Vex has wondered if Percy would kiss her. She figured it more or less even odds, and honestly she's not sure which she'd hoped for. Both were entirely valid moves in the game she's playing, and both she knew she'd enjoy. Her plan, such as it is, has been to see how she can wind this pretty, posh boy up before he unravels on her, and either way it's easy to tease.

Then he says that, and she's left without a strategy. It's not flirtatious and it's not playful, there's no deflection.

The words unbalance her, briefly, as the part of her that finds them intensely gratifying wars with the part that refuses to believe it. Not that she thinks he's lying, exactly, but Percy doesn't know her. Even if he does mean it now he'll learn better in time.

Likely not all that much of it.

So she does the first thing that comes to mind, the thing that will make her feel in control of the situation again: she turns her head and she kisses him, finding his mouth with all the hunger of a cat holding a mouse under her paw.

Which is to say she's starving.

But also patient enough to play with her food.