Defy was supposedly voluntary, but I didn’t doubt people were afraid enough of Vicious to indulge his whims, however ridiculous or dangerous.
“Make me,” Jaime challenged me on a whisper, his eyes narrowing into slits and zeroing in on my face, his fingers still digging into the neck of an amused, bluish Vic.
Jesus Christ. I never touched Followhill when it came to detentions and tardy slips. His mom was the fucking principal, and she already hated my guts. But he’d cornered me. I had to react.
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.”