Chapter 6
They agreed to take separate cars.
Russ looked conflicted about it, standing on the sidewalk outside the club. “Don’t sober up and change your mind.”
“I’m already completely sober,” Cherry said.
“This is a really good idea,” he said. Firmly.
“Are you trying to hypnotize me?”
He took hold of both her hips and leaned in close. He hadn’t kissed her yet. (Cherry was pretty sure that was an operative
“yet,” that the kiss was near at hand.) “Don’t change your mind,” he said again.
“I’ll change my mind if I want to.” Cherry pulled away a bit, so she could really look in his eyes. “But I won’t want to.”
Russ bumped his forehead against hers. He groaned. “I’ll meet you there.”
They were going to Cherry’s house. They’d decided that quickly and in a very unsexy way. “My dog will eat Kleenex if I don’t come home tonight,” she’d said.
They hadn’t discussed what they would be doing at her house. That was clear.
Cherry had never slept with someone on the first date before . . . but this wasn’t a first date. It wasn’t a date, and it wasn’t their first time meeting each other. She’d spent more time with Russ than with
guys she’d actually dated herself. And she’d liked him more. Wanted him more desperately.
Maybe that should worry her . . . how desperately she wanted this.
But—weren’t you supposed to want? Wasn’t desire good? Was Cherry not supposed to sleep with Russell Sutton because she was too attracted to him? Was she only supposed to have men that she didn’t want this bad? To keep herself in check?
(This line of thinking made it seem like Cherry hadn’t wanted the other men in her life. Which wasn’t true or fair. But she
hadn’t wanted them like this. Never like this.) (Except for Tom.) (Stop thinking about Tom.)
Russ beat Cherry to her own house. He was waiting on her porch.
She let him in without wasting time on talk or touching.
Stevie was waiting, too, just inside the door. (Stevie tried to bolt out the front door every time Cherry opened it. She loved
running and being chased.)
“Holy shit!” Russ exclaimed.
Stevie was all over them—she was big enough to be all over both of them at once. Jumping and barking. (She also loved new
people.)
“Sorry!” Cherry said. “Don’t worry, she’s sweet.”
“She’s enormous.” Russ was backing away with his hands out. Stevie had jumped up onto his chest. She was tall enough to partner-dance with
a grown man.
“Stevie, down!” Cherry ordered. “We don’t jump on people.”
“I think we do,” Russ said.
Cherry pushed the dog’s shoulders away from him and got between them. “Stevie! Calm!”
Stevie was jumping on Cherry now.
“No,” Cherry said in a stern voice. “Down.”
Stevie stayed up.
“House!” Cherry ordered, pointing. “Sorry,” she said again to Russ.
Stevie was cowed by the word “house.” Her tail dropped, and she dragged it toward her kennel.
“Good night,” Cherry said, giving the dog a bedtime treat and locking the wire door. She dropped a cover over the kennel so Stevie would
know it was time to chill.
“Wow . . .” Russ said. “When you said you had a dog, I didn’t think it was Beethoven.”
Cherry laughed. “Sorry.”
He was looking down at himself, brushing off his shirt. “How did she drop her entire coat on me?”
“I know, it’s terrible. I never wanted a dog.”
He tilted his head up. “I’d hate to see what dog you’d get if you wanted one . . .”
She shook her head. “It was—” She shrugged. “My husband—” She shook her head again.
Russ’s smile softened. “Cherry.”
“Yeah?”
He held out his hand.
She took it.
“I am so happy to be here,” he whispered.
Cherry nodded. She looked up in his eyes. “I didn’t change my mind.”
He squeezed her hand. “Good. Can we . . .” He looked around. He was standing near the bottom of the stairs. “Why do you have a baby gate?”
“For the dog.”
“Smart.” He reached behind himself and unlatched it. Then glanced at Cherry. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she breathed.
Russ led her past the gate—led her up her own staircase. He had a way about him. All of Cherry’s anxieties stepped out of
his way.
He stopped at the landing.
Cherry motioned toward her open bedroom door. Russ led her inside.
His arms closed around her again, and his head dropped, hovering over hers. “Hey,” he said in a low voice. He was looking
at her face but not in her eyes.
Cherry let her gaze fall to his cheeks. “Hey.”
“You haven’t changed at all.” Russ touched the side of her head. “Like a flashback, seeing you tonight.”
Cherry hummed.
He petted her hair. “So beautiful,” he said. “Like a fucking . . . beacon. Just . . .” He kissed the side of her head. “Cherry, Cherry.”
Cherry went a little weak at the knees. And between the ears. She hadn’t been ready for the word “beautiful.”
It wasn’t that she’d never been called beautiful before—or even that she didn’t believe she was beautiful. She just never thought that Russ Sutton saw her that way.
