eighteen
Harper Apple
In Royal’s bathroom—yeah, he has his own fucking bathroom, and I’d bet every other room in the house does, too—I take care of my lip as best as I can. There’s not much I can do about it but let it heal on its own. If I were rich like the Dolces, I’d probably go get stitches like their dad said. But I’ve had worse, and they’ve healed, so I know this one will, too. I think about skipping the shower, since being naked in someone’s house is too fucking vulnerable, but I’m pretty sure our water got shut off at home today, so I might not get a shower for a few days if I don’t take one now.
A little thrill goes through me when I peel off my clothes. I try to crush it back down, to stop imagining him walking in, the way his eyes would darken with desire when he sees my body bared to him for the first time. I shake the thought away and shower quickly. When I finish, I pull on his t-shirt and my jeans and leave the bathroom.
I’m surprised to find the room still empty. My brain tells me to take this opportunity to go through his shit, but in truth, I’m intimidated as hell. It’s one thing to know he’s rich, to see his fancy car and clothes, to look at his house from the balcony next door. Being inside it… It’s like I’ve been swallowed by the beast. I’m in the belly. I’m in at last, at least physically.
Instead of wanting to poke around, I find myself wanting to get the fuck out of there, to run away from this reality slapping me in the face. His room is huge, with a giant bed, two chests of drawers with mirrors, an armoire, two bedside tables, a computer desk with a laptop on it, another long desk in front of the window, and a small table in the corner with two recliners and a TV mounted on the wall. It’s practically as big as my house. On the way in, he rushed me through the back door and down the hall, but I caught a glimpse of the living room, all high ceilings and leather furniture that probably costs more than my house would sell for. It’s too much. I’m out of my element, practically dizzy with the reek of wealth around me.
Before I can get my head on straight, footsteps thud in the hall, and the door opens. I jump, even though I heard him coming. This place has me crawling out of my skin. Royal stands there, fixing me with an accusatory stare. I feel suddenly guilty, as if I really did go through his shit instead of just thinking of it. This house is so rich it makes me ashamed for just existing inside its walls.
He steps inside and pulls the door closed. His expression is unreadable.
“How’d it go?” I ask, edging away from him. I can smell whiskey on his breath, and I’m not sure if I want to see what Drunk Royal is like. Sober Royal is scary enough.
“It was nothing,” he says, his voice flat. “A false lead like all the others.”
I want more details, but I know better than to expect them. Royal doesn’t share personal shit. What he told me in the car is like a fucking revelation, way more than I hoped for. I still can’t quite believe it was real, that any of this is real. I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland tonight, and I’m not sure I like it.
“You ready to take me home?” I ask.
“I’ll take you in the morning,” he says. “I’m going to take a shower.”
He grabs the bottom of his shirt and peels it off over his head, and even though I’ve never wanted to have babies in my life and probably never will, I swear the sight makes my ovaries seize up. Or something a hell of a lot deeper inside me than my pussy. My brain shuts down, all reason disappearing as he drags the hem over the deep, thick ridges of muscle in his abs. And then the absurd slo-mo porno soundtrack in my head screeches to a stop when he pulls it over his pecs, each one a slab of muscle the side of a fucking dinnerplate.
One of them being a commemorative plate with the face of a gorgeous girl on it. Just as I’d recognize Zephyr’s art without seeing his tag, I recognize Maverick’s work when I see it on someone’s skin—the painful attention to detail, the emotion captured in every line. Her face is delicate and ethereal, strands of hair floating around it, her full lips slightly parted and her haunted eyes staring out at me from the canvas of Royal’s chest.
He smirks when he sees me ogling his body like a fucking creep. “Enjoying the show?” he asks, slowly tugging his belt loose with one hand.
I tear my eyes away and feign nonchalance. “I just didn’t expect you to be the kind of guy who tattooed a chick’s face on his heart.”
“Heart’s in the middle, Cherry Pie,” he says, touching the center of his chest, over his sternum, and running two fingers slowly down the center of his abdomen between his eight-pack abs, toward his belly button. His belt is open, his jeans slipping dangerously low on his hips, until I can see the muscles that bulge over his hip bones, the sharp V carved below them, the point leading toward the hint of dark hair peeking out above his jeans. His skin is smooth and dark but ridged with veins, and a light trail of hair leads from his belly button downwards, as if every line on his body leads the eye straight to his cock.
