Um.
He’s also one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen in my life. His mouth is a hot slash across the bottom of his face, the corner of his lip twisted up in a slight smirk. Amber eyes narrow on me, but that mouth, it never stops smiling. The way he’s crouched like that, like his body’s made of shadows or something, makes me wonder if he’s even human. You are not in a cheesy teen novel, Dakota. He is not a vampire—even if he looks like one.
His hair is an ebon black with a bright yellow streak in the front, like a bolt of lightning. Clearly, that’s got to be the work of a master stylist. Bet this boy is just as rich as the asshole stepbrother who lives across the hall from me. He’s also just as ripped, and just as covered in tattoos. This one, though, has a piercing through either side of his lower lip and small black plugs in his ears.
“I’m going to take a wild guess and assume you’re Parrish’s friend, Chasm?” I quip, raising a brow and refusing to let him know how pissed off I am. Or how scared I was for a brief instant. Right before I left New York, I was changing into my pajamas when I heard a sound coming from the roof. I parted the curtains to find a reporter crouching there with a camera.
So goddamn creepy.
“Ah,” he says, rising to his feet with that awful, awful smile playing around his lips. It’s awful because it’s cocky as fuck. Also, it seems sort of … genuine at the same time? If he hadn’t pushed me into the pool, I might not have instantly disliked him and that bothers me. Any friend of Parrish’s is likely not going to be a friend of mine. “Now why would you think that, Mia?”
I grit my teeth. These assholes. I take it back; there’s nothing to like about this guy at all.
“It’s Dakota,” I correct for what, I’m sure, is nowhere near the final time. “What right do you think you have, pushing a stranger into a pool like that? What if I didn’t know how to swim?”
“But you do, don’t you?” he asks, looking down at me as I move through the water toward the ladder. His eyes rake my body as I grab the metal bars and climb out, suddenly self-conscious of the bright yellow bikini Tess talked me into yesterday. Oddly enough, it matches the streak in his hair. Personally, I’d have been happier with black. Or lime green. Or something with skulls on it. “I saw you swimming; you just didn’t notice me.”
“You’re admitting to being a creeper then? Do you regularly spy on hapless swimmers?”
Chasm seems unfazed by my question and shrugs his shoulders loosely, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He’s a good actor then; there isn’t a single person on this planet without problems of some sort.
“Only if they happen to be my best friend’s shiny new sister. You’re like a curio around here: we’ve been hearing stories about you for years.” I just keep staring at him, dripping water across the floor while he continues smiling away at me. After a moment, he retrieves my towel and hands it over. I’m about to thank him when he adds, “Parrish was dead wrong about you.”
His eyes blaze as he looks me over, his smile turning into an overly appreciative smirk.
Slowly, Chasm slides his hands into the pockets of his slacks and cocks his head to one side. As he looks me over, I return the favor. He’s wearing a solid black blazer that’s currently unbuttoned, leaving a black dress shirt visible underneath. The shirt itself is also unbuttoned, revealing a smooth chest dripping with ink that I pretend not to like (but holy crap, it’s hot). There’s a hint of a tie hanging out of one pocket, a tartan plaid made up of gray, black, and lime green stripes that are oddly reminiscent of my hair color. The embroidered badge beside the blazer’s lapel clearly states Whitehall Preparatory Academy.
I ignore my own visceral reaction to his body, wrap the towel around my waist, and then cross my arms over my chest. I’m trying to come up with some sort of quip, something easy but deeply insulting—like Parrish’s murmured as if, little sister—but Chasm speaks up before I get a chance.
“You are most definitely not a three. I’d say a four, at least. Maybe a five, with the right hair and makeup.”
My mouth pinches into a thin line, but when I move to push Chasm into the pool in retaliation, he grabs my wrists in either of his hands and spins me around, so that my back is to the wall. I become hyperaware of each of his fingertips as they press into my bare skin.
