Page 1 of Handsome Devil
Prologue
Dane
Once upon a time, there was a girl who hated me.
True story.
She showed up out of nowhere on the first day of senior year at my high school, bearing down on the student parking lot like Cruella de Vil on a puppy hunting spree. In a decade old Mercedes-Benz, thumping the Pussycat Dolls “When I Grow Up” at an obnoxious volume. The Benz swerved into the spot right next to mine as I was climbing out of the Spider, and I caught the custom license plate.
GOOD GIRL
I stretched out to my full height and breadth, donning a shoulder chip ofdon’t-fuck-with-me, as some chick slid out of the Benz—in oversized sunglasses, a blinding, tangerine-and-hot-pink dress, and pink suede high-heeled sandals, the straps wound up around her toned calves. She slammed the door and breezed right past me, like I didn’t exist.
Not cool.
New girl? Had to be.
I knew everyone at Bullshit Academy—Beaumont, I mean—and everyone knew me. I’d barely glimpsed her face, but those curves did not belong to anyone I knew. I definitely didn’t recognize that tight ass, the warm cinnamon tone of her skin, or the blatant attitude.
“Hey, good girl,” I growled.
She didn’t stop.
Some other girl in cheap jean cutoffs and a Spitfire Wheels skate shirt had gotten out on the other side of the Benz. She glanced my way. She had dark hair, pale skin and a blush on her cheeks, like a dollop of whipped cream with a cherry on top.
The two of them looked like a dessert buffet, and I didn’t even know who they were.
Not good.
I couldn’t let girls like that go wandering around my school without a) finding out who they were, so that b) I could decide if I gave a shit. There was a pecking order to these things, so to speak. And around here, I was the top cock. I had first dibs.
If I wanted them.
Butshestill hadn’t glanced my way.
“Yeah, you,” I said to her back. I was aware that people were starting to stop and stare at me, like they always did.
She didn’t.
Skater girl stopped and gave her arm a little tug, though. And finally, she stopped. Her shoulders set. She turned and looked right at me.
So, shedidsee me here when she almost ran me over.
Her lipgloss shimmered in the sun as her mouth twitched with distaste. The coppery salon-highlights in her dark hair flickered around the face of an unforgiving deity, like fire glowing from a bed of hot coals. She slid her pink-gold Versace knockoffs onto her head and looked me up and down. When her dark eyes met mine, her nose tipped up. I’d never had a girl my own age look at me with such utter disdain, and I hadn’t even said anything terrible yet.
She might’ve been pretty… except for that mess in the middle of her face.
Okay, so she wasn’t ugly. But the nasty, not-fully-healed, Franken-scar/wound that ripped across her cheek and up the side of her nose was pretty fucking cringe-worthy. Why didn’t she put a bandage over that thing?
“That spot is reserved,” I informed her.
She glanced at the spot where she’d parked, like she saw nothing amiss in taking one of the prime spots in the lot, when everyone else left it open. Then she glanced at my car like it was a heap of dung. The lot was filled with Benzes, BMWs, Audis. But no one drove a Ferrari to school, even atthisschool.
Except me.
“Hockey team,” I enunciated, in case she was fucking slow or something.
“I literally could not care less,” she enunciated right back.
