Cherry Bomb (Brighton #1)

by Carmel Rhodes

  A nervous laugh bubbles up low in my throat. Old insecurities threaten to overwhelm me. Brighton is supposed to be a new start, but I find myself making the same shitty decisions. “I don’t know if I can ignore this thing between us.”

  “I don’t know if I want to ignore it, Cherry Girl.” Cash runs his hands down my arms, and I shiver in response. Our fingers lock, and he lifts my hand to his mouth. “I just don’t know if I can keep you both.”

  I turn our hands, bringing his knuckles to my lips. “You can’t,” I say, admiring the red lipstick smeared on his skin. A mark of my own. “I’m temporary but that doesn’t mean that we can’t have some fun.”

  “What if I don’t want temporary.” His eyes burn with sincerity that breaks my heart.

  “Like you said, you can’t keep us both.”

  Cherry

  TWO WEEKS LATER, MY VW putters to a stop in front of a house in a part of Brighton I didn’t even know existed. I look up at the stone and glass mansion overlooking the ocean and sigh. This is a bad idea. Normally, a bad idea sounds like a good time; I collect vices like most girls my age collect lip gloss, but I don’t belong here.

  If the guard at the gate, who inspected my real ID closer than the doorman at Eddy’s inspects my fake, wasn’t a clear enough indication, the loud creaking sound my door makes in the otherwise serene night is. I am Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree. I’m two-for-one specials and day-old bread. I use Arden’s Netflix password and her Spotify account. I’m not ashamed of my lack of wealth, but I do lack wealth, and not for the first time since I’d met Cash, a little part of me wonders if I’m in over my head.

  He’s older, richer, more established. I’m young, toxic, and have no clue what the fuck I’m doing. It isn’t lost on me that my appeal to him could have more to do with my youth than my brains. He could be a wolf hunting for a lamb dumb enough to spread her legs and offer herself up for the slaughter. Because that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it? By knowingly fucking my best friend’s dad. I’m giving myself to him. Letting him feast upon my honey and giving him the power to discard the scraps once he’s eaten his fill. Once he’s found someone his own age and in his own station to live with in this palace by the sea.

  It was fine when I was sneaking into his hotel room, but now, he’s officially moved into his new house, and being here somehow makes it feel real. He’s not some guy in town for business like I’d assumed that first night. He’s here to stay.

  He’s here for Arden, not you, my bitchy subconscious reminds me.

  I’ve spent the last two weeks with my head in the clouds, while Cash, with his tongue, his cock, and his hands, imprinted himself on every inch of me. He’s spent two weeks fucking his essence into my body, and once I was full on him, that essence started seeping into my soul, beating at the edges of my heart.

  I ring the bell, and a few seconds later, Cash opens the door. He smiles brightly, wearing soft gray PJ pants and nothing else. Long and lean legs kiss the fabric when he moves. His body is cut from stone, abs ripple and narrow at his waist. His bare feet are just as erotic as the rest of him. He’s comfortable here, a tattooed king in his castle. Am I the queen or concubine? Suddenly, I don’t care. I don’t care about the past or the future. I only care about what’s happening right now. I only care about the way my heart beats against my chest as he smiles. I only care about the pressure in my belly as his hands find their home on my hips. About the moisture soaking my panties because of his lingering stare.

  “It’s about damn time.” He exhales. His breath is warm against my lips, melting away all of my anxiety, as he grabs my uniform and pulls me inside.

  I try to see as much of the house as I can, but Cash doesn’t seem to be in the mood to offer a tour. I stumble behind him as he drags me through the living room and up the stairs so quickly, I barely catch a glimpse of the moonlight shimmering off the ocean before my view is blocked by a wall.

  “It’s only been one night.” I giggle. “You’re acting like I was away at war.”

  Cash stops at the top of the stairs, pushing me back against the wall. “Too. Long.” He punctuates his words with kisses. My panties were wet before, but now they’re drenched. It has been too long, but I thought that was just my obsessiveness rearing its ugly head. I dreamt of him. Not in a crazy way—well, I guess it’s a little crazy, but that’s what he does to me. He drives me mad with a simple look, I can’t wait for him to get his hands on me.

