a stern glare, "stop disrupting class. Ms. Pnév̱ma, go find a empty seat and ask your neighbor for the notes on today's lecture that
you
missed."