Defy

I clutched my necklace tighter.

Why was he doing this? Yesterday, he eye-fucked me to unconsciousness and back. And now…he…he…

Oh, shit. Now he’s cashing in on the debt.

He didn’t want me to back down. He wanted me to accept his dare. Was I going to take the bait? It wasn’t like I had much choice. I owed him big time for the Range Rover. Whatever it was he wanted from me, it was already his.

“You’ve just landed yourself in detention for the next week, starting this afternoon.” I pulled open the drawer of my wooden desk and started filling out the detention form.

Everyone fell silent. I’d never done this before. Not to a senior and definitely not to James Charles Followhill III.

From the corner of my eye, I watched as Jaime finally let go of Vicious’s neck. Vicious made a sucking sound and grabbed his junk, motioning to Jaime, laughing as he strode back to his seat. Other students slapped his back and looked between them, slipping notes. Probably bets on an impending Defy fight that was about to go down this weekend.

I smacked the detention slip on Jaime’s desk, and he jerked his eyes up, beaming a smile at me so sinister my panties melted into gooey, sweet liquid. We both knew what I was doing.

Awarding him with one-on-one time with me, exactly what he wanted.

Accepting an arrangement that’d put me in a fragile, potentially disastrous spot.

I was saying thank you to him for threatening my class, telling them to behave, so that he’d be the only person in detention for the next week.

And at this point, there was no denying it—I was allowing myself to free-fall headfirst into the end of my career, doing somersaults on my way down.

Jaime Followhill had celebrated his eighteenth birthday three days before the parking lot incident, which made the chain of recent events even more suspicious. Had he waited to hit on me? Why? He could have any girl in school. (After Trent Rexroth had a taste, of course.)

I’d already spent my lunch break roaming his Facebook page like there was no tomorrow. His timeline was a pointed reminder that he was eight years my junior. He had pictures from summer camp, for fuck’s sake. He was always sporting a dimply smile, tan muscular forearms, a stunning pair of bright blues, and a ton of friends.

Jaime had everything, and I had nothing. He had a coddled past, a cushy present, and a dazzling future. I, on the other hand, was already tainted with career failure and headed toward a life of scrambling to stay employed and out of debt. We didn’t make sense. Even for a fling.

But I was too selfish and vulnerable to say no. Besides, having him would be like sticking it to his mom without really letting her know about it.

Win-win, right?

That afternoon, I slipped into the classroom where detention took place, noting that the wooden door to the room had a window.

I wasn’t surprised to see the blond HotHole was already there, sitting in the front row, jingling his car keys—and our secret—between his strong fingers with a smirk, haunting me with his teal eyes. Gulping, I sat down at the teacher’s table and took out my laptop and some exams I needed to grade.

“Put your phone in your backpack, Jaime.” I wet my lips, my eyes focused on my paperwork.

He did as he was told, but I felt his lingering gaze licking me everywhere. My self-consciousness levels were so high I was on the verge of throwing up. I acted like I was about to commit a crime. In a way, I was.

After a few minutes of me pretending to type absolutely nothing on my laptop and him staring at me with a cocky smile, like he was about to devour me at any second, I grunted, “Why don’t you do your homework? I’m sure you can do something constructive with your time while you’re here.” He had two hours to burn, and my face couldn’t be that fascinating.

But I swore I heard him mumble, “Sizing up my prey is constructive.”

My head bolted up from my screen, and I shot him a dirty look. “Excuse me?”

He tilted his chin up, flashing a row of pearly whites of the Hollywood variety. “Ms. Greene, this is going to happen.”

I knew what he meant.

“I have no idea what you mean,” I snipped. Pshh. Playing games with an eighteen-year-old. I promised myself that after today, I was going to take a long, hard look at my life. Preferably while enjoying a generous glass of wine. Well, not a glass, maybe more like a bowl.

Jaime leaned forward on his elbows, his huge arms spanning his whole desk. The devious twinkle in his eyes assured me, once again, that his age was merely a number. Hell, he’d probably slept with more people than I’d kissed in my entire life.

“Yes, you do. You know,” he said with a smile that was arrogant, yet forgiving. Who was the grown-up here? Who was corrupting who? I swallowed.

My eyes dropped to my keyboard, and I struggled for a steady breath. I was shit-scared and turned on. Apparently, this was the perfect combination to make me produce small moans resembling a cat in heat.

“Why me?” I asked.

Jaime remained motionless, but his stare nipped at the sensitive flesh of my neck, tickling my lower abdomen. “Because,” he said slowly, his soft lips parting as he drank me in, “I want to fuck a teacher before I go off to college.”

