Mina smiled softly, appreciating the compliment and Cain took the opportunity and mood to slowly push their relationship to the next level. He leaned down, slow, to give Mina time to realise, adapt and react. Mina was ready though. She had been ready since the time Cain walked her home after messing around at the water playground. Right now, there was a millisecond she thought about backing away just to get revenge for the hassle yesterday, but Mina was too excited. It felt like she would have not only punished him but also herself, so she refrained from moving and anticipated Cain's lips on hers.
The boy complied and reduced the distance between them. Right before their lips would have touched, he stopped, focused on Mina's lips which already lightly parted.
Cain kept that one-centimetre distance between them until Mina couldn't wait any longer. She lifted her head off the blanket a bit and pressed her soft, rosy lips against Cain's. As soon as they touched, Cain took the lead again. He lifted his arm, brought his hand up to the side of Mina's head to slightly push his fingers through her hair while keeping his thumb at her cheek. He loved the contact and at the same time gave Mina's head support, so the girl didn't have to keep it up all by herself. Mina melted into the kiss, therefore she was glad about the helping head-holding-hand since all the strength left her body.
Like an expert Cain handled Mina's lips which to him tasted deliciously sweet. It didn't take him long to deepen the kiss and Mina willingly let him enter her mouth. The athlete could have gone on for hours, but Mina was overwhelmed by all kinds of different emotions running through her body. She was scared her heart might explode if they continued because of how fast it was beating. With every second she was denied oxygen because she couldn't breath through her mouth, she felt dizzier.
Afraid she was about to faint, she grabbed both of Cain's shoulders. She didn't push him away but made it clear that she was in desperate need of an air break.
When their lips parted, Mina kept her eyes closed while breathing in and out deep. Only now Cain also realised how out of breath he was and how fast his heart pounded. With his eyes half open, they wandered from Mina's parted, lightly swollen lips to her flushed, warm cheeks before they stayed focused on her closed eyes.
Cain had kissed many girls before, but never before had he experienced what he felt right now. His heart never uncontrollably raced; maybe after his first kiss, but never again after that. He went out with more than enough extremely gorgeous women, but Mina was on another level. Not only her beauty baffled him, but everything about her made his heart and head spin. It was a first for him and he still struggled to understand and process what exactly happened to him.
Mina slowly calmed down and opened her eyes only to see Cain staring at her.
"Why are you watching me?" She whispered.
"To try and capture your current beauty." He answered to make Mina fall for him more, but there was so much truth behind his comment.
Even though it worked its magic on Mina, she kept her personality and wrinkled her nose. "Cheesy."
With a laugh Cain rolled his eyes then leaned down again to press a soft, tender kiss on Mina's lips which she loved. He let go again quick but kept their bodies close. After lying their heads down again, Cain pulled Mina even closer, so that her head landed on his chest and he could fully embrace her before pulling the blanket all the way up to Mina's chin.
The only thing Mina could do was smile like an idiot. She had never felt happier and warmer before. While staying cuddled up the two spent more time under the stars. Mina felt so comfortable in Cain's arms, she dozed off within minutes, dreaming of this being the perfect start of something wonderful... but in the end it was merely that, a dream.
The following day reality hit harder than ever before, and Mina witnessed how it felt to have one's heart ripped out of their chest. And what that experience taught her was that when you were at the top and you thought you had everything, falling from there only hurt so much more. So was it really worth it to climb this high?
She was brought back home safely by Cain the night before and even got her previously awaited by the door goodbye kiss. Her glowing aura didn't go unnoticed by Jade who waited for her to come home before going to bed. Nate and Ginny also noticed during breakfast, and even though in the back of their heads they all were always on high alert, every one of them was sincerely happy for the girl. With a light heart, Mina literally hopped to university and spent her lectures through to lunch break daydreaming about Cain. The lectures she shared with Lilly were accompanied by a constantly complaining blonde who was, deep inside her heart, happy for Mina, but at the same time the most concerned about this whole situation, rightly so.
It was a rainy day, so while Lilly met a tutor of hers, Mina unwillingly went to the cafeteria. While standing in line for food, a group entered who caught the girl's attention.
Cain, Tate, Mason and two of Cain's baseball comrades, Zach, and JB, entered talking loudly. The golden pitcher was the only one not smiling and laughing. That morning, he told Tate and Zach about last night, but his buddies drew a completely wrong conclusion from Cain's story.
His friends were convinced, him and Mina had a romp in a field under the stars and they weren't shy to announce it to the whole cafeteria.
"Dover you're something else, did you know that?" Mason laughed while continuously patting Cain's back who was somewhere else in his mind.
"You take the game to another level seriously, why do you always raise the bar so high?" Zach joined in on the praising and JB followed.
