Cherry Bomb Read online

  “Me too.”

  “Wanna meet me there? We can talk, get to know each other again.” She nodded.

  What are you doing? She thought to herself as she drove. He made the last year of your high school life a living hell. It was just talk though. Nothing was going to happen. That was their track record.

  She got to the motel first, Kenny pulling up about ten minutes later in the red pick-up she had almost sideswiped earlier that day. “You don't strike me as a truck type,” she said, walking towards the truck.

  “It’s a rental,” he replied. “I thought I’d blend in better.” He got out and brought a brown paper bag with him. “Your room or mine?”

  “Yours is fine,” she said, remembering she had left her dirty clothes strewn across the floor.

  His room was two down from hers, and it didn't look like it had been touched except for the open suitcase on the bed. Kenny handed her the ice bucket from the counter by the sink. “Here. Do you want to get some ice?” He pulled a bottle of eight dollar wine from his bag. “This was the nicest stuff Mike’s Market carries I’m afraid,” he told her, and she laughed, and went back down to the ice machine inside next to the check-in desk.

  She had to knock when she got back and gasped when Kenny let her in. The hotel room had been transformed. The only lights came from several dozen tea lights set out everywhere, even on top of the television. The room boasted a small table and two chairs, and there were even more candles there, along with the bottle of wine, the plastic cups that came with the room, and a box of Ho Hos. “I hope they’re still your favorite,” he said.

  They weren’t—but the very gesture touched her, and she found that she might have actually forgiven him. They sat down at the table and ate Ho Hos until the wine had chilled enough to drink. “So. You’re an English professor. That’s impressive. You might have done the best out of our whole class.”

  “Nope,” he said. “Harry Rasmussen is a rocket scientist for NASA. You’ll notice that he isn’t here. Anyway, you’re just getting started. Eventually you’ll win the Pulitzer Prize and then they’ll be sorry.”

  “For calling me Cherry Bomb?”

  “For everything,” he said, and she got the feeling he wasn’t talking about the rest of their class. “You know I wrote a book?” he said, and got up to fetch something from his bag. It was a hardback, the words Cherry Bomb written in red across the white cover. “It’s not about you or anything,” he said. “Not really. It’s pure fiction—a coming of age story blah blah blah.”

  “I think you owe me half the royalties.”

  “Funny, that’s what Matt said. They called me it too, you know. They guys on the team did. They knew I’d kick their asses if it got around the school. I know that doesn’t make up for it. I should never have said anything to Matt. I regretted it immediately and it’s been haunting me ever since.”

  She handed him back the book. “I guess I’m over it,” she said. “But I shouldn’t have come back. Jessica was right. I hate this place.”

  “Me too.”

  “Let’s skip the twenty year.”

  “Definitely. At the twenty-year we’ll do this again. Only at my place. Preferably naked.”

  She smiled. “You weren’t able to get into my pants in high school. What makes you think you have a better chance now?”

  “Like you said. I’m older and wiser. I’ve learned a few things.”

  He stood up and pulled her out of her chair. She was caught off guard and fell into him, fell into his kiss.

  She could still remember the first time she kissed him, and also the last. She wasn't sure if her memory had gone fuzzy, or if he had improved, but she found herself opening her mouth to deepen the kiss, and wrap her arms around his shoulders. He smelled like aftershave and tasted like chocolate and wine, instead of campfire smoke and bad beer.

  It was easy for him to tumble her onto the bed and follow suit. She never imagined she would ever kiss him again, let alone roll around on the bed in a cheap motel room with him. "I always liked your hair down," he said as he pushed it out of the way to kiss her neck.

  "I don't," she replied.

  "But I liked your glasses. You should be wearing your glasses right now. That would make this perfect."

  "They didn't go with the dress."

  "Its a very nice dress."

  "It's borrowed. I'm actually quite poor, once the rent has been paid."

  "I'll be careful not to hurt it when I pull it off of you." She froze under him when she realized that even after ten years, she was still wearing her big embarrassing white underpants. "What?"

