Cherry Bomb (Brighton #1)

by Carmel Rhodes

  “Baby Cherry didn’t have it so easy either.” She sighs. Her fingers drum against the table. “I didn’t grow up and kick their asses, but I got my revenge.”

  “It sounds like you’re about to make me an accessory, after the fact.”

  Her eyes shine with amusement. “I didn’t kill them. I just hacked into the computers and changed the yearbook file.”

  “No shit.” I nearly spit out my too hot tea in shock. “What did you change?”

  “The senior superlatives. I gave the assholes more accurate awards.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like my evil bitch of a sister, Sunnie. Instead of most fashionable, I changed it to most likely to give handjobs in the third-floor girls’ room. Or Travis Benson, instead of most likely to succeed, I changed it to most likely to be arrested for date rape. It caused a whole scandal. Everyone knew it was me, but no one could prove who did it. Not as gratifying as kicking their asses—”

  “That’s badass, Cherry,” I tell her, lifting my teacup. She clinks it with her coffee mug.

  She sighs. “I guess I should get going.”

  “But all you’ve eaten was a strawberry and a bit of toast.”

  “It’s fine.” She stands.

  I slide my plate aside and grab her around the waist, lifting her onto the table in front of me. I push her robe open wider and admire her. Her tits are small, Bs maybe, with pink nipples. There’s an upside-down rose tattooed between her breasts and I kiss it. Inhaling, I run my nose up the center of her chest. She smells like lavender from the shower and coffee. I want her to leave here smelling like me, and sex.

  “You can’t keep me here forever,” she says, raking her fingers through my hair.

  I lift a strawberry from the bowl and bring it to her lips. She bites down, wrapping her pouty mouth around the fruit.

  “I know, but I promised to feed you,” I say, plucking another berry. This time, I elbow her legs open wider and swirl it around her clit, before pushing it inside her. The tip of the fruit disappears into her center briefly before I tug it back out and bring it to her lips. “Bite.”

  This time, she makes a show of eating, licking up the pink juice that drips down my fingers. “More,” she moans. I grab another, push it in her cunt, then bring it to her mouth.

  Once it’s gone, I snag the syrup boat from the cart, along with a plate of French toast. I rip a piece off with my fingers and dip it into the still warm syrup. Warm sticky goo drips down her chest as I bring the food to her mouth. “Open.” She obeys, wrapping her lips around my fingers. I feed her this way until the toast is gone. I lick up the mess on her chest, and my teeth graze her nipples. My dick pulses with need. “Turn around,” I bite out. My self-control is hanging on by a thread. I need to feel her slick heat wrapped around my cock, as badly as I need my next breath.

  She scrambles into position, sending dishes crashing into the carpet as she does. I tear the robe from her body and spear her with my dick.

  Grabbing a handful of her hair, I yank her head back, contorting her body into a deep arch. “From now on, you eat breakfast,” I grit, thrusting in and out fiercely. My balls tighten as her pussy muscles contract, squeezing my shaft.

  “I thought we established you aren’t my dad,” she moans. Her palms slip on the tablecloth and more dishes crash to the ground.

  “Technically, we established I wasn’t your granddad, which was after we established I own this cunt.” To drive the point home, I pound into her mercilessly. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted her to feel me when she crawls into bed. I want her to dream of my cock. I want her to wake up so wet and needy she can’t help but touch her swollen clit.

  “You’re just borrowing it,” she argues, pushing back at the same time I push forward.

  I pump harder, fucking her harder. The sound of our skin slapping mixes with our labored breathing, and before long, my balls seize and I spill my release deep inside her. Panting, I say, “My cum dripping out of your pussy says otherwise.”

  Cherry

  I KILL THE ENGINE TO my old VW and fall back into the worn fabric, fighting like hell to keep the smile off my face. After breakfast and a pair of orgasms, Cash ordered an Uber to take me to the steakhouse so I could get my car.

