“I’m a daredevil.” I cocked a brow, laughing mainly to hide my embarrassment at how nervous I was.

“Real daredevils choose the truth. It’s always more challenging than a dare.” His right eye ticked. “So…truth or dare?”

“Dare,” I teased, hoping to lighten the tension. Wherever this conversation was leading, it was going to be a raw, dangerous place for the both of us.

Jaime dipped his chin down and ran his thumb over his lower lip, his playful-self peeking from the wall of graveness he had built around him tonight. “I dare you to look me in the eye and tell me you don’t have feelings for me.”

His words were simple, yet his request—impossible.

I blinked, realizing for the first time that the answer to his question was something I wasn’t ready to face. “Truth,” I said and swallowed painfully.

Jaime tipped his head back and laughed. It sounded gruff and unhappy.

I looked away, feeling my face whitening. “What? I’m allowed to change my mind.”

“You’re not.” He reached for me, brushing his thumb over my cheek. “Tell me what you feel.” His tone had changed to cushion-soft.

“Why?” I whispered, resisting the urge to close my eyes. If I did, a tear would escape. I never cried. Not since the accident in NY. I dealt. Damn you, Jaime Followhill. I dealt.

Jaime thumbed my chin, tilting my face to meet his gaze. Slowly, he brought his forehead to mine and closed his eyes, releasing a defeated breath. “Because I feel it, too.”

I wanted him to kiss me. To kiss me hard and soft all at once, a kiss that’d assure me that I wasn’t crazy for discovering what I’d just discovered on this tattered sofa in this tiny apartment.

That I was in love with my student.

I’d tried to convince myself that it was just sex. It wasn’t. It was pizza nights and laughing under my cheap, itchy blanket and nicknaming each other stupid names. I was Little Ballerina, while he was Giraffe Tongue, for reasons that gave me countless orgasms.

It was watching Tarantino movies and stealing breathless kisses at school, two thieves of pleasure, begging to confess their crime. I was spellbound, desperate, and possessed. And I knew with certainty that once he graduated and moved away for college, the blow would be just as hard as my subway accident.

Dancing was my life.

But Jaime? Jaime is my life, I realized.

He took a swig of the tequila, screwed the top back on, and jerked me into him, holding the back of my neck to bring my lips to his.

“Ask me.” His alcohol-fumed breath oozed into my mouth.

“Truth or dare?”

“Truth. And it’s gonna be ugly. Buckle up.” He let me go, pushing away, his eyes fluttering shut. Frustration and hurt radiated from his face, and he slouched on the couch, looking almost defeated. This was not the Jaime I knew. The devil with the panty-dropping smile.

Worry gnawed at my gut.

“The first time I saw you,” he began, “I wanted to slap my name on your ass, let everyone know that I was going to be the only guy to tap that shit. You looked like a princess, Mel. An insanely hot princess with a perfect posture and unruly curls.” He smirked. “’Course, acting on it was out of the question. A fantasy. Then I came home that first day of my senior year, and Mom wouldn’t shut up about you. Melody this and Melody that. How bad you were at your job, how you were gonna ruin Mr. Pitterman’s legacy, blah blah, bullshit blah. She hated your guts. Gave you the job only because he croaked so suddenly.”

He was telling me things that I already knew, but it didn’t make them any less painful. The previous Lit teacher had died of a heart attack two days before school started. Principal Followhill had needed to act fast.

“You became a favorite topic at our dinner table. She loathed your ass.” Jaime took a sip, wincing from the bite of the tequila. “You were pretty and young and completely unimpressed by her power and the status and stinking money that runs our fucked-up little town.” He spoke with his eyes squeezed shut. Embarrassed, probably for the first time in his life. “You were a good teacher. That’s why I never gave you shit. It wasn’t your fault we were a bunch of privileged assholes.”

I placed my hand on his arm. He drank some more.

Your pain is mine, and I want to shoulder it, because I can. Because that’s what I do. I carry my pain all the time. Let me take away yours, my touch begged him.

“I told Mom to shut her trap numerous times. Not because I wanted to defend you but because gossiping about you was feeding a monster inside me. Talking about you only made it harder for me to ignore you. So fucking hot…” He nodded his head and bit his full lip, eyes still closed. “When I heard how you had to drop out of Julliard, I wanted to die for you. I had a feeling teaching wasn’t your calling. I kept thinking about eighteen-year-old you. My age. Your heart broken by bad luck, shattered by an accident that’d left more than a physical scar.”