I swallow hard, remembering the heart-stopping heat of it, the size of it in my hand, the way he tasted when I ran my tongue over his skin. My pulse throbs, and heat blooms in my cheeks and between my legs when he reaches for the button on his jeans, slowly undoing it and letting them fall. Even when he’s not hard, it’s impossible not to stare, not to marvel. Every inch of him is intimidating, commanding, and dizzyingly masculine.
He chuckles quietly. “Get in the bed if you want me to fuck you.”
He strides into the bathroom and closes the door in my face. My heart is stutter-stepping in my chest, and I shake my head, trying to clear it. What the fuck. I need to get myself together, not act like my mother, seduced by her own desperate fantasies to escape the hand she’s been dealt. Yes, Royal radiates power, oozes sex appeal, and would probably blow my fucking mind.
He’d also obliterate my heart, take my life, and walk away unscathed. Even if I made it out alive, he’s the kind of man you never forget, the kind who changes you so deep it’s in your DNA. The connection I feel with him, the obsessive pull of his magnetism, the knowledge that clicks in my brain, my heart, my bones… It tells me this is it, that this kind of thing is rare and comes along only once, if ever.
It also tells me not to be stupid, and there’s a reason it only comes along once—because if you give in to this, let it wash you away, you never recover. You never feel that way again because after the devastation, you’re incapable of feeling that again. Your soul knows you won’t survive it again, that the part you gave to him died when he walked away.
Because he will walk away. Men always do. They’ve been doing it all my life. Hell, before I was even born, they were already walking. And me, I’d end up just like her, a broken woman who chose the wrong man, one who never looked back, who left her to clean up the mess he’d made of her life. She never quite recovered, never found her feet or fit the pieces back together, and though she doesn’t hate him for it, sometimes I do.
I sit down at Royal’s desk and consider my options. This is one of those moments when my decision to not have friends seems really fucking stupid. I could call Jolene, but I don’t really want her truckload of rednecks coming here to gape at Royal’s house. He gets that shit enough at school. I could wait for the twins to get home, assuming they’re coming home tonight at all. Or I could go downstairs and ask Mr. Dolce for a ride.
Considering Royal was obviously pissed that we even met, I don’t think it would go over so well if he came out and found me downstairs with his dad. I could walk, but it’s a long way, and I don’t have any defense but my bruised fists. It would be pretty fucking stupid for a girl to walk home alone this time of night without at least some pepper spray, and even then, once you cross the tracks, it’s not a sure thing.
If he’s really not taking me home, I’ll sleep in one of the recliners. They’re probably more comfortable than my bed, anyway. Was this his plan all along, refusing to take me home so he could fuck me? But that’s stupid. He could fuck me and then take me home, or fuck me in his car. Is he really worried about the fact that he’s had something to drink now? I wonder how much he drank. Duke’s words from the bridge flash in my mind—he doesn’t care if he lives. He’s the kind of guy who would do something reckless like driving after drinking, so why not now?
Is it because he doesn’t want to drive drunk with me in the car? For whatever fucked up reason, he defended me tonight. Sure, I probably could have finished the fight on my own, but he protected me. He came back just to knock those guys out. I’m here because he didn’t want to leave me at the party, thinking I wouldn’t be safe. Which is so fucked up I can’t even comprehend why. His bed is a hundred times more dangerous than a party.
I’ve already decided I’ll sleep with him at some point. It’s inevitable. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, that it won’t mean anything. I’m not sure I’m ready to do it yet, even if it does get us closer.
Whatever his reasons for bringing me here, I need to do something. I’m bursting with energy and nerves, and I’m fucking in. Maybe not really, not in their trust, but this is the closest I’ll ever get to Royal’s outer life. I’m inside his house, his home, his lair. When he was at my house, the thought of him coming inside was instantly abhorrent, and there’s a reason for that. People’s houses, their rooms, their stuff, it tells you something about them. It becomes part of them, part of their story. Even a room like Mabel Darling’s, with no sign of her but what’s hidden in her closet, tells you something about her.