  “I had to show my face at the apartment,” I pant. His hands slip under my dress, settling around my hips, as he buries his head in my neck. “Arden was on me about why I was spending so much time with the mystery hottie. We had a margarita movie night.”

  “What’s a margarita movie night?” he asks, nuzzling my ear. His body covers mine, bathing me in warmth and security. I inhale, then, on exhale, force myself to picture his future wife and their two point five children.

  Do not get attached, Cherry.

  “It’s a night when we drink our body weight in tequila and watch rom-coms.”

  Cash swallows, his dark blue eyes blink back shock, and he takes three steps back. Grabbing my hand, he leads me down the hall to the master bedroom.

  “What was that?” I ask, pulling my dress over my head. The lights are low, highlighting the view from his room. An infinity pool is tucked at the edge of the yard, and the Pacific sits just beyond that. Unhooking my bra, I let it slide down my shoulders, and walk closer to the window.

  “Nothing, shit. I’m sorry, Cherry Girl.” He comes to a stop behind me, lifting my hair, then kisses my shoulder.

  “It’s obviously not nothing. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine,” I say, choking back an emotion that tastes an awful lot like jealousy. Why should it matter if he doesn’t want to be open with me? Hell, he doesn’t even know me. Not really. I mean, sure, he knows how to make me come. He knows about the beauty mark between my legs and the tattoo on my ass that I got as a dare. But he doesn’t know the real me, the pencil-wielding Cancer who loves with her whole heart, even if that love isn’t reciprocated.

  Something flashes in his eyes, but it’s gone before I can catch it. I assume the shutdown is coming next, so I refocus my attention on why I came here. I drop to my knees, resting my palms on his thick thighs. If he isn’t going to talk to me, the least he can do is fuck me.

  “I just…” He stares down, raking a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to sound petulant.”

  “First of all, you’re the only guy I fuck who would use petulant in a sentence, so don’t worry about coming off as immature.” My hands dance up to his waistband, but he catches them.

  “I better be the only guy you’re fucking,” he growls, hauling me up to my feet.

  I bite my lip and smile demurely. “For now.”

  He tsks, tackling me onto the bed. His fingers find my middle and he tickles me, relentlessly. I gasp, and laugh, and do my best to wiggle free, but I’m trapped under his weight. Moreover, I’m caught in his spell. He is magic and I am madness. Combined, we will undoubtedly combust.

  “Okay, okay,” I pant. “You are the only guy I’ve been with since that first night.”

  “Good.” He lifts up, shifting his weight to his elbows, keeping me trapped beneath him. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  “Tell me what you were pouting about.”

  “I was just thinking it sucks that she can find time to harass you about me and force you into binge drinking and watching awful movies, but she can’t even commit to coffee with her dad.”

  The hurt in his eyes is visceral. I feel his pain deep in my soul. It’s a hurt I recognize. “We’re best friends,” I say, cupping his cheeks, “and you’ve only just met. It’s not personal.”

  “It’s one hundred percent personal,” he rebuts.

  “But you haven’t been there for her, ever. I’m not saying this to hurt you,” I add quickly. “She doesn’t think to prioritize you because she’s never had to before.”

  “I kn
ow, but that doesn’t make it hurt less. I would have been there had I known.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, running my thumb over his eyebrows. I never really probed into his past or why he’d abandoned his daughter. More for selfish reasons than anything. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want my image of him to be tainted with reality.

  His lips brush against my temple and he moves into a seated position. I follow his lead and tuck myself into his side. “I was young. It was the summer before uni. I worked at a swanky hotel in London at the concierge desk. I basically went all over town to run errands for the obscenely wealthy. One day, my boss told me to take aspirin and fresh sheets up to one of the penthouses. I walked in and a girl was facedown on the floor. A man was standing over her. My first instinct was to fight him or call the police. Before I could do either, he opened his mouth and said, ‘My daughter likes to take the poor-little-rich-girl thing a little too literally.’” Cash’s face crumbles at the memory.