  It was a small gesture, one he’d probably done countless times in the past, yet I feel like Cinderella…or at a minimum, Cinderella’s slutty stepsister. Most of the guys I bang don’t bother to walk you down to the common room after sex, so an Uber is like the equivalent of a marriage proposal.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  My heart kicks around in my chest, a gentle reminder that I can’t let myself fall for a big dick with a good credit score. I’ve been doing well—I haven’t gone Crazy Cherry on anyone since moving to Brighton and I can’t afford to go back down that road and turn into that girl again.

  Pushing my way out of the car, I trudge up the stairs of our building and slip my key into the door. With each step I take, I feel where Cash has been, and I lose the battle of wills against my lips. Seems he’d made good on his promise. I bet I’ll feel his absence between my legs until morning.

  “God, you’re pathetic,” I groan. I need to exorcise the Cash-shaped hole in my vagina before I fuck up all the progress I’ve made since leaving my hometown and my demons behind.

  The apartment is quiet, save for the hum of the AC. I swear that thing is on its last legs. Slipping my keys onto the hook by the door, I resolve to do something other than obsess over my night with Cash.

  Diet Dr. Pepper, laundry, and another shower. It’s a solid, Cash-free plan. Pushing into my bedroom, I jump at the sight of an angry little blonde staring at me from the center of my bed. “Holy fuck, you scared me,” I say clutching the can to my chest. “What the fuck are you doing in here?”

  Her crystal blue eyes bore into my gray, then slowly, deliberately, drop down to the neat little piles of folded clothes on my bed. “I felt like shit for bailing on you last night, so I woke up early to come home so we could spend some time together before your shift, only to find an empty house.” Her eyes slide down my body, and I shift under her scrutiny. “And you’re still in your uniform and your shift isn’t until later, so one could only assume you were out doing God knows what with God knows who.”

  “I met a guy.” I grin, peeling my dress off. My limbs ache with a soreness caused by a night of good sex.

  “A new guy or someone in the rotation?” She shifts on the bed, used to my nakedness after two years of living together.

  “New,” I say turning to look in the mirror. My hips flare, the bones, jutting out beneath the skin. My stomach is bloated from breakfast but otherwise flat.

  “Oh my God, stop it,” Arden says throwing a pillow at my head. “You are gorgeous and hot and perfect. Now, spill the tea.”

  I grab the robe from the back of my desk chair and wrap it around my body. I really want to sit on the bed with my friend and describe every inch of Cash’s cock, down to the circumference of its head. But Arden just went through a breakup. “Are you sure you’re up for this? How are you feeling? Did the douchebag try to make contact?” I spit out the questions rapid fire, inspecting Arden’s face for clues to her mental state. She’s still makeup-less and her eyes aren’t as bright as they normally are, but she doesn’t seem as heartbroken as she did yesterday. A guilty look flashes on her face, and I can’t help but get annoyed. “Don’t tell me you hooked up with him?”

  “What! No!” she squeals. “I swear, even though he blew me up nonstop after I posted a picture from the Sigma house on Instagram. But I think…” She pauses. “I think I’m progressing through the stages of grief pretty quickly.”

  “How so?” I ask joining her on the bed.

  “Well, yesterday I was in denial. I couldn’t accept that my boyfriend would sleep with one of my sisters, or that one of my sisters would sleep with my boyfriend.”

  I raise a scandalized hand. “Umm…hello?”
<
br />   “No, I mean. I know your sister slept with your boyfriend in high school. I just mean I didn’t think it could happen to me. You know?”

  “Trust me, I know,” I murmur. My sister and I don’t talk to this day because of it.

  “Well, anyway, a little time and a lot of booze gave me some perspective, and you were right.”

  “I’m always right,” I say playing with the end of my hair. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “Derek is a tool and I deserve better than him. Hell, I deserve better than half the boys at Brighton can probably give.” She isn’t wrong. She is Arden fucking Walden. Her family owns half of Texas. She doesn’t need a boy. She needs a man. And just like that, my mind flits back to the tattooed Brit who took me on a journey to the mythical land of multiple orgasms. I’ve had sex—a lot of sex. I’ve had good sex and bad sex and everything in between, but the things Cash did to my body last night aren’t of this world, and I doubt Derek or any one of the douches at Sigma could be that for Arden.

