Royal shakes his head and chuckles. “I gotta hear this.”
“You guys think you’re scary, but you’re basic,” I say. “Throwing the losers in the dumpster? Come on. That’s in every teen movie since the eighties. Are you going to give me a swirlie next?”
Royal’s jaw works back and forth, but he doesn’t say anything.
“And just now, you’re trying to insult me by telling me my pussy wouldn’t be up to your standards. That’s like me saying you have a small penis. It’s not hurtful. It’s pathetic.”
Royal smirks at me, his brow cocked as he glances down at his lap before giving me a meaningful look. “Go right ahead,” he says. “You think I’m insecure about my dick?”
“Exactly my point,” I say. “I’m not insecure about my pussy, Royal. We’re not fucking, so why would I care what you think of it? And even if we were, don’t you think it’s sad that the only way you can think to hurt me is to disparage something that only affectsyou? I don’t care if it’s good by a random guy’s standard. I know exactly how good it is.”
Royal scoffs and leans forward, resting his elbow on the table. “The fact that you don’t care that you’re loose as a whore and probably smell like the inside of that dumpster provesmypoint.”
I feel heat creeping up my neck, and I want to punch the guy’s teeth out, but I remind myself he’s talking shit. He doesn’t know the first thing about my pussy. Fucking two guys hardly makes me a whore, even if the first one told everyone I was. I’m sick of assholes telling me what I’m worth based on who’s been between my legs.
“That’s supposed to bother me?” I ask. “Are you ashamed of being a whore or smelling like a locker room?”
“The difference is, I could fuck a hundred girls, and my dick wouldn’t be any smaller.”
I laugh and shake my head. “Maybe not smaller,” I concede. “But it would be a lot less special to a girl who wanted to matter to you.”
“She’d never know,” he says smugly.
“I’m pretty sure everyone knows you’re a whore.”
Darkness flickers across his gaze, and his jaw sets. “Everyone already thinks you’re a whore, Harper. Once they know you’re so loose that after you fucked every guy at Faulkner, you went for the teachers, you’ll be so ruined not even a desperate bottom feeder will fuck you in a dumpster again.”
His eyes are hard, his voice low and vicious.
Damn it. Why’d I have to provoke him? I can’t let myself forget that he has that picture. I couldn’t care less whether the guys here want to fuck me. He thinks he can destroy my life by releasing it, but he’s not thinking ahead. He’ll also destroy my future.
I want to say something about Dynamo. It’s the perfect opening.
But I can’t risk it.
“We didn’t fuck in the dumpster,” I say. “Or anywhere else.”
I don’t know what their deal is beyond the family politics, but I know they hate each other, and I don’t want to give him any more reasons to hate me right now.
“That’s too bad,” Royal says. “You should have fucked someone while you had the chance. That maggot takes the fuglies that no one else will look at, but even he won’t touch you when we’re done with you.”
Damn. I hit a nerve, and I’m not even sure where I went too far, what tipped him over the edge from casual disdain and rude insults to threatening to destroy me.
“Wow, all this because my pussy doesn’t need your seal of approval.”
“All this because you’re pissing me off. Why are you such a freak, Harper? You don’t react to anything like you’re supposed to.”
“Who says I’m supposed to?” I ask. “People aren’t your dolls, Royal. You don’t get to control how they react and what they say. Not everyone is here to be your plaything.”
“But you are.”
We stare at each other a long moment. Butterflies of fear and uncertainty and excitement flutter against my insides. He slides his arm toward me on the table, straightening in his chair as he leans even closer, his glorious body looming over me.
He’s intimidating as hell, but I don’t back down. He’s so close he could kiss me—and wrap his big hands around my waist and lift me onto the edge of the table, push up my skirt, spread me open and pin me like a butterfly with that big, glorious—
I push the runaway image from my brain and lean forward to meet him, so close I have to rest a hand on his thigh to keep my balance. I arch my back a little, letting my tits just brush the front of his shirt. My nipples instantly harden, and heat pulses between my thighs when the corner of my lip brushes his chin, his skin the slightest bit scratchy with stubble. I squeeze his thigh, letting my nails bite into the fine, navy fabric. “If you’re going to toy with me,” I whisper, letting my lips brush feather-soft against his earlobe. “You better up your game. I play with the big boys.”
*