  “Who was she?”

  “Amanda.”

  “Mrs. Walden?” I gasp. It’s hard to imagine the stern woman who once yelled at Arden for having a sip of wine at a wedding, facedown and passed out.

  “She wasn’t always Mrs. Walden.” Cash grins at the memory and I suddenly hate her. I hate their history and the fond way he speaks of their time together. “Now, who’s being petulant?” He teases, pressing my lips back in.

  “It’s just weird that you fucked her,” I blurt out, totally not helping the petulant thing.

  “No, it’s weird that I’m fucking you.” I move to stand, but his grip on my waist tightens as he brings me back down on his lap. I’m only wearing my panties and the urge to cover myself overwhelms me. “You don’t have anything to be jealous of. Mandy and I haven’t seen or spoken to each other in years, and the last time we were in the same room together, I nearly broke her husband’s nose.”

  “What? I love Tom,” I say, thinking of Arden’s stepdad.

  “I will fucking kill him.”

  “Now who’s being jealous?” I snort at the irony. “Anyway, go back to when you and Mandy met.”

  “Her dad needed me to get her sobered up and ready to meet some of his associates later that afternoon.”

  “God, this sounds like a rom-com.”

  “There was nothing romantic or funny about it. After that day, we spent the next two months fucking all over every surface of the hotel, and then one day, Mr. Walden came down to the concierge desk and told me he’d give me fifty thousand dollars to never see his daughter again.”

  I turn in his arms. “And what did you do?”

  “I took the money.”

  My eyes go wide in shock. Fucking me aside, I’d always pictured Cash as a man with integrity. I know we do stupid things when we’re young, but fifty thousand dollars to abandon your child? “You what?”

  “Don’t look at me like that. I swear I didn’t know she was pregnant. Like I said, Mandy wasn’t my great love. She wasn’t the one that got away. She was a bitch, but a great lay. She was also American and I was a poor bloke from the cheap side. I’ve had eggs that lasted longer than our relationship would have. She was going back home in the next couple of weeks and I’d never see her again. If some rich Yank was willing to give me fifty grand to speed that up, I’d have been a fool not to take it.”

  “I guess when you put it like that,” I mutter.

  “You’re picturing something that it wasn’t. We didn’t spend any real time together unless we were having sex. There were no dates, no dinners, only sex. She never wanted more from me, and I never wanted more from her. The next time we met up, I told her I thought we should cool things off since she was leaving soon. That there was no point in waiting until the end of summer.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She looked hurt, which at the time, I attributed to ego because I broke things off before she could, but in hindsight, it was because she was going to tell me she was pregnant, but Mandy was a stubborn asshole. After I ended things, she shut down. Just gave me a clipped nod, then turned and walked out of my life. I didn’t see her around much after that, aside from in the restaurant a few times, her head buried in books. She’d done a complete one-eighty. Again, probably because of the baby, but at the time I had no clue.”

  “When did you find out about Arden?”

  “Not until years later. I used that money from Old Man Walden to pay for grad school in New York, got a job, and went on about my life. I’d hear about Mandy from time to time in the news, mostly after her father passed and she took over his company, but I never went looking. It wasn’t until we ended up attending the same charity event and I saw Arden standing by Mandy’s side. It only took one look at her.” He shakes his head and I know what he’s thinking. Arden is his twin, something that I didn’t realize until I saw them side by side. He couldn’t deny she was his even if he wanted to. “She was the right age. I confronted Mandy about it.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She tried to deny it, but…”

  “Arden is you in a dress,” I deadpan.

  “Basically. But what could I do? At that time, I was still working my way up the chain at my firm, and she’d just inherited a hundred-million-dollar company. I tried taking her to court, I tried everything, but it wasn’t until I started making money and connections of my own that I was able to petition for a paternity test. Mandy, of course, wanted to keep her shit out of the tabloids, so she agreed to a private test. To no one’s surprise, Arden ended up being mine, which meant nothing. She was a teenager and had no interest in some bloke whom she’d never met. I didn’t have a chance to see her again until after she turned eighteen and moved to Brighton.”

