Free Wreckless by Bria Quinlan Page A

suit wrapped around me. And I felt dangerous, for that moment, swimming to the dark side of the creek. I was the one who was dangerous. I stayed on the far side, letting myself float a bit and watch the stars.
    The cool breeze slipped across my skin, chilling all those places that had been so heated before. I swam back to where Jake was and smiled.
    I couldn't help it. If I did nothing else tonight—or for the rest of high school—I had my one thing. My one very dangerous thing.
    I'd had a beer with a bad boy and gotten naked under the (not quite) full moon. Skinny-dipping so gave me street cred. You know, if anyone knew about it. And if the ‘streets’ in question were unpaved back roads.
    He reached out, his hand snagging the end of my braid.
    “What's with all this hair?”
    My mother had been trying to get me to cut it, but I kept putting it off. I either forgot or had something else to do or worried about what I’d do to it. Leah had once told me I had really pretty hair and that guys loved long hair. I guess it had become my one nod to trying to be attractive.
    “I'd planned to grow it out and then donate it to Locks of Love.” Actually, Christy and I had planned on doing it together. T hat didn’t happen. “But then I realized how short it would be. So I was going to grow it long enough so I’d still have a decent length when they cut it…and then I just got sidetracked.”
    Or afraid to cut it.
    He wrapped part of the braid around his fist and pulled me a bit closer. I pushed my hands out, using the water to try to keep some distance between us.
    “Don't worry. I'm not going to touch you. I'm just looking.” He laughed when I shoved at the water again. “At the hair. I'm looking at all this hair. How long is it?”
    “When it isn't braided, I can sit on it.”
    “Bridget.” He sighed my name as if we'd been having this conversation for years and he was completely exasperated with me. “There's a world of difference between long hair and hair you can pee on. You've got to get this cut.”
    Okay, when he put it that way, maybe it was a little long. But still, I liked it like that.
    “I like my hair.”
    “Do you?”
    He didn't sound like he believed me. Which was weird. It seemed like an odd thing to not believe someone about.
    “Yes.”
    “How do you usually do it?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “How do you usually do your hair?”
    This is so not what I expected to be talking about the first time I was ever naked with a guy.
    “Like this.”
    “Back in a braid? All the time?”
    I wasn't seeing the point, but I nodded, feeling my head pull against where he held the braid tight.
    “You don't like your hair. You like the idea of your hair. If you liked your hair, you'd wear it loose.”
    “But...” I wasn't sure but what. I just knew that cutting my hair seemed like a bad idea. It was part of me. Long hair. I pulled it back. It wasn't eye-catching or troublesome. It was just nice hair.
    That no one could see but me.
    I wasn't sure how to put that into words.
    “I'm looking at this braid,” he held it up and ran his thumb over the fringed ends, “and I'm wondering what it's like loose. I'm wondering if it's soft, if it's as pale as it looks even wet, if it sways when you walk. Braids don't do that. Braids are for working. For keeping it out of the way when you help your mama around the house.”
    He let my hair go and threw both hands back, pulling himself through the water and away from me.
    How bad would it be to wear it loose? What would happen? There was something about loose hair that always seemed so done and sophisticated to me. So polished-on-purpose.
    Christy had once said having long, beautiful hair in front of a guy was like waving a red flag at a bull.
    I wasn't sure I could handle a charging bull.
    “You're thinking too much.” Jake’s voice carried from where he was floating. I was distracted at how the light caught him across the creek, causing his chest to stand out in the