Cherry Bomb (Brighton #1)

by Carmel Rhodes

  “What’s wrong?” I ask grabbing her by the collar of her shirt and pulling her into my arms.

  “I have like twenty scholarship applications to fill out.” As if to illustrate her point, she holds up a folder busting at the seams with pamphlets.

  “Shit.”

  “I know, right.” She presses a kiss to my lips before clomping past me and into my office. “Make yourself at home.” I point to the couch in the corner. “I have a conference call. We’ll have dinner as soon as I’m done.”

  Her pout deepens, sending my mind straight to the gutter. All I can see are those cherry-red lips wrapped around my cock. “How about we skip dinner and you can just eat me?” This girl is going to be the death of me.

  “Oh, trust me, I’m eating you either way.” I settle in at the desk, adjusting my cock as I sit. The computer screen blinks to life and I log in to my company account. Logan rings, then patches in his client in the Philippians. My eyes drift to Cherry as Logan and Mel chat about the mechanics of the app. My job is to listen, research, then report back to Logan what, if any, amount is smart to invest. Logan is the hunter. He can find and polish what looks like a lump of coal to most people into a diamond. It’s done well for him, but it’s also cost him a lot. Part of my job is to rein in the genius with numbers and hard facts.

  The call goes on with the client pitching and Logan interjecting with the occasional comment, while I take notes on things to look up later.

  A sigh comes from the other side of the room. I hit the mute button on the phone. “Everything okay over there?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt.”

  I eye her. She’s kicked her shoes off and is sitting cross-legged on the couch with her computer planted in her lap. “You’re a fun distraction,” I say, and I mean it. My misunderstood girl, who likes both rough sex and cuddles afterwards. She puts up this front, like she’s here for a good time, but I see past that, past the two-day-old eyeliner and fuck-me eyes. She’s lonely. I make it better, and goddamn but that thought makes my dick hard.

  She grins, standing, straightening the Anti-Flag t-shirt and cut-offs she’s wearing. “I’m going to grab a drink, you want anything?”

  I nod. “Whatever you’re having.”

  She pads out of the office, and I unmute the call. Logan directs his next question to me, and thankfully, I have the numbers already pulled up.

  A few minutes later, Cherry returns with two glasses of what looks like whiskey in hand. She’s also changed from her shorts and t-shirt and is wearing one of my light blue oxford shirts. It hangs open, revealing the long, lean expanse of her chest and the flare of her hips.

  My mouth goes dry and I inhale, then, on the exhale, cross the room, grabbing her by the back of her neck and pulling her forehead to mine. She squeals in surprise. Liquor sloshes over the sides of the cup, but I don’t give a fuck. I devour her little squeals, sealing my mouth to hers. My tongue finds purchase, tangling with hers. She tastes like whiskey. I am drunk off her. Our kiss is dizzying. I mold her body to mine, demanding more. My hands find her ass, and I squeeze the soft flesh, kneading it with just enough pressure to have her gasping against my lips.

  “Cash?” Logan’s voice calls from the phone.

  I bite down on my lip, suppressing a groan and lift a finger to Cherry’s lips to silence her. “Yeah, mate. Sorry, I thought I had my cell on silence. Please, continue.”

  The client picks up where he left off and I walk Cherry over to the desk. Tapping the mute button on the phone, I lift her onto the desk directly in front of my chair. “I thought you were filling out scholarship applications?” I ask, pushing her knees apart.

  “I was, then I got annoyed. Then I remembered I wouldn’t see you all weekend, and I figured, I can spend the next two days bullshitting my way through essays.” My eyes trail down to the small patch of hair trimmed neatly above her pussy. Logan’s voice drones on the line, and I make a mental note to research his questions.

  Ducking my head, I inhale her sweet scent. Her milky thighs tremble in anticipation. “My bad girl,” I murmur, kissing a trail up the inside of her leg. “Tell me something, something no one else knows.” I lap at the tender pink flesh between her legs. Her back arches and she moans, lifting the heels of her feet to the edge of the desk. I lavish her pussy with my tongue, lapping up every drop of honey that spills from her core.

