Defy (Sinners of Saint 0.5)

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.

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.”