I shifted on my small couch. It felt smaller with every word he said. My gaze traveled down to my hands. I was flattered. I was horrified. But most of all, I was confused. “You were thinking about me for the whole year?”

He snorted a sad laugh.

“More than thinking. Six weeks after school started, I had a huge fight with my mom. Coach Rowland was giving Trent shit about breaking his ankle. Like he planned to get hurt and fuck-up his whole football future. We finally stood up for Trent against Coach, but Mom defended Rowland. My fight with her left me so frustrated I gave in to my weakness for you. I followed you to your apartment, tried to steal a private peek through your bedroom window. I don’t know why I did that. It was like drinking fucking Emergen-C. I just wanted to take the edge off.”

Jaime opened his eyes, his blues challenging me. “You were the perfect sin to commit, Melody. Begging to be taken. Untouched by the rest of Todos Santos’s posing and entitlement. I got hooked. From that day on, I followed you everywhere like an eager puppy. To the supermarket, the gas station…the fucking park every morning before practice, where I watched you doing yoga positions and tried not to rub a quick one out behind a tree. I followed you on blind dates, and when I realized you’d never met the idiots before, I also found your dating account and opened a profile under a fake name just so I could stalk you better.”

My hand shook as I slapped it over my mouth. None of this sounded like the guy I’d dated. I mean, screwed. No, wait, dated. Definitely dated. In the last ten minutes, this relationship had moved faster than a sprinter at an all-you-can-eat pasta buffet.

Another swig. Another deep breathe. Another thorn in my heart.

Jaime was treading closer to shitfaced territory with every truth that rolled out of his mouth.

“I’m listening,” I prompted, afraid that he’d clam up on me.

“Three months ago, I caught my mother cheating on my father with Coach Rowland. In my bed.”

I wheezed. We were running barefoot in a minefield of emotions, and Jaime had just exploded an IED under my legs.

Jaime’s dad had never bothered to hop on the gossip train traveling through Todos Santos. I didn’t know much about him. Only that he was known as a philanthropist who worked with several big charities, and that despite his privileged lineage, he wasn’t too interested in glitz and glamor.

“I don’t know which part was worse. That she let Coach emotionally abuse Trent for years or that she was fucking the bastard in my bed. I’d like to believe the location was just convenient. My bed always smelled like sex anyway and was never made.” His eyes glistened with pain.

I wrapped my hands around his neck.

Jaime spoke into my hair, his chin pressed to my shoulder. “Fucking someone who she hated sounded like good therapy. So I started planning, and you and I began talking more on that dating site. You opened up to me. Told me what you liked and disliked. Your taste in music. Favorite movies. Dream vacations, layer after layer peeled. And when it was time to strike—I set up a date. I was the loser guy who still lived with his mom at twenty-six.”

Bastard.

I laughed. He laughed. Then I grew silent and started crying. Damn PMS. He wiped my cheeks and offered me the tequila. I snatched it from him and took a swig. Everything was a mess.

“You’re a real asshole, Jaime.”

Jaime rubbed his head, mussing his glorious man-bun. “The text message you got when you backed out of your parking space? Planned. The reason you bumped into me? I set you up, Mel. The text was a deliberate distraction. A trap. But you know what the worst part is?”

I shook my head, feeling my tears, hot and angry, running down my face.

He stared at me through red-rimmed eyes. He didn’t shed tears, but I knew that he was holding them back. “Somewhere between the quest of wanting to fuck you and secretly rebelling against my mom, I fell in love with you. It wasn’t a beautiful process. Hell…” He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “It wasn’t even romantic. But it happened. Because you’re strong but vulnerable. Witty as fuck but not bitter or deliberately mean. Because I had to chase your ass to nail you down, and you still keep me on my toes. But if we’re going to keep going on like this, where I have to convince you to give me the time of the day while you look over your shoulder, constantly trying to shake me off, I need to bail out of this before I get hurt.”

He took my cheeks and dragged my face to meet his. “Men with big cocks have fragile hearts. You know the saying: big cock, big heart. Well, I’m proof it’s true.”

I let out a breathless chuckle. Our noses brushed, and I sucked in a breath. A moment of silence ticked by.

“So…are you mine, Melody?”

Was I? Yeah. Without a shadow of a doubt, I was. God, were we really going to do this?

I nodded, sniffing my runny nose. “No one else’s.” I pursed my lips, already tasting the saltiness of the grief that accompanied this statement.

Our lips crushed together, needy and demanding. I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t freaked out. For the first time in ages I was just…content.