ROYAL (11 page)

I leave out all the moments I watched from afar, all those
times I flipped through hundreds of images on her Facebook page. Their first
year of dating was chronicled with dozens of sickeningly adorable selfies, and
as the months passed, I watched them grow serious about each other, take little
trips, and explore the boundaries outside the great state of New York together.
From behind a computer screen, I watched as Brooks Abbott integrated into the
Rosewood family with a disturbingly natural fit. I was there when he popped the
question, and the day she updated her relationship status to ‘engaged,’ my
heart sank hard.

Loneliness is watching the only girl you’ve ever loved find
happiness in the arms of another man.

“How often did you watch us?” she asks.

“You’re making it creepier than it is,” I say. “Wasn’t like
that. Your really need to lock up those social media pages. Your entire life is
out there for anyone to see.”

Demi clears her throat, her gaze falling to the blanket
beneath us before rising.

“Maybe that was the whole point.” Her words are stiff, low.
The heat from the fireplace is distractingly hot, but I don’t feel it. I’m
focusing on Demi, watching her fidget and tuck her hair behind her ear and chew
her bottom lip. “Maybe all these years, I was hoping you were watching. I
thought maybe if you could see how happy I was, you’d miss me as much as I was
missing you.”

Her knees draw up to her chest, and she buries her face
against them.

“God, that sounds so juvenile.” Her voice is muffled. She
pulls herself into a standing position, fanning her face. “It’s really hot. Are
you hot?”

She hits the switch on the wall, and the flames die a sudden
death.

“So all those moments.” I rise. “All those pictures and all
those things you were doing with Brooks . . . that was all for me?”

Her right hand hooks her left elbow, and her feet cross at
the ankles. She looks away.

“It sounds ridiculous and absurd when I say it out loud,”
she says.

“I thought you were happy. I assumed you’d moved on.” My jaw
sets. “It’s why I stayed away for so long. I never would’ve stayed away if I knew
. . .”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” she says. “Brooks and I . . .we
were mostly happy. We had some good times. When I told him I loved him, I meant
it. It just wasn’t the same kind of love. It . . .it didn’t feel the same as
when I said it to you. But I loved him enough.”

“You loved him . . .
enough
?”

Demi glances down at her nails, picking at them and huffing.
“You know what’s funny about all this?”

“What’s that?”

“We’re more or less perfect strangers, and I’m being more
honest with you right here, right now, than I’ve been with myself in years.”

“I’d hardly call us strangers.” I move toward her, cupping
her cheek.

Our eyes meet.

“We have a history,” I say, “that no one can take from us.
No matter what happened in the past, no matter what happens from here, it can’t
take away from the good thing we had. You were my first love, Demi. You only
get one.”

“And you threw me away.”

She blinks away tears, turning her face as if she’s ashamed
of crying in front of me.

If she only knew how wrong she was.

“Sometimes I feel so stupid,” she says. “Like we were just
kids, Royal. We didn’t know anything about love. We didn’t know what we were
doing and saying. Teenagers have no business making promises to each other, you
know? And here I am, a grown woman who spent the first half of her twenties
fantasizing about the day you’d come back to me and knowing damn well it was
never going to happen.”

Her hand rests on mine as my thumb traces her bottom lip.

“And then you showed up. At my door.” She sniffs. “And part
of me wants to pick up where we left off. Part of me wants to jump in your arms
and kiss you and smell you and feel you and lose myself in everything about
you. And the other part of me hates you. Because you’ve ruined love for me,
Royal. I’m never going to love anyone the way I loved you, and I want to. So. Much.
I want to feel the way I felt with you . . . with anyone
but
you. And I’ve tried. And I can’t. And I hate you for that.”

Her chin wrinkles, and a thick tear slides down her cheek.
Without hesitating, I bring her into my arms, sliding my hands through her hair
and pressing her against my beating chest.

I’ve waited years to hold her like this.

“I’m sorry, Demi.”

She cries against my chest, a neat cry, not a sloppy,
half-drunk bawl. I give her as much time as she needs, and the space around us
grows quiet save for our breathing. We don’t move. We stand perfectly in place as
I hold her in my arms. The scent of her rosemary mint shampoo—the same
one she used in high school—wafts from the top of her head, and it takes
me right back to those carefree summer days before our lives took a turn.

