“How does that matter?” I stand to push past him, but he steps in front of me, blocking my way to the driver’s door.
“Did you cum?” he asks again, gritting out each word.
“No,” I say. “I never came. Happy now?”
“Asshole,” he says.
“What about you?” I ask, crossing my arms and glaring up at him. “Who’d you fuck since we broke up?”
“No one.”
We stare at each other a long moment while the trees toss in a gust of wind, rain battering our bodies and plastering our bloody clothes against us. “What about the women at the hotel?” I call over the noise.
“I told you, I’m done with that.”
“Over spring break, when you’d just dumped me, and the Waltons were there for the taking,” I say. “You didn’t fuck anyone?”
He swallows. “Just Lo.”
“Just Lo.”
“No one since that night,” he says. “Not even her.”
“And how was she?” I ask, a taunting edge to my voice. “Did you cum?”
Royal scowls at me.
“Then I guess we’re even,” I say. “We both fucked one person since we broke up. Preston hasn’t been with anyone since we met, so he’s clean. And Lo hadn’t been with anyone else since the last time you fucked her. I’m still on birth control, so we should be fine.”
“Why are you acting like this isn’t going to happen again?”
I swallow the anguish in my soul and force my words out. “We made a mistake. It doesn’t change anything.”
He gives me that asshole smirk that gets me all hot and bothered, with hooded eyes and his chin tipped up so he can look down at me like the smug bastard he is. “Okay, Cherry Pie,” he says, sounding zero percent convinced.
I clench my jaw and bare my teeth in my most ferocious smile. Then I repeat the words he once said to me. “Just because I made you cum, don’t get attached.”
“Give me the keys.”
“It’s my car.”
He doesn’t say anything, just holds out a hand.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Or is it your car, Royal? The custom color—is that black cherry?”
“You needed your own car.”
His gaze is cool, like it means nothing. But it means everything to me. A vehicle is an escape, a way to run, security and freedom both rolled into one beautiful package. I have to give credit where credit’s due, even if he never asked for it. Hell, he didn’t even tell me he bought the car, let alone expect gratitude. He just wanted me to have it, even if I never knew where it came from. But because he knows me, he knew that I wouldn’t accept a gift like this from him. He let me believe his worst enemy gave it to me, even knowing I’d show my appreciation to someone else, and that breaks my fucking heart.
“Thank you,” I say, my chest tight with emotion. “That’s… Way too fucking generous.”
“Shut up and let me drive.”
“You don’t make the rules anymore, Royal.”
He stands there with his hand out until I sigh and smack the keys into his palm. I grab the knuckles and jacket from where he threw them and slide them back on before climbing in the passenger’s side. I halfway expect him to rip the jacket off again, but he doesn’t even look at it.
“Where are we going?” he asks.