He was magnificent with a capital M.

My mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for oxygen, slowly, appreciatively taking in his entire physique –and boy, what a physique. The power and raw charisma he exuded felt like a raging tornado as he stood in front of the class, striking an ever-so-sexy casual pose as if he had no care in the world. Soft yet audible gasps emitted from the girls, who were obviously as impressed and awestricken as I was of his unnatural beauty. His face was all sharp angles, cheekbones, jaw, nose. Fierce. Tempting. Dangerous. There was something about him that drew me to him, attracting me to him the way a fire would attract a moth. He was completely captivating and model gorgeous. We locked gazes, and I lost my breath. His eyes were a deep, mesmerizing yellow. It was a strange color, unlike any color I'd ever seen, but it worked for him. His hair was a golden brown color, cut to medium-length and messy, which helped to make him all the more attractive.

There was a hint of something... feral in his eyes. Something dangerous and intimidating, letting you know to keep your distance, to stay away. My skin prickled with anticipation and Goosebumps appeared on my arms and legs. My heart squeezed till I thought it would shatter, my pulse rocketing. It was a sensation I did not remember ever experiencing before, strange and awkward. It was like feeling cold yet hot at the same time, his piercing gaze sizzling through me. I was unable to look away, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to.

He almost broke a smile, and my heart along with it.

"Students, this is Xander. From now on, he's a student of this school. Treat him well." Mr. Noel said, his usually cold tone underlying a warning, his eyes swiftly sweeping across the room. Mr. Noel then turned to Xander, offering him a small smile, "Choose where you would like to sit. Anywhere is fine by me."

I looked down at my notebook, trying to calm myself down, wondering why this particular boy had affected me so much. It couldn't be a teenage crush; it was much, much more than that.

A sudden screeching sound snapped me out of my thoughts. I raised my head to see Xander dragging a table behind him with one hand while the other was holding a chair, the weight of the two pieces of furniture seemingly meaningless to him. As I stared, wide-eyed, I realized he was heading straight toward me. My whole body assumed overdrive mode once again, my heart beating as fast as a meteor entering the earth's atmosphere with every step he took. Why the hell was he coming to me?!

I watched helplessly, shocked, as he positioned the table and chair right next to mine and sat down, disrupting the whole class' perfect column-next-to-column arrangement. The entire class gaped at his bold action, as speechless and astonished as I was. Even Mr. Noel was unable to speak. After a few moments of utter silence, tension bouncing off the classroom's walls like balls, the girls' shocked looks soon turned to envious, heated glares directed right at me. When Mr. Noel wanted to protest, the newcomer shot him a hard look that shut him up immediately. Surprised, I stared at Xander. Mr. Noel did tell him to choose whatever place he liked, but I'm willing to bet good money that this wasn't what he had in mind. Xander and I now sat next to each other, our desks connected.

He caught me staring, and I quickly averted my eyes ... to the ceiling. Oh yes, because it was absolutely normal to stare at the ceiling. I blushed.

Mr. Noel couldn't control the girls' wild, not-so-quiet whispers about Xander, and couldn't get any of us to focus on today's topic, so he was left with no choice but to give us a free period. "In honor of the new student." He'd said. And so the next forty minutes went by with the class doing as they pleased, while I tried to fake not noticing Xander's piercing, sizzling stare, scribbling into my doodles notebook. No x-ray or inspection device compared to the way Xander's eyes seemed to be penetrating me, and perhaps my very soul as well. I felt like an open book in his hands, every secret of mine exposed, every thought and every emotion visible only to him. It was freaky to say the least. And yet thrilling in a way I couldn't quite fathom.

Surprisingly, none of the girls attempted to talk to Xander, all simply satisfied in shooting him flirtatious winks and staring.

The period couldn't have passed by slow enough since I pretty much had no one to talk to, and when the bell finally rang, no description could have ever explained just how relieved I was. In record time, I packed up my stuff, anxious to leave the classroom as soon as humanly possible, all the while feeling his stare. God, just why was he staring?! Had an abnormal pimple appeared all of a sudden on my face during the last forty minutes?

I had to find Trey and have him check.

****

It was lunchtime and it was hell. I couldn't remember a time when the cafeteria was noisier and more alive than it was now. The walls were practically pulsing! Everyone buzzed with gossip and what they thought to be whispers could be heard all the way from China. The entire school was talking about the new hot student, Xander. Even the teachers who were supposed to be monitoring the students were involved in a conversation with one another, obviously much more interested in the newcomer as well!

Clearly, I wasn't the only one who thought him to be a freakin' gorgeous god. His looks were something else, that much I had to admit. He possessed the face and body of the best models who appeared only in the best magazines. 

"What the hell is going on here?" Trey eyed the loud cheerleaders a couple of tables away suspiciously. 

I shot him an 'are-you-serious' look. "Were you sleeping during your classes again? Because the news should've gotten to you by now." His reply was a sheepish grin showing off his two sets of pearly whites. I rolled my eyes.

"There's a new guy in school." Almost immediately, the curiousness in his eyes vanished to be replaced by a look of understanding and his usual bored expression as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms across his broad chest. But it was a certain emotion I could not decipher that flashed in his eyes for just the shortest of seconds that caught my attention.

"I should've known."

"Then stop sleeping in class."

After that, a strange silence fell upon our table that was unlike the comfortable silences I shared with Trey. There was tension in the air, and I knew Trey felt it too, for his eyes darted around the room, alert, an emotion Trey rarely revealed. I did my best to ignore all the noise and racket all around me and the static tension as well, picking at my food, no longer hungry despite feeling like I could swallow an entire mountain of food just minutes ago.

Just when I opened my mouth to try and lift the tension by starting conversation again, a sudden pull that tugged at both my heart and mind made me look over my shoulder, stopping me from saying anything. And it wasn't just that, my back started tingling too, the tingling gradually increasing till it felt like tiny needles were being stabbed into my back one after the other. It wasn't a painful sensation, but agitating and alarming nevertheless.

After moments of staring at the closed doors of the cafeteria, they swung open, and he –of all people- walked in like a glorious warrior, his strides powerful, and those mysterious, unusual eyes of his seizing my heart. They were most probably contact lenses, but the knowledge still didn't stop my heart from fluttering. The whole cafeteria went into a state of silence, every single person turning their heads to look at the new student. The female population of the school loved him for his more elemental aspects—sexy good looks and a to-die-for body, six feet two inches of honed muscle and dark charisma- while the males envied him his virile masculinity and prowess.  Xander didn't seem to mind the flirty stares and winks, because he looked oblivious to them, almost immune.

I looked back at my food. 

Sensing movement behind me a few seconds later, I slowly looked over my shoulder once again, and regretted it immediately. My eyes met Xander's and our gazes locked. It was only then that I noticed just how furiously my back was tingling.  Was it just me, or were his piercing yellow eyes... glowing?

I could feel everyone's eyes on the both of us, their stares curious, some expecting and some envious. Slowly, a corner of his mouth curled upward in a smirk, revealing two sets of impressively white teeth, the results of it devastating to my nervous system. Could he hear just how loudly my heart thumped?

But it soon turned out that Xander wasn't here to say hello.

His expression turned annoyed. "It's not nice to ditch the new student on his very first day and let him figure out how to get to his classes on his own." he chastised, his brows furrowed in irritation. 

Dumbfounded, I simply stared back at him, wondering for a few seconds what the hell he was talking about until it finally hit me. I'd completely, one-hundred-percent forgotten about the 'mission' the Principal had assigned to me this morning!