The Mercy Academy Box Set: A Complete High School Bully Romance Series

by Lane Hart

  I get undressed and am lowering myself into the foaming bubbles when an important thought finally hits me.

  I don’t think Royal used a condom tonight!

  Why didn’t he use a freaking condom?

  I’m not on birth control, which means it’s a huge problem.

  And even though he didn’t finish, does that mean not even a single drop of his cum leaked inside of me?

  I’m not willing to take that chance, so first thing tomorrow, I’ll go to the pharmacy and get a Plan B to be safe rather than incredibly sorry.

  Royal

  I’m still wide ass awake in bed when Blake texts me asking if he can come crash here, which of course I tell him he can.

  At least there’s not a chance in hell that my dad would be stupid enough to lay a finger on me with witnesses around.

  So, why am I still awake at three a.m.?

  Because my gut is churning with hot, bubbly guilt. Not to mention that my dick is still hard even after jerking off in the shower when I got home because I didn’t get to finish what I started with Hannah. And not just physically.

  The guilt is partially because of Hannah and partially because there’s something I’ve never told Blake but feel like I should have after the shit came out about Aric. But I don’t know if I can be honest without him hating me.

  Blake and Aric are all I’ve got at the moment. And yeah, I’m angry at Aric for Blake’s sake, because I get the idea that what he did with Collette went on for a long damn time. Their illicit affair would explain why I never saw Aric hooking up with any girls from school after the summer he was with Sophie a long time ago.

  In fact, I was starting to think maybe he was gay, because he didn’t let any chicks touch him, not even for a blowie.

  I would’ve preferred that he was gay, because then he wouldn’t have ruined his friendship with Blake.

  “So how bad is shit at your house?” I ask Blake Saturday afternoon when he finally wakes up after crashing on my floor. Me, on the other hand? I barely got a wink of sleep. And it’s a good thing Blake is here; because if he wasn’t, I would probably do something stupid, like go see Hannah to hold her down and make her talk to me, and then probably try to fuck her again.

  We should definitely fuck again, no matter what, because it’s that damn good. I’m guessing that’s a long shot, though…

  “Bad,” Blake informs me when he sits up and rests his back against the side of my bed frame. “Like really fucking bad.”

  “No kidding.” I grab a baseball and pace around my room, tossing it in the air over and over again because my ADD is in full effect, wanting me to go to Hannah. And I can’t. I won’t. At least not while Blake is here.

  “I’m gonna kill Aric,” Blake says, making me wince. “Did you know about any of this?”

  “Fuck no,” I say honestly. “You know I would’ve told you if I did. Aric kept this fucked-up train wreck a secret from everyone.”

  “Do you think…maybe it just happened once?” Blake mumbles, and I can’t immediately answer that without lying just to tell him what he wants to hear.

  “You could ask Aric,” I suggest.

  “Fuck that. I don’t want to hear a single word out of his disgusting mouth!” Blake grumbles.

  “I don’t blame you,” I agree. “But if you want answers, only two people can give them to you.”

  “Whatever. I just want to forget everything including my own name for the rest of the weekend.”

  “That can be arranged,” I say with a grin. “You worried about the team’s drug tests?”

  “Couldn’t care less,” Blake says. “With that asshole injured, our season will be done in about three more weeks anyway.”

  “In that case, let the wasted weekend begin!” I declare, because forgetting everything is exactly what I need this weekend too.

  Chapter 16

  Hannah

  In just a matter of days, all sorts of things have changed.

  Maddie went from being ridiculous happy to on the outs with Aric.

  Blake and Royal sat with me and Maddie at the loser’s table at lunch today, which had everyone whispering because it’s unheard of for those guys to have anything to do with us, especially Royal.

  Then, to top it all off, Blake told us that Aric slept with his mom!

  And finally, it’s only been three short days since Royal and I got stupid together.

  I don’t like to use the f-word to describe Friday night, and we sure as heck didn’t “make love”, so the only way to define it was being stupid. I still can’t believe he was dumb enough to not use protection. Saturday, I had to take a Plan B, which has made me completely crazy and hormonal.

  So, if being with Royal was such a disaster, why can’t I stop thinking about Friday night, about him and how good it felt to kiss him again? Somehow, when I’m around him, he makes me feel things, things that only he can invoke, like some sort of magician who knows how to manipulate my body and bend it to his will.

  As if I summoned him using a spell, there’s a sharp knock on the glass doors that lead out to my balcony. Yes, one that’s sort of like Juliet’s, except that’s no Romeo glaring at me through the curtains and wiggling the handle to see if it’s open so he can just barge in. I don’t know why Royal is showing up here; but if he doesn’t stop pounding his knuckles on the glass, my parents will hear him!

  Getting up from my bed where I had been doing homework, I march over and unlock the door, simply to open it so I can tell him, “Go away.”

  But when I try to close the door, he sticks his big foot in the way to block it and then pushes it open, overpowering my grip on it until he’s waltzing right past me and into my room.

  “Seriously, Royal, I don’t know why you’re here, but you shouldn’t be! You need to leave,” I whisper-yell at him, pointing the way back to the door.

