Illicit: A Novel

by Ava Harrison

  And, as a matter of fact, other than a few short flings, I’d never had a relationship. At all. With anyone. Ballet had always come first. Before men and before me. For a while, I’d actually thought it was enough. Until it wasn’t.

  When did it all go wrong?

  I could tell you when—right after I started college. Eight years ago, I got accepted to Julliard and was about to fulfill my dream to become a professional ballerina. This was what I’d worked for my whole life. My parents had taken out loans to pay my way through dancing competitions. Boyfriends were deemed an unwelcome distraction, and my only focus was joining a prestigious New York or European ballet company and becoming a prima ballerina.

  Dancing was my oxygen.

  When I said my goodbyes to my family and waved at them from the security point at the airport, they told me to break a leg. Three weeks into my first semester at Julliard, I literally did. Broke it in a freakish escalator accident on my way down to the subway.

  It not only killed my career dreams and lifelong plan, but also sent me packing and back to SoCal. After a year of sulking, feeling sorry for myself and developing a steady relationship with my first (and last) boyfriend—a dude named Jack Daniels—my parents convinced me to pursue a career in teaching. My mom was a teacher. My dad was a teacher. My older brother was a teacher. They loved teaching.

  I hated teaching.

  This was my third year of teaching and my first—and judging by my performance, only—year at All Saints High in Todos Santos, California. Principal Followhill was one of the most influential women in town. Her polished bitchery was formidable. And she absolutely despised me from the get-go. My days under her reign were numbered.

  As I approached my twelve-year-old Ford Focus parked across the aisle from her Lexus and her son’s monstrous Range Rover (Yeah, she’d bought her son, a senior, a fucking luxury SUV. Why would an eighteen-year-old need a car so big? Maybe so it could accommodate his giant-ass ego?), I decided my situation couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  But I was wrong.

  I slid into my car and started backing up into the almost empty parking lot, slipping back toward the two pricey symbols of a small dick. At the exact same moment, Mr. Living With His Mom texted me again. The green bubble flashed with GOT THE CAR. R8DY TO SEX IT UP? accompanied with approximately three thousand question marks.

  I got distracted.

  I got annoyed.

  I bumped straight into Principal Followhill’s son’s SUV.

  Choking the steering wheel and gasping in horror, I slapped my hand over my heart to make sure it didn’t shoot out of my ribcage. Shit. Shit. Shit! The thud that filled my ears and shook my car didn’t leave any room for doubt.

  I’d done to his SUV what Keanu Reeves did to the movie Dracula. I’d fucking ruined it.

  My fight-or-flight adrenalin kicked in, and I briefly contemplated whether I should hit the gas, assume an alias, and flee the country to hide in a cave somewhere in the Afghan mountains.

  How was I going to pay for the damage? I had a big deductible and there was that notice at home about my last insurance premium being late. Was I even covered? Principal Followhill was going to kill me.

  Mustering my courage, I peeled my sorry ass off my seat. Technically speaking, Jaime’s precious black SUV wasn’t supposed to be parked in the teachers’ lot. Then again, Jaime Followhill got away with a lot of shit he wasn’t supposed to, thanks to his looks, social status, and powerful parents.

  I circled around to find my cheap car’s ass that was kissing his Range Rover’s back quarter panel, leaving a dent the size of Africa.

  Suffice it to say, now things couldn’t get any worse.

  But I was wrong. Again.

  Bending down, I squinted at the destruction, not giving a damn about the fact that my brown knee-length dress danced in the air, exposing my new lace panties. There wasn’t anyone else in the parking lot to see them, and it wasn’t as if I was going to be flaunting them in front of Mr. Living With His Mom tonight.

  “Oh, no, no, no . . .” I chanted breathlessly.

  I heard a guttural growl. “Next time you bend over like this, Ms. G, make sure I’m not behind you, or it’ll end up on National Geographic: When Predators Strike.”

  I slowly straightened, pushing my reading glasses up the bridge of my nose and scowling at Jaime Followhill as I took him in.