Her face pulls away, but her arms are locked firmly around
my sides.

“I still love you, Demi.” I feel the need to tell her now,
because I’m not sure I’ll ever get the chance, and it’s not the kind of thing
you can just blurt out any time you want without looking like a crazy person.
“I never stopped. And all those things you said? I feel the same. Except I
don’t hate you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was all me. And I hate myself
for it.”

Demi’s eyes close, like my words are sinking into every open
wound. Her tongue rakes across her bottom lip, and I feel her breathe me in.
It’s just like old times, only better. Recharged. Renewed. I could stand here
forever like this, never letting her go.

Her body pressed against mine eats away at my self-control.
She’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted, and her perfect, heart-shaped lips are
inches from mine.

Fuck it.

Those lips belong to me.

They always have.

They always will.

Demi

His lips are warm.

For a second, I’m convinced that this is a dream.

This kiss. His mouth on mine. I’m imagining it.

A shiver runs down my spine, and my lips part, accepting his
tongue as it invades my mouth. His fingers dig into my scalp, sending pinpricks
down my neck and back, and I melt into him.

Each second that passes breathes new life into me.

My chest squeezes tight. It’s so full, I think it might
burst.

This is real.

This is really, really, really real.

His lips are soft, and an earthy, metallic scent fills my
lungs. Mossy cologne on top of paint thinner on top of grease.

And I love it.

He fists my hair, tugging it down and finding the perfect
angle of which to crush my lips once more. His kiss hasn’t changed in seven
years. It still has the power to make me weightless and effervescent, to drown
out my thoughts and replace them with light, and to make the outside world fade
into nothingness.

His free hand drags down my side, hooking against the small
of my back as we stumble to the couch. Our mouths uncouple.

He falls.

I fall.

My thighs straddle his hips as his hands search beneath my
shirt, and as he cups my breasts, my straps fall down my bare shoulders.

The outline of his hard bulge rubs against me, exciting my core.
Every graze of his fingers against my skin is electric.

Royal pulls my shirt over my head and goes straight for the
hooks of my bra. My lips are glued to his. He kisses me over and over, and I
die a little each time, but in a good way. I’m floating high above it all,
watching from below.

I’m shirtless, bare, and my fingers tug the hem of his
t-shirt until his chiseled chest is exposed in my dark living room. His greasy
work pants against my white sofa are a silent “fuck you” to Brooks and this
bullshit life he created for us.

I never wanted all the white.

It was all Brooks, and he didn’t care because he wasn’t the
one stuck cleaning everything all the time.

I hope we stain the hell out of this sofa.

Royal palms my breasts and presses his mouth against my
collarbone. My nipples wake, and my hips buck and circle. I can’t take it
anymore. I want more. I need more.

This
.

This is not enough.

I didn’t wait seven years for high school-grade heavy
petting.

Sliding from his lap, I fall to my knees at his feet and tug
at the zipper of his pants until my hand grazes his hardness. My mouth waters
at the thought of taking him in my mouth, and I find myself holding my breath
as I release him from the confines of his navy boxers.

Royal groans, and I take his thick erection in my hands,
pumping and bringing my lips to the tip. My tongue swirls his head, and I lower
my mouth again and again, fitting as much as I can. The salty sweet taste of
pre-cum hits the back of my throat, and I happily swallow, eager for more.

He gathers my hair in a ponytail, keeping it out of my face
as I lick and pump and suck.

“Fuck, Demi . . .” He releases a sigh. With my elbows
against his thighs, I feel him tense. He pulls me up, vacating my mouth, and
lunges for the button of my jeans.

I’m weak.

I’m a mess.

I’m probably going to regret this in the morning.

But I don’t care.

I want to hate him. I should make him stop. But this feels
too damn good.

Royal pulls me into his lap as soon as he’s stripped the
rest of me. His jeans are tugged down enough that it’s my sensitive flesh
against his. I circle against him, feeling his girth pressing against my seam
and knowing one quick move is all it would take for him to be inside me.

And fuck, do I want him inside me.

More than I ever thought I would.

