Pretty Reckless (All Saints High #1)(99)

“No. Everyone was hanging at the pit, and I bummed a ride with her. It’s, like, one in the morning. I’m going upstairs to sleep.” With that lukewarm endorsement of Via, I go up the stairs and into my room.

In bed, I stare at the brand-new drywall in front of me and blink away the tears. After the aquarium got shattered, they replaced it with a sturdy, ugly thing to replace the beautiful, fragile one. The story of my life, I guess. I am finally digesting everything that’s happened to me in the past six months, and the overwhelming notion of loneliness grips my body.

I’m moving away from my family. My parents. From Bailey. I’m turning my back on Vaughn and on Knight without saying goodbye because I know they won’t let me go. They’ll promise to protect me and fight my battles at school, and a part of me still wants that to happen.

But I can’t.

I have to make it on my own.

The door creaks open, and I close my eyes and smile. He closes the door behind him and leans against it—things I hear rather than see—and my heart swells in my chest.

“My dad’s gonna kill you if he finds out,” I whisper.

“Still worth it,” he retorts, taking my taunt as permission to saunter deeper into my room. My bed dips, and when his body presses against mine, I’m shocked to find out he is naked except for his briefs. My eyes snap open, and I suck in a breath.

“Whoa,” I say. My hands shoot out to trace his collarbone, chest, washboard abs, and his V without even meaning to. Then they trail his bulging triceps, his tennis-balls of biceps, and all the delicious veins wrapped around them. Every inch of bronzed skin. “Escalation, Scully.”

“Skull Eyes.” His lips are already locked on mine when he speaks, and he is moving smoothly, thrusting his briefs against my clothed groin, even though I’m still in my jeans. “It’s done. So much dirt has been spilled tonight, yours is a drop in an ocean of sins. Don’t get on that plane tomorrow. Don’t fucking do this to us.”

Rather than answer him with my words, I answer him by thrusting my groin back against his erection. He moans and unbuttons my jeans, yanking them along with my panties down my legs and balling the fabrics, throwing them over his back. He then spreads my thighs and dips two fingers into me, curling them and taking them out, sucking on them hungrily.

“I’ve loved you in secret, and I’ve loved you openly in front of both our worlds, and if you think I’ll stop loving you if you put an ocean between us, you’re dead wrong.”

I cry out and arch my back when his fingers re-enter my body, chasing his touch as he fingers me mercilessly. My legs quiver around his arm, and I’m about to come when he stops and lowers himself down, throwing my legs over his broad shoulders. He sweeps his tongue up and down the length of my entrance, flicking against my clit every time he does.

“Oh, Penn. Marx, Penn.”

“Marx.” He laughs into me, thrusting his tongue deeper, penetrating me before licking me faster. “My favorite fucking word.”

He licks between my legs until no more air is left in my lungs. The desire is so sharp, the pleasure so profound, I stop breathing and brace myself for the storm that is the brewing orgasm inside me. When it finally crashes down on me, greater than any physical feeling I’ve ever experienced, he rises on his forearms and enters me in one go, filling me to the brim. I arch farther, clutching his back. He shuts up my moans with a dirty kiss that tastes and smells like me.

“Your dad killing me might be inevitable, but there’s no need to make it happen prematurely.”

I laugh as he starts moving inside me without a condom or a care in the world. I’m on the pill, but he doesn’t know that. I’m having crazy thoughts. Like maybe he is doing this on purpose. Like maybe he wants to chain me down to this place. Like maybe I should stay. And it makes my heart laugh through the tears because it’s too late.

We move seductively, kissing and biting and breathing each other in. I can taste the goodbye on my tongue, and it’s bittersweet. Wonderfully tragic.

I caress his face, his jaw, his lips. I will miss you.

I study every inch of his beautiful face. I will never forget you.

His hands roam and mine caress. This was so much more than first love. It was first hate, too.

And when he empties inside me, I don’t even mention what we did was irresponsible and wrong. I know he is doing it to keep me in his messed-up, desperate way. So I just kiss him long and deep and hard.

“I’m staying the night,” he tells me, hugging me close to his chest. Our hearts are beating in unison. I squeeze his hands under mine.

“My dad really is going to kill you.” I chuckle, bumping my shoulder into his. “Come on. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Promise?” he asks.

“Promise,” I lie.





I breathe your name

Hoping to fill my lungs

With more than just air





The ER doctor unwraps my hand from all the ice packs and observes the red-blue thing that’s swollen to five times its usual fucking size.

“How’d it happen?” The middle-aged, white-haired man scrunches his nose. I know, asshole. It looks nasty, but you ain’t a sight for sore eyes, either.

Via flinches at the question because she already knows the answer.