  Jaime looked like lovechild, and I was not making this shit up. (Side note: This would be a great idea for a M/M romance novel. I’d totally read it, anyway.) Sandy-blond hair tied into a low, messy bun, indigo eyes, and the body of a male stripper. Seriously, the kid was so ripped, his guns were the size of fucking bowling balls. He was a walking, talking cliché of the prom king in a 90s movie. A baller who had every girl’s attention at All Saints High . . .

  And his eyes were now on me as he strode closer to his very smashed ride.

  He wore a tight gray Henley shirt that made his biceps and pecs stand out, slim dark denim, and high-top shoes that looked so expensive and tasteless you just knew P Diddy had to be behind that design. He had a few bruises on his arms and a fading black eye. I knew where he’d gotten them. Rumor was he and his stupid friends beat the shit out of each other on the weekends in a fight-club game they called Defy.

  Guess Pretty Boy wasn’t too rich to be pushed around. I wondered if his mother knew about Defy.

  Wait, did he ask me a question about my hamster? Or was it my hamstrings?

  “Well, fuck me to the moon and back.” He stopped a few inches from our cars, releasing a wicked grin. It looked like the two cars had melded together. Like his SUV was giving birth to my ugly car through its rear end, and now the SUV’s significant other (Principal Followhill’s Lexus) was demanding a paternity test.

  I taught Jaime, and he was one of the few kids that I could count on not to yell/scream/throw crap at people in English Lit. He wasn’t a good student by any stretch of the imagination, but he was too busy with his cell phone to make trouble in my class.

  “Sorry.” I released a pained breath, my shoulders sagging in defeat.

  He lifted the hem of his shirt and rubbed his perfect six-pack, stretching lazily and yawning at the same time. “Seems to me like I fucked your car up, Ms. Greene.”

  Wait . . . what?

  “You . . .” I cleared my throat, looking around to make sure it wasn’t a prank. “You fuck—I mean, you damaged my car?”

  “Yeah. Bumped right into your ass. Pun intended, obvs.” He kneeled down, frowning at the spot where our two vehicles met. He brushed his tan palm over the shiny paint of his SUV.

  Jaime made it sound like he was the one who’d crashed his car into mine. I had no idea why. He wasn’t even in his car. He’d just walked up. Maybe he wanted to blackmail me?

  I considered myself a respectable teacher with a moral compass. But I also considered myself someone who would prefer not to bathe in the ocean and sleep in her car. That was exactly what I would need to do to survive the financial blow if I admitted to being at blame for hitting his expensive car.

  “James . . .” I sighed, clutching onto the gold anchor necklace hanging around my neck.

  He shook his head and raised his hand in the air. “So I screwed up your ride. Shit happens. Let me make it up to you.”

  What. The. Heck?

  I didn’t know what game he was playing. I just knew that he was probably better at it than I was. So, in true Melody Greene fashion, I turned around and walked straight back to my car, essentially running away from the situation like the little pussy that I was.

  “Whoa, not so fast.” He chuckled as he grabbed me by the elbow and spun me around.

  My eyes darted to his palm on my flesh. He lowered his hand, but it was too late. Butterflies somersaulted in my stomach, and my skin prickled with need. I was hot and bothered by one of my pupils.

  Only Jaime Followhill wasn’t just any pupil. He was also a sex god.

  There was gossip in the hallways of
All Saints High to prove it, enough stories to compete with the length of the fucking Complete Works of Shakespeare. And that wasn’t the only things that were long and impressive about the guy if the rumors were true.

  Followhill made me almost as uncomfortable as his mother did. Only difference was his mom inspired fear in me, while he poked at my most sensitive spot. He made me feel embarrassed.

  That could be because my eyes always drifted his way while I taught his Lit class. Like a moth to a flame, I always noticed him, even when I didn’t want to. I was worried he knew that too. That I was looking at him in a way I shouldn’t be when he was dicking around, messing with his phone.

  Not like a teacher.

  But like a woman.

  “I said I dented your car.” His blue eyes shimmered with intensity.

  Why was he doing this? And why the fuck did I care? This kid received more pocket money than I had in all my savings combined. If he wanted to shoulder this, I should just accept.

