“You know how fucked up it is that I have to look at your dead sister’s face every time I fuck you?” I shoot back. “Seeing her big, haunted eyes staring back at me every time I look up at you.”
He smirks, his jaw rising in that asshole way of his. “Who says she’s my sister?”
I snort and give him a look like, please, boy. I wasn’t born yesterday. “You’re not the kind of guy who gets a girlfriend’s face tattooed on his chest. And you told me.”
Didn’t he? Or did he skirt around the question and let me assume?
He shakes his head and shifts gears, speeding up. “I’ve never had a real girlfriend,” he says after a minute. “But that doesn’t mean I’m looking. So stop trying to get me to say something stupid.”
“What does ‘real girlfriend’ mean?” I ask. “Like, not a fuck buddy?”
“Is that what Maverick was to you?”
I shrug. “We didn’t really define it. It wasn’t the sort of thing that needs a label. It was what it was. Casual. No big deal.”
He shifts around in his seat. “Look, Harper. I don’t date. I have a lot of shit in my life that has nothing to do with you, or other girls, but it means I can’t have a girlfriend. Understand?”
“No,” I say. “But I’m guessing you’re not going to answer questions about it.”
“That is correct,” he says, pulling up to a stoplight. “You’re just going to have to trust me when I tell you that I’m not fit to be anyone’s boyfriend. You don’t have to know all my shit to know that.”
“True,” I say. “And I’m not asking you out, so stop thinking that’s what I meant. I just wanted to know why you’re Mr. Pregnancy Scare Action Hero right now. It’s so unlike you. I thought you must have experience.”
He shakes his head. “Just because you made me cum, don’t go thinking you’re special. And just because I made you cum, don’t get attached. Okay? I’m not taking you to the doctor because I’m a decent guy, but I am telling you this because maybe I’m not totally hopeless yet.”
“And why are you taking me again? You could have just handed me cash. You know, I think you’re a lot more decent than you let on.”
“I don’t trust you,” he says, his voice hardening. “You’re poor and desperate. You could have taken that cash and told me you went to the doctor. I wouldn’t put it past you to trap me in this, so you’ll be set for life. That’s why I’m taking you.”
I swallow hard, turning back to the window, all the flirty fun gone from the car. “Got it,” I say, my throat tight. He really thinks I’m that kind of person?
But why wouldn’t he? That’s exactly what my mother would’ve done if she could find a rich guy to have unprotected sex with. Instead, she had my deadbeat dad to run off on her, and I guess he wasn’t even worth chasing down for child support. At least she got her tubes tied so she didn’t have to worry about any more kids ruining her life.
Royal goes on because apparently he has to really drive home the point that he still thinks I’m shit, despite what happened this weekend. “I’m putting you on birth control because I’m going to fuck you again, and I like fucking you raw,” he says. “And by not a real girlfriend, I mean not since I was in middle school. Once I was old enough to fuck a girl, I didn’t want to be tied down. That’s never changed, and it never will. Are we clear now?”
I turn to him and smile, staring him straight in the eyes. “Crystal,” I say, biting the word out, my vindictive little heart relishing the way it makes him flinch.
He pulls up and jerks to a stop in the lot of a walk-in clinic, the only ones open on a Saturday afternoon. He leans toward me, his expression almost tender as he lifts my chin and skims his thumb across my lower lip. “Remind me to stop by a sex shop and buy you a gag before I fuck you again,” he says, chucking me under the chin. “That should shut you up.”
He hops out of the car and heads into the clinic without bothering to check if I’ll follow. He knows the limits to my stupidity.
Whatever happened between us, it hasn’t changed what we are to each other—enemies. That much is clear. He still thinks of me as trash, and I still know he’s a monster who needs to be taken down.
I’m such an idiot. I’m the one who got carried away, who forgot that for a minute. I’m the one who fell under his spell and thought we could be on the same side for once just because he’s taking me to the doctor. It’s all my fault. He didn’t even cum when he fucked me last night. He lost control first, for a minute, but he managed to pull back in time, to keep from finishing and losing himself to me completely.
Was he pissed about giving in first, and that’s why he insisted on giving back, to level the playing field? For a moment, I had the advantage. He’d lost control, and I hadn’t. He’d hurt me. He owed me. And I didn’t even fucking see it.
Instead, I let him have the upper hand again, let him give me half a dozen orgasms, so he has nothing to feel bad about, even after the brutal way he took me against the wall. After all, I enjoyed last night, climaxing over and over, and he didn’t. Sure, maybe he broke his rules for me and ate pussy, but I broke mine and let him. I lost control, and he didn’t. I gave in, and he didn’t. I let Royal control me, let him make me his plaything, a slave to the pleasure he can give me.
So much so that I lost my head this morning. He said I made him all kinds of stupid, but I’m the one who climbed on his dick without a condom. He was barely awake. And thirsty bitch that I am, I just wanted more, not thinking about the consequences. And here I am the next morning, just like my mother, paying for a mistake because I let my body rule me.
That’s why we’re here. Not because I was trying to tip the scales back and make him lose control, but because I wanted him with me while I came, wanted the intimacy and connection. That’s what made him cum. The realization makes something funny twist inside me, happiness and guilt and triumph all rolled into one. I know how to make him cum. And he wants to do it again. He wants to be with me again, without a condom, enough times that he’s putting me on birth control and not just saying he’ll pull out.
Could this be the way in I’ve been looking for? I’m almost afraid to hope as I follow Royal into the clinic. But I do hope. I hope because he’s still here. Surprisingly, he didn’t kick me out of bed this morning and tell me to get lost. He didn’t even hand me off and let his smarmy father take care of this. He’s here, and whether he’d admit it or not, he’s taking care of me. Could it be that the monster has met his match in the one girl who fights back, a control freak just like him who made him lose control at last? All those people who say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach are full of shit. The way to a man’s heart is through his dick. I think I’ve arrived there at last.
*
Crystal (#396)