A foreign feeling I wanted more of. A drug I would later get addicted to.

“You need to go back to dancing,” Jaime said through noisy, sloppy kisses. “Your leg’s fine now.”

“I’m twenty-six.” I sniffed, more tears falling, but we were still kissing. “That’s one-hundred-and-eighty-two in dog years and, like, two-hundred-and-two in ballerina years.”

“Then settle for something outside of a ballet company, granny. Teach.”

Finally, I pulled away from his face, sucking in a breath. I tapped my lower lip. “The dance studio here is owned by a friend of your mother.”

“So find a studio in San Diego. It’s only a thirty-minute drive. You can fulfill your dream and still live close to me.”

Whoa, what? This caught me off guard. My eyebrows knitted, and I searched his face. “Jaime, you’re moving to Texas. You’re going to college there. You have a great future planned.”

He held my gaze, ignoring my words completely. “You could even teach ballet in LA. Vicious is going to college there. If he can get in, so can I.”

I wondered if he was drunk or just crazy. He sounded like both. “Vicious isn’t the greatest role model. He’s just taking a little break until he burns this town down. You and I both know that.”

Jaime shook his head, a sad smile on his face. “Even if he does, I’d help him light the match. The HotHoles stick together. That’s who we are.” He laced his fingers through mine.

“You’re not staying here,” I stated. Even though, selfishly, I didn’t want him to move away. Moreover, the very thought of him living in Texas, far away from me, made my skin crawl.

“Bull. Shit. I’m staying where the only people I care about are. You. Vicious. Trent. Dean might even be staying if Vicious doesn’t kill him…” He broke off.

“In Defy?” I prodded.

“Not that. It’s more complicated.”

I shook my head. As much as I liked having him around, it was in his best interest to leave. This place was hell. The city of saints was filled with nothing but sinners. He’d already been corrupted but not beyond repair.

“No.” I made my voice firmer, trying to use that authoritative teacher tone my parents were so good at. “You said you loved me. If you do, then promise me, you’ll leave here before you get hurt. And no more Defy.” People have probably already been hurt, I thought. “Go away, James.”

“Can’t.” He brought my hands to his lips, kissing my knuckles one by one. “I’m not leaving you here or anywhere else. Hey, I never wanted to go to college in Texas anyway. You know how dangerous it is to look this good on a campus that big? I could get fucking roofied, Ms. G.”

He winked. I laughed, but it died quickly.

“Then at least promise me you’ll keep Vicious away from Millie?” I sighed. I wanted her safe, for the same reason I wanted me to be safe. She was my mini-me. Before I was broken, anyway.

“He’ll never stay away from her.” Jaime’s expression grew tight. “For one, he wants to ruin her. And two? She lives too close. Her parents work for the Spencers.”

I’d suspected she was the complication he mentioned, and now he’d confirmed it. She was a good distraction for us too. This wasn’t the right time to talk about our plans as a couple. Jaime was too drunk. Too emotional to think clearly.

We both were.

But deep down, my truths were already starting to dig their way out of my layers of indifference. And they told me it wasn’t about the alcohol, or the late hour, or the inconvenient talks about the future.

It was about us. It was us.

THE NEXT DAY, I WOKE up different.

I don’t know how it happened, but it did, and it was all Jaime’s fault. That emptiness that swirled in my gut like a storm, refusing to calm down despite my best efforts? It wasn’t there the next day.

After the accident that ended my studying at Julliard, I thought I’d never escape that empty feeling. Surely, when your future career and dreams consumed you, chased you around, like bitter memories that nipped at your skin every time you saw a picture of a ballerina or heard about a traveling company in town, you couldn’t come back from it and find something else to fill the void.

That void.

Logically, I’d assumed that I was probably going to meet a guy. Get married. Start a life. I still had things to do and accomplish, and some of them might even be fun. I thought that maybe, I’d find my calling elsewhere. Not teaching high school Lit, but maybe with my kids? I could probably be a good mom. A soccer mom. Live through my children.

But the next morning, when I woke up in the arms of my student, he didn’t feel like my student. He felt like my mentor. Like a man who knows the way to that slippery, elusive thing called happiness.

Not just physically. The way his hard muscles and long body enveloped me. The fact that he was so tall and wide, made me feel protected and cherished. It was his warmth—not the one from his skin, the one from who he was—that filled me with something that wasn’t emptiness.