  “We need to talk,” he says as he stares me down, not bothering to be quiet and looking even bigger and angrier than I remember, especially his amber eyes. He never looked at me like this when we were together at camp, like he hates every tiny molecular cell that makes up my body.

  Did I mention he’s also taller and more filled out than he was at sixteen? He takes up way too much space in my room, in my head and, unfortunately, in my heart.

  “I don’t have anything to say to you, except why the heck didn’t you put on a condom Friday night? Are you insane?”

  “Because I had no clue that was going to go down like that! You haven’t spoken to me in over a year, much less let me touch you.”

  “Great, so thanks to that spontaneous event, you could’ve impregnated me or given me god only knows what kind of diseases from all your past skanks!”

  “I wasn’t going to knock you up, and I didn’t finish, so it’s a non-issue,” he grits out. “And I haven’t technically fucked any skanks lately, but all of their mouths looked exceptionally clean.”

  “You are so gross,” I tell him after putting that image in my head. “And you’re a jerk!”

  “I’m the jerk? You’re the one who ruined my life, remember? You didn’t even think for one second about what your self-righteousness would cost me! I’ve lost everything now. Every-fucking-thing! College, football, my entire fucking future!” he hisses.

  “How about you take a little responsibility for your own problems?” I suggest since I don’t need him throwing all of that in my face, trying to make me feel guilty for his own bad decisions.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” he grits out through clenched teeth.

  “Sure it wasn’t. Nothing ever is.”

  “This wasn’t!” he exclaims before I move closer to him to slap my palm over his mouth, quieting him down. His whiskey-colored eyes flare, but he doesn’t move my hand away.

  “Hannah?” my mom calls out from downstairs.

  “Yeah?” I yell back through my closed bedroom door.

  “What’s going on up there? I heard yelling!”

  “It’s just the television.
I’ll turn it down!” I promise, scowling and staring into Royal’s eyes to warn him to keep it down. Not that I’m going to let him stay.

  Finally grabbing my wrist to remove my hand from his mouth, he thankfully says softly, “Forget the stupid test. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “So why are you here?” I whisper.

  “Because…because I can’t stop thinking about you and the other night, even though I still hate you.”

  When he tries to take a step closer to me, I back away just as I start to understand why he’s here, why all those times at camp he snuck into my room…

  “Oh. My. God,” I mutter. “You’re here because you think I’m going to let you screw me again!”

  He licks his lips and smirks, eyes softening with humor as he asks, “So, I take it that’s a no?”

  “You know what, Royal?” I tell him as I poke his chest, his hard, broad and sculpted chest. “You are so clueless. Screw. You. Keep calling me any names you want, continue to make me a social pariah at school, I don’t care anymore! But I will never make the mistake of letting you inside of me again.”

  The enraged version of his golden gaze returns in the blink of an eye and, boy, does he look pissed. “If fucking me was such a big mistake and you hated it, then why the hell have you done it three times now?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Twice at camp and then at homecoming.”

  “I can count,” I huff. “I just meant, what do you mean I hated it? That’s not what I said…”

  “That’s what you told everyone.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Even though I was devastated after I heard Royal saying that he was only trying to get me to sleep with him, I never would’ve told anyone I hated being with him, because that would’ve been a lie and I’m not a liar.

  “Whatever, Hannah. Lie to my face, if it makes you feel better.”

  “I have no reason to lie to you, not that you wouldn’t deserve it after what you did to me!” I remind him.

  “Maddie’s your friend. It’s not like you’re all alone at school or anything.”

  I poke his chest again, because it seems to be some type of new obsession I’ve developed. And why can’t pissed off people poke the other person in the abs once in a while? I’d really like to touch him there even though I shouldn’t. “I’m not talking about at Mercy. I’m talking about what you did at camp.”

  “Camp?” he asks as if he’s forgotten all about it, all about us. “That was fourteen…that was forever ago!”

  “I know how long it’s been,” I say, even though I’m surprised he started to say fourteen months like he’s been keeping track. “Fourteen is about the number of seconds it took for you to break your promise to me! You used me to take what you wanted before moving right on to Claudia.”

  “Claudia?” he repeats, his forehead creased. “Who the hell is…oh.”

  “You forgot her already? Guess she wasn’t very memorable in the sack.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I never fucked her.”

  “Right, sure. You just snuck out of our end of the year party with her and didn’t come back for an hour because you were discussing English literature or-or politics…”

  “I left with her to make you jealous after you ripped out my heart, but I never touched her.”

  “After I ripped out your heart? That’s rich since you were the one using me the entire summer! You never had any plans of being with me when we came home, did you?”

  “Of course I did!” he exclaims and then lowers his voice. “In case you forgot, I told you I loved you; and you didn’t make so much as a peep in response.”

  My eyes water at the reminder of him saying those three words and how stupid I was to ever believe them. “Just another one of your lies to keep screwing me over.”

  “It wasn’t a lie, and I never screwed you over.”

  No. No freaking way! He did not just say he loved me. That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard out of his mouth, which is really saying something. I will not fall for his phony act again, though. He’ll say anything to sleep with me. “Camp aside, you’ve done plenty to screw me over at Mercy these last few months,” I point out.

