Of course they don’t. He’s such a bigshot they let him get by without getting the tattoo, even though everyone else is probably required to. But seeing as how I’m a control freak, too, I know what he means. I wouldn’t want anyone telling me what tattoos I had to get.
“So, this secret society,” I say, tugging him against me with my leg. “Could I join?”
He snorts out a breath of laughter. “No.”
“Why? Because I’m a girl?”
“Exactly.”
“Guess you know how I feel about that.”
“Guess you know I don’t give a fuck.”
“Is that in the rules somewhere?”
“I don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “I didn’t make the rules or the society.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “I don’t believe you would join a group without knowing the rules.”
“Then believe me when I say it’s none of your fucking business, and you need to just drop it.”
“Has there ever been a girl Swan?”
He scowls. “No. And you won’t be the first.”
“We’ll see.”
“Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he says. “You won’t like what happens.”
“There you go with the double standards again,” I say. “You have your boys club I can’t know about, but you want to know all my shit. I don’t even want to know how many girls you’ve been with, but you call me a slut when I’ve literally only been with two guys before you.”
“Wrong again,” he says. “I saw you giving head to that old guy.”
“Okay, I’ve given head to more than two guys,” I say. “But I only got good at it because it’s like… A compromise. And if you’re not good at it, it doesn’t work.”
His brow furrows. “What doesn’t work?”
“The compromise. If a guy is being pushy and won’t take no for an answer, you have to be good enough to make him cum, or you’re getting fucked, whether you want it or not. So you learn ways to defend yourself, like how to throw a punch and give good head.”
Royal’s jaw tightens, and he pulls the blanket around me again. “That’s the most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard.”
I shrug. “For a girl, it’s just life.”
“Is that what happened with that old guy?”
I hate the way he’s looking at me, like I’m a victim, someone to be pitied. I made that choice. I climbed in that car with Mr. Behr knowing exactly what he wanted. It may not have been my best decision, but it was mine to make.
“No,” I say, my voice hardening. “He was a teacher. I wanted a grade.”
He nods, as if that doesn’t surprise him. Maybe he already knew that, already looked up the guy in the video.
But then he looks away, swallowing so hard I can hear it in the silence under the bridge. His fingers worry the edge of the blanket. “Harper… The first time I fucked you…”
“You weren’t there,” I say, laying a hand on his cheek. I wait for his gaze to meet mine. “That wasn’t you. I know that.”
That darkness in his eyes warms, welcoming me with the sweet relief it offers, beckoning for me to sink in and let go. But I know that’s even more dangerous than when it’s terrifying and wild, like a storm that could tear me apart.
“If I could do it over…” he says quietly, taking my hand from his face and holding it in his. He strokes the back of it with his thumb. “I’d feel you the first time.”