“Agreement?”

“Uh, relationship.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What was his story? Not very smart?”

“Oh, no. He was in medical school at Penn State and is probably in residency by now at Harvard or someplace equally impressive.”

“Oh, so a troll? Ugly?”

She laughed a little but then caught herself before she could full-on giggle. “No, nothing like that. He was quite handsome.”

I was putting the pieces together. She’d had an emotionless relationship with some good-looking, successful doctor guy, and she’d been the one to break it off after several years. She hadn’t been lying earlier when she said she was a bit of a mess and had severe abandonment issues.

I wanted to ask her more about Jamie, but I didn’t want to push my luck or use my final question. It wasn’t even a very important one; but—maybe it was the horny caveman in me—I wanted to ask her about sex, suss out her likes and dislikes, and this was the perfect opener for that.

“Okay, so, last question. When did you lose your virginity?”

Annie shook her head and turned to stare at me. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Because I’m nosy. Talk.”

We were both finished with our ice creams now. She folded up her napkin and took the end of my cone from me before walking to the bin to dispose of them. There was something surprisingly comfortable and intimate about the gesture. She came back, sat down, and smoothed her dress over her legs. I sat close, my arm resting along the back of the bench. I imagined the paps were getting some good shots of us.

“I was sixteen; he was eighteen. We’d been going out for a week or two, and then he took me to prom. That was the night we did the deed.”

“And,” I probed, “was it good, bad, mediocre?”

She thought on this for a while, mouth drawn into a slanted line. “It wasn’t…good. Mostly it was just sore, and I wanted it to be over with.”

“So he didn’t make it romantic for you? Sounds like a right arsehole to me.”

“Show me a teenage boy who cares about romance. And yeah, he was an asshole, as it happens.”

I grinned down at her, moving my body closer so that our thighs pressed together. Annie froze for a second, so I nodded subtly toward the photographers. “Just making things look right for our audience.”

“Oh, my God! I didn’t even notice they were there.”

I gave her a wide grin. “That’s probably because you’ve been so enamored by my potent manliness.”

This elicited a cute little laugh from her and a sarcastic, “Oh, yeah, that must be why.” She paused and considered me a moment. “So, how about you? When did you lose yours?”

Her question caught me off guard. But still, I didn’t mind answering. “I was fifteen.”

“Wow, that’s young. And who was the lucky girl?”

“It was young, I suppose, but I was a horny little bastard.” I glanced down at her and winked. “Not much has changed there. The lucky girl was Trina. She was just fourteen. We’d been going out for a couple of weeks and decided to take the next step.”

Annie moved closer, curious. “And?”

I shrugged. “And it was good. Well, as good as it can be between two kids who hardly know what they’re doing. We quickly got the hang of it, though, and couldn’t keep our hands off each other. A couple months later, we had a little pregnancy scare. She freaked out while I tried to be the big man and asked her to marry me.” I paused and chuckled. “I was fifteen and ready to sign my life away, thought it was the honorable thing to do. It turned out her period was just late, and my proposal was unnecessary. She was so spooked by the whole thing that she broke up with me. I was heartbroken for a while before I really began dipping my toes into the world of sex again.”

Annie’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

“Yeah, I had a bit of a promiscuous phase in my late teens. Sex was a stress reliever for me. I probably over-indulged because my tastes got a little…kinky.”

Annie’s expression was a mixture of surprise and curiosity. I could tell she was about to ask me to elaborate on what I meant by “kinky,” and I wasn’t ready to go there yet; so I quickly changed topics.

“I almost forgot. We need to take a picture for my Instagram account. It’s been left lonely and disused since Gerta opened it for me.”

Annie looked up and bit her lip. “Oh, right, you want me in the picture with you?”

“Of course. We’re a couple now,” I said and pulled her close as I found the camera function on my phone.

“Yes, but there are quotation marks around ‘couple,’ remember?”

I gave her a fake scowl. “Like you’d let me forget.” Raising the camera in front of us, I quickly turned in and laid a kiss on her cheek as I was taking the shot. She squealed when I did it, but it was already taken.

“That was sneaky!”

“I’m just trying to make us seem genuine, Annie dearest.” I smirked and brought up the picture. “Wow, we look good together. And look at you,” I went on, nudging her playfully. “Absolute stunner. Those eyes. Fuck.”

“It’s a nice picture,” Annie admitted, grudgingly.

A naughty idea came into my head, and I couldn’t help but vocalize it. I ducked down and brought my mouth close to her ear, my voice low and husky. “Yeah, and imagine how good we’ll look when I’m inside you.”