  "Nothing," she said. "You're going to laugh at my underwear. You would have ten years ago too, if there had been electricity in the house."

  It was his turn to freeze. "I'm sorry I pressured you like that. I should have backed off the first time you said no. I was just--"

  "Eighteen?"

  "It's not an excuse."

  "But you did stop, Kenny. That's so important."

  "I loved you."

  "I loved you too."

  His eyes widened a little. "I didn’t know that. Can we try again?"

  "Sex or love?"

  "Both."

  "It depends on how you do tonight," she teased. "Close your eyes while I take off my underwear." She slid them down her legs and tossed them under the bed. "Okay." She sat up and let him unzip her dress and pull it over her head, leaving her in just her black bra. He'd never seen her this naked before, and it didn’t matter how many others there had been. She still blushed.

  "You're beautiful," he insisted, and while he was kissing her reached behind her back to undo her bra with one hand. "See? I learned skills."

  "Show me more." He pushed her back onto the mattress and she closed her eyes as his mouth kissed her lips, her neck. One breast at a time he caressed, kissed, and finally he took one nipple into his mouth and she felt like she was back on the couch in her grandmother's living room, only this time she wasn't afraid. It was like finally completing the night they had started so long ago.

  He kissed his way down her stomach and then his hands met his mouth, urging her legs open wider. "I didn’t know much about this ten years ago," he said before letting his tongue slide down her opening, his fingers dipping between her lower lips and sliding inside her. Penny immediately arched up against him as he did things with his tongue that she'd never had done to her before. She found herself clutching at the cheap motel bedspread, gasping for air as he brought her to the edge and backed off, over and over again. This was so different from the last time. Maybe ten years was a good thing. It had obviously given him time to study.

  Just when she didn’t think she could take it any longer he pulled away, and she cried out and reached for him, wanting his mouth on her forever. "Don't stop," she said.

  He leaned back on his heels and peeled off his t-shirt. He definitely hadn't gone soft with age. “It feels so good to hear you say that,” he told her. “Do you want to go all the way?”

  “Stop teasing me you bastard or I won’t speak to you for another ten years,” she replied and he swooped down to kiss her, and she could taste herself on him now. Frustrated, she reached down to find the fly of his jeans. Like last time she could feel that he wanted her, and he laughed against her mouth while she unzipped him and fought the jeans down over his hips.

  “What a difference time can make,” he said, helping slide them off and kicking them off. He reached for the condoms he had ready on the nightstand.

  It felt like years while he tore open the package. “Hurry up,” she said, and they both laughed.

  She wrapped her arms around him when he thrust inside her, burying her face in his shoulder to keep from crying out in relief as he filled her. She met every thrust, wanting him deeper, faster, forever. He’d brought her to the edge with his mouth, but his cock sent her over, and she exploded into an orgasm, clutching him tighter as he picked up his pace and came while she was still coming down from hers, and t
hey held each other until they fell asleep.

  *****

  Penny woke up the next morning to Kenny’s chest as her pillow, and smiled. She never got to do this while they were in high school either. There was so much they could have done if only hadn’t said anything to Matt, if only she had listened to him when he apologized the first time. No ‘if only’ she thought, and let her fingers dance across Kenny’s bare skin, down his hip. This is better. We’re older and more mature. It wouldn’t have worked before. This time it might.

  He woke up when she started to stroke him, and smiled. “This is the first time I’ve woken up to you and not had it be a dream,” he said.

  “Lets go back to the city after breakfast,” she said. “Screw having to listen to those idiots making fun of us. We’ll go out for a proper dinner, and I know where we can get free tickets for a feminist reconstruction of Taming of the Shrew.” She wondered what Jessica would think about all this.

  “Sounds excellent. So what’s for breakfast?”

  “Me.”

  ###

  About the Author:

  Leigh Wilder has been a writer for 17 years and has published multiple stories in the Romance and Erotica genres. Please visit her blog, http://leighwilder.blogspot.com/ for more stories.