  “Because I had to deal with all of the consequences of cheating, even though I didn’t fucking cheat!” he shouts and then winces when he notices the volume. “Sorry. I didn’t cheat, Hannah. I swear.”

  “So, you didn’t give that skinny, little dork a fake license with your name on it so he could take the SATs for you?”

  “No, I didn’t. My father did.”

  “What?” I say in disbelief. That’s the worst lie I’ve ever heard. “Why would your father do that? That doesn’t even make any sense.”

  “Because he thinks I’m too stupid to get into a decent university on my own, that’s why.”

  “Oh. Wow.”

  If Royal is telling the truth, and that’s a big if, then that’s so awful for him to be screwed over by his father in such a huge way. And it’s not like I meant to out him. It’s just, I heard this random little boy say he was Royal Fitzpatrick at the check-in table beside me. I laughed out loud, and the words, “No, you’re not” just came tumbling from my stupid mouth before I could even catch myself. After that, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The proctors asked what I meant, and before I could explain or try to lie, the dork broke down and cried, admitting to being paid to cheat and begging them to not throw him in prison.

  “There’s a whole lot you don’t know about me, Hannah,” Royal says. “It would’ve been nice if you could’ve, I don’t know, maybe asked me first before running your mouth?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say because I am. “I never meant for anything to happen…”

  “Why are you sorry? It’s my own damn fault, right? Didn’t you say I need to take responsibility for my actions?”

  “Royal, that was before I knew all of this…”

  “Well, now you do. And now I know you still think that being with me was a mistake.” Walking backward toward the balcony door, he says, “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again. I was drunk Friday night, and you plead temporary insanity; right?”

  “Royal, wait!” I say, but then he’s gone, slamming the glass door behind him before I see his tall figure vault over the balcony.

  Royal

  Worst. Idea. Ever.

  It was so fucking stupid of me to show up at Hannah’s.

  What did I think was going to happen? That she would tell me I wasn’t the biggest mistake of her life and then climb me like a tree?

  Yeah, no, that’s never going to happen.

  She’s still pissed at me too, more pissed than I knew because she always just keeps her head down and sucks it up at school, acting like nothing is wrong.

  There’s plenty wrong, and she’s still angry about camp, of all things.

  Well, I’m angry too, dammit.

  Hannah completely ignored me that last Sunday during the end of year party at camp. Whenever I tried to talk to her, her eyes teared up, then she ran the other way without a word, and I had no fucking idea why.

  That’s the idiotic reason I went off with Claudia. I wasn’t going to screw her. I just wanted Hannah to get jealous and worked up enough to actually talk to me.

  She didn’t. In fact, Hannah didn’t speak to me again until homecoming!

  An entire year went by without a fucking word from her.

  She ripped my ego and my heart to shreds in one summer, and then just went on with her life without a care in the world.

  I really wish I could do the same.

  “Hey, Royal. Everything okay?” Sophie asks when she finds me sitting alone on the football stadium’s bleachers staring off into space. I had been watching football practice, and fuck, does our team suck without Aric before they called it a day.

  “I wasn’t checking out the cheerleaders,” I assure her since they had been practicing too when I came and sat down.

  “I know that!” she exclaims.
<
br />   “Well, then just pretend like I’m invisible.”

  “That’s sort of hard to do since you look like you want to murder someone,” she replies before she climbs up the metal stairs. She takes a seat on the lower bleacher right in front of me in her blue cotton shorts and red Mercy tee, her blonde hair pulled back in its usual peppy cheerleader ponytail. “I’m a good listener if you want to talk.”

  “Nothing to talk about,” I say. “Everything is just…fucked up.”

  “Everything?”

  “Every. Fucking. Thing,” I elaborate as I scrub my palms down my face.

  “Okay. Well, give me the full list, and I’ll tell you from an unbiased opinion if I think each item on it is truly fucked or not.”

  “I can’t,” I say, because I’m not going to tell her about Hannah or about Aric and Blake’s business.

  “Does it have anything to do with the yelling I heard coming from Blake’s house all weekend? Is it true his mom and Aric…you know?”

  “You can’t tell a fucking soul about what you think you heard,” I warn her with a glare.

  “I won’t. And yes, you’re right. That’s totally fucked up,” she says with a small smile full of pity. “Blake and Aric’s friendship probably won’t ever be the same again, and you’re always going to get dragged into the middle of their mess.”

  “Fuck, I know that!” I say as I throw my hands up. “And the thing is, I want to be on Blake’s side. No, I am on Blake’s side. But he doesn’t really know how his mom is…”

  “And you do?” Sophie asks.

  “Yeah, I do. That’s why I stopped going over to his house.”

  “What happened?”

  “You have to swear on your life, Soph. I’ve never told a soul about any of this, so if you run your mouth, I’ll know it was you and then I’ll hunt you down.”

  “Did you know I want to go to school to be a psychiatrist?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “Well, I do, and one of the most important rules psychiatrists live by is confidentiality. Unless someone’s life is at risk or a child has been abused, they can’t say a word to anyone, ever. If they did, no one would ever trust them, you know?”