  “Definitely.” I nod.

  “I’m hurt and embarrassed, but this doesn’t have to be the end of the world. I simply need to get them both kicked out of school, and then I can move on,” she says, matter-of-factly.

  “So mature.” I snort.

  “Says the girl who stabbed her cheating ex.”

  “Hey!” I slap her on the arm. “I stabbed him with a pencil in the leg and had to go to therapy for three months because of it. Don’t make it sound so murdery.”

  “I’m just saying. We only get to be young and dumb once. I’m not going to waste the last year of my teens with maturity. Right now, I’m angry.” She munches on her bottom lip, mulling over her next words. “I may have let it slip that Sabrina gave Derek chlamydia and they are both on an aggressive round of antibiotics.”

  My eyes widen. I’m actually impressed at the sinister glint in her eye. Normally, Arden is all turn the other cheek, where I’m all, great, that way you can slap them on both sides.

  “This is why we’re best friends.” I keel over with laughter. My head hits the pillow and Arden snuggles up next to me. We both fold our hands under our cheeks. It feels good to have girl time again. No Derek. No soros. Just us.

  “I don’t want to talk about them anymore. Tell me about your night. I need the distraction.”

  “It was just some guy who came into the restaurant.” I downplay the night I spent with Cash. Crazy Cherry isn’t really back if she only exists in my thoughts. “We met up at Eddy’s after my shift, and then he fucked my brains out.”

  “Ugh.” Arden pouts. “You had hot sex while I was puking in the Sigma bathroom.”

  “I told you to come with me.”

  “I know,” she groans, “but shots always lead to bad decision-making.”

  I nod because shots led me to have unprotected sex with a man I may or may not be obsessed with. I’m on the pill, thanks to the campus clinic, but still, even I’m not reckless enough to play around with STDs, last night aside.

  “So, is he officially added to the rotation or was it a one-night thing?”

  Sitting up, I reach for my soda and take a sip. The rotation consists of two guys that I fuck when I’m bored or horny. It isn’t as bad as it sounds. We are always safe, and neither of them expect monogamy. Dean is a wannabe drummer with a big dick and an even bigger ego. He feeds my inner self-destructive monster. We get high and fuck wherever there’s a flat surface.

  Parker, on the other hand, is the captain of the Brighton University basketball team and an all-around super jock. I don’t see him much during the season, but in the off-season, he’s my main hookup partner. He comes with less drama than Dean, and he’s also good with keeping things casual. Basketball is his first love, which works well for me. There’s no chance of getting attached because the best I can hope for is second place and a girl with my co-dependency issues can’t handle being number two.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “We didn’t make any plans, but the sex was out of this world and…” It’s my turn to feel guilty. “I think I like him.”

  “You like him?” Her eyes sweep over my body, before zeroing in on the ugly purple bruise on my neck. “Is that a hickey?” she squeals, tugging my robe down. “You let him give you a hickey?!”

  “It’s not like he asked permission,” I grumble, shrugging off her assault.

  “Oh my God, this is serious! You let him mark you and you said you like him! You literally haven’t uttered those words in the two years I’ve known you, and now here you are doing the walk of shame and considering breaking your no-strings-attached rule?”

  “I didn’t say I was considering it, just that I wouldn’t be mad if we were having sex exclusively.”

  “He must have had a golden penis if you’re willing to give up Parker.”

  I fall back onto the pillow. “Too good. I should block his number, right?”

  “What? Of course not! He’s the first person to make your heart go pitter-patter in years. Why would you do that?”

  “He doesn’t make my heart go pitter-patter—my clit, yes, but my heart is dead.”

  “It isn’t dead. You had one boy break your heart one time and you just gave up.”

  “He cheated on me…with my sister…and I went psycho and then I stabbed him,” I deadpan. It’s funny now, sort of, but back then, I was in my own personal hell. The ugly from my childhood reared up in the form of a toxic obsession with the boy who didn’t care enough about me to keep his dick in his pants, and a sibling rivalry that cost me a relationship with the only person who understood what it was like growing up in our house.

