“You’re a lobster,” I mumbled into our kiss as his tongue explored the inside of my mouth. My hand found his shaft through his sweatpants and rubbed of its own accord, feeling it swell and jerk. He was my self-medication. My alcohol. My cocaine. My un-prescribed ADHD pill, designed to enhance my emotional performance.
“Is this a Friends reference? Because I’m Gen-Z and not completely immersed in popular nineties culture.” He pushed my panties to the side under my dress, fingering me. I groaned as his fingers met my insides again. My flesh was still sore from him entering me with his fingers and tongue yesterday. But every sore inch of me wrapped against him, squeezing and welcoming him like a vise.
Welcome home.
“Lobsters are nature’s whore. They just have this awesome reputation as monogamous creatures. Which is…stupid. So stupid. They are literally the cockroaches of the ocean,” I blabbed, letting him kiss me while the water pounded on us. He hmmed into my neck, his mouth moving down to my breasts.
“I hate lobsters.” I sighed as his fingers curled in that way that made my insides clench. I was desperate to stay outside the moment, to absorb from afar. “And I hate Friends.”
He stopped devouring me, taking a step back. Water dripped from the tip of his straight, narrow nose. His square, dimpled chin and pouty lips glistened with water. It clung to his eyelashes—he had great lashes, like Zayn Malik—enhancing his ruthless beauty even more.
“Are we okay?” He sloped his chin down. It was we again.
I shook my head. “I know we made a deal, Hunter, but I don’t know if I can do this again.”
“Do what?”
“Kiss you. Suck you off. Have your mouth on me. As you said, this is temporary, and I don’t know how you’re going to walk out of this, but if I’m being honest with myself, I think I might get hurt if I let it go further. I’m that type of girl.”
“What type is that?”
“The one who gets attached.”
“You’re stronger than getting attached to the likes of me.”
“I am strong, yes. But being strong doesn’t mean never getting hurt. It means having a high pain tolerance. I’m not dumb enough to amp it up.”
He sobered, scrubbing his cheekbone with his knuckles. Hunter turned off the water, which somehow made me feel even colder. I couldn’t read his face. He had many facial expressions, added proof he was far from stupid.
He regarded me with cold courtesy.
“Is that why you changed your hair? Got a new wardrobe? Because you don’t want us to continue doing this?” he asked evenly. He was too proud and self-assured to be hurt by this.
I let my shoulders rise and fall. “Maybe I wanted to impress you. But you shouldn’t let me.”
“Too late,” he said, reaching for his towel and throwing it into my hands. “But if that’s what you want, I respect that.”
“Do you really?”
He bobbed his head in a silent yes. It felt like the end of something big. Something life-altering. Something Mom and Dad had been praying for.
I wiped myself off as much as I could and returned to the living room with my tail between my legs. None of my friends asked me about my damp hair or sullen expression. I watched them eat, hugged them goodbye, and observed them from the floor-to-ceiling windows as they huddled toward the train station, figures hunched, probably talking about the curious case of the spider.
I dragged myself to bed.
Sleep never came.
Song of the day: “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones.
The day after Sailor cockblocked me, everybody seemed deliciously murder-able.
Da was a cunt, Cillian’s horns were extra pointy, and Syllie was holed up in his goddamn office, not doing anything suspicious or noteworthy. Knox was on payroll recording his ass pretty much twenty-four-seven and living in a van to make sure he caught every conversation the fucker had, and still, nothing.
I got hit on by two secretaries who forgot the memo that I was the office airhead or were sent by Da as a test. I turned them down in a less-than-polite fashion (“My cock is on dickation”).
I thought about texting Sailor—came close to doing it three times—but realized it would be selfish.
Anyway, she wasn’t completely wrong.
Our bitch of an arrangement had three months to run its course, and then she was going to beat it (and I would finally stop beating one out).
Obviously, I would be sad to see her go, but keeping her had never been an option. If I had to guess, the loss of Sailor would feel like the loss of a really good pizza some asshole sneezed on. It’d suck balls, but at least I’d have had a taste, and there were more restaurants to choose from.
Anyway.
Sailor wasn’t there when I came home that evening from another grueling night class. This time I did text her, just to make sure she was okay. She was. She texted back that she was returning to the archery club after spending time with Ash and the Sweet’N Low version of the Olsen twins. Sailor was spending a lot of time with Ash, which made me believe maybe I’d see her even after our arrangement was donezo.