  Was it a better grade he was after? Doubted it. Jaime was a senior on his way out the door. I’d heard his rich ass had landed a spot at an excellent Texas university (see: Mommy Dearest), where he’d play football and probably fuck his way into some kind of a man-whore Guinness World Record.

  “You did,” I said, swallowing. “And right now, I’m running late. Please step out of my way.”

  We mentally shook hands on that lie, our eyes hard on one another. I had a feeling I was digging a hole. A hole in which I was about to dump a ton of dark shit that’d land me in hot trouble. I was striking a deal with the devil’s spawn. Even though I had a good eight years on him, I knew who he was.

  One of the Four HotHoles.

  A self-centered, privileged princeling who ruled this town.

  Jaime took another step my way, his body flush with mine. His breath skated over my face. Mint gum, aftershave, and musky male sweat that made me oddly heady. I was so unprepared for this that my face twitched.

  I took a step back.

  He took a step forward.

  Bending his head down, he moved his lips close to mine. To my horror, my knees buckled, and I knew exactly why.

  “I owe you,” he murmured darkly. “And I’ll make sure you get to cash in on that debt. Soon. Very soon.”

  “I don’t need your money,” I sputtered, my womb tingling with fuzzy warmth.

  His mesmerizing eyes widened, and he flashed me a dimpled smirk. “It’s not money I’m going to give you.”

  How could someone so young be so arrogant and self-assured? I felt his thumb stroking my stomach, barely touching, teasing, making me quiver through the thin fabric of my dress. It was like he’d shoved his whole fist into me and attacked my mouth with his.

  I licked my lips and blinked, astonished.

  Holy shit.

  Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  Jaime Followhill was hitting on me. Blatantly. In the parking lot. In plain sight.

  I wasn’t a troll. I still had a dancer’s body after all, green eyes, a nice California tan, and soft chestnut curls. But I didn’t exactly give the cheerleading crowd a run for their money.

  Tripping backward, I swallowed a groan, feeling my pulse everywhere, eyelids included. “That’s enough, James. Drive safely, and please be sure to do your homework for tomorrow,” I had the audacity to say.

  I tucked myself back into my Ford, and then accidentally bumped my car into the Range Rover one more time before I fled the scene, smearing the ugly dent into a long, wide scratch. From the rearview mirror, I watched as he cocked his eyebrows at me in a challenge.

  I drove so fast I swore my curls transformed into a dramatic blow-out by the time I parked under my building.

  At home, I slouched on my couch in front of my phone and waited for Principal Followhill to call and tell me she was firing my ass and suing me for every single penny that I had. Or in my case didn’t have.

  Long hours passed, but the call never came. I crawled into bed and closed my eyes at ten p.m. but couldn’t sleep to save my life. All I thought about was that gorgeous asshole, Jaime Followhill.

  How he smelled like the hottest guy I’d ever been near.

  How he looked like the most delicious thing in the world when he rubbed his tan six-pack.

  How he helped me out of a shitty situation without flinching, knowing that his mother would probably crush me for this, and now . . . he wanted something back.

  On paper, he was still a kid, but every other part of him felt like a man this afternoon.

  It so defied logic, it was unnerving, almost infuriating when I thought about it.

  This morning, I’d woken up with the impression that I hated the Followhills.

  But after this afternoon, there was no denying it—there was at least one Followhill I wanted to get very friendly with.

  Here was all you needed to know about Todos Santos: it was the richest town in California and, as a direct result, home to the most entitled teenagers in the world. My students knew I couldn’t fail them. Their parents had enough power to strip me of my citizenship and banish me to an oxygen-deprived planet. These kids did whatever they wanted during class, much to no one’s surprise.

  The day after the car incident was different.

  I taught six classes. The first five had gone better than expected, meaning I didn’t have to slap anyone with a detention slip or call an ambulance/911/a SWAT team for assistance. But it was the sixth and last class that changed my life forever.

  I sashayed into Jaime’s class—following another barking session from his bitchy mom—into an echoing silence I wasn’t used to. Everyone was seated, nobody threw anything, and Vicious, Jaime’s BFF, hadn’t cut anyone’s face and adorned their forehead with a satanic symbol just to burn time.