She was still reeling when he kissed her.
He kissed her.
Cherry made a little blissed-out noise at the back of her throat. She swayed on her feet, and Russ tightened his arms to hold
on to her.
When he pulled his mouth away, he was smiling. Cherry smiled, too.
He kissed her again.
She reached out and found his chest. His shoulders. She held on.
Russ was a very teasey kisser. Very brushy. Pulling away constantly to smile and start over. It left Cherry off-balance. Out
of breath and laughing at nothing.
He kissed her cheek, then her throat. He nosed along the neckline of her olive-green sweater. “You and your goddamn sweaters . . .
I’ve been wanting to take off your sweater since the first time I saw you wearing one.”
Cherry shook her head like she didn’t believe him. (She didn’t believe him.) Her cheeks were dimpling.
Russ lifted his head. He grabbed her waist, hooking his thumbs in her belt loops and shaking her a little. “Take it off,”
he said in a stern but slightly silly voice. “Right now.”
Laughter thrummed in Cherry’s chest. “You want me to take off my sweater?”
“Right now.” He shook her a little more. “You’re driving me crazy.”
Cherry reached for the bottom of her sweater, her anxiety catching up with her giddiness. (This was it, the big reveal. She
wondered if Russ Sutton had ever seen a fat girl naked . . .) She pulled it up.
Russ groaned long and low, and started shaking Cherry’s hips again before the sweater was clear of her chin. She laughed and dropped it on the floor.
“Cherry,” Russ sighed, manically kissing the tops of her breasts.
Cherry was wearing a very pretty pink bra with extra straps crisscrossing her cleavage. All of Cherry’s bras were very pretty.
(It put her in a real bind whenever she went to get acupuncture—finding something plain to wear so that the acupuncturist
wouldn’t think she was making a pass at him.) Cherry was wearing pretty underwear, too. She liked to lean into her strengths
even when no one else could see them.
“God, you’re just . . .” Russ bit her breast.
She yelped. And touched the top of his head. His floppy brown hair. So different from Tom’s. (Stop.) “Russ,” she let herself whisper, playing with his hair.
“This is a very vexing bra . . .” His face was still in her chest. He pulled at the decorative straps with his teeth.
She coiled her fingers in his hair. “Why?”
“Because it looks so good on, I want it off. But then it will be gone, and I think I’ll miss it.”
Cherry laughed again, humming. She was doing a lot of laughing—she might be a little delirious. She was already so turned
on, and not because of anything Russ was doing. It was because he was him. Everything Russ was doing was on top of the him-ness. (Everything he was doing was too much, really.)
He pulled one of her bra straps down and kissed her shoulder. “Remember those dresses you used to wear? With the cowboys?
And the lassos? The little horseshoe buttons . . .”
Cherry closed her eyes. “Uh-huh.”
“Fuck . . .” He pulled the strap farther down her arm and kissed the newly exposed inch of her breast. “Were you wearing bras like this
under those dresses?”
“I couldn’t afford bras like this in college.”
He growled. “I’m still going to pretend that you were, the next time I think about them.”
She tugged his hair. “When do you think about my dresses?”
He looked up at her. “Every time I see a cowboy. You fucking ruined Westerns for me, Cherry. I got turned on during There Will Be Blood.”
Cherry laughed. “Liar.”
He kissed her cheek. “I’m not a liar.” He kissed her chin. Her neck again. He nosed between her breasts. “I thought about
you,” he said softly. “I thought about this.”
Cherry swallowed.
Russ pulled the cup of her bra down over her nipple. “Fuck,” he whispered, and kissed her there.
Cherry dragged her hands down his hair, down his neck. She held on to his shoulders. He was much slighter than Tom. (Stop.) “Russ,” she said.
Russ bit her nipple and sucked. Cherry swallowed again. Her face fell into his hair. He smelled good. Unfamiliar. He was sucking
so gently. It was surprising—she didn’t think of Russ as gentle.
Everything was surprising. It had been so long since Cherry had been touched, and so very long since she’d been touched by new hands.
Bitten by new teeth.
She whined a little. Russ put an arm around her waist and pulled her in closer. His belt buckle pushed into her bare belly.
She thought she could feel his cock.
He was trying to pull the other side of her bra down now, but all the fiddly pink straps were in the way. “Okay,” Russ said,
like he was fed up. “This has served its purpose.” He reached behind Cherry with both hands to unhook her bra. She smiled
up into his eyes, letting him do it. He crowded her against his chest, working on it.
“Do you want help?” Cherry asked. They were looking in each other’s eyes.
Russ shook his head. “I want to beat this level by myself.”
She laughed. “You’re so different than I was expecting . . .”