  “I love being your bad girl,” she practically sings.

  I grin against her clit. “I knew that.”

  Dragging her fingers through my hair, she moves my head back down. I acquiesce, flattening my tongue against her opening. “This app is not a good investment,” she moans, tilting her head to the phone. I cock my brow at her. “Trust me, it sounds good in theory, but nearly impossible to build, unless you want to throw away thousands of man hours and millions of dollars developing new tech. Even then, I doubt he’d make back his investment in the first five years. Hell, five is being generous.”

  “How did you—”

  “Women in STEM. Duh?” I lick faster, harder, thrusting my tongue into her opening. Her body starts to vibrate. Her hips thrust up in a frantic pace. Adjusting, I slip two fingers into her soaking wet core and pump them in and out, sucking on her clit. “Yes, please don’t stop,” she moans. I pump and suck until she’s shaking. Her arms give out and she falls backwards on the desk.

  Rising to my feet, my mouth meets her ear and I whisper, “Quiet.”

  I unmute the call as Logan disconnects from the client. “So, what do you think?”

  I clear my throat. “I’m not sure,” I say, slowly easing my fingers from Cherry’s cunt. “The tech is shaky, at best. Do you believe in this kid enough to throw millions of dollars his way so that he could possibly make it work? Even then, the return period would be abysmal in today’s market.”

  Logan sighs on the other end. “Yeah, I thought so too, but I really like his energy.”

  “He’s a smart kid. He’s definitely ambitious, but as your financial adviser, I’d say this project is still years from being a reality. Even if he somehow manages to pull it off, you’d be forced to over-price the majority of the market, which means…”

  “It could be years before we ever see a profit,” he finishes. “Let me think about it. I want to work with this kid, but you’re right, this may not be the best move.”

  “See you Monday, mate.”

  “Goodnight…oh, and, Cash.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell Cherry I said thank you.”

  She looks up at me with amusement. “You’re welcome.”

  “Next time, I’d appreciate if you’d leave his dick in his pants until after the conference call.”

  “To be fair, his dick never left his pants.” She chuckles.

  “Semantics.”

  As soon as the call ends, we both erupt in a laughing fit. “Come on, bad girl, let’s get you fed.”

  Cherry

  I blink awake. Warmth engulfs me, heat radiating from the two big arms circling my waist. The sun isn’t up yet, so it must be early. Shifting carefully, so as not to wake Cash, I reach for my phone to check the time. It’s just before 6 a.m.

  A red number one hovers over my voicemail box. I click it and smile when I hear Arden slurring on the other end.

  BABE! I know you’re probably getting pounded by your man friend, but I called to remind you that we need to leave at ten to avoid traffic, and that I’m excited to spend the weekend with you because I miss you. And I totally promise not to become that friend who gets jealous over the amount of time you spend with your boyfriend if you totally promise not to become that girl who forgets all her friends. I know, I’m rambling, and okay, I’m a little bit drunk, but I feel like I never see you anymore and I don’t even know the guy you’re spending all this time with. Oh God, I’m rambling, again! Sorry. I’ll see you in the morning. Love you. Bye.

  The guilt baby flutters in my stomach as I look down at Cash’s sleeping face. I’m an id
iot. How long did I really think I’d be able to keep this up? Of course, Arden wants to meet the guy who has been monopolizing my time. Wasn’t I the same way when she started dating Derek? But Arden can’t know about Cash. I know what I have to do, but it’s a lot harder to do the right thing, when the wrong thing is dipped in tattoos and speaks in the sexiest British accent I’ve ever heard.

  My stomach growls, and for the first time in nearly a month, I ignore it. Hunger, I can control, so I focus on that. Inhaling, I roll into a seated position. Cash reaches for me but never wakes. Ticktickticktick. My heart goes into hyperdrive. My skin feels like it has been doused in itching powder. I want to peel it off layer by layer.

  Get dressed, I tell myself, desperate to focus my mind. Get dressed. Find your keys. Go home. It becomes a mantra. Get dressed. Find your keys. Go home. I need to remind myself that I am not the same girl I used to be. I will not lie here with my best friend’s dad and obsess.

