She waited for the question. Normally, I wouldn’t entertain this kind of behavior. But she amused me. Circus monkey—as I’ve said before.

“Which is?” I leaned forward.

“That you’re a miserable, sadistic arse who enjoys using girls and bullying people.”

If she waited for a reaction to my reputation, she was sorely disappointed. I leaned forward, propping my elbows on my knees, narrowing my eyes at her face.

“Why should I believe you?”

She plastered her palm against the ledge of the pool and pulled herself up in one go, rising from the water until she stood in front of me.

No bikini top.

No bottoms.

No nothing.

Good Girl was completely naked, wet and bold, and perhaps she wasn’t so mediocre in that particular moment.

Let’s just say if there ever was a mood in which I’d let her suck my cock and massage my balls, I was experiencing it now.

Her tits were small, but round and perky, her nipples pointy, pink, and begging to be sucked. She had a curvy body, although she did a damn good job hiding all that silky, smooth flesh under the black fishnets and leather pants, and her pussy had a dusting of fair hair. Not a lot, but enough to show me she was a real, virginal blonde—not waxed, bleached, and groomed to death, waiting to give some douchebag the full Pornhub experience of a closely shaved cunt.

There was also a tattoo on her inner thigh, but I couldn’t get a good look at what it said, and gawking was letting her win.

Returning my eyes to her face, I decided maybe it wasn’t so bland after all. Everything about her was small—nose, lips, freckles, ears—but her eyes were huge and aqua. The mass of inky, long hair with the egg-yolk roots did nothing to hide the fact that she was who she was.

Pure, pathetic, and partially insane.

I stood tall, lifting my chin, knowing full fucking well my dick wasn’t going to swell in my pants unless I wanted it to. That was one of the best things about my screwed-up condition. I was able to fully control my libido, and I was hard on demand—my demand. Most teenage dicks were traitors, and they got my friends into a lot of shit that had nothing to do with anal. Not mine. Mine listened. And right now, I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing I wanted to fuck her smart mouth.

We were toe-to-toe. I was a head and a half taller, but somehow, with her chin tilted up in a dead stare and noticeably disobedient posture, she didn’t feel so small against me.

She wasn’t the same shivering girl who’d pretended to be asleep and begged with her entire, silent body for me not to cut her throat that night.

Similar, but different.

Innocent, but no longer submissive.

“You should believe me,” she announced, “because in order to destroy you, I need to acknowledge you first. See, in order to ruin a person’s life, you need to hate them. Be jealous of them. Feel some type of passionate response toward them. You stir nothing in me, Vaughn Spencer. Not even disgust. Not even pity, though I really should pity you. You’re the gum stuck to the bottom of my boots. You are a fleeting moment no one remembers—unremarkable, unnecessary, and utterly forgettable. You are the guy I once believed could kill me, so because of you—yes, because of you—I started on the road toward who I am today. Invincible. You can’t scare me anymore, Spencer. I am unbreakable. Try me.”

I took a step back, still holding her gaze. I knew I would throttle her if I stayed close. Not because I didn’t believe she didn’t care about me, but because I did.

Lenora Astalis really didn’t give a fuck.

She knew I was in her school, and didn’t steal one glance at me.

She didn’t talk about me.

Think about me.

Chase after me.

And that was…new.

People cared—whether they wanted to give me head, be my girlfriend, my friend, my lab partner, associate, peer, or pet. Whatever they wanted to be to me, they always tried to make it happen. They regarded me with unwavering fascination. And me? I fed the legend. I didn’t eat, sleep, or talk much publicly. The only human thing I did in front of an audience was let girls suck my dick at parties. Even that was me proving a point to myself, more than anyone else.

I smirked, grabbing her jaw and jerking her to my body. She thought I’d retreated, when really, I just wanted another good look at that sweet ass before making it mine.

“You know, Good Girl, we’re going to see a lot of each other the next few years.”

“Years?” She let out an agitated laugh, not bothering to fold her arms and hide her tits from me. Which didn’t exactly work in my favor. I had full control of my cock, true, but the bastard didn’t deserve to be teased.

“Hold off making the friendship bracelets, Spencer. I’ve no intention of staying here. I’m moving back to England next year.”

“So am I,” I said evenly.

This had been the plan from the beginning. Get back to England once I graduated and do what I needed to do before opening a studio somewhere in Europe. A fresh start.

“You’re moving to England?” She blinked, deciphering the meaning of this. I wanted to dip a hand between her thighs and see what the news did to her.

“Carlisle Prep,” I snarled. “They have a pre-college internship program.”

“I know. I’m applying there, too.” She sucked in a breath, panic finally trickling into her system.

Finally. My blood warmed at the sight of her face draining of color. Watching her react to me was like feeling the first rays of sun after a long winter.

The internship was a six-month program, working alongside Edgar Astalis and Harry Fairhurst, on a piece of your choice. Astalis was dragging his haughty ass back from Cali exactly for that purpose. He loved Carlisle like it was his fucking baby.

You’ll wish you’d kept an eye on your actual baby like you do your prep school, asshole.

She wanted the internship at Carlisle Prep just as much as I did, but for very different reasons. She wanted it because she was born for it—a student at Carlisle since the age of six and bearer of her father’s legacy. Besides, the intern would get to exhibit their piece at Tate Modern at the end of the six-month term. It offered the kind of prestige that could buy your way to artistic stardom. And I wanted it because…

Because I wanted to feel the taste of blood on my tongue.

There were only two spots available per year, and rumor had it one was already going to Rafferty Pope, a genius, soon-to-be-alumni of Carlisle Prep who could paint an entire city landscape from memory. I’d heard Edgar was rocking the LAX-Heathrow route six to eight times a year to check up on his interns, not to mention disappearing in Europe for the summer.

“Putting the cart before the horse, I see.” I took a rolling paper from my back pocket and poured crumbled weed into it, ignoring her nudity like it bored me. “Your chances of beating me at anything are tragically slim. Hope for your sake that you’re applying to other places.”

“I’m not,” she informed me, her voice flat.

“Well, fuck if it’s not going to suck when Daddy tells you you’re not good enough,” I chirped, tapping her nose with my unlit, rolled joint.

“Says you.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Yes. The guy who deserves the internship. However, winner gets to choose an assistant from the applicants’ list. Which means…” I looked up from the joint, rubbing my thumb along my bottom lip. “You could be my bitch for those six months. I like the sound of that, Lenora. Your neck would look pretty with a leash.”