  “W-w-well, yes,” Arden stutters, “but you were in eleventh grade,” she says it as if a few years is enough time to forget all the crazy I left behind in Fairmont.

  “We could stab Derek with a pencil. Make a blood oath?” I offer, only half joking. The therapist my father could only afford to send me to for three months would tell me that being self-deprecating is really just a way of masking insecurities with humor and that I’m not psycho, just lashing out because of my abandonment issues stemming from my mother’s absence and repressed feelings of guilt over my father’s struggles with addiction. But sometimes it’s easier to laugh through the pain than to actually feel it. “It would be a sisterhood stronger than your sorority. At least you can trust that I’d never sleep with one of your boyfriends.”

  Arden throws her head back and laughs. “I’m not stabbing anyone. I plan to kill them socially, remember?”

  Her right eye goes wonky and I’m seriously impressed by her one-eighty. I thought we’d be in the crying stage for at least another week. “I’m really proud of you,” I say sincerely.

  “Now, I just need to deal with the dad situation, and I can move on with sophomore year.”

  “Oh, that’s right! I forgot that was today.”

  “Yeah, I tried to bail but he wasn’t hearing it.”

  “Maybe you should be open to hearing what he has to say?”

  She pins me with a glare. “If your mom showed up tomorrow, would you be open to hearing her out?”

  “You mean the mom that left two young daughters so she could go play mistress in LA? Yeah…no?” I agree. Just thinking about my mother sends a murderous tingle zipping its way down my spine. “Okay. Operation Ditch Daddy in full effect. Where are you meeting?”

  “Some diner. I don’t know.”

  “I got it.” I jump to my knees, bouncing with excitement. “Why don’t you come to the steakhouse? I can be your server from hell. You know, spill beer on your Chanel. Then you can leave early?”

  Arden points a slender finger at me. “Not the Chanel, ho, but I’d be willing to part with a Coach wristlet.”

  “I’m game if you are,” I challenge.

  She groans and falls back. “No, but I think I will move the meeting to the steakhouse. I need home court advantage.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, I’m sure a butter knife isn’t much dif
ferent than a pencil.” I wink. “I’m going to shower and try to get some studying in before work.”

  “Yes, please do. You smell like sex and stale French fries.”

  “Fuck you.” I lift my middle finger and walk backwards towards the bathroom. “I smell like sex and maple syrup.”

  Three hours, two Diet Dr. Peppers, and one gnarly cramming session later, I slip on my polyester dress and combat boots and take my ass to work. The restaurant is quiet, a little too late for the lunch rush, yet too early for the dinner crowd. Fortunately, coming in this early also means I’ll be cut early. Unfortunately, it gives my mind free rein to obsess over all the things my caffeine-fueled study session distracted me from.

  I still haven’t heard from my dad, which makes the ticking in my chest go into overdrive. Not to mention the small matter of next year’s tuition and the fact that waiting tables isn’t enough to cover a part-time course load, let alone the extra class my adviser recommended I take in order to graduate on time.

  Then, there’s Cash.

  Arden is right. I like him more than I care to admit, and maybe if I were a normal nineteen-year-old with normal nineteen-year-old problems, liking a boy wouldn’t even be on the list, but I’m not normal. My brain doesn’t work the way most people’s brain works. I’m a ticking time bomb with co-dependency issues and an obsessive personality.

  What’s worse is that I fooled myself into thinking I was cured, because I’m able to have casual sex with guys who I can only stand being around long enough to get off. Cash though, he’s different. I like being around him. I feel an odd familiarity with him, and I’ve known him less than twenty-four hours. And that is how I know I’m just as fucked up as I was in high school. Who falls for someone after one night of great sex?

  “Cherry,” Marco grunts.

  I turn to see him stomping out of the kitchen. “Yeah, boss?” I arch a brow. I’m not sure what crawled up his ass, but I haven’t been here long enough to be on his shit list, and I was on time today.

  “Chef somehow mixed up the beef order with the poultry order and I’ve got birds coming out of my ass.”