After Shelly babbled something for the sake of talking, and another student asked Millie a couple of questions, Vicious, who had his long legs crossed over the table, his boots nearly touching someone’s back, held up his hand. My breath hitched. I didn’t want him to shatter Millie’s confidence. Actually, I wanted to talk to her about enrolling in a creative writing class I knew across town. I liked to believe I saw some of me in Emilia. She was delicate, artistic, and unfazed by the privileged environment she wasn’t a part of. I had a weird urge to protect her from Vicious, but no one else was lifting their hands.

I wanted to strangle the sulky bully as I ground out a weak permission for him to speak. “Yes, Baron?”

Vicious’s hooded eyes were on Millie as he played with one of his rusty metal rings—a part of his iconic serial-killer attire. He bared his teeth, expecting her to shrink back into her chair like the rest of them, but Millie was still standing, eyeballing him like he was a punching bag she was about to swing her fist into.

I fucking like this girl.

“I thought it was spectacularly awful,” he said, tugging at his full lower lip.

She raised one lonely eyebrow, a smile on her pretty, round face.

“That’s enough from you, Baron,” I started, but Millie raised her hand.

“Please, Ms. Greene. Let him finish. What was so ‘spectacularly awful’ about my poem?” she asked him, and she sounded genuinely interested.

I cringed. Why was she doing this to herself?

Vicious slumped back in his chair, examining his rings. “Too wordy. Too many analogies. Some of them were corny. Ones we’ve heard a thousand times before. You’ve got talent, I’ll give you that. Still.” He shrugged. “Your writing’s sloppy. Stick to painting.”

“And what would you know about writing?” I snapped. It was my turn to ask. It wasn’t like me to lose my temper during class, but Vicious was literally being vicious. The fact that he’d won on Saturday night at the park didn’t help, either.

I think Jaime knew better than to continue sexting me, because he tucked his phone into his jeans pocket and frowned at Vicious, his expression screaming, Shut the fuck up, man.

“I know quite a fucking bit, actually,” Vicious chirped, his face lighting up. Usually, his voice was like a straight line on a heart monitor, uncaring and flat. “Ass-kissing’s never helped an author or a poet grow and develop. Constructive criticism does. Maybe you’re in the wrong profession, Greene.”

Fuck this shit. I was going to throw him into detention until he was seventy. I didn’t even care that Jaime had just invited me to another sex-fest after school, and that all I could think about was his angry, swollen cock. I didn’t want Vicious talking to me like this and more importantly—to Millie. The girl didn’t deserve it.

“Pack your stuff, Baron. You’re coming with me to see Principal Followhill after class. I hope you don’t have any plans for the upcoming month, because you’re going to spend it with your mediocre educator. In detention. Where you can explain to me all about good poetry and bad life choices. Like talking back to your teacher.” I let loose a sugary smile and cracked open my notebook with the name list, looking for the next poor soul that had to share a poem with class.

Trent groaned from his place on the other side of Vicious. “Good going, cunt. You just had to talk shit, didn’t you? We’ve got team business to handle. Did you forget?”

“Language, Rexroth. Or you’re up next.”

I got ballsy. I had a back. It was Jaime. Who, by the way, looked just about ready to explode, staring down Vicious like he had just slaughtered a basket full of kittens. There was fire in his eyes, and it scorched everything it landed on. The bell rang, filling the class with laughter and noise, and people shoved their stuff into their backpacks.

“Mr. Linden, you’ll be reading your poem next time. Class, I want you to read The Rules of Poetry by Michaela Steinberg and know it by heart for next class. There’ll be a quiz,” I barked into the chaos of teenage chatter.

Students poured into the hallway, but Jaime stayed put in his chair. His clenched jaw suggested someone in the room was about to get killed. Vicious was the only one still there other than us, and he took his time, stuffing his bag deliberately slow with a grin so big you’d think I was about to escort him to an exotic vacation on an island populated by strippers and international arms dealers.

I dropped Vicious at Principal Followhill’s office and got back to class. I think she was both impressed and horrified with me calling Vicious on his bullshit. I had no idea how she was going to deal with him, but I didn’t care, either. I’d done my part.

The minute I walked back into my classroom, I heaved a sigh. “What did you do to those kids the other night?”

Jaime sprawled back in his chair. He was wearing navy Dickies, high-top sneakers, and a purple muscle shirt that showed off his corny tattoo of a stupid-ass quote he had inked on his ribs. I’d never bothered reading it, but wouldn’t be surprised if it was something from SpongeBob Squarepants.

