“He has his ways,” he texts back. “Where are you?”
“I found a cozy reading spot on the back porch.”
“You’re reading at a party?”
“If that surprises you, then I guess this isn’t Hunter.”
“I told you, it’s Prince Charming. I’m sending the royal guard after you.”
I smile, shaking my head and going back to my Kindle app. I know I’ll have to stop reading now, but I need to find a better stopping point.
The book is so interesting, I’m still trying to find a good stopping point when my light is suddenly disrupted. I look up to find one hulking football player hovering beside my chair, blocking my light. Another one stands in front of me, looking down at me expectantly.
“Hunter wants you,” Wally states.
“Wow, he really did send the royal guard,” I murmur. I had thought it was a joke and he just wanted me to come find him.
Wally scowls. “Huh?”
I close the app, sliding my phone into the pocket of my jeans and grabbing my purse as I stand. “Were you a rat in your former life? You probably were.”
Wally mean mugs me like I’ve just insulted him, but he didn’t entirely understand the insult.
I bet that happens to him a lot.
I try to ignore the brutes he sent for me and walk ahead of them, but I don’t know where I’m going. I fall back once we make it inside the house and let Wally take the lead since he obviously knows where Hunter is.
Most of the partygoers are rowdier now than when I left—the ones that aren’t passed out, anyway. A brunette girl I vaguely recognize as one of Valerie’s friends is crying loudly about why someone called Fitz won’t call her back. A couple of Valerie’s lackeys are crowded around her, offering comfort and words of support, but I don’t see the queen bee anywhere.
Wally and Brian escort me through the dining room and down the hall. At the end of it, Wally opens the door on the right and steps back to let me pass.
Hunter is sprawled in a pink satellite chair by the window, watching outside. He turns his attention on me once I’m in the bedroom with him, a smile claiming his perfect lips.
“It’s midnight, Cinderella.” His eyes are almost warm as he regards me. “Did you do what I asked you to do?”
I nod, though I hate talking about this with his stupid friends still in the room. “We broke up. Anderson left.”
“Good.” Hunter leans forward and pushes off the pink chair, then he glances behind me at his friends. “Give us some privacy, would you? Watch the door. If anyone tries to come in, don’t let them.”
“Even Valerie?” Wally asks.
“Especially Valerie,” Hunter says. I wrinkle up my nose with displeasure, so he goes on to explain, “This is her room.”
I wrinkle up my nose even more as I bend down and set my purse on the floor by Valerie’s dresser. “Ew.”
“Yeah?” His voice is low, private. When I straighten back up, he’s much closer, crowding me and making my heart race faster.
“You know how I feel about her.”
“I do. I know how she feels about you, too.” He grabs my waist with one hand, tugging me against him and cradling my neck in his other hand. “This is your reward for being so accommodating. I wanted to get a little revenge for you, too.”
My heart is pounding too hard already to focus properly on what he’s saying. He’s walking me back toward the bed, touching me so tenderly. Given his meanness in the library, I wasn’t expecting this, and I don’t know how to respond to any of it.
“What do you mean, revenge for me?”
He dips his head, kissing my neck and lighting up every single nerve ending in my body. The surge of excitement is nearly unbearable.
Then he speaks and fries all the synapses in my brain. “I’m going to take your virginity in her bed.” He barely pauses to let me absorb that. “It’s pretty mean, even for me, but from what I’ve gathered, she deserves it.”
A nervous chuckle slips out of me. “Um, maybe we should back up a bit. I thought you said you didn’t want to date me.”
“I’m not going to date you.” He kisses along my neck, making his way toward my jawline. “I’m going to fuck you.”
“Do I get a say in this?” I ask uneasily.
“If your answer is yes.” He pulls back and gives me a little smile. Seeing I really am nervous, he cocks his head and caresses the side of my face. “It was always supposed to be me, Riley. If I wouldn’t have been shipped out of the country, it would have happened already.”
My stomach is twisted up with nerves, but there’s a twinge of excitement, too. The side of me that always carefully thinks through my decisions is horrified at the prospect of impulsively losing my virginity to Hunter tonight. I don’t really disagree with him that he was always supposed to be my first, but this definitely isn’t how I saw it happening.
Maybe it would have happened impulsively, but not at a party, not with his stupid friends guarding the door, definitely not in Valerie Johnson’s bedroom.
He’s moving too fast.
He always moved too fast, but he always slowed down when I told him I needed him to.
“Wait,” I say, gently pushing against his chest.
He doesn’t budge, leaning in to kiss the side of my face. “What are you afraid of?”
“A lot. There are a lot of uncertainties that go along with this offer,” I point out. “Why should I give you my virginity when you’re not even my boyfriend?”
“Because you want to,” he says, simply.
I roll my eyes. “You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
He smiles, and it fills my stupid stomach with butterflies. “And you owe me.”
My jaw drops open, but to my absolute horror, I find I’m more amused than insulted. “I owe you my virginity?” I demand, almost laughing at the absurdity of his claim.
He nods as if solemn, grabbing one of my hands and bringing it to his lips so he can kiss it.
I try to bite back a smile as he kisses my knuckles. “That’s a preposterous claim, Hunter Maxwell. I’d like to know how I owe you my virginity.”
“You kissed someone else in front of me. Twice. And then there’s all that stuff that happened in middle school. Frankly, I think I’m being a lenient debt collector.”
Despite myself, my tummy flutters at the prospect of it bothering him to see Anderson kiss me. “So, I give it up to you tonight and the slate’s wiped clean?”
“Not quite, but it is the first step.”
“Does it have to be here? Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the gesture that you want to simultaneously collect your debt,” I say, rolling my eyes indulgently, “and defile Valerie’s bedroom, but me? I’m not that vengeful. I’d prefer we do this in my bedroom or even yours. Somewhere that’s… ours.”
Inexplicably, my request seems to steal a little of the light from his eyes.
Even worse, that makes me feel guilty.
I don’t want to have sex for the first time in Valerie Johnson’s bedroom, but in an exceptionally twisted way, I can see how it’s kind of sweet of him to come up with that idea to give me a little bit of revenge. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t condone him being mean to someone, but Valerie? I can let that slide. In a really messed up way, it’s almost gallant. Not the kind of behavior I would expect of Prince Charming, certainly, but… well, Hunter isn’t Prince Charming.