Pretty Little Savage (Sick Boys #1) - Lucy Smoke Page 0,95

coats my skin. The heartbeat racing in my chest. It fights back with everything it has and yet nothing can stop it but me. I'm the one in control. Control that I've ceded time and time again—to school officials, to the fucking Patricias of the world, the Rogers, and even … I'll admit … the Sick Boys.

They have all the power. They have all the authority. Where I have none.

But here. Here, it's me. No one can control the things I do to myself but me. Not even my own body can stop me.

"It's dangerous," Dean says, bringing me back to the present.

"I know." I hear myself speak as if the words are coming down a long dark tunnel. My feet move beneath me as I turn to face him. His brows are creased and unlike earlier, he now looks like he's half a second away from grabbing me.

Dark brown eyes leap from where my feet are, the heels half over the edge already, to my face. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he asks.

I shake my head. "If I did, where would the fun in that be?"

"Aval—"

I don't hear the rest of what he's about to say because, without another second to think, I push off and leap back, sending myself flying over the edge. Wind whips at my hair, sending it all forward, shooting over my face and obscuring my view. I should've leapt forward, I think absently, but then, in a brief moment—my hair parts and I can see the molten sky above.

It looks like a cascade of fire over the ocean. And for a split second, the discomfort of the strands of my long hair that I'd forgotten to pull back before I'd jumped is forgotten. Then I crash into the water and the darkness swallows me up.

36

Dean

I don't need to read her fucking file to know that Avalon Manning is fucked up. All I need to do is see her as she is right now.

For once, her eyes are clear and unclouded by thoughts or actions. She simply stands there, swaying back and forth as if she's dancing to music that only she can hear. I don't know if she even realizes it. I tell myself to act cool, to keep my hands down and not show her just how fucking freaked out she's making me.

I know she has a penchant for reckless behavior. That much was in the file. I never expected to experience it first hand, though. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" I ask, tamping down on my nerves.

Her head twists from side to side, more of that swaying rippling through her body. I blink, realizing just how much of it I can actually see. Fuck, she's got curves. Her abdomen is almost completely flat—it would be if not for the lines along either side of her stomach and the small swell just above her bikini line. Her top is held tight against her frame, two small triangles of fabric all that stands between my eyes and those tits.

When she lifts her head, though, and smiles at me, all my thoughts of her smoking hot body recede. "Where would the fun in that be?" she asks me.

Fuck, she's gonna… "Aval—" I don't even get her name fully out before she jumps.

I shoot forward, leaping towards the ledge to stare over, watching as she falls the length of at least half a goddamn football field into the murky depths below. Her body hits, and a wave of water goes flying. I clench my teeth, hissing out my breath as I wait for her to resurface.

"Come on, come on, come on," I mutter. "Come up, damn it."

Thirty seconds go by. Then a minute. A minute and a half.

"Fuck this." I rip my shirt up and over my head, shuck my jeans and boxers, and toe off my boots in record time. My heart is jackhammering inside my chest. I swear to fuck if she drowns, I'm going to be so fucking pissed. Closing my eyes, I take the leap right after her.

Ice cold water closes over my head. I don't know how far I sink, but as soon as I gradually slow down, I swipe my arms up and swim for the top, popping up for a breath of air, only then realizing that she's finally resurfaced and she's laughing.

"Why did you jump too?" she chuckles, swimming first one way and then the other, her dark hair—which had been in