Who cares? He was my own personal calorie-free dessert.

At least, that’s what I tried to reduce him to in my mind.

Most of the time it worked.

But the more we spent time together, the more I needed to feed myself this lie.

“Come here.” He crooked his index finger at me.

“Excuse me? I’m the teacher,” I teased, happy to have him alone.

“And I’m the pissed-off guy who needs to put you in your place every now and again. Here.” He patted his desktop and plopped back in this chair. I glanced at the closed door and back at him.

“Vicious could come back,” I argued.

“Vicious would keep his mouth shut even if he walked in on me fucking Mr. Pattinson while the PTA president licks my asshole. I can do anything with anyone as long as it’s not Millie. We’re goddamned near blood-brothers.”

Millie, huh? Maybe the bastard did have a beating heart after all.

I took slow steps to him and sat at the edge of his desk. He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me into his groin so that I straddled him, my legs curling around his waist.

“What did you do to them?” I whispered again, my hands buried in his golden hair as my arms circled his neck. Despite everything, I cared about those kids.

“Baby…” He brushed his knuckles against my lips, his eyes focused solely on them.

“Well?” I deliberately widened my eyes, questioning him.

He laughed like he thought my expression was cute. “Nothing yet. But we got a name. Toby Rowland.”

“And?” Rowland was a junior, another douche who I taught. He was also Coach Rowland’s son.

Jaime shrugged. “Dude’s always hiding behind his daddy in practice. It’ll be hard to pin him down, but neither one’s getting away with what they did to Trent. Fuckers killed his ticket out.”

Trent Rexroth, All Saints’ stand-out football star, had slipped in the locker room before a big game this fall, breaking his ankle and ending his path to college and pro-football glory.

I opened my mouth, intending to convince him to give up the retaliation, but he grabbed me by my ass and pulled me into his aching erection, sucking hard on one of my breasts through the fabric of my blouse and finishing on a teasing bite.

“Shit…” I muttered.

“How was your weekend?” He placed his lips on my neck and licked his way to my cleavage. I shivered into his body. “Did you miss me?”

“It was good.” My hands ghosted over his broad chest greedily. “And no,” I lied. “I thought we agreed this was just harmless fun.”

“It is.” He tipped his head back, staring at me seriously. “And it’s fun being with you.”

“I bet it’s just as fun being with high school girls.” My mouth went dry when I said it.

It was stupid and insecure, but it felt good to finally say what I’d been thinking about for weeks. Where Jaime went, girls followed. Bronze-skinned, shiny-haired cheerleaders with wide smiles and legs for miles. They caught up with his long steps in the hallways, leaned against his SUV after school, and laughed at everything he said…even when he didn’t make jokes.

Jaime smirked, his right hand tracing my inner thigh, traveling upward and disappearing under my pencil skirt. “I beg to differ. High school girls are high maintenance. They’re full of drama. They talk about fucking hair straighteners and parties for hours. The hot ones make you go to Jennifer Love Hewitt movies. No. There’s nothing fun about high school girls. You, on the other hand…”

His fingers found my soaking undies, and as usual, he cocked his head, smirking, letting me know that he was onto me. My body sang a tune only Jaime knew the words to and my heart drummed so fast and loud that I felt the pulse in my toes. Doing this was almost like begging to get caught.

A part of me was desperate to be seen.

“You talk back,” he said. “You’re cold and stubborn. Sad and snarky. I like your brand of weird. The whole package.” He drew an imaginary circle with his finger around my face, leaning into me. “But most of all…” he breathed, placing a gentle kiss on the corner of my lips. “I like the chase. You make me sweat somewhere besides a football field. Turns out…that’s the exercise I’ve been looking for.”

Just as he said that, the door flung open and Vicious pushed his way inside. Lucky for me, he was staring down at a piece of paper he held in one hand and the ripped-open envelope he had in the other. “Can’t believe she says shit like this,” he muttered.

That allowed me a minute to jump off Jaime’s boner and rearrange my skirt, leaning back down and pretending to flip through one of the books he had on his table. “Here’s the paragraph you were looking for.” I cleared my throat and straightened.

Vicious finally looked up, but it wasn’t at me. “Trent just texted me. Coach called a team meeting. Toby’s been named as captain for next year.”