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“It’s finally finished,” Joy says, smirking up at me. “I had my last appointment over the summer. It took years thanks to breaks for swim seasons.”

I blink as I realize she knows I’ve been staring, but I’m too buzzed to care. “It’s gorgeous.”

She laughs and tucks her long wavy hair behind her ear. Then she turns and lets me see it properly. It really is something. An enormous dragon in shades of black and blue spans the entirety of her spine, with ripples spreading from each of the long-taloned claws. I reach out and trace the spine of the creature, only pulling my hand back when Joy shudders beneath my fingers.Shit.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I—”

“It’s fine,” she says, turning back around.

My eyes fall to the front of her dress, realizing there’s no way she’s wearing a bra. I swallow, my dick more than intrigued by the idea.Shit. No.I shake my head, regretting the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed already. As soon as I saw there were students here, I should have left. Not that Joy is stupid enough to do anything with me. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m useless.

“Are you here alone?” she asks, her brows pinching as she looks around me. “I figured you had friends in the bathroom or on the dance floor.”

I should probably feel shame when her gaze falls on the empty shot glasses yet to be cleared away, but I don’t. “No. Just me, vodka, and the calling of oblivion.”

The crease between Joy’s brows deepens. “Oblivion? What’s up, Coach?”

“Ugh.” I shake my head with an exaggerated shudder. “Don’t call me that when we’re not at school. Doug. Please.”

Her frown lessens a little and she gives me a small smile. “Okay,Doug. What’s up?”

It’s my turn to frown, and I stare at the last few mouthfuls of drink hoping she’ll forget she asked the question and move on.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” she asks.

My eyes flit to hers, but I don’t see the confusion or pity that I get from Drew or Mika. I see understanding. Clawing my way through the fog of vodka clouding my senses, I try and think about practice. I’ve never seen Joy talk to Lane. Not once. As Captain, she should be close and personal with him now. I know Aldo has taken a shine to the smarmy fucker. I knock back the rest of my drink, slamming the empty down on the bar.

Joy places a hand on my shoulder, leaning up so she can talk in my ear above the music without shouting. “I get it. If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”

I don’t think I want to talk about it, but I am curious why she dislikes him. A noisy club isn’t the place for conversations, though. It’s a place for forgetting. For letting go.

“Dance with me?” I ask.

Her eyebrows lift and I immediately want to suck the question back in. I haven’t got long left. I can feel the heaviness in my limbs and the numb sloshing in my brain. I’ll call a cab soon, rather than passing out at the bar like I’d planned. Perhaps I can make do without a kick to the kidneys from the bouncers, just this once. But I shouldn’t be dancing with a student. It’s reckless and stupid and—

“Sure.” She takes my wrist and pulls me away from the bar, thankfully toward the other circular dance floor away from her friends.

The song is one I don’t recognize, a deep, pulsating beat that vibrates deep in my core, and the space is so tightly packed with bodies, it gives a semblance of privacy as we start to move to the music. I try to give her space, but we have less than a foot of space to work with, so it’s impossible.

Some massive guy next to us stumbles, falling into Joy, and I reach out and grab hold of her, pulling her against me out of his way. The guy looks at us with bleary eyes as his friends tug him from the dance floor, but the space he leaves fills immediately.

It’s only then, I realize my hands are still on Joy’s arms, her hands on my hips to steady herself. She looks up at me and smiles a thank you, but I don’t deserve it. If she knew what was going through my head, she’d turn and run the other way. Joy Blake is gorgeous. All I want to do is take her home and peel that dress off her. Lick every inch of her. It’s a good job I’m too drunk to get it up. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to follow through on my desires. That said, my dick is making a solid effort of trying to rise to the occasion.

Joy doesn’t take her hands from my waist, her body already moving to the music, so I don’t release her either. Instead, I slide my hands around her, leaning forward until our foreheads touch. She’s wearing spiky heels that not only make her toned legs look incredible but leave her only an inch or so shorter than me.

It’s hot, sweaty, and intimate, despite being in a crowd, and as we move to the music, our bodies gravitate closer. I spent the summer shoving my dick into anything that stood still long enough, trying to forget. But this is different. None of those women, or men, knew who I was. I was just some stranger looking to get off. Joy knows who I am. What a fucking liability I am, and she’s still here. Holding me. Her fingers tensing and untensing around my hips as we grind together.

I let one of my hands slide up her spine, my fingertips pulling another shudder from her, and I smile. Joy pulls back a little bit and I swallow, but when she looks up at me, it’s not the ‘what the hell’ I’m expecting. It’s curiosity. I watch her as her eyes move over my face, wondering what she’s seeing.

When she looks at me again, I raise my eyebrows in question, and she bites her lip and shakes her head. My hand reaches between us, my thumb tugging that perfect lip from under her teeth before I can think about whether it’s a good idea.

I lean down. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says against my ear, her breath tickling my skin.

“Liar,” I murmur.

She trembles a little and my eyes close. She’s so responsive. Would she tremble as I pushed inside her? Does her body quake when she comes? I know I shouldn’t be thinking any of those things, but I can’t stop. My brain belongs to vodka now.

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