And just like that, ladies and gentlemen, my quivering thighs and glassy eyes suffered a bad case of ice-cold bucket of rage.

Standing up and folding my arms, I pinched my lips together to make sure a curse didn’t escape them. “I’m sorry, James. I don’t seem to register half of the things you’ve said today, because it sounds like you’re begging to fail my class and get kicked out of school.”

Now it was his turn to stand, and I shrank back toward the whiteboard when I remembered he had a good nine inches on me (also in his pants, if that prevailing rumor was right.)

“Sweetheart,” he said, following that with a tsk-tsk of his tongue, his confidence unnerving. “Give me your worst. Fail me. Throw me in detention for the rest of the year. We both know it won’t affect my graduation or my future. You’d only be shooting yourself in that lovely, sexy-as-fuck foot of yours.”

His eyes moved to my legs, and he took a step forward. My throat constricted with an unfamiliar need to bite something. Preferably this HotHole’s butt.

“The damage to the Range Rover is around eighty-five hundred dollars, thanks for asking,” he continued, straight-faced.

Another step. Thump, thump, thump, went my heart. I was a flower and he was a rare sunray, and we were drawn to each other, reluctantly, unwittingly, disastrously. Every cell in my body sizzled, begging for his touch.

Jaime wanted to fuck a teacher, so what? I wanted to fuck a baller. We were two sensible grown-ups making a conscious decision…only he wasn’t really a grown-up, was he? And I was anything but sensible to get into this mess.

But he had leverage on me.

And those piercing blue eyes.

Besides…I wanted him. He was the first thing that had made me feel giddy in a while. Since Julliard, to be exact.

How sad was that?

“Jaime,” I croaked. “I’m sure there are other teachers you could…work your charm on. How about Ms. Perklin?”

She was about three centuries old and smelled like used dental floss, but I wanted to gauge his reaction, postponing what was beginning to feel inevitable. Jaime stopped when our toes touched, his dimpled smile broadening, the black eye barely visible. I might have an easier time rejecting him if he weren’t a female lubricant, I thought while admiring his masculine jaw and high forehead.

“Correction…” His lips brushed mine as he leaned down, and I shivered and stepped back, aware people might see us through the door’s glass window. “I don’t only want to fuck a teacher. I want to fuck my Lit teacher. She’s got sass, great ass, long legs, and even though she thinks I haven’t figured her out, I know that behind the prissy disguise is a woman who curses like a sailor and can outdrink anyone on my football team.”

Damn right, I could. They were only teenagers. I had impressive binge-drinking mileage. Eras of destructiveness caused by dark times of depression. But I digress.

“Do you want us both to get kicked out of All Saints?” I inhaled, patting my sweaty palms on my navy polka-dot dress. Someone had to talk sense into this boy. Too bad it was me we depended on. My willpower was nonexistent in those days. I had very little to lose at this point, if at all.

He grabbed me by the waist and spun us around so his back shielded my whole body from the windowed door. He pulled me into him, and my body melted against his like hot butter.

“I won’t tell,” he whispered into my neck, making me shiver with pleasure. “Neither will you. A nice short fling, Ms. G. I’ll move to Texas to play college football. You’ll move on to an ugly-ass accountant with a good heart or some shit. Someone to make babies with. That’s all. Now what do you say, Melody?”

I was about to say dream on but didn’t have the chance.

Jaime dove down, his sultry lips breathing into mine. “On second thought, don’t say a word. I’ll see for myself.”

Jaime Followhill kissed me, the most intoxicating kiss I’d ever had. The minute his mouth slammed over mine, my toes curled inside my sensible pumps. It wasn’t just the urgency of his hot mouth or the sweet taste of his gum but also his drugging male scent. He invaded every inch of my pores, kissing me like he had something to prove, a point to make. I grabbed his smooth-cheeked face with abandon and inhaled, while he opened my mouth with his tongue and devoured me like I was his fucking last meal.

His tongue attacked mine, owning my mouth, licking every part and swallowing my needy moans. I wasn’t surprised when his hand dug into my ass and he yanked me into his erection. He rubbed himself against me, shamelessly jerking off on me, grabbing one of my hands and placing it against his impressive cock.

It was wrong.

It was wrong, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like how wrong it felt.

Whether I was corrupting or being corrupted…I loved how it made me feel.

My heart drummed with excitement and fear. I knew part of the thrill was the possibility we’d get caught. It felt like swallowing an eight ball of speed and washing it down with a dozen shots of vodka.