His hand grips the base of my neck, and he trails kisses
along my shoulder. I sink down, rubbing myself against his shaft, hinting,
pushing, persuading for him to make the next move. Royal’s fingers travel
between my thighs, slipping between my seam and pushing deep inside me. One,
then two. His thumb circles my clit. Just enough pressure.

He was the first boy in high school who ever fingered me,
and I press a bitten smile against his neck so he can’t see the giddy nostalgia
I’m wearing on my face.

This is living history, he and I.

A faded memory playing in real time.

And it makes me unreasonably happy.

His fingers are buried, curling, gently stroking. But it’s
not enough. Once again, I want more.

Our eyes meet in the dim living room.

“You’re so fucking sexy, Demi.” His voice is a growl, coming
from deep within.

I blush because he won’t take his eyes off me. He’s feasting
on every inch of my body, his gaze dragging from my eyes to my mouth to my
breasts as they bounce with each shift of my circling hips.

When he looks at me like he owns me, I forget how to
breathe.

Slipping his fingers from me, his hands curl around the
curve of my hips. He guides me off his lap and lays me back on the sofa.
Kneeling between my thighs, he climbs on top of me.

My heart gallops, pounding so hard that I find myself
somewhere between a panic attack and that feeling you get when you’re at the
very top of a hill on a rollercoaster.

This is happening.

Oh, God, this is happening.

The head of his cock grazes my inner thigh.

He’s still rock hard.

For
me
.

Pulling his wallet from his pocket, he produces a gold foil
packet. I don’t ask. I don’t want to know if he always carries it or if he
brought it here tonight because he knew, in his heart of hearts, that this was
going to happen.

I try not to think, because in the end, it doesn’t matter.

Royal Lockhart is going to fuck me.

And I’m going to let him.

I’ll deal with the consequences later.

He sheaths himself and grips the base of his cock, pressing
the tip against my clit and sliding down the seam. One solid shove, and he
fills me.

My nails dig into the meat of his arms. They fill my palms.
I don’t remember his arms being so big before. And his weight on me is heavier.
Everything about the way he feels serves to remind me that he’s all man now.

He cups my right ass cheek, his free arm keeping him propped
above me, and he pulls me closer, harder into him. Driving into me, he goes
deeper with each thrust. I swear my heart hiccups with each insertion. I stare
into the familiar eyes of this stranger, this version of Royal I’ve yet to get
to know, and I’m briefly washed in peace.

Looking into his eyes, Royal feels like home.

Or maybe this is what closure feels like.

Either way, it doesn’t last long.

I focus on his lips, the dip in his left tricep as it flexes
with each thrust, and the intensity of his weighted stare as it helps itself to
every exposed inch of my body. But none of it distracts me from the niggling
feeling that he’s just going to leave me all over again.

Is this what happens? Is this what other people do? They run
into their old flames and have one last run for old times’ sake? And then they
move on with their lives?

“You’re going to leave again, aren’t you?” I say.

His face scrunches, and he stops, his cock buried inside me.

“Demi, what the hell are you talking about?”

“After this.” My hands skim down his back, resting just
above his perfect, tight ass. “You’re going to disappear again.”

“Never.” He kisses me long. Hard. Our lips dance as his hips
thrust again and again. “I’m never leaving you again, Demi. I love you.”

When we were younger, the first time he told me he loved me
was the first time he’d ever said it to anyone. It wasn’t easy for him to say
then, but I don’t know
this
Royal.

Royal fucks me, his strokes deeper, harder, like he wants me
to feel his love. I cup his face and bring his lips to mine, relishing in his
taste.

I’m not going to tell him I love him.

No need to complicate this any further.

Besides, the Royal I loved was nineteen and charismatic and
sweet and funny. I’m not entirely convinced
that
man and
this
man are even the same
people. For all intents and purposes, I’m basically fucking a stranger. A dark,
handsome, seductive, tragically sexy stranger with a familiar gaze that makes
my stomach somersault.

And the man I love—the one I’ve ruthlessly pined for
over the last seven years—he doesn’t exist anymore.

Only the one on top of me, inside me, all over me. Infusing
his broken, damaged spirit with mine and weighing me down so I don’t float
away.