  Normally, this was the part where I had to contain the wrath and deplorable behavior of the Four HotHoles. (Hot Assholes, as they were dubbed by everyone in Todos Santos.) It was three months before graduation, and they were all seniors, a possible excuse for their behavior. Except they’d been this way since the first day.

  There was Jaime, who spent my class texting the whole world and drawing the attention of every girl who wasn’t tongue-deep into Trent Rexroth, the underprivileged mocha-skinned football star, who made out with random chicks in the back. He once had a girl sucking his cock under his table in calculus. I kid you not. There was Dean Cole, the airheaded stoner who enjoyed pranks and annoying me in equal measure, and finally, Baron “Vicious” Spencer, the World’s Biggest Jerk.

  Vicious was by far the worst. He made good on his name. So goddamned cold and sullen all the time that people nicknamed him after Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. He had coal black hair, expressionless eyes, fair skin, and the kind of rebellious anger that could electrify you to the point of the chills. The permanent tick of his clenched square jaw made girls wet their panties from fear and lust. He was a jock, like all the HotHoles, but he was leaner than the rest, not as muscular. But scarier. Definitely fucking scarier.

  That day, Millie LeBlanc, a sweet girl who was the most frequent target of Vicious’s wrath, arrived three minutes late. I tilted my head, signaling for her to take a seat. I felt bad for her. Her parents had dragged her all the way from Virginia her senior year to take a job as live-in servants at one of the town’s many mansions—Vicious Spencer’s house to be exact.

  As always, she strode right in the psycho’s direction and took the empty seat beside him as if she didn’t know or care who Vicious was. My soul shouted an extended “Noooooooo!” when I saw how he was watching her. He will grind you and feed you to his pet snake, I wanted to warn.

  But Emilia just lifted her head, offered a polite smile, and drawled a Southern “hey, y’all” in the direction of him and the other HotHoles. Vicious blinked slowly, intrigued by the idea that she dared to speak to him without permission, and his expression clouded into a taut frown.

  “Motherfucker, did you just ‘hey, y’all’ me?” He let out a feral growl. “Pleas
e tell me it’s a fucking safe word you’re using now because some new boyfriend shoved the Confederate flag up your ass, pole included. Otherwise, don’t ever fucking ‘hey y’all’ me again.”

  Wow. That was more words than he’d spoken all year.

  Millie sighed and said, “I’m only trying to be polite. You should try it sometime.”

  “I don’t do polite,” he retorted, a rare smile tugging on his lips. Usually, he seemed to despise her, but he was studying her so intently it looked as if he was the one who’d like to shove numerous things up her perky little butt.

  “Leave him alone, baby doll.” Trent, the guy next to her (who took a breather from letting the chick next to him suck his thumb) glanced from Dean to Vicious. “Vicious stop being a—”

  “A raging fucking asshole,” Jaime finished from behind them, scraping his chair back and towering over their heads, his sculpted muscles flexed to the max.

  Goddammit. It was the first time my workday had ever been blissfully uneventful. The HotHoles just had to ruin it.

  Before I could warn everyone off with an impotent threat I’d never follow through with, Jaime galloped toward Vicious and pinned him to the nearest wall, his fingers laced firmly around Vic’s neck in a death squeeze.

  “Where’s your loyalty, man? Leave it be, okay?” Jaime tightened his hold on Vicious’s neck.

  “James!” I raised my voice, flying up from my chair and banging my palm over the desk. “Back to your seat, now!”

  Vicious looked thoroughly amused, rolling his head on the wall and laughing like a maniac. Jaime and Vicious were best friends, but they were also two alphas with a shitload of testosterone and hormones coursing through their veins.

  They were also the inventors of Defy. The teachers and high school staff didn’t know too much about Defy, because it went on at Vicious’s house parties over the weekends, but we got the general idea. The game was simple: Our students challenged each other to bloody fights and beat the shit out of each other. For fun.

  Defy was supposedly voluntary, but I didn’t doubt people were afraid enough of Vicious to indulge his whims, however ridiculous or dangerous.