“Yeah,” I agreed. “I think you are too.”
“So let’s not overthink it, then,” she replied and then stuck out the hand of hers that wasn’t holding an apple over the fire. “A pact. Until those shitheads get it together, we use each other.”
“Like friends with benefits?” I asked.
She nodded. “The best kind. Actual friends with actual benefits.”
That sounded like a pretty good deal. I reached out, took Annika’s hand, and shook. “Uh, yeah. That shit fucking checks out. Deal. Only thing—can we not tell your brother? He will kill me, or try to, anyway, and then I’ll have to kick his ass.”
She laughed as she nodded. “Absolutely.”
The rest of the date was the most enjoyable time I’d had relaxing and laughing with someone since I got out of prison. Annika did decide to push the envelope of our benefits, and once we’d finished roasting our treats, we ended up making out a little bit until we were shooed away by one of the staff for violating the family-friendly atmosphere of the orchard. We snuggled into one another on the hayride back to the front of the property and happily chatted the whole way back to her house.
I’d already called an Uber to take me home, so I walked Annika up to the door and gave her Sicily’s keys to return to him. When she reached out to take the keys, I yanked her hand in for a kiss. “Gotcha.”
She smiled. “You did. I had fun.”
“Me too.”
“It’s nice being with someone without having to worry about the politics of it,” she said. “Can we do it again tomorrow? Is that too desperate?”
“Nope,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
She winked at me. “I’m leaning into the double-meaning behind that phrase.”
My lower half pulsated with excitement at the insinuation. “Good.”
19
Cherri
“Oh, Cherri,” Nathan moaned. “You feel so good.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “You too.”
The truth was, Nathan was on top of me, totally naked and thrusting into me, and I couldn’t be less turned on. Nathan was a good-looking guy, so by all accounts, regardless of the weirdness in our relationship, I should have been able to find at least some enjoyment in sex with him, but between the fact that he was entirely self-serving in bed and the fact that all Deon had to do was look at me to set me on fire, I found myself entirely uninvested in anything Nathan had going on.
Nathan grabbed my thighs and rolled, bringing me to sitting on top of him. His hands worked up my stomach to grab at my breasts, and he squeezed them, giving me a sly smile. “Ride me until I finish, baby.” It borderline grossed me out. I started to move, but it was slow and unenthused. Even Nathan seemed to be able to pick up on how dead I was. He squeezed my leg a little bit. “Come on, baby. Give it to me.”
Was it the phrasing? It was a little cheesy, but then I imagined Deon saying the exact same thing to me. I imagined him sitting me on top of him to ride him, begging me to give him everything until he orgasmed and wiped out.
“Fuck,” Nathan hissed. “There you go.”
It was entirely subconscious, but my pace was quickening. My head was going fuzzy as I imagined Deon’s hands on my breasts, the colorful ink that covered his arms down to his wrists flexing as he squeezed down. Suddenly, my whole body was hot, and my eyes were beginning to water. I snaked a hand between my legs and closed my eyes to try to recall the dusky huff of his voice in my ears when we had our close call. I thought about some of the sexts he’d sent me as I teased myself with my hand, pretending he was saying those things to me directly and turning me into putty in his hands.
“Why’d you stop?” Nathan asked.
When I had stopped, I wasn’t sure, but I ignored Nathan and continued to rub. Deon’s face was all I could see, and his voice was all I could hear. My ears burned as my arousal continued to climb, and the space between my legs started to tingle. I bit down my lip, just barely keeping myself from moaning out his name as I came. My brain lost its tether to reality and flew to a place where Deon and I could just be together without worrying about it.
“Cherri.” In my mind, it was Deon calling my name. I started to rock my hips again, and when a set of hands clenched my hips, I pretended as though it was Deon’s huge, chilled hands clasping on. “Cherri.”
The hot member sliding in and out of me as I lifted and fell, it was Deon attached to it. We were in bed, and we were naked and writhing and moaning and having sex until neither of us could move anymore. My hands dropped to the chest below me and clawed into the pecs as another powerful orgasm started to creep up on me.
And I lost control of myself. “Fuck me, Deon.”
“Cherri, stop!”
A shake jolted me back to reality, and I looked down, not into Deon’s eyes but Nathan’s. “Nathan?” I huffed. “What? Why’d you stop?”
“What the fuck! You just said Deon’s name!” he barked before throwing me off of him and onto the bed. He clamored off the mattress and stood up to look down at me. “Are you fucking sleeping with him?”
I’d fucked up. Being an asshole or not, no one deserved to be used as a replacement. “No, I’m not.”
“You just said his fucking name!”
“I don’t know why!” I lied. “It just came out.”
“It just came out?” Nathan said. “Why that name? Why not any other name? Why not my name? You’ve never called my name before.”
“Yeah,” I said, finally letting the realization wash over me that, by all accounts, I was using Nathan to masturbate