  Get out of your head, Cherry. Get dressed. Find your keys. Go home.

  My clothes lie neatly folded on the dresser. I glance back at the bed as I slip my panties on. I’m not sure when Cash found the time to do it, but his thoughtfulness doesn’t help the mounting anxiety.

  I slip my shirt over my head, slide my shorts up my legs, and jam my feet into the boots quickly, then slip out of the room. Cash’s office is on the first floor, so I bound down the steps two at a time. Find your keys, I think, using the directive to drown out the other noise in my mind. I push through his office door and spot my bookbag leaning against the couch. My scholarship papers are stacked in three piles, a bright yellow Post-it stuck to each pile with the words, Apply ASAP, Has Potential, and Chuck it in the Bin, written in Cash’s slanted scrawl.

  I bite back a tear. He must have gone through them after I’d passed out. He is quietly thoughtful and outwardly possessive. The combination is like napalm for my obsessive nature. It’s too easy to fall for a man like Cash, especially when our arrangement is temporary at best.

  We are in two different stages of life. He has an established career, and I’m basically a low-budget hacker, who will probably be forced to drop out of school and move back to my shithole hometown and marry an abusive meth head, whose best days are behind him, and die in a waitressing uniform.

  I do a quick search of his desk and find the Post-its. Peeling one back, I write the five words that I’ve been too much of a chicken to say out loud.

  I can’t do this anymore.

  I silence my phone for the third time since we’ve been in the car. Arden glances in my direction but doesn’t comment.

  My pulse ticks, my chest expands and contracts with each breath. I experience all the telltale signs of life, yet I feel nothing. Not the fresh air whipping through my hair, or the hunger stabbing in my gut. Cash was the best and most healthy relationship I’ll ever have, but I’m not sixteen anymore and I won’t let my obsession with a man almost twice my age ruin the only real friendship I’ve known. We were doomed anyway. I groan at the parallels between my time with Cash and Mrs. Walden’s. Hadn’t we both known this thing between us was temporary at best, incendiary at worst? I just decided to pull the plug before we exploded.

  My phone starts up again and Arden huffs. “Are you going to tell me what happened or are you going to spend the whole ride pouting?”

  Anger, undeserved, but intense nonetheless, billows like smoke through my lungs, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep it from seeping past my lips. It’s not her fault, she doesn’t even know about me and Cash, but she has everything, and I have nothing. Not just money, but the security that it provides. She doesn’t have to worry about tuition, and even though Derek is a piece of shit, I’m sure that by the end of the semester, she’ll find someone who will love her openly, unlike me. I’m relegated to the backstage at dive bars, or in the locker room after hours, or most recently, home offices during conference calls.

  God, I’m pathetic.

  Arden turns down the radio. “Earth to Cherry.” She snaps her fingers in my face.

  “What?” I ask, swatting her hand away.

  “Do you want me to tell him to fuck off?” She points to my phone. It’s ringing again, and of course, she’s ready to do battle for me.

  “No.” I sigh. “He’s…it’s not about him.”

  Her blonde hair whips in the wind. “Hey,” she says, shaking my leg, “I know you’re worried about your dad, but don’t get lost in your head, okay? I’m here, and even if things are as bad as you are making them out to be, you don’t have to do it alone.”

  I give her a tight smile and instantly feel like shit. I’ve been giving her the silent treatment all morning because I’ve been worried more about a guy than my dad. Not only am I pathetic, but I’m also a bitch. “Thank you,” I say quietly. “You’re my best friend, you know that don’t you?”

  “Duh.” She giggles, turning the radio back on.

  “No, really. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I know I’m crazy ninety-nine percent of the time—”

  “Try a hundred.”

  “I’m being serious.” I hit her arm with a half-empty bottle of water, and she flinches before throwing another one back at me. We laugh as Arden changes lanes. The road passes us by in a blur, and I do my best to focus on the things I can control. The hunger in my belly. The stack of Apply ASAP applications in my bag and turning my cell phone off. “I’m just saying, I love you. And I’d never intentionally hurt you.” My tone comes out more somber than I’d intended.