  “Hence, the new job and new place.” I twirl my finger around the bedroom.

  “Correct, and after all of that, all the money and lawyers, she won’t even have coffee with me.”

  I push the remains of our clothes aside and lift up onto my knees, sinking onto his length. Forehead to forehead, I fuck every ounce of my heart into him. We are the same, Cash and I, both suffering from unrequited love. Only this hurt isn’t some made-up feeling conjured up for a stranger. It’s a worse kind of pain. It’s the hurt of loving someone who is supposed to love you. For me, it’s my mom, for Cash, it’s his daughter. Maybe that’s why we connect. We’re both searching for family who don’t care about our existence. Maybe we’ve found what we are looking for in each other.

  Hours later, we lie sated, limbs tangled in his sheets. “Tell me something. Something no one else knows,” he asks, brushing the pads of his fingers down my arm.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  The ticking in my chest slows to a steady pace. With Cash, all the chaos that normally surrounds me quiets. In his arms, the world isn’t as loud. I am not as loud. I don’t have to be. Cash doesn’t care about the badass, abrasive, zero-fucks-given Cherry Valentine. He cares about the slightly imperfect, completely obsessive girl who wields her heart like a dagger, for protection or destruction, depending on her mood. It’s okay to be myself. He likes my flaws and I realize tonight, I like his too.

  “I’m madly in lust with you,” I say, holding my breath. It isn’t a declaration of love, but it’s true, for me. I’m attracted to him like a moth to a candle. Even when I feel the sting of the flame kiss my wings, I still venture closer, because it hurts so good.

  “In lust?” Cash smirks, arching his brow. The lamp on the bedside table is on. Boxes are stacked in the corner. I don’t know why I was so nervous coming here tonight. This is just a house. Four walls, a roof, and a beachfront view. But it isn’t a home. There are no memories here, not yet. A little piece of my chest swells at the knowledge that Cash’s earliest memories of this place will be of me.

  Stretching under the sheets, I picture his future wife lying in this bed. A smile splits my face, knowing I came first, in every sense. “Madly.”

  “What does that even mean?” He
rolls over, covering me with his weight.

  I run my nail down his chest, tracing the black ink that lives there. “It means I’m probably going to do something to fuck this up before long and then you’ll go and find some woman more age-appropriate, but when you fuck her in this bed, you’ll be thinking about me.”

  “Why do you say that? That you’re going to fuck this up?”

  “Because the last time I felt this way about a guy, I ended up stabbing him with a pencil.” I hold his gaze to gauge his reaction.

  His face is a mask, but he doesn’t move, so I think that’s a good sign. “Where?”

  “Where’d I stab him?”

  He nods.

  “In the leg,” I say nonchalantly.

  Cash lets out a hearty laugh. “May I ask why you stabbed him in the leg with a pencil?”

  “Because he fucked my sister.”

  Anger flashes in his eyes, then they soften. “You aren’t such a badass then. Sounds like he deserved it.”

  “He did.”

  We’re quiet for a moment. The only sounds that can be heard are the waves crashing against the shore and my heart thundering in my chest. “What happened after you stabbed him?”

  “We had sex.”

  “I take it back, you are mad.” He drops his head between my shoulder and head, kissing my neck.

  “I guess a part of me wanted to feel loved in a moment when I felt worthless. And the other part of me wanted to know he still wanted me more than her.”

  “Did it help?”

  “No, it made things worse. I broke up with him after that. Then, in all my sixteen-year-old wisdom, I started flirting with his friends, trying to piss him off. I became more obsessed with revenge than I was with him. It was toxic and stupid and I fear that I’m going to revert back to that girl.”

  “And stab me?” he teases.

  I slap him on the back. “I’m being serious. I like you too much to subject you to that level of crazy.”

  “Life is crazy. Love is crazy. You, Cherry girl, are just a product of your environment.”