Plagiarized Read Free Page B

He raised his eyebrows and I blushed again.
    I stared at him, unable to speak. Fear invaded my entire body and kept me prisoner.
    “Are you okay?” Ben looked at me in horror.
    I tried to nod, but ended up shaking my head instead. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Champion, but I don’t know if I can do this.” I started to feel around for the door handle but was stopped the second I felt his hand on my shoulder.
    “What’s wrong, Sarah? Talk to me, please. Did I do something?”
    Our eyes locked in the dark car, illuminated by the lights on his dash. Something in them soothed me enough to turn in my seat until I was facing him again. “Mr. Champion—”
    “Ben. My name is Ben,” he corrected, again.
    “Sorry… Ben, I don’t think it’s such a wise idea to be seen in public. At least not yet.”
    “I don’t understand. You’re eighteen and I am no longer your teacher.”
    “I know, but my family wouldn’t understand if I were to be seen with you just yet. They are very strict when it comes to me. I’m the baby.” I knew I was babbling, but I was trying to keep him from knowing just how sheltered my life had truly been.
    He reached his hand across the console and touched my leg. The warmth of his palm traveled up my thigh and reached places I had never felt burn before. My breathing grew erratic, and the harder I tried to calm down, the worse it became.
    “Where would you like to go? I’ll take you anywhere.”
    That was all I needed to hear in order to relax. Just like that, he soothed every nerve in my body.
    He took me to his apartment and remained a true gentleman. We played monopoly while sitting across the coffee table from each other. Aside from stolen glances, it was a very calm and relaxing atmosphere.
    Once the game was over, Ben took me to the small lake behind his apartment complex. “It’s almost midnight.” He grinned at me and I thought I would die.
    I had again forgotten that it was New Year’s Eve… And what happens on New Year’s Eve at midnight. He would definitely be expecting me to kiss him. There was no way out of this one.
    We sat down on a stone bench and he pulled out his phone. On the screen, I noticed a countdown ticker and there was five minutes left. I assumed he had set some sort of timer for midnight. It made me nervous of what he was expecting to happen when the time ran up. Then I thought about how much of a gentleman he was while we were only feet from his bedroom. If he wanted to make a move, it would have been inside, behind closed doors, not in front of a lake outside.
    I gazed anxiously at Ben and then back to the screen on his phone. What was I going to do? I had never kissed anyone and hadn’t even had time to practice. I don’t know what I would have done to practice, but there had to have been something.
    I would just have to pretend I knew what I was doing and go full throttle in to the kiss. If I took control, there was no way he would know that I had never been kissed.
    For the next five minutes, I gave myself the necessary pep talk to get through this fucking kiss. I was totally freaking out big time and had no idea even what to expect. Holy shit! This was really happening.
    The countdown started… 10… 9… 8… 7… I glanced at Ben and then back to the phone. I felt completely awkward, 5… 4… 3… Ben gently took my face between his hands. 2… 1… “Happy New Year!”
    He brought his face closer, and just when his lips were about to meet mine, I brazenly took over.

I couldn’t stop grinning. It had been so easy to type the first part of my book. I felt like I was on a roll and things were finally moving in the right direction. The problem was, I was stuck again. The need for more material encompassed my thoughts and I felt like an addict feigning for drugs. Not that I would do drugs, well at least not the me that people thought they knew.
    What was I going to do? I needed to see Missy again. But if I called her after just seeing her the day before,