“This is the part where you run away from this, Mel,” he whispered into my ear, his morning voice gruff and his morning wood hard against my lower back. We were spooning, and I couldn’t smell his morning breath, but I bet it wasn’t as bad as the average person’s. The guy was just annoyingly perfect.

“Run, Ms. Greene. As fast as you’d like. I’m going to catch you, and I’m going to have fun showing you that there’s no escape from this.”

I rolled around to face him, the space between us warm from sleeping together in my new place. I grinned, a smile that wasn’t controlled or calculated.

He yanked my hand from under the covers and pressed my fingers to his full lips. “Shit, Ms. Greene got brave.”

“I’m about to get braver and offer you breakfast.” I didn’t know what I was saying or why I was saying it, but I knew I didn’t want him gone. Not yet.

“You literally have nothing other than alcohol.” Jaime laughed a throaty laugh, the type that left your mouth after you’d had a long night of sleep.

“I’ll go out and get some groceries. You wait here.” I gave him half a shrug.

“Or here’s a better idea. I’ll take you out to a local diner. Now what do you think?” He grabbed my waist and jerked me into his hot body, pressing his erection between my thighs.

I sighed, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip until I almost bled. How could I be so sexually frustrated every time he wasn’t inside me? We’d obviously had a lot of sex.

“I think you’re insane. People could spot us.”

“We’ll go somewhere outside of town. Maybe by the highway. Stop being so paranoid. Todos Santos is full of old, rich white people. They don’t venture farther than the city limits without a good reason. They’re too scared of the unwashed masses in the outside world.”

I let out a small chuckle. He was right, of course.

“We’re playing a dangerous game here, Jaime,” I warned.

“I don’t know any other way to play it.”

Another month ticked by. My relationship with Jaime became alarmingly intimate. He moved most of his stuff to my place and slept-over ninety percent of the time. I couldn’t tell him no after he’d confided in me about his mom and Coach Rowland. I didn’t know many people who’d be eager to sleep on the same bed their mom used to cheat on her husband. But while we were enjoying more sex, more phone calls, more pizza nights, and more talks about our uncertain future, more, more, more—it was becoming evident that we were starting to raise people’s eyebrows.

Vicious caught us red-handed, making out while hidden behind Jaime’s SUV at Liberty Park after a midnight walk. (We only went out together when everyone else was fast asleep). Vicious didn’t look surprised. Just offered us his usual scowl, growling about how we grossed him out and moved on, probably looking for a victim to murder that night. He kept his mouth shut.

But other people didn’t. At school, girls were getting restless. Jaime wouldn’t give them the time of day, and while he made up something about a girlfriend who lived in LA, nobody believed him. This HotHole in a steady relationship? A long distance one, too? Pfft. Yeah, right.

One day, a cheerleader named Kadence went as far as following Jaime back to my apartment and reported back to the masses that he’d rented his own place. I was just glad that she didn’t know the place was mine and that school was going to be over in few weeks.

But it was all too good to be true. The last week of school, I found that out.

It started with the innocent sound of a text message pinging in the dark, followed by an announcement.

“I’m going out,” Jaime said.

It was half past midnight, and we were both snuggled up in bed. His mom thought he had moved in with Vicious, and Spencer confirmed the lie. Shockingly, his father and stepmother did, too. This kid did rule everything around him, his parents included.

“Where to?” I breathed more of him into me, still clutching his waist. He got up, sat on the bed, and fired off a text message, avoiding eye contact.

“Don’t.” His voice was rough. Clipped.

I scooted up in bed, frowning. “Jaime, what’s up?”

He groaned, pulling on a white tee over his bare chest. No matter how many times I’ve seen him naked, it always made me feel a little sad when he covered those great abs. “Nothing’s up. Last time I checked, it’s not against the law to go hang out with your friends.”

He had yet to look at me.

“Yeah.” I grabbed his arm, prompting him to look at me. “But it is against the law to do half the shit Vicious makes you guys do. So it is my business.”

“Actually”—he shook out of my touch, turning around and smiling tightly—“that’s exactly why you aren’t going to get shit from me. It’d only drag you into a pile of crap I’m not willing to pull you into. I’ll be back later.” He kissed my temple. “If you need anything, text.”