  Arden turns to me. Those eyes, Cash’s eyes, tear a crack into my heart. Sincerity bleeds from her blues so deep and so vast I have to look away. “I know you like to pretend you’re this badass emotionless robot, but it’s bullshit. You care too much, which I assume is the reason behind all those walls you’ve erected. It must be hard to feel all the things all the time. I know you’re worried about your dad and stressed about school, so I don’t hold your mood swings against you because I know where that comes from, but don’t take it out on him.” She points to my phone. “I haven’t seen you smile this much ever. I don’t know why you’re pushing him away, but seriously, it’s okay to let someone else in.”

  “What if he’s the wrong someone?” I ask.

  She’s thoughtful for a moment, watching the road. One song turns into another, and for a second I think she’s forgotten the question. “Does he make you happy?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, “but we just don’t fit.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t self-sabotaging?”

  “I’m sure. It would never work and letting myself get too involved would be dipping a match in kerosene and lighting it with a blow torch.”

  “If you say so.” She rolls her eyes. Arden takes the exit. The highway melts into town. The church where I was baptized comes into view, and all the familiar feelings of home flood my senses.

  A few minutes later, we are turning onto my street. It’s a typical working-class neighborhood. Our house isn’t the nicest on the block, but it isn’t the worst either. Trees line the street, and kids run and play and laugh, reminding me of a time when life wasn’t so intense. I’d kill to go back to when eating popsicles and catching butterflies were my only priorities.

  Our house is the fourth on the left. My throat burns at the sight of the overgrown lawn and stack of papers piled up on the porch. Arden parks, and I’m out of the car and bounding up the steps before she even has a chance to kill the engine.

  My dad doesn’t neglect the lawn. It’s his thing. Every Saturday morning, like clockwork, he’d be out with his push mower and hedge trimmer protecting his investment.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Pushing the key in, the lock clicks, and I shove the door open. The world stops, the air in my lungs feels polluted as I stand at the threshold. Arden appears at my side. Sensing my mounting anxiety, she moves forward, taking the lead.

  I follow her inside, forcing myself to breathe. The house is c
lean enough. The TV is off in the living room. A blanket and pillow lie discarded on the couch. The floors could use a good sweep and a few beer cans litter the counters in the kitchen, but it isn’t a crack den. “See. It’s not so bad,” Arden says waving around the kitchen.

  “You’re right.” I exhale, going through my mental checklist of warning signs. There’s food in the fridge and pantry, dishes in the dishwasher, and mail on the kitchen table. Apart from the lawn, it’s all so, normal. I feel my shoulders relax a bit more. I’d thought for sure his avoidance of my calls meant he’d fallen off the wagon, but from the looks of the place, he seems to be doing well. There isn’t even any hard liquor in the cabinet, just the other half of the six pack he hadn’t gotten to the night before.

  The back door swings open and my dad walks in. My eyes find his, they’re sunken and tired. His normally thick salt-and-pepper hair is noticeably thinner, and his posture…it’s disarming. My dad is tall—six-three—it’s where Sunnie and I get our height from, but the way his shoulders are slumped over makes him seem smaller. What’s most shocking is the amount of weight he’s lost. Randall Valentine is a big man. I used to call him papa bear because of his size, but the man in front of me is literally half the person he used to be. He’s so frail.

  “Cherry.” His voice breaks.

  I cross the room and throw my arms around his neck. “Daddy, what’s wrong? Why are you avoiding me? How much weight have you lost? Are you using again?” I check him over like I’m the parent and he’s the child. My eyes search for clues, answers to questions that haven’t fully formulated in my brain.

  “No, kiddo.” He shakes his head, and his eyes shift to Arden. “Hey, princess,” he says, tucking me under his arm. “Thank you for bringing this hellion home.”

  “Anytime, Randy.” She smiles, then looks to me. “I’m going to take my stuff upstairs and give you guys a chance to catch up.” Arden’s made this trip with me countless times before. The first two times my dad lectured her about making herself at home. The third time, she’d claimed Sunnie’s room as her own.