"Seriously, dude. It was just a bet you didn't have to go all out like that. But I'm not judging. You go and have all the fun you can get!"
They found an empty table to sit down at, just by the food queue.
"Guys, I told you earlier-" Cain wanted to correct his friends, but they were too fascinated and loud, drowning out his attempts.
"No man, honestly. We just bet you to fuck the nerd girl, but you always go one step further." Zach took Cain's hand and high fived him since the pitcher wouldn't do it on his own. "We have to raise the amount you won; you earned it."
Cain just sighed and ran his hands through his hair, there was not much he could do or say to change his friends' minds anyway. Tate was the only one who stayed silent since he noticed that something clearly was bothering his best friend.
What none of them noticed was that Mina stood in the queue right behind them and heard every single word that came up in their conversation, and she was quick to figure out this was about her. She was the nerd girl.
When JB again mentioned the brilliant idea of Cain to go lie under the stars to get into the girl's pants, there was no doubt left in Mina's mind. It wasn't only Mina that figured out they were talking about her. Everyone knew those two were hanging out a lot lately, so they simply had to put one and one together.
All colour disappeared from her face and for a moment she was unable to move. She felt sick.
The reality she refused to accept because her dream was too perfect to ignore, slowly dawned on her the more she listened to the rich kids talk. And that reality was: the group of friends around Cain made a bet with him after Mina was signed as his tutor that he had to get her in bed because wasn't it hot to seduce your teacher.
In the beginning Cain was all in since it was a fun idea and it would make the, as he had thought, boring tutor lessons a little more interesting. But now, he didn't know what to do because he actually came to like Mina and he didn't want her to find out afraid it would ruin the connection they had built.
He was lost in thoughts until he felt someone tap his arm. Tate wanted his attention, not to talk to him but to show him something. The grey haired model nodded up looking past Cain and when the latter turned around, he wanted to die right that moment.
A fuming Mina stood in front of him. She still felt sick to her stomach, but anger slowly became her main emotion. Of course, she felt like an idiot, embarrassed to the core, but she wouldn't leave this room without telling Cain what she thought of him. It wasn't easy but for now she was blinded by rage blanking out the high number of students surrounding and watching them.
"Mina." Only a whisper came over Cain's lips, he knew he fucked up big time.
"A bet?" Mina almost screamed. "You told them you fucked me to win a bet?"
Now they got the whole cafeterias attention. Everyone who wasn't already paying attention to them stopped eating and turned their heads to see what was going on between the most talked about duo.
"No, Mina, listen-" Cain tried to explain but the girl wouldn't have it.
"Listen? I'm done listening to you. Apparently, everything that comes out of your mouth are lies." She looked at his friends. "For your information we didn't fuck, so you can keep your disgusting money to yourself and don't have to pay him for winning anything."
The more Mina thought about what she had to argue about, the more she felt tears welling up and the last thing she wanted to gift the guys was to cry in front of them. They'd love that, she thought. So, to not give them the pleasure she only shook her head with a betrayed look at Cain then turned to leave, but she didn't get far because Cain jumped off his seat and held the girl back.
She immediately pulled her arm out of his grip and snapped at him.
"Don't ever dare touch me again." She hissed.
"Please, let me explain. It's not what you think, I promise." Cain tried to get Mina to listen again, without success.
"You know what? You're a despicable human being Cain." Her eyes got teary but only Cain could see, and it broke his heart. "Just because you're rich, it doesn't mean you can treat people however you want. Your character sucks, all of yours." She gestured over to his friends. "But, oh no, unfortunately you can't buy a new one with fucking money. So, you'll stay a dick and I'm honestly done dealing with that. I'm out. You can start searching for a new tutor because I'm not going to take any more of the shit that comes out of your mouth."
Gathering her last strength, Mina kept the tears from falling while storming out of the cafeteria.
Cain cursed, turned, and kicked against the bench his friend was sitting on, moving it a bit. He hurt his foot in the process, but he couldn't care less.
Mina ran through the corridors, dodging people last minute because of her blurry view. When she bumped into someone, fortunately, it was Lilly. The sudden stop was what set Mina's tears free.
Lilly looked at her horrified. "What happened?" She grabbed both her friend's shoulders and waited for an answer but Mina only mumbled Cain's name.
"Okay, that's it!" Lilly was done watching. With one move to the side, she removed Mina from her way then she stomped into the same direction Mina came from.
It didn't take long for the blonde to find the culprit who made her beloved best friend cry.
Cain had sat down again and didn't see Lilly coming but the mumbling which got louder around him, made him look up.
"You asshole." The second Lilly arrived at the boys' desk, she lifted her hand, reached back then slapped Cain across the face.