The Valentine's Dare (The Sycamore Serial Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

let’s-“
    “Sorry I’m late!” Mason rushed in, his hair mussy and his book bag slung haphazardly over his shirt and blazer. “Professor Harring’s class ran late.”
    Professor Harring taught a notoriously difficult Advanced Calculus class. Kierra was surprised Mason, the funny guy with two rich friends, was taking his coursework. Either he’s smarter than he looks or he’s just a masochist, she thought, watching him take a seat between two of the French-speaking bimbos. Figures he would sit there. After just a few days of distantly knowing Mason Pryor she already had him pegged as a womanizing ladies’ man. No doubt the mysterious bet he has going is about how many dumb blondes he can bang his senior year of college.
    Kierra would hate him, if he weren’t so handsome and didn’t make her laugh. As if sensing her focused ire, he glanced over, met her eyes, and smiled a goofy, charming, 100 watt smile.
    And she smiled back, melting like a chocolate bar in the hot July sun. Damn that boy. She had to fight to rip her eyes away from him, frowning off into space and nearly missing the beginning of French club.
    They did brief introductions and then went over the verbs: aller, étudier, manger, and a dozen others Kierra knew by heart. She was glad to practice her accent, though, especially on the French transfer students - and, as it turned out, Mason.
    He had an excellent command of the language, his “ Il y aura un orage ce soir” rolling off his tongue as easily as an “Je voudrais un croissant au chocolat.” His plus-que-parfait rivaled hers by a thousand. By the end of the meeting she found herself gravitating away from the other amateurs and towards him, wanting to polish her faltering French accent against his own.
    The only problem was, the sound of him purring in French set her blood rushing through every vein in her body. Keep it together, Adair, she thought, trying to hide her warm cheeks.
    “Have you ever heard the story of the two potatoes?” Mason asked in French, a grin on his face.
    “Non,” she said. “What story?”
    “One of them is run over, and the other says: Oh, purée!”
    It took a moment for Kierra to get the pun, but then she giggled. In French, purée was both an exclamation and a word for mashed. “That’s a silly joke,” she said in English, smiling. “Ridiculous.”
    “I enjoy seeing you smile, ” Mason replied in French, turning the heat in Kierra’s cheeks up to 10.
    “Well, that’s about all the time we have today,” Thomas said, standing up. “Here’s the newsletter signup sheet, pass it around and make sure your info is on it.”
    “I wouldn’t fill that out if I were you,” Mason said, leaning in close. “Tom likes to send emails a little bit too often.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” Kierra said, relieved that he was at least no longer speaking French. “Where did you learn to speak French so well?”
    “My mother taught me. She’s French Canadian. But you’re not half-bad yourself.” He handed over the signup sheet, their hands briefly brushing as she took it from him.
    “I’ve been practicing.” Kierra scribbled her email address on the signup, making sure it was as ineligible as possible. “I, uh, I have to head to my Film Studies class.” She picked up her book bag and awkwardly smiled, wanting to extract herself from the conversation before he realized just how attracted she was to him. “See ya.”
    Darting out the doorway, she didn’t stop to look back and see if he was watching her go or not.

    “I just can’t believe you’re going back on your pledge so soon,” Lacy said that evening, when they sat down for a shared roommate dinner in the mess hall. “What happened to lonely spinster Kierra?”
    “I am not going back on my pledge. And I’m not a lonely spinster! I was only saying, Mason speaks French better than I thought he would.”
    “Try talking about him without blushing,